Eps 1. Doña Gracia, Part 2: Her Reach and Legacy

So now we have reached the final phase of Zona Gracia's wanderings and her last settlement. Her last resting place is Constantinople. Here's where the full feather of her Jewish life can be expressed as she finally takes the role of leadership in the sardi world of the Ottoman Empire. And here she can continue all the work she's done until now. The charity, the aid to fugitives from the Iberian Peninsula, her pionu efforts, relief to Jewish captives and Jews in distress everywhere in the free world at the time. And she supports Rabanim Batkesses throughout the Ottoman Empire. She establishes the yeshiva and a shul in the Ottoman capital actually a betet the word shul would be anomalous and and incorrect to use in the sphartic world at the time and it's called the synagogue of the seora la seenora and in 1559 as the influx of ex conversals continued she supports the foundation of yet another synagogue meanwhile banda who had chosen not to leave for constantople remains in Venice with her daughter and Graciana and her nephew weren't happy with this arrangement. And Miriam can tell us more about some of the intrigue that happens behind the scenes at this moment. A very difficult and intriguing chapter. Before Donagia had moved to Constantinople, they had reached some sort of arrangement in that dispute that we spoke about over Lachica, Brianda's daughter's tremendous dowy and all of the money that was caught up in that dispute. There was some sort of agreement that was arranged and Donagrassi was not particularly happy about it and that means that when her sister stay behind in Venice with her daughter and she moves to Constantinople, she is not pleased with the situation. And then we have a soap opera story that is so bizarre and so wild because her nephew Joseph Nasi arranges along with his brother who later becomes known as Shu Nasi to kidnap Lachica Brianda's daughter and marry her so that no one else can have access to the dowy. And what's fascinating first of all is what was Lacha's reaction? None of the sources seem to suggest that she was particularly upset about it. And Brianda, of course, her mother was furious and this whole thing blows up. The Venetian authorities are furious as well. And eventually they're caught and Blica is returned to her mother. Joseph, after much to do in Venice, is banished from the city under penalty of death. >> Should he come back, he will be quartered and dismembered and his body parts displayed around the city. And what happens now is equally bizarre. So Donna Gracia's in Constantinople, her niece's sister in Venice, they are going to move. Her sister and niece are going to move. But then shortly thereafter, Brianda dies unexpectedly and Gracia is now an orphan. So a year of mourning takes place for Brianda and then Shuel goes and marries. In other words, Joseph's brother marries Lachica and Yoseph himself moves to Constantinople and marries Don Gracia's daughter, Anna, now known as Rea. Exactly. So, can you get your, you know, mind around that? Now, of course, the big question is, was there a real marriage in the first place? So, many think that the whole thing was a sham. It was just a means to get her away from her mother and keep the fortune in the hands of the Nasi family. Others say that even if it was a real marriage, it doesn't matter because would not be a problem because the Raban did not hold from conversal marriages unless there was a that took place afterwards in the presence of 10 openly Jewish men. Number one. Number two, if you think about the faradim never accepted the fame of Gerob. So even if technically you could say he was married, it didn't matter and that he could have taken Donagarcia's daughter for a wife. So we now have both Shuel, two brothers, married to cousins and now the family is in Constantinople and as you said Donagia realizes her full potential there and focuses less on business and more as you said all of the mitzvah of Pidgeonu and Teddaka and setting up schools and so on. And I would also like to point out that she had a very um crucial role in developing the city of Salonica, right? >> And Salonica is another fascinating story in the Ottoman Empire. It's the only city in the world that had a Jewish majority and she's instrumental in encouraging many of the Anusim who are fleeing Portugal to settle in Salonica. And in Constantinople where she is based, she manages to continue to manage the family's commercial and shipping activities and she has agents all over the world acting on her behalf in the other commercial centers in Europe. So she's establishing her home turf as the hub basically and with the cultivation of Salonica and Constantinople, >> she's really just making sure that she's fortifying this home base so that it can be a successful and fluid and important point of contact for Jews the world over. And Joseph Nasi who becomes her trusted partner in this enterprise also secures a powerful place amongst the dignitaries of the time and particularly Sultan Sullean. And his wife Dona Gracia's daughter Rea also becomes a forceful