At Bevis Marks
By MARGHANITA LASKI
AFTER the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the Sephardic communities scattered throughout the world. It was from the great community of Amsterdam that the first Jews came back to England in 1656, and set up their first synagogue in a house in Creechurch Lane, Aldgatc. But this small building did not long suffice their needs, and very soon they built the beautiful syna- gogue of Bevis Marks, which was opened in 1707. It was in this synagogue on the second day of Heshvan in the year 5710—which is October 25th, 1949—that the Very Reverend Dr. Solomon Gaon, B.A., Ph.D., was inducted as Haham, or Chief Rabbi, of the Sephardic Jews of England.
In England there are under 4,000 Sephardic—or Spanish and Portuguese—Jews, and about 320,000 Ashkenazim, those Jews whose ancestors came from Germany and Eastern Europe. Something like this proportion holds good throughout the world. Yet the claim of the Sephardim to be the aristocrats of Jewry is never seriously dis- puted, although it is hard to say on what the claim is actually based. There is, of course, that legend which says that after Titus destroyed the Temple he exiled from Jerusalem all the leading Jewish families who might conspire against him ; these went to Spain and Portugal and founded the Sephardic communities. Then the Sephardic Jews have long held their surnames by right—many of their names in England are still wholly Spanish or Portuguese like De Cassares, Buono de Mesquite, Montefiore, Aguilar—while the Ashkenazim, on the other hand, were forced to adopt, and frequently to buy, theirs in comparatively recent times, and often were allowed to choose only names that had a ridiculous tinge to them. And, to the great satisfaction of the Sephardim, it has lately been proved that the Hebrew they speak, which has a very different pronunciation from Ashkenazi Hebrew, is, in fact, historically correct and has been adopted as the Hebrew of Israel.
But the Sephardim themselves feel no need to explain their certainty of superiority. It simply exists. Not so long ago English Sephardic families used to sit in mourning if one of their members married, not a Goy (or non-Jew), but a Tudesco (or Ashkenazi Jew). Or—a story my father told me—the old Sephardic burial-ground here used to have a section known as Outside the Boards for bastards and, it is believed, actors and such. Once, about two hundred years ago, a Marrano, or secret Jew, came to London from Spain and died here, begging on his death-bed to be buried among his true brethren. Now he had not been circumcised, and the congregation was much exercised about this request. Finally It decided that, as he had truly wished to be a Jew, had fetched his only son from Spain to be brought up as a Jew and had given large sums of money to the synagogue, he might as a great concession be buried as a Jew— but Outside the Boards.
Now sixty years had passed since the last Haham, my grandfather the late Dr. Moses Gaster, had been inducted at Bevis Marks, and it will be well understood that the choice of a new Hallam for this proud and venerable congregation had been no easy matter. It was necessary to find a man excelling all others in his generation for wisdom, goodness and Hebraic learning, and it was in search of such a man that the Elders of the Synagogue had sent their secre- tary to tour the Sephardic communities of Europe some time before the last war. He found the young Solomon Gaon in the ancient' centre of Sarajevo.
The Jews of Sarajevo speak—or rather spoke, for most of them were massacred by the Germans—Spanish. Indeed, a dialect of Hebrew-cum-Spanish called Ladino is still spoken by many Sephardic Jews everywhere ; it is common at the Holland Park synagogue in London, for instance, whose members mostly come from the Middle East. I have been told that the language of the Sarajevo Jews is not, indeed, Ladino but sixteenth-century Castilian, and that in the last century young British diplomats used to be sent there to learn. a a pure and courtly Spanish. However that may be, knowledge of Hispanic tongue is no disadvantage to the minister of a synagogue like Bevis Marks that kept its records in Portuguese until 1819; that still has officers with such names as the Fintadores and thei Presidente, that still prays in Spanish for its brethren who are—. not have been—tortured by the Inquisition.
But the memories in Bevis Marks that Tuesday were not of torture; but of three hundred years of toleration. Hundreds of pure wax candles burned in magnificent candelabra and sconces I the wonderful central pendant was given to the congregation by the parent com-i munity of Amsterdam, and a representative of the Dutch Ambas. sador was there to commemorate the special link of the Sephardid Jews with the Holland that first gave them refuge. The Dean of St. Paul's was there and so was Dr. Brodie, the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazim. The Lord Mayor came in his robes and chain, with the Sheriffs, the Aldermen of the Wards of Portsoken and Bishops. gate, the Lord Mayor's Marshal in his great furry cap, and the 'Sword and the Mace with their attendant officers. The gentlemen of the congregation sat on the old benches in top-hats and morning. coats, with the Gentlemen of the Mahammad, the Executive Govern, ing Body, set apart in their high-backed box, the Banco. Thu ladies were almost hidden behind the tall screens in the gallery, for in orthodox congregations men and women are rigorously segreg. ated during service.
Save for the prayer for the King and the Royal Family the service . was, of course, wholly in Hebrew. It told of the burnt offering and the incense that were offered to God of old, and entreated Him to accept the prayers that must now ascend to Heaven in their stead} There was a special prayer for the new Haham, who was then led to his seat of office by my father, the Parnas Presidente, the President] of the Wardens of the Synagogue. Then the Ark was opened and, the Scrolls of the Law revealed.
(They are unbelievably lovely, these scrolls. First, the Pentateuch is written in Hebrew on parchment—and a single error means the destruction of the whole sheet. Then, rolled up, the scrolls aro robed in gorgeous cloaks of crimson velvet, blue velvet and, for best, rich cream satin, all heavily and magnificently embroidered in gold thread ; some of those at Bevis Marks date from the seventeenth century. Lastly,-the cloaked scrolls are crowned with gold or silver crowns or with tall spires of gold or silverwork, heavy with dangling bells, for all the world like monster babies' rattles.)
In procession the scroll chosen for this day was carried to the reading-desk, the congregation leaning forward as it went, reverently to touch its cloak or bow to its passing. Then the new Chief Rabbi prayed for the King, for the congregation, for the new land of Israel, and for his predecessors in that office. In procession the scroll was again returned to the Ark, and then Dr. Gaon preached his first,
.sermon as Haham of the Sephardic- Jews of England, a sermon in which, with moving sincerity, he dedicated his life to his congregation.
"Hallelujah," sang the choir and the congregation, singing of the praise of God in His sanctuary,flthe praise of the Lord with trumpet and psaltery and harp, with timbre! and dance and stringed instruments and organ, the praise of God upon the high-sounding cymbals ; and then in stately train the high dignitaries filed out of the old synagogue, the Lord Mayor and his attendants, the Elders and the Gentlemen of the Mahammad, the ministers of all—of the very few—Sephardic communities in England, and the Haham, the Very Reverend Dr. Gaon.
Dr. Gaon is a young man, still in his early thirties. He should have many years " in the guidance of Jacob his people and of Israel his inheritance " as was prayed for him that day. But already he has looked to his successor. Last year he, in his turn, made a pilgrimage of the Sephardic communities of Europe and brought back with him two youths, one from Morocco and one from Gibraltar, who will, like him, be maintained and educated and take their Rabbinical Diplomas under the care and guidance of the congregation, until one day the Mahammad will have to inform the Elders that there is no Chief Rabbi, and a nomination—a single nomination—will be made and approved.
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