Marina Nebro
December 4, 2014
Aciman’s Memoir on a Larger Scale
Sephardi history and identity is complex, multifaceted, and often times
misunderstood in the context of Jewish history. Especially in regards to the
aftermath of the Holocaust in Europe during the Second World War, the Sephardi
plight was to take a back seat. Andre Aciman’s memoir, sprinkled with anecdotes
about Sephardi Jewish life in the Egypt of the 1950s and 60s, captures many major
trends faced by Sephardi communities throughout history, and most importantly, in
our contemporary world. Identity crises, repeated expulsion, and a variety of
languages are just a few of the important elements of Sephardi life that Aciman
brings to light in his story.
Though the Sephardi diaspora community can be traced back to the Iberian
Peninsula where Spanish and Judeo-Spanish were spoken, as generations moved to
new areas – North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and elsewhere in Europe – their
language adapted to their new homelands. The Jews who fled to North Africa, in
areas such as Morocco, eventually experienced a cultural synthesis with both the
native Jews of the land, also known as the toshavim, as well as their Muslim
neighbors. Ultimately, the new Jewish population shed its Spanish and Ladino
languages in favor of Arabic. The situation flips in the lands of the Ottoman Empire,
where the Sephardi community held great power and was able to impose legal and
customary traditions on their neighboring Romaniot and Mustarab neighbors. Here,
Ladino prospered over the Greek and Arab languages of the native communities,
and survived as a spoken language up until World War II.
Language was an important identifier for Sephardi Jews once they left Spain.
Judeo-Spanish, especially, was held in high esteem within the Sephardi community.
Aciman speaks to this issue in his memoir when he compares his two sets of
grandparents. His maternal grandfather was a Syrian man who spoke Arabic, while
his paternal family spoke Ladino through-and-through. When it comes to his
parents courting each other, his father’s family points out the inferiority of his
mother’s upbringing. Aciman’s grandfather reminds his father, “don’t forget she is
what she is” (Aciman, 72), hinting at the fact that she was raised by an “Arabshantytown Jew [who was an] Arab through and through” (73). This prejudice can
be seen throughout history, as the megorashim in North Africa initially looked down
upon their Arab-speaking counterparts.
Ladino also served as a unifying factor for many of the Sephardi Jews who
faced exile and cold welcomes in foreign lands. The language brought together “the
Princess” and “the Saint” at the beginning of Aciman’s second chapter, as they
bonded over the fact that they both could only identify a particular fish by its Ladino
name. It also united “the Saint” and Albert, Aciman’s paternal grandfather, as he
exclaimed that she was “one of the very few people [in town] who [spoke] Ladino
well… real Ladino” (55). The emphasis on “the Saint’s” use of “real” Ladino brings
up another important aspect of language in the Sephardi community.
Because of multiple moves throughout the generations of the Sephardi
diaspora community, several languages were picked up along the way. Aciman
mentions that each of his grandmothers spoke between six and seven languages.
This is an important fact for several reasons. Firstly, unless one was wealthy and
educated, a Sephardi woman from the Ottoman Empire region usually only spoke
Ladino. The multilingualism of these two women shows their high class. The main
language spoken throughout the memoir, in snippets, is French, the language of
culture and education. French was a popular language amongst the Sephardi in
North Africa due to their pre-war colonial interference. Though the two women
speak to each other in French at the market place, they both exclaim “’Je suis
italienne, madame’” (44). In other words, both women descend from an Italian
heritage, tracing similar migration patterns of individuals such as Gracia Mendes
and Joseph ha-Nasi, both important figures that “re-discovered” their Judaism in
Italy, later moving to the Ottoman lands.
Language also takes on an important political significance later on in the
Aciman’s retelling of his childhood. By the time he was old enough to attend Victory
College, the author was forced to deal with the fact that Arabic was a mandatory
language to learn. His unwillingness to comply with the faculty of the school and his
neglect of study severely frightened his father, as his actions could be misconstrued
as “a seditious act against the present regime” (233). His family could face the
consequences of his misdoings.