figure because she follows in her mother's footsteps in terms of charitable works but still Gracia maintains her unique reputation as this embodiment of this powerful wealthy influential woman who takes care of her people. And so we can begin to think about her legacy when you talk about her power and her influence. This is where she begins to use the name Nasi which has all sorts of connotations of power and perhaps um she saw herself as a descendant from Audid and the Nim who functioned as a sort of the president of the Sanhedrin. There's this legacy of Niss and she takes on that title which she uses here. So, as far as the Nasi name, >> it's so interesting because almost everything that we've discussed in this podcast was originally historioggraphized by Cecil Roth and by different historians and is now being revisited and almost contested by so many different historians that we read about, right? Except for we're going to discuss soon the sources that they use which remain uncontested, but which historians like to pit against each other to show the subtleties and the nuances and the differences. One thing that I haven't found debated in any of the literature, even the most contemporary literature, is the grander of her actual influence and power. She was it. >> I've seen her described as most likely the most powerful woman in all of the Ottoman world at the time. Forget about Jewish woman. This was a woman who, if she's reclaiming the title of Nasi, it's perhaps also, as I read, the Nasi name was her original name back from her Spanish forebears. In other words, to really reference her own yea, so to speak, her own lineage, which is interesting. >> She really came into power after her husband passed away. >> Right. So, Don Gracia chose Constantinople, as you said, as her final city that she settled and spent the rest of her life there. And it made sense for her to do so because the counterreformation is going on. The Christians are clamping down more and more the conversos. And at the same time, the Ottomans who run this multinational empire are actually good to their minorities. And although the minorities in their empire are considered deemy and technically secondass, they're also protected. And the Ottomans recognized that they could use the Jews and other minorities to develop their economies. And so it made sense for Don Graassi to come to a place where she could live openly as a Jew, use all of her contacts across the Mediterranean world to increase her trade and also help her fellow Jews. And remember that the Jews are not the enemies of the Muslims. The Christians are >> at this point. And so there were sort of neutral and a very helpful element in the Ottoman Empire. It's so different to us to hear that to modern years. But when we think about it as we mentioned in the beginning that really the most fertile period for the Jews was when they lived under Muslim jurisdiction and that enabled them to flourish forth for these reasons for the reasons of permission um freedom relative freedom and how that all turned on its head in terms of when the Christian papal state came to power and especially that's it's a lot what we're dealing with here right and what we're going to deal with in Italy shortly >> right especially you say given what we look at the world today you know the geopolitical world today and relationship between Jews and Muslims and Christians and so on. It's very different. But I think it was St. Lebron who said for most of the Middle Ages and well into the early modern period better to be a Jew under Islam than a Jew under Christendub and that certainly was true in the case of Donagarcia. Very important to remember and that's why in terms of the relationship that Joseph Nasi developed with Sultan Sullean it really enables Gracia to go further with her dream and her plan and she does something very unusual. She acquires land in Tavaria and Tiberius. >> And here she's considered a protozionist because she's probably the first person in history to fund and encourage Jewish settlement in Israel, independent settlement, if you will, specifically for reasons of creating a Jewish stronghold there. So, while they're under and they have to have permissions, you know, of the various governmental powers and sovereignties that exist there. She procures this lease to have rights to rebuild and settle the city and rebuild it. They did. Tvarious was a ghost town. It was raw and desolate. And Dona Gracia and her nephew and Rabi Yoseseph Benaderzes expend great effort to cultivate the topography, the industry, the commerce in hopes of turning it into a hub of Jewish activity and settlement. And they worked to fortify it to protect it against insurgents. And until 1564, they were dedicated to this cause. And at that point, they constructed the city security wall and it was completed. But as the Jews began their return to Israel, it piqued the interest of the Christians. And it seems that for reasons that are still under kind of a haze of history, these external forces were able to halt the influx of Jews to the city. And that vibrant dream of a of