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The Torahs influence on the toponyms and anthroponyms

Pere Bonnns intervention at Netanyas congress The Struggle for Identity of the Secret Jews of the Balearic Islands. (15 oct 2012) The Hebrews arrived to the Balearic Islands and the Iberian Peninsula with the Phoenicians. They named the river Ebro and the lands irrigated by the river, Iberia. Ebro has the same root as Ebreo (Hebreo, Hebrew) and it is probable that, in its origin, it had the same meaning as well. They also named the Pitiusas Islands (pine islands) and the Balearic Islands, baale, toponym that refers to the god Baal and also to the Phoenicians settlements established in their incursions in the islands situated at the north of the Pitiusas: Majorca and Minorca (Roman names). It is probable that the islands had a more profound relation with the extinct kingdom of Israel, at the Mediterranean coastline, than with the inland kingdom of Judea, and when Israel disappeared it might have given name to the whole Hebrew collective. During the Roman Empire the Jews from the islands enjoyed the same amount of liberty as they did in other areas of the Empire. However those who supported the Phoenicians-Carthaginians in the Punic wars suffered persecution. With Carcallas Decree of the year 212, which granted Roman citizenship to all persons born in Roman provinces, the Jews of Balearic and Pitiusas became Roman citizens. They did not have problems to practice their religion. The problems started with the Nicaea Council, convened and presided in the year 325 by the emperor Constantine the Great, who demanded from the councils fathers a useful religion to unite the Empire. At the beginning Judaism was tolerated as one of the main sources of the new official religion: Christianity, a mix of Judaism, Mithraism and polytheism. But soon enough started the process of harassment and fall of the Hebrew religion, declared as outdated. During the ruling of Emperor Theodosius the Great (379-395), a Hispanic born in Coca (Segovia), the Jews where forced to convert to Christianity. The Visigoths invasion, who practiced Arianism -compatible with the only God (Shema Yisrael)- represented a certain relief for the Jewish communities. But tolerance ended when Recaredo converted to Roman Catholicism in 587 and decided to homogenize religious legislation. Sisebut (612-621) imposed restrictions on the Jews and the harassment continued until the Muslim invasion. During Muslim domination the Jews became dhimis (protected subjects in exchange for a tribute), but they did enjoy a certain amount of freedom. The Jewish communities in the islands, as well as those in the peninsula, traded goods with Arabs and Christians and had relations with the Jews from Barcelona, Lleida and Perpiny, as well as with the Jews from North Africa. Piracy carried by the island moors against Christian vessels was casus belli. Thats why in 1114

2 Catalonians and Pisans, together with the cities of Florence, Luca, Sienna and Rome united in a crusade under the command of Ramon Berenguer III from Barcelona, Dux Catalanensis, with the aim of conquering Majorca. It was a failure. At Pisas train station there is a mural of 677 x 510 cm titled La battaglia di Mallorca that remembers this fact. Its author, Daniel Schinasi, was born in Egypt in 1933 to a Sephardic Jewish family originally form Liorna (Livorno). To emphasize Jewish presence in Majorca, one of the figures of the picture covers his head with a talit or talet. With the arrival of the Almohad, who occupied Minorca in 1202 and Majorca in 1203, the Jewish communities suffered Jihadist religious fanaticism which imposed forced conversion. That is the reason why Jews from Majorca aided the Christian conquest of the Balearic Islands in 1229 under king Jaume Is command helping with information and logistics. The Jewish communities of Barcelona and those of the counties of Empries, Rossell i Cerdanya sponsored a great part of that successful campaign. This is why Jaume I included the Jews in the boots distribution. The Jewish community flourished under Jaume Is tolerance, but suffered enormous tax exactions to defray the wars of the monarchs to come. Jews where especially plundered during San Is reign when the Kingdom of Majorca suffered such decay that its successor, Jaume III, could not avoid its collapse. In 1349 the Kingdom was conquered and added to that of the Crown of Aragn by his uncle, Pere el Cerimonis. Joan Is regin (1387-1396), son of el Cerimonis, was terrible for the Jews. In 1391 the Call of Palma was attacked in connection with the anti Jewish agitation propagated by the archdeacon of cija, Ferran Martnez. Its consequence was the forced conversion of almost the totality of Jews from Palma, except of those who fled to small towns or those who could escape the island, like the Rabi Sim ben Semaj Duran. The Jewish communities of the Kingdom of Majorca, like those of the Principado and the Kingom of Valencia, suffered the disastrous outcome of the Caspe Compromise (1412), which implanted as monarchs in the Catalonian kingdoms the Castilian house of the Trastmara in the person of Fernando I, el de Antequera. The monk from Valencia Vicent Ferrer, who campaigned for Trastmara against the candidate Jaume dUrgell, was the main driving force of the Jewish persecution together with Pablo de Santa Mara, Burgos bishop, and the anti pope Benedicto XIII. After taking possession of the throne, the king Fernando I of Trastmara imposed in the Catalonian Countries the Laws of Ayllon, in 1414, also known as Ordenamiento de Doa Catalina or of Valladolid, promulgated by his sister in law Catalina of Lancster, Enrique IIIs widow and Castiles regent during the years her son Juan II was underage.