The necessity to learn Arabic reflects on the historic events of Arab
nationalism and Egyptian nationalization. During and after World War II, colonial
powers such as France and England were pulling out of their territories in North
Africa. Aciman’s description of the deterioration of Victoria College, previously an
English Boarding School, comments on the lack of aid from England after their
retreat. Arab nationalist violence was aimed towards unwanted Western influence.
Not only were Jews a minority, but many also held European citizenships due to
capitulations and family contacts – Aciman’s Aunt Flora being a prime example,
holding French citizenship. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and subsequent conflicts
between the two parties, only helped to escalate the violence against Jewish
communities in Egypt. Businesses were destroyed, individuals were imprisoned,
properties were confiscated, and people were alerted of expulsion. In the chapter
titled Taffi Al-Nur, a description of life during the 1956 Suez Conflict between Egypt
and Great Britain, France, and Israel, Aciman recounts the arrest of one of his uncles.
Towards the end of the memoir, he also mentions the fear he had about the
possibility of his father’s arrest. Anti-Semitism was becoming a problem and was
being spread in schools, as Aciman and his classmates were forced to read poems
deploring the Jewish people.
With the application of several languages, the interaction between various
groups of people, colonization, and subsequently, de-colonization, the Sephardi
community in North Africa faced an identity crisis. Aciman recounts an experience
early on in his life when he wasn’t certain who he was. His Uncle Isaac asked him
what he wanted to be when he grew up, and answered that he wanted to be an
ambassador. His Uncle Isaac teased him further, asking, “‘which country are you a
citizen of?’” (172). Aciman, at his young age, had no qualms in answering that he
was French. Why wouldn’t he be? He spoke the language, and so did most of his
family. When his uncle revealed to him that he was, in fact, from Turkey, he “felt
sullied, mocked, betrayed” (173). Later on, in speaking about his education at
Victoria College, he grouped himself in with the European boys, and even referred to
himself as one of them. But, in the end, he still considers himself Egyptian. He and
his family, amongst the wealthier members of the Jewish community in Egypt,
hoped until the end that they would be able to stay.
The Sephardi identity was also brought into question during the creation of
the State of Israel. The Jews from North Africa and the prior-Ottoman Empire, also
referred to as Mizrahi, were looked upon as second-class citizens. Ben-Gurion
demeaned them as being Jews by heritage, but knowing nothing of Jewish customs
or prayers. Aciman acknowledges this issue in discussing his family’s religious
practice. With the death of Uncle Nessim they didn’t even know how to conduct a
basic Passover Seder.
Though the entirety of the Jewish people is part of a diaspora community, the
Sephardi Jewish exile experience is unique, and can even serve as a marker of
identity. Many of the messianic traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries focused on
exile as a sign that God would soon intervene on the part of the Jewish people. From
as early as 1391, Jews were fleeing Spain to areas of North Africa. Aciman’s memoir
and story contemporizes a distant and historic event. Up until the twentieth century
the Sephardi community continued the plight of migration, dislocation, and exile.
His last chapter, The Last Seder, contextualizes the entirety of the novel perfectly.
Aciman and his family come from a line of people who were pushed from place to
place, welcomed only for brief periods at a time. Passover, a holiday in which to
celebrate an eventual return to Jerusalem, an escape from Egypt, serves as an
important symbol on which Aciman story revolves. Throughout the Sephardi
diaspora, the Jewish community looked back to the Iberian Peninsula as the
motherland and as perhaps an even more important and relevant homeland than
Jerusalem. In Aciman’s memoir, he looks at Egypt in a similar light. With the
celebration of Passover underway, he describes himself as a Jew “who [doesn’t]
celebrate leaving Egypt when it’s the last thing [he wants] to do” (333). He sees
living in his current homeland in a higher light than spending his “next year in
Jerusalem.” Like the Sephardi identification with Spain, Aciman, generations after
the medieval expulsion, identifies with Egypt. He doesn’t want to be yet another
generation dislocated.
Out of Egypt is a memoir that brings to light many of the issues faced by 20th
century Sephardi Jews – the importance of language as a uniting force, the theme of
constant exile and dislocation, and the crisis of identity brought on by waves of
foreign and external influences. Aciman alerts the reader to the fact that Sephardi
history isn’t dead and is not relegated to the Golden Age of Spain. His life story is
one of many, and shows the importance of a more expansive look at Jewish history.