a center of Jewish life that Gracia invested so much in after a couple of years. And in fact, even I read until the next generation seemed to have dissipated and didn't really come to the four, but the dream lived on. It's also interesting the context some darn see this when the conversos had this catastrophic expulsion and the persecutions that follow them. There was this messianic speculation in the air that perhaps this was the harbinger of a messianic era and perhaps we can view some of these activities resettling Israel as part of this vision of a better day a messianic day yet to come. It's also interesting, you know, when you said building up the industry. They did practical things like try to import the silk industry and plant mulberry bushes and new technologies for making silk in the gulliel and tavaria and um sadly the effort failed but it was a valiant effort. It was a valiant effort and it left its seeds even though those malbury bushes didn't sprout at that point but it's fascinating to see that eritistral is still the center of all kinds of innovations and being the epicenter of the world as it is. it still is ripe for that and the timing wasn't right. And I think that's so much of the you're talking about the messianic fervor that takes place. It's the potential that's there that for some reason doesn't materialize and we know that that potential lives in every generation for Msiah to come. So these sparks doubtless were there and for whatever reason the generation didn't merit it >> but the seeds were sewn for future generations. >> And I believe there's a Donagassi Museum in Searia, a little museum with diaramas of her life. So >> amazing. That's off the beaten track trip. >> Definitely. That's the next trip that we go to Taria. That's a great thing to see. I I did not know about that. And another amazing tragic chapter in the life of Dona Gracia and the Jews of our time expresses itself in the Anona boycott. And we come to this largely forgotten chapter of Jewish history. It's overwhelmed and overshadowed by so many tragedies of greater and wider proportion. One of the fears that I often encounter in my life as a teacher of the Holocaust at the high school level is apprehension that our students will eventually, if it hasn't already happened, is that soon the Holocaust will be perceived by our children, our students as if it were the Spanish Inquisition. That's the phrase that's always bandied about. I don't know if you've heard it, Miam, so many times. They look at the Holocaust like it's the Spanish Inquisition. And by that, of course, parents, principles, even survivors and children of survivors mean to say that this portion of history will be relegated to the cobwebs of young minds. something dormant, unexplored, so far away. Something to think about in reflective sadness, maybe once a year, maybe on Tishbove, but subsumed by all the tragic persecutions that befell our people since the very first Corbin, the very first exile. So that overarching framing now that we're actually recovering the aftershocks of the Spanish Inquisition, it serves to highlight just how far-flung and how distant this subchapter of the Spanish Inquisition is to our collective consciousness as Jewish people and how much more of a reason to bring it to the forefront, to bring this lesserk known occurrence, this subtopic within the Spanish Inquisition. It's kind of an aftershock, the Anona Boycott. So we're bringing it to the for as well. We've developed an understanding now the scope of Da Gracia's life, her reach, her wealth. And we got to dig into the chapters of her life that are documented in the response of her day. And we can see within this historical episode the difficulties of the time in which Dona Gracia lived, in which Dona Gracia's power clearly emerges. And we can see that she was not only wealthy and influential, but that she thought big. She thought on a political plane. She operated on the world stage by managing financial interests to pressure a political faction and to affect change. Her power wasn't marginal as we might expect for a woman. It wasn't peripheral, but it was central and primary. And in fact, it's the first time since the biblical era that Jews respond to a situation with a solution outside of Stadlanos or retreat. So what's the story? In 1555, a new pope comes to rule. His name is Pope Paul IV. He was a horrible human being. He himself said about himself that he had not done anything good and he was very puzzled why he was chosen by the cardinals to be pope. But in any case, he was an extremist and it bothered him so much. Again, remember the context of the counterreformation convers freely as Jews and it bothered him to no end. Remember also the Muslims had reached the gates of Vienna and so he's feeling under attack and he's feeling threatened and he does something that overturns the precedents that were set by earlier popes. So first let's talk a little bit about Italy. Italy was not Italy. It was not united. It was a combination of various city states each ruled by different dukes and princes or under papal control. So our