3 The Ordenamiento was a compilation of all the existing laws against Jews enacted by the bishop of Burgos, Pablo de Santa Mara, aimed at not giving them other alternative but conversion. Pablo de Santa Mara was non other than the former admired Burgos Rabi Salomn ha-Lev who, seduced by the words of Vicent Ferrer and, specially influenced by the slaughter of Jews, decided to convert to Catholicism in 1391, at the age of 40. Together with him his two brothers, one daughter and four sons converted as well, however her wife Juana, with whom he was married for four years, remained a Jewess until her death in 1420. Until then the Jewish communities of the Balearic Islands managed to save their identity in spite of the constant assimilation suffered under the different dominations: Roman, Goth, Arab and Catalan. However, the implementation of the Ordenamiento de Doa Catalina represented Jews civil death, since it left them without any rights and exposed to any abuse, theft or murder. Himmler was inspired by those legal texts when putting together the anti Jewish laws of Nuremberg. Being so, the Jews from the Balearic Islands were forced either to emigrate or convert to Catholicism in order to save their lives and patrimony. In 1435, after a forced general conversion, the Jewish community of the Kingdom of Majorca was officially extinct. There were only new Christians who barely knew the observances of the imposed religion and continued to celebrate the Jewish holidays and ceremonies. In 1460 this fact was denounced by Fray Alonso de Espina in his book Fortalitium Fidei, in which he asked for the implementation of an Inquisition that would monitor the conversos and supervise the expulsion of the Jews to put an end to the practice of the outdated religion. In 1484, during the reign of Isabella the Catholic, Catalinas granddaughter, the Castilian Inquisition was created. It had jurisdiction over the conversos but not over the Jews. It was implemented in the Catalan Countries by her husband Fernando II of Aragn, the Catholic, against the governments will since the inquisitorial Castilian court was considered a foreign meddling in the internal affairs of the Catalonian-Aragonian confederation. In fact, it was the first institution that imposed the official use of Spanish in the processes opened in the Catalonian Countries. I will not dwell in the legal tortures and murders perpetrated by the Inquisitions henchmen in Majorca up to the last Auto de Fe (Act of Faith, public penance of heretics) in 1691, that left behind, to the Church and Majorcan societys dishonor, the discriminated group called juetes (a derivation of jueus and transcribed to Spanish as chuetas). The concept included all persons bearing the last name of the condemned, whether they were or not direct descendants of them.

