CHANGE WILL COME …BUT WHEN?

My paradigm goes back to the times of the Spanish Inquisition. In the name of Christianity, Jews were tortured,

burned to death, forced out of the country. Virulent hatred of Jews at that time probably exceeded what radical Fascist-Islamists feel today. Before the Jews of Spain were expelled in 1492, Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule.

Parenthetically, it is gratifying to note that this summer Madrid witnessed a historic first: an open-air klezmer concert in the gardens of the Palacio de Oriente,. Some 500 people, including approximately 200 Jews, attended.

Many sang and danced to the strains of Bulgarian violin and hassidic nigunim, courtesy of Radio Sefarad music editor Argentinean Jorge Rozemblum and his band, Klezmer Sefardi.

This concert took place 515 summers after the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella had expelled the last remaining 200,000 official Jews from Spain. The estimated population of Spain in 2007 is 41 million. Approximately 94% are Catholic and only 6% comprise other religions such as Jews and Moslems.