story occurred in the city of Anona which was a pivotal and central commercial port on the east coast of Italy. It was established as a papal state in 1429 and the popes actually Clement 3 and Paul III tried to develop Anka as a center of international trade. To achieve this goal they granted the city's Jews permission to open banks and offer credit and in 1547 the pope invited anyone from the kingdoms of Portugal including new Christians. So obviously an open invitation to the Jews to settle in Ankona. With this type of encouragement, as we might imagine, conversals from Portugal and Spain begin to settle in Ankona and it was geographically poised to achieve that status as an important port within the Ottoman Empire. But everything changes in 1555 when a new pope, Paul IV, takes office in the Vatican. And he's known for his undisguised anti-semitic feelings and turns against the Jewish population of Anona, ignores all the rights granted to Jews by the popes that preceded him. They were humiliated, deprived of their commercial privileges, locked up in a ghetto. And the pope reinstates the Inquisition once again in Anonah. He confiscates the property of the Jews, and he begins to persecute and condemn the conversos. Nearly 100 conversos were imprisoned by the Inquisition. Others were deprived of their liberty to be sold on the Maltese slave market. 24 Conversos who had lived openly as Jews refused conversion and they were burnt at the stake. Even before the conversos were condemned to be burned, Donagrassi got involved by receiving an audience with Sullean the magnificent. And then she gets him to write a letter to the pope, a very strongly worded letter in which he says, you know, we have Christians living here in Constantinople in my empire. You had better treat my subjects well and release them. The pope does not back down. He says, we will only release those people that we can prove were Levventine subjects and their properties. Everybody else is under arrest and will be condemned to death. And that's exactly what happened. And Dona Gracia is so furious that she now goes along with an idea that had been suggested by some of the conversos, which was to punish the pope. And as you said, Spor, this is a pivotal moment in Jewish history. We're no longer turning to bribery or stados or fleeing. We are going to show the pope that Jewish blood does not come cheap. And so this initial idea has received a lot of enthusiasm, especially amongst the converso merchant. We're going to move our business away from Enolia. We're going next door to Pizaro where the Duke of Pizaro had promised freedoms and he would build the port and so on. And it looked like the boycott was going to be this successful first attempt to punish the gaim and again show them that Jewish blood does not come cheap. But then it all falls apart because a number of the rabbis who approached who initially were in favor of the boycott and here is where Tipi would mention so often that one of the important sources that we have for this period of history are Shayot and Chuvot. And the shoot on this subject is absolutely fascinating. One of the rabbis who was deeply involved was Joshua Stencino, Yoshua Cino, who was from the famous Italian printing family, but originally all the way back when from Germany. She had left Christian Europe and settled in Constantinople. And he's actually one of the rabbis, as you mentioned, she subsidizes rabbis and pays for their activities and pays for Scholes and publishing their books. He has a very close relation with Onagia. And nevertheless, after receiving complaints from the native Jews of Manona and here we should stop and just say something about the Jewish population in Italy. You have Ashkanazim who had freed persecution who went to Italy. You have the native Italian Jews who are neither Spafartic nor Ashkanaz been there since Corb mikdash and maybe even earlier and they're coming now and they're saying wait a minute if you boycott us our business is going to be hurt. Moreover, what could the pope do to us? Who knows how he'll come down on us right? And Joshua Sincino says, "Wait a minute." He takes a step back and in his in his book of he has some very strongly worded response condemning the conversation in Portugal and moves to a Christian country. Oh no, you have to come to the Muslim world where you can live freely. So he's defending the native Jews. He's suggesting that conversos are doing things perhaps incorrectly for commercial reasons, for reasons that they want to hold on to their wealth and they are endangering other Jews. And he does not back down. Even when Donagrassi demands an audience with him, he refuses to go along and eventually the boycott falls apart. This is a very controversial moment in Jewish history where we see that even though Donogia was poised to have this political clout, it wasn't necessarily backed up by the Rabanim or by the people involved in the actual story. So it wasn't enough. It wasn't sufficient to have the entree in the ear of these politicians, the political leaders rather. You needed to have the support of the people