I went to shul on the afternoon of Yom Kippur and was there for the "martyrology" section of the Conservative prayerbook. In which the rabbis who were slaughtered in the Crusades are eulogized, the pogroms in eastern Europe are invoked, also the women who killed themselves rather than submit to Nazis in Poland, and Mainz from World War II, and ultimately, we cite Hebron and Jerusalem. Hebron is a reference to Arab riots in 1929 that killed dozens of Jews in the West Bank. Jerusalem I take to be a reference to suicide bombers. The rabbi said something about Israel, and of course the Israeli flag was up there, which has reminded Doug Rushkoff and others of the claims for dual loyalty made by Zionists.
When the congregation said Hebron, I murmured "Gaza" and felt good about it.
Today my friend James North asked me if I had observed Yom Kippur and I told him about the martyrology. He said, "It sounds like they left out all the Jews that were murdered when the Muslims ruled Spain."
I said, "I didn’t know about them."
"That’s my point," he said. They weren’t murdered. Maimonides had flourished in Spain, it wasn’t till the Christians took over in the 1400s that Spinoza’s forbears and countless other Jews were forced to convert or leave, he said.
Update: Commenter Wondering Jew and others nail my mistake on Maimonides. Thank you
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