On 10.9.2024 the Cervantes Institute organized in Madrid a special event dedicated to the cultural heritage of the Sephardim of Thessaloniki.
In the first part of the event, the President of KISE and IKTH, Mr. David Saltiel, placed in a treasury box (Caja de las Letras), which is located in the basement of the Institute's headquarters, a series of objects related to the Spanish-Jewish language and culture of the Sephardim of Thessaloniki.
The Cervantes Institute uses these boxes, giving great figures of the sciences, arts and letters the opportunity to place objects of their choice, creating thematic time capsules of Spanish culture.
Mr. Saltiel inside the box number 1447 - among those that house objects of the Spanish poet and writer Federico García Lorca, the Spanish novelist and member of the Royal Spanish Academy, Ana María Matute Ausejo and the Mexican writer José Emilio Pacheco - placed, CD with Spanish-Jewish songs of Thessaloniki and songs of Greek Jewry, the editions of the proceedings of the four international conferences on the Spanish-Jewish language organized by the Israelite Community of Thessaloniki (1997, 2001, 2004 and 2008), the book "Ethymion from the life of the Jewish community", a model of the under-construction building of the Holocaust Museum of Greece, a copy of the post-war minutes of the Community Assembly of the Israelite Community of Thessaloniki of May 8, 1945, written entirely in the Spanish-Hebrew language, a set of keys - a symbolic reference to the poem by Jorge Luis Borges " A key to Salonica' ('Una llave en Salonica') and a letter to the Sephardim of Salonica addressed to the members of every future generation - of Spain but also of the whole world - as well as to every person who cares to know.
Among others, the President of KISE and IKTH, Mr. David Saltiel noted:
"I know that in these boxes are kept texts of great personalities and objects with special symbolism. I would very much like to "deposit" a text from the many great Rabbis who were born and flourished in Seraphaditic Thessaloniki. But the havoc that wanted to destroy almost every trace of this identity - without fortunately succeeding - does not allow me to do so. But what I can testify is that it represents the spirit and identity of these people. Of those who were expelled from Spain but did not forget it. Of those who were mercilessly hunted because they were praying in a Synagogue. Those who survived the crematoria and the hardships and returned to Thessaloniki. Of those who never forgot the pain and had the strength to find the smile of life again through the eyes of their own children. Of the first post-war generation, - those of us today who continue in their footsteps - with an old-fashioned perhaps, moral compass - like Don Quixote - in front of the different - more dangerous - windmills of our times.
A round table on Sephardic Culture followed, in which, in addition to the President of KISE and IKTH, Mr. David Saltiel, the following participated:
• Carmen Noguero, Secretary General of the Cervantes Institute.
• Esther Bendahan, author and Cultural Director of the Sefarad-Israel Center, and
• Jon Juaristi, philologist, former director of the National Library of Spain and the Cervantes Institute.
• Pilar Tena, Director of the Cervantes Institute of Athens.
The events were attended by the Honorary Consul of Spain in Thessaloniki and member of the Community Assembly, Mr. Samuel Nahmias, the Director of Diplomacy, Representative to the UN in Geneva and to UNESCO and coordinator for the fight against Anti-Semitism for the World Jewish Congress, Mr. Leon Saltiel and the soprano Ms. Mariandzela Hadjistamatiou.