on the ground. Joshua Cena is just one rabbitic voice here, maybe the most prominent one involved in this dispute, but there were other rabbis that supported the boycott. So you had the split and what's fascinating, you know, I teach this subject to my students and I always do a survey after we talk about that conet. I have the students vote. Would you vote for the boycott or not? And it's interesting to see how the split is parallels the split that you see at the time as well. And it's a big question, you know, it's a thought experiment. If the boycott had succeeded, could this have sent a message for generations to come or do we have to take into account call and if you're going to punish someone and in the process hurt other Jews is it worth it and you know you have parallels even in the Nazi era >> absolutely >> in the 30s when there was a boycott suggested against Germany similar issues and questions arose so it's a tough question and I don't know what the answer is you know when you read Cecil Roth um the great biographer of Donagassia Yeah, he's still so mad at the rabbis and he still says, "Oh, you know, she was a hero and they were cowards, but perhaps it's not so simple and these are questions that we need to wrestle with." Absolutely. If you read the later scholarship, there's a woman named Ruth Lamdan who has done amazing work on this topic who takes a lesser view of Donna Gracia's role and and her intentions. So it's a tu question and I think part of this discord and dissonance that we're feeling and seeing in terms of political clout versus it's also part of the gullis it's also part of this ability to understand that we really are not in control that there is no one decisive way until Mashiach will come and free us and all of these um machinations and attempts really cannot lead us to an ultimate unfulfilling answer because we aren't going to be at peace until that moment comes. So it's always just interesting to see that we think that the Yeshua can come. We think that the redemption can come if only if only if only. The answer is not so clear. The only clarity that we'll have is really when we'll we'll have that eternal redemption hashem soon. But what's fascinating now is that we can look at as you mentioned as I mentioned that we get to dig into the chapters of Dona Gracia's life that are documented in response to literature of her day. And one of the things that is so interesting about this body of literature, Shayos, is that their fiducian, their novel interpretations of Gimara and Rishonim are manifest within their answers. In Dona Gracia's case, it was her dual marriage ceremonies, both Portuguese and Jewish, that would later rock the Jewish world of rabbitic thought when Graatia and her sister Brianda both lay claim to the inheritance of the Menddees fortune. As we mentioned, 8 years after their marriage, Francisco dies, leaving Gratzia a widow with one daughter, Rea. In his will, Francisco bequeaths half of his assets to his brother, Diego Menddees Benoviste, who ultimately marries Brianda, Gratzia's sister. A few short years later, Diego passes away as well. And here's where it gets complicated. She demands her portion of that original inheritance from Francisco to Diego. Brianda was expecting a windfall, but Gracia insisted that Brianda's portion was less than she might have hoped since all that Diego could have inherited in total from Francisco was the wealth remaining after the mandatory sums were allocated to his widow and his daughter. And of that remainder, Francisco only gave away half to Diego, which of his entire fortune amounted to a much smaller percentage. Brianza countered this claim by stating that once we're disputing inheritances, Gratzia herself should not even inherit at all as a woman according to dentora because an almana is not an automatic heir. But here's where Gratzia held that the law of the land in this case the Catholic marriage laws of Portugal were the ones that were legally binding according to Dina de Mahusadena. The sisters approached the courts with this dispute in Vienna and at the same time the question went out to all of the greatest postkim the Marasham Rab Mosha Mitani the Mabet the Mari Ben Lev and all of them supported Don Gracia's position establishing that when dealing with monetary laws the law of the land is followed and since legally Gracia was Francisco's wife she inherits accordingly on the other hand Caro disagrees finding that marriage outside of ha has no bearing There's no action of Kenyan there and therefore it doesn't exist as a marriage at all. You can hear a full treatment and reading of the Shalisu the responsive literature itself in our mini pod which you can find in our show notes with the discussion and interpretation of the psak on gracia's inheritance. So all in all, it is clear that Gracia was a unique character in history, not only Jewish history, but history at large. She's a woman who amassed great wealth and great power. She lived life as a secret Jew, and she risked her life as a secret Jew so many times in order to come to a safer and more wholesome place to live