Return to Sepharad: Is it possible to heal an ancient wound? A reflection on the construction of large-group identity
- Spanish parliament recently issued a new law offering Spanish nationality to Sephardic Jews who so desired and could demonstrate a basic knowledge of the Spanish language and culture. This law attempted to redress a five-centuries-old injustice and was expected to unleash both criticism and praise. Surprisingly, reactions in the public or the press were minimal or absent. Reasons for this are explored through a qualitative study with focus groups, which showed ideas that can be grouped into four main categories: ignorance, justice, distrust, and fear. It is hypothesized that the predominantly silent response to the new law might be due to the fact that it touches on an extremely sensible issue: the historically fragmented Spanish identity. A position of negation is constructed, to avoid deep anxieties related to the fragile core of a collective identity built from many >others< forced to the refuge of an introspection that protects them from the conviction of not fulfiling the ideal identity status, known by all but reached by none. All those >others< have mixed their bloods with the Old Christians along the centuries, possibly transmitting a profound insecurity about their personal and collective identity that might contribute to understanding current social reactions.
MetadatenAuthor: | Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Torres, Aranzazu Fernandez-Rivas |
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Parent Title (English): | International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 28 (No. 2, 2019), pp. 095-103. |
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Document Type: | Articles |
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Language: | English |
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Year of first Publication: | 2019 |
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Release Date: | 2020/11/03 |
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Format: | PDF-scan upon request / PDF-Scan auf Anfrage |
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IdNo: | Gonzalez-Torres_M_A_Fernandez-Rivas_A_2019 |
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Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive: | Articles / Artikel |
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Licence (German): | |
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