#Aurora De La Rosa Duran
Helene S. Apala Spanish to English
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
Melilla is a Spanish city located in North Africa. Phoenicians, Romans, and Moors left their tracks, and since 1497 belong to Spain. The policy of defense of the Mediterranean against the Turkish carried out by the Catholic Monarchs is specified, among other measures, in the creation of a series of fortified squares throughout North Africa, including Melilla. With the passage of time, characteristic features of the cultures that live there are added to the undoubted Spanishness of this city. Product of its geographical location on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the heart of the Rif, Melilla is a meeting place of Spanish culture with the Rifeña.
When we talk about Rifeña culture we are referring to Amazigh culture intimately intertwined with the Jewish culture of the area, The Amazigh and the Rifeño Jew share gastronomy, clothing, and even santones or morabitos. * (1)
The Amazigh culture comprises a large region that runs from the Sinai Peninsula and extends through northern Africa into the interior to Burkina Faso.
The Amazigh shares the same ancient language (Tamazight) * (2) divided into multiple dialects, common gastronomy and spirituality, and aesthetic signs whose symbology varies according to where they are.
Amazigh culture and Hispanic culture are the majority in Melilla, but Sephardic culture * (3) provided by Jews from Tetouan, one of the places where they settled when they were expelled from Spain, Sepharad, was also very important XV century...
Inspiration
MELILLA
SEFARDITAS
We call Sephardic Jews who come from Sepharad, Spain, of those who were expelled after the Reconquest. These Jews, who settled largely in North Africa, retained the Spanish language, the old Castilian and the customs of Spain for centuries. In the nineteenth century, Queen Elizabeth II facilitated the return of Jews who wanted to settle in Melilla, the first to reach the nucleus of the Sephardic community of Melilla...
MELILLA
HEBREW NEIGHBOURHOOD
As we said at the beginning, the oldest nucleus in the Rastro neighbourhood is the Hebrew neighbourhood, a neighbourhood that was born when Tazza refugees came to be rescued fleeing the persecution of El Roghi.
Before, other Jews had arrived from Tetouan, rich Jews who contributed to the construction of the modernist Melilla. We will talk about these Jews and Melilla modernism in another chapter, but now we will talk about those refugee Jews who eventually replaced the tents with humble houses.
These humble houses were the embryo of the neighbourhood of the Trail-Rastro and it is still called the Hebrew District, although it is part of the Trail-Rastro...
MELILLA
ABOUT THE GIPSIES OF THE BARRACA DE SAN FRANCISCO
Although there are data that during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries some families of gipsies were settled in the Alcazaba neighbourhood, when a gipsy community really begins to exist in Melilla it is in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
They came from Andalusia and Levante and came to work as blacksmiths, hired to fine-tune the horses that would intervene in the Margallo war and in the successive wars of Africa...
Word of Mouth
"I grew up in the El Polígono neighborhood. The coexistence between Jews, Arabs, and Muslims was total. I have never thought about who was Jewish or who was Christian; I was not within my vocabulary. We were friends or we were not friends. Our hearts were present in relationships. We were going to eat bread at Maria's house or we were going to have tea at Fatma's house. We respected and celebrated Christmas, respected and celebrated Kabir, respected and celebrated the Feast of Pesach. "
Mordejay Wahnich Jewish
Melilla | Spain
In the neighborhood, there were Muslims, Jews, Christians, Gypsies ... "I had married very young, I came from a town in Morocco and I knew nothing". La Momona, who was a silent gypsy, taught me how to sew. I covered my socks with an egg and made my bras. I did not know what that was. It was a surprise. Tama, a Hebrew, taught me how to knead; let's cook. I also had a Spanish neighbor. One day my neighbor told me: "Fatma, give me salt!" Then I knew almost nothing about Spanish. I said: "Salt? What is salt?" She turned around, entered the house, took my hand and put it in the salt. "Salt. This is salt." That's how I learned".
Fatma Hammu Kaddur, Amazigh woman 91 years old
Melilla | Spain
“My ancestors came from the province of Malaga. In the 20s of the last century, they arrived from Torrox, Nerja. We are the Carmona family. The first to arrive was Francisco Carmona Cortés, known as El Capón and his wife, Encarnación Carmona Heredia, known as La Torita. They make their house of veneer and wood, themselves, with their hands. My family always made a living as street vendors, in the streets of Melilla, in the streets of Morocco. Gypsies have never felt different. They have lived in the Hebrew neighborhood with Berbers and Jews, and they have all been like brothers, there has been no difference between them."
José Heredia Gypsy
Melilla | Spain
"My grandmother, Dolores Carmona Román, became a very young widow with three children and made living selling clothes through the streets of Melilla, Tetuán, Larache, and later came to put a ready-made clothing store in El Rastro, in García Cabrelles Street, in the 70s. It was called Confecciones Dolores, and everyone remembers it today as a fighter and with initiative, and above all as a good person. My grandmother was one of the first women who had a checking account at the bank. She had a gift of speech, had a very good clientele.
I could tell many stories of gypsies I have treated. They have taught me to overcome myself, to respect the elderly, to be supportive. All this is part of our culture, we are obliged to help those who need it. We are hustlers. We have always looked for sustenance for the house. And above all, we have a good heart and we know how to share. I think we have contributed our grain of sand to this city. ”
José Heredia Gypsy
Melilla | Spain