her life in the open as a Jew. And she emerged triumphant. She contested the desires of kings. She protected her people at great cost. She supported and facilitated not only the printing of the Torah and the study of Torah in formalized yeshivos, but she also invested in the future of the Jewish nation and homeland. Which is why, given everything you said, the big question that we should really raise is given everything that she's done and her importance for Jewish history, why was she forgotten until the 20th century? It seems so unjust and it seems so puzzling. Why did the memory of this great woman not survive and was only resurrected if you will in the 20th century? It's such an interesting question and I think the question as we began about the marginalization of stories that really were so frontal and so important juxtaposing it with the sphartic history and the golden age we're listening now to all of the luminaries of sphartic history that have come forth just within this past little while that we've been speaking that still light up the pages of yeshivos the world over but in terms of our own understanding and consciousness of Jewish history they don't appear in the forefront things have been overshadowed by numbers, by time, but I'm so glad and grateful for the opportunity to bring these stories to the four once again. I would also add that on a more pragmatic level, you know, so sadly and tragically, neither she nor her sister had any descendants. There were no grandchildren. Both of their daughters were childless. And so the family vanishes and it's only the 20th century. would add something else that the study of Jewish history in general. Bringing the biographies of great Jewish women and men back to life is something that you see beginning really in the 19th century. And so for hundreds of years, the study of Jewish history was not in the forefront of intellectual Jewish activity. And so that might be part of the answer as to why we don't know so much about Dona Gracia until the modern period. And another interesting point that somebody raised is that her fame rests um we don't usually see biographies of business people. The idea that you celebrate someone who was famous for her great wealth is is a little bit unusual and that might be a reason why we celebrate great artists and thinkers and philosophers and so on. But if you think about what Donna Graassi is famous for, the she did for the Jewish community, all those activities that you mentioned, but primarily because she was a wealthy woman and that in itself is not necessarily something that historically we celebrated. You saying gavir culture is a new phenomenon. >> Yes, it is. It absolutely is. That's something that's just a very interesting point to ponder in terms of women's histories or in terms of intellectual histories. This is another instance of where intellectual histories and elitist histories still prevail where we do have the written word where we do have the response and that's kind of all that we have and the personalities or the figures that our eyes are trained on today influencers so to speak played much less of a part. It was what you could write down and pass on and transmit. Um and so now this is being recorded. Um and then I would also add something else that ambivalence about conversos is also present. The conversos were very often received with suspicion by the native Jewish communities and there's not necessarily a celebration don but the conversos in general were not necessarily celebrated or written about. They were a problem for a lot of Jewish communities and maybe that would also explain in part the you know reticence that we have outside of Shayles of Trouvos perhaps. I don't know. Oh, you know what else? Which was so interesting. It's so amazing to see that when another case came up with Donna Gracia and she appeared before Joshua in a dentora regarding the inheritance, he actually ruled in her favor. And we talked about how Rabanim when they're great Rabanim, they judge each case on its individual merits. It's not as if he was biased against Onagia. And in another case that involved an inheritance dispute, he took her side. Nevertheless, in the Ena boycott, he took the other side. Each case was adjudicated on its merits based on his perspective. >> It's a wonderful point about the impartiality. Yes. Of theik process. >> Right. And that's something we should point out. It's not a personal thing. It's not that he said, "I don't like Don Graassi and I think you're wrong and you're arrogant and so on. In this case, I think you're wrong, but in the other case, he ruled in her favor." Which was so interesting. >> That's a wonderful point. And now let's lift the veil. Leaving aside our intellectual legacies and our intellectual conversation for a moment, let's talk woman towoman and let's find out the secrets, some of your magical secrets that you managed to achieve in the part of your life that's domestic and motherly, maternal, and all of that. We want to know about your background and who you are behind the scenes. Can you share your favorite book or your