4 The Majorcan Inquisition had jurisdiction over all territories of the Majorcan Kingdom, meaning, the Balearic and Pitiusas Islands, as well as the continental area know now a days as North Catalonia (Catalunya Nord), lost in 1659 with the Treaty of the Pyrenees. However its greater activity took place in the Island of Majorca and more specifically in the Jewish community of Palma. The accused appear in the archives as Majorcans, subjects of the Kingdom of Majorca, even if they came from other islands or the continent. If the juetes couldnt hide because their last name gave them away, the rest of the conversos of the Balearic Islands, specially those of Majorca, often times searched for assimilation in an attitude of exaggerated anti-Chuetism. They climbed up the Administration ladder, as well as the Church, the Army, nobility and guilds, using their pure old Christian blood, with or without certificates, although nobody really knows what that means, but in any case humiliating the chuetas in order to hide their own origins. The terrible age-old Jewish persecution in the Balearic Islands created a defense spring that impulses the juetes as well as the non discriminated conversos to reject any relation with Judaism. People with non discriminated Jewish last names, such as Bonet or Barcel, who feel offended if they are related to Jews, proudly accept their Phoenician ancestry. However, it is surprising that in spite of the centuries that passed, Jewish heritage kept its deep roots. The conversos kept their ancestral ways such as to name their descendants with Biblical names hidden as Catholic saints names. Also Jewish names have been preserved in Christian last names, such as Salom, Maym, Massana, Bennasser, Ramon, Colom, Abraham, Vives, Vidal, etc., The Colom, for example, ignore they bear prophet Jonahs last name translated to Catalan, Palomo in Spanish, Taube in German, Colombo in Italian. If we call Joan Colom, Christopher Columbus real name, by his Hebrew names Joan, Jons- the discoverers ancestry is clear. The chuetas were the scapegoats for the rest of the descendants of conversos to be assimilated without problems and live without harassment. This is how the Torres, Serra, Muntaner, Dol, Nebot, Nadal, Perez, Ribas, Riera, Oliver, Sastre, etc., passed in Majorca as old Christians, while in other territories of the Spanish crown they were condemned for Judaizers or they fled to different Jewish communities abroad. In Majorca there are also toponyms of ancient Jewish proprietors, such as Magaluf, son Valls or can Gatzar (now written Gatz). It is difficult to discern if the last name derived from the toponym, like Bellver, Bonany, Farac (also written Farag, Faraix and Faraig), Farruch (also Ferrutx), son Flor, etc., or if the last name generated the toponym.

5 The persecution was relentless, detailed, cruel. In Majorca the discrimination is still present. Often times only the name remained as a survivor of the forced assimilation. But in Judaism the name is crucial because it connects the person to the Torah. In Be Midbar (Numbers 1: 1-4), it is said that the Lord commanded Moses to compile with Aaron a general census of the sons of Israel organized by families and lineage, registering the names of all males one by one. Many of those names have been repeated in their descendants, as patronymic or family last names. When the Israelites came back from their captivity in Babylon they felt the need to resume the interrupted genealogy. The official census where kept by the priests and transmitted generation after generation. They received the name of Sefer Toledot (Book of the Generations) and it is probable that the name of the Castilian city of Toledo derives from there, where there has always been a Jewish community and, after the expulsion, a cripto Jewish community. Many of the Biblical names incorporate the name of God, El, such as Elias (Yahve is my Lord), Saltiel (the call of God), Ariel (Gods lion). Some of them have been translated as Semtov (name of God) converted in the last name Nomdedu or hidden, since Semtov is the origin of the last name Santo; Eliezer, Esperandu, Vedios, Amadeo, Cardedu, Dedu, Gottesman, Godman, etc., follow the same rule of adaptation to the local language. Sometimes the name of God is omitted, however it is implied: Ahuv, Yacar: Amat, Caro, Querido, Lieb, Aim; Natan: Donat, Dato; Yeshua: Salvador, Salvat, Salvado, Heiland. The Jews and conversos, when adapting the names of the Hebrew months to Latin languages, used mostly the seven months with Roman cultural references, discarding the ones that refer to order (septem, octo, novem, decem). -In Spanish: Enero, Febrero, Marzo, Abril, Mayo, Junio, Julio, Agosto. -In Cataln: Janer, Gener o Giner; Febrer, Mars (Mar), Abril, Mai (Maig), Jun (Juny), Gost o Agost. Some of these last names belong to important people from the past and the present. Jewish last names that refer to Saturday, Jewish holiday, are frequent, as well as Jewish last names that refer to Sunday, Christian holiday, adopted by the conversos: Sbado, Sbato, Samstag; Domingo, Domenge, Sonntag. The rest of the days are also adopted as last names, but without mentioning the day. For example Lunes, apocopated form of the Latin Lunae dies, results in Luna. Some names refer to the different parts of the day: Shahar, Alba, Aube, Mat, Bonmat, Matin, Bonmatin. Morn, Morgen, Dawn.

