Please welcome author Claudia H Long, author of The Duel for Consuelo, to the blog! Visit her blog once you've read about this fascinating slice of Spanish culture.
When a town's name is so awful, why does it take 1000 years
to change it?
On May 25, 2014, the residents of the town of Castrillo
Matajudíos, Spain, voted 29-17 to change the name of the town back to its
original name, Castrillo Motajudíos. The first name means "Kill Jews"
and the second can be translated as "Mount of Jews." (Mota variously translates as "speck,"
"mount" as a variation of monte,
and as a slang for marijuana…)
The change led to some interesting discussions on the
Internet. Excluding the trolls of various sorts, three themes emerged: first,
what took them so long? Second, how did a town get such a name in the first
place? And third, does changing the name white-wash the past or move the town,
and Spain, into the 21st century? All three themes reverberate in the history of the Spanish
Jews and the Conversos, or forced converts to Christianity.
The Jews were exiled from Spain in 1492, at the time that
the Muslims were expelled as well. Persecution had gone on for centuries, of
course, but Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in an uneasy peace until the
expulsion edicts finally put an end to co-existing.
But not all Jews left the only homes they had ever known.
Having lived in Spain for four hundred years, it was as much their country as
America can be to any of us. Contradictory edicts made it impossible to leave,
mandatory to leave, requiring conversion, denying the merits of the conversion,
all with the drumbeat of confiscation of wealth behind the acts. So not only
were Jews required to leave or convert, they often were prevented from
exercising either choice.
The town of Castrillo Matajudíos was originally, back in
1035, Castrillo Motajudíos, when 65 Jews were slaughtered and the remaining
Jews fled to that hill. Apparently the name was changed to Matajudíos in 1627.
The answer to the question of why it was changed is not apparent, but theories
are in two camps: First, that it was a slip of the pen, a typo if you will. Oops,
Jews killed here. Second, that it was changed by the Conversos, those unfortunates
who had "elected" to convert to Christianity rather than die a
hideous death.
The timing would indicate that it was the great-great-grandchildren
of the original converts who would have chosen this name, theoretically to
"prove" their allegiance to the new religion. This is not as
far-fetched as it seems today. Conversos and their descendants were fiercely
persecuted. Any hint of Judaizing, or secretly practicing their old religion,
was ruthlessly ferreted out by the Inquisition, which led Conversos to the
practice of haciendo sábado, or
"doing the Sabbath." This involved ostentatiously working on Saturday
so the neighbors could see them, eating pork in public, and putting on other
displays of Christianity. Naming the town after the killing of one's ancestors
is only a small step beyond what we know the Conversos had to do to survive.
As to why it took so long to change, the mayor of the town
opined that most residents didn't even notice the name, having lived with it
all their lives. Only when they traveled abroad and were embarrassed by the name
on their passports, or when the town tried to attract tourism, did they
consider its offensiveness. It is often the ingrained prejudice we have that is
so routine to us that we don't even notice it!
Should the name be changed? Does the change close an ugly
1000-year chapter or whitewash it into the mists of the past, a past we are
condemned to repeat?
Claudia H Long
Claudia H Long is the author of Josefina's Sin and The Duel
for Consuelo. Both books follow the stories of women in 1690-1711 Colonial
Mexico. Consuelo is the daughter of a wealthy mayor and the descendant of
Conversos who made their way to the New World as financial advisers to the
Vice-Royal Court. She is torn between loyalty to her family's past and the
desire to make a clean start without the taint of the old religion. Her longings
are complicated by the Inquisition in its waning years and two men with secrets
of their own.
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