favorite author? That's like asking like which is my favorite child. few notes for you're a reader so you know how difficult that would be. But you know what I would do? I would say that since we're discussing Spartic history, I would focus on some of my favorite books in that genre. I happen to love mysteries and thrillers. That's like one of my favorite genres when I want to relax with a good curl up with a good mystery or thriller. Oh my goodness, yum. But I would highly recommend for any readers who love a good mystery and a non-fiction one at that Mati Freriedman's book on the Aleppo Codeex is so fabulous. It reads like a true life thriller. We assigned that in our uh Spartic history class and my students absolutely go crazy. It should be made into a mishbah cereal. >> I'm surprised that you assign it because it touched off some >> and yes, just to wet the listener's appetite, it's a very controversial book because of its conclusion. Those of you are interested, the Aleppo Codex is the most important um and most accurate and most beautiful version of a early version of the Torah book written as a CEX. Um and Rambam himself testified to how perfect that text is. on the question what happened to the Aleppo Codex once it is smuggled out of Syria and I'm not going to give it away cuz you have to read the book but the Mccclusion is very controversial and it's still being debated today. Um he's subsequently done further research and only strengthened his thesis which is fascinating. Um I also love the novels and stories of Raim Sabbato who is the Russia Shiva and a novelist and his books have been translated into English and especially if anybody's interested in sphartic history and in particular the history of the Syrian community his book Aleppo Tales which is a trilogy of um likely fictionalized stories about a Jewish family Aleppo. There's another book the dawning of the day which is one of the most lyrical gorgeous books you can possibly read in Hebrew and it's also been translated into English. Um, so those are my favorites in the genre spartic literature. Such amazing choices. They're fabulous. Um, I also love memoirs and I think one of the most memorable books and again something that students really enjoy. Sometimes they sign parts of it in our Holocaust classes is the one by Robbie Estrol, the former chief rabbi Rab Mayo, Out of the Depths, which is so beautiful and so inspiring and so fabulous. >> What is your most beloved historical era to teach? Do you have one? This is another one of those favorite. I do. I do. So, we started the podcast by pointing out even though I'm Ashkanaz, my favorite subject to teach is spartic history. Um, but I also love teaching, believe it or not. My family on my mother's side is sat and it's something that I was always intrigued by. I didn't really necessarily grow up cases, but we certainly have cases. I grew up in Bur Park. And I find it fascinating to be teaching an overwhelmingly safety, and the students really relate. There are so many fabulous ideas that resonate with them and I think that has so much to teach. It's very much a part of the contemporary Jewish scene. And when I tell students when I show them that andic ideas have so much to contribute to the way they live and just going on a Shabbat and having a kit and and learning the ideas about and so on, it really resonates. So that's another favorite subject that I like to teach. Tell us about what you love to do in your spare time. >> So in my spare time, I'm generally not reading books that I will save that for at night. um or breaks at work. I love anything that involves movement. I love sports. I am a big runner, an avid cyclist, an ice skater in the winters. Um and I love tennis. So that's what I do in my spare time. Fantastic. That might be the secret to so much of the energy that comes through every time we have a conversation. It's always overflowing with the brilliance and with vibrancy and it just you you feel the movement even when you're sitting down. >> Right. I think part of it also has to do with the fact that I grew up in a family. I was the only girl with three brothers who were what my grandmother used to call Vaya. So I quickly had to learn how to outrun and out hit them all. Well then you had to take on these roles, these feminine roles which you also excel at so amazingly. So can you share one hostess magic trick? Like how do you pull that rabbit out of the hat at home, whether it's a recipe or a guest room hack or what's your little go-to to make your people feel special? Like what's your thing? That's a tough one. I have a one fun thing we we have on every yub when we have company and especially my grandchildren love this but my guest also we have something called the mystery soup course where I make a soup with like interesting or exotic ingredients and you get a prize you get like double dessert or a special treat if you can guess what the ingredients are in that mystery soup. Um but in general I like to make a colorful table with lots of salads. What's your favorite salad? >> Uh my favorite salad is one that I just invented. It's