6 Many peoples names are adaptations from names of animals, Gods creatures (Genesis 1: 26); of trees, plants, fruits and geographic accidents, because man is like a tree in the field (Deuteronomy 20:19) and because God puts you in a good land: a land of water streams, torrents, fountains, deep waters that sprout in the valleys and the mountains; land of wheat, barely, vines, fig trees, pomegranate trees, land of olive trees rich in oil and honey (Deut. 8: 7-8). Also names of professions and activities are adopted, as well as those of physical appearance, etc, that are translated or adapted from Hebrew to the local language. In the list of Majorcans of Jewish religion who converted to Christianity after the 1391 slaughter it can be observed how many conversos decided to use the last name they already had: Duran, Catan, Massana, Mili, Vidal, etc. Others change it, but the chosen name is also Hebrew translated to Catalan, as in the case of the Natjar (or Najar), translated to Fuster, carpenter. The ancient toponyms keep sometimes the ancient Hebrew form. In the Rioja region there is the Njera council, also written Ngera, where, curiously enough, the main source of income is furniture manufacture. Official historiography states that the name derives from the Arabic form najara (naxara) which means place between rocs or place at noon. However during the Steel Age the local inhabitants built their rectangular homes partially dug in the rocs with wood and adobe structures. Meaning that already in those times they were good najerim or carpenters. Since 1998, when I published the first edition of Jewish Blood. Spaniards of Hebrew ancestry and Christian anti Semitism (Sangre juda. Espaoles de ascendencia hebrea y antisemitismo cristiano, Flor del Viento, Barcelona, 2006, 4a edicin) I receive almost every day letters and messages from people inquiring about the Jewish origin of their last name aiming for an eventual conversion or return to Judaism. There is a mysterious connection between the person and the lineage that goes beyond logic. But also the enemies of the Jews search for this connection and base Jewish ancestry in the last names. Let me, before I finish, tell you a case of a Majorcan family in Nazi Germany. When Hitler came into power and began his anti-Semitic campaign, Catalina Valls i Arbona lived in Germany with her husband Francesc Cardell i Vicens, both of them from Sller. Aware of the danger of having a jueta last name that identified them as descendants of Rabi Rafael Valls, who was burned alive in Palma in 1691, the parents registered their offspring born in Germany with the names Pere and Maria Cardell i Valls, instead of Valls. When in 1981 Maria was called to sign the acceptance of an inheritance, Sllers notary, Catalina Nadal Reus, found out that in some documents she appeared as

7 Maria Cardell i Valls and in others as Maria Cardell i Valls. The notary decided to identify her in the document literally as Mara Cardell i Valls o Valls. The danger for the Valls in Germany was very real. German and Italian consulates in Majorca, as well as the Spanish Falangist Movement (Falange Espaola) and JONS (Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista) put together lists of Jews and descendents of conversos in order to lock them in a concentration camp in the Island of Cabrera. This was ordered in a circular sent by the General Directory of Security to all civil governors, signed by Jos Finat Escriv de Roman, count of Mayalde, May 5 th, 1941, a day before he was appointed Spanish ambassador in Berlin. The document required civil governors to send to the central headquarters personal information on the national and foreign Israelites who lived in the province of their jurisdiction, indicating personal, political and social affiliations, means of living, commercial activities, current situation, degree of dangerousness The document made clear that: the subjects of this measure should be those of Spanish origin designated with the name of Sephardic, because thanks to their adaptation skills and similarities to our temperament they have more guarantees to be able to hide their origin and even to go unnoticed without us being able to hinder their easy yet disturbing manipulations. Similar orders where issued by European governments that were Nazi collaborationists with the terrible consequences that we know with the name of Holocaust. The person sent by the Nazis to Majorca to put together the lists and inform about an eventual Jewish deportation was Johan Dumpert Brutting. After Nazisms fall, Francos regime bestowed him with the official title of interpreter and he lived many years as a tourist guide with a home in Calvo Sotelo street in Palma. If the Nazis would have won the war, that project would have been probably put into practice as well as another one on ethnic cleansing of Catalanists, designed by SS colonel Franz Jost. The moving of the archives of the Generalitat of Catalunya to Salamanca was the first phase. The objective was to identify the people with that documentation and implement a final solution to the so called Catalonian separatism. It was an announced policy. A little after Franco coup, on July 18 th 1936, the Falangist newspaper Arriba published in August the following slogan: Comrade, you have the obligation to persecute Judaism, Freemasonery, Marxism and Separatism. Destroy and burn

8 their newspapers, their books, their magazines, their propaganda. Comrade! For God and for the Country. The Catholic Church and its armed arm, the Kingdom of Spain, took over the Roman Empire Christianized heritage founding its expansion in the sword and the cross, as it is revealed in the catholic nationalist motto through the Empire to God. In its pretended national uniformity Catholic and Castilian- there is no room for ethnical variety, political dissidence or official religious plurality. This is the background of the failure of the multiple attempts to democratize Spain and distribute the dominant oligarchys central power. That is why John Locke said that when Spaniards embrace freedom, they suffocate it. Pere Bonnn 2012