like our favorite family recipe. I roast carrots and shiakei mushrooms in the oven with lots of spices. And then I serve that with a honey mustard dressing and also roasted chickpeas. And now they have all this great pre-washed lettuce and craisins, the 50% less sugar craisins and the cucumber, little Persian cucumber chopped up and a little honey mustard and some nuts, some pumpkin seeds and it's out of this world. >> This sounds magical to me. It's very good. Yeah, it's by the way so much fun. I literally have like I have a special chocolate bar. What ingredients? >> Usually it has to be a blended soup, you know, but it could be, let's say, parsnip or wild mushrooms or something that you wouldn't necessarily pick up on. And we actually have one guest that comes every sukus, you know, at night. And I'm already running out of options. I'm going crazy. I have a soup for you. Okay, good. I just made fian ridiculously this pumpkin soup, which is not really seasonal from Celebrate Cookbook. And it has cookies inside. Okay, that definitely wins. It really calls for Aordo cookies, but who sells kosher Amordi cookies? I don't know. >> Right. So, the last one I did was like a wild mushroom and chestnut. You know, it was hard to like distinguish, but I have a guest with a very um very sophisticated refined palette and he almost always gets it and he got it. So, he will not get this. >> Okay, I need that recipe. I will send it to you. This is definitely going to be a winner. I'm so excited. Saleo Baron famously refuted what we as from Jews might relate to as the lacrimos conception of Jewish history. When we talk about our past as a people, there's so much persecution, so much sadness, so much displacement, and so much angst. But Miriam, you're full of this upbeat energy and positivity. What do you draw that from? So maybe I can answer that question with a personal anecdote. I just got back from a trip with my class to Spain, Morocco, and Gibralar. And our first stop in Spain was the city of Toledo, which is absolutely magnificent. And outside the walls of the old city, you have a statue of Isabella. Isabella who threw us out. And our tour guide, some of you might know her, Sheila Schweel, who is an amazing tor stood in front of the statue and she quoted the story of a great rabbi who went to the arch of Titus. I think it was Ra Kmanowitz from the mir and who said, "Tasa may be said in Yiddish, where are you?" Sheila Schweble stood up and said, "Isabella, Isabella, where are you?" And really, that's the answer. We're here. You're not amazing. The triumph of survival, the tribe survival. And I would also add the most beautiful thing that I ever heard as a student of Jewish history. When I first started teaching in Flappish, it's this is like my favorite varian Jewish history. It's amazing. When I first started teaching in Flappish, I had to hire teachers. I was chairman of the department, and I hired a young man by the name of Kafam Selene Dwek. tragically died very young, but he was a brilliant upand cominging scholar. He was so brilliant, much smarter than I was, and it was embarrassing that I was his boss. And because he was computer literate, I asked him to type up some Jewish history timelines. And he gave me this beautiful booklet. This is the beginning of the era of computers. And on each page, he wrote, we wrote, we taught in Hebrew at the time. He wrote Historia Pay olive. And he spelled Historia this way. Hey y tough vote. >> Wow. >> And I was so excited to give it back to little shod and fre. And I said we can't give this out because you made a very basic mistake cuz he was much better than mine. I wrote everybody knows historial was it then it's with a tent and not a tough. She says no. He smiled at me. He says no. I learned a beautiful lesson from Ruff Cook. Ruff Cook would write the word Hyia with a tough. Why? So I asked my students what do you see in the word historia? the hidden hands of God. And that's really the answer to your question that the hidden hands of God. You look at Jewish history and that's why to me Jewish history is is one of the most spiritual activities that a Jew can do because you see the hidden hands of God orchestrating events and bringing us to the point where we can say anakup despite all the Jewish life we are still here and there's no other explanation for it but I think that the most beautiful lesson that you could have left us with and the fact that you are here Miriam weas to reveal the hidden hand of Hashem throughout history with us today was immeasurably ably wonderful and I'm so grateful that you joined us and I know that all our listeners will be as well. >> Tika, thank you so so much. It was such a pleasure and having this conversation with you really enlightened me to many aspects of Donna Gracia's life and especially the Shaylen Trou responsive discussion. >> Thank you so so much. >> Thank you for listening to Veiled Reference. Enjoy this episode and share it with your friends. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, we'd love to hear from you at [email protected]. Veiled Reference, a Mishbaka podcast.