Samuel Toledano

Samuel Toledano(August 15, 1929 Tangiers - July 22, 1996 Madrid) was a Spanish Jewish communitary leader, lawyer. Descendent of an old Jewish family from the medieval Toledo, Samuel (Sam) Toledano was a former secretary general,then president of Spain's Jewish federation of Israelite communities between 1982–1994

Biography

Born in Tangier on 15 August 1929, Toledano graduated the law faculty at the University of Paris and moved to the Spain in 1959, Soon he became for 36 years one of the most important leaders and spokesmen of the Jews in Spain.

In 1967, at his request in quality of vicepresident of the Jewish community of Madrid and at the request of its president, Max Mazin (in office between 1961–1970), the Spanish authorities, represented by the Spanish ambassador in Cairo, Ángel Sagaz, issued passports for about 1,500 Jews imprisoned in Abu Zaabal prison and obtained from Nasser's government in Egypt their liberation in order to reach Spain. .

After the freedom for the non-Catholic faiths had been achieved through the law from June 19, 1967 as political consequence in Spain of the Second Vatican council decisions, Samuel Toledano demanded from the Franco regime to bring about full legal recognition for Spanish Jews and to overturn the Spanish Inquisition expulsion order, which was decreed in 1492.

Indeed, on December 16, 1968, still under Franco's regime, he received from Spain's Minister of Justice. Antonio Oriol, a government proclamation formally revoking the Catholic Monarchs' Expulsion Decree of March 31, 1492. Then could be officially inaugurated the first public synagogue in 3,Balmes str. in Madrid. In 1987 Toledano, signed an agreement with the Spanish state, analogue to that which existed between Spain and the Catholic Church. On March 31, 1992 was among the Jewish leaders from around the world who welcomed king Juan Carlos I at his historical visit to a synagogue in Madrid, royal reconciliation gesture on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the decree issued against the Spanish Jews by the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel. In June 1992 Samuel Toledano spoke in the name of the wide "tribe" of Toledano exiled Jewish families around the world and together with other 19 representatives of it, received a symbolic key of the town of Toledo in a public historical ceremony in Plaza de Ayuntamiento.

Toledano was active also in the efforts to achieve the full reconciliation between the Jewish and the Spanish nations, and in this context, the official recognition in 1987 by the Spanish Kingdom of the State of Israel and the institution of diplomatic relations at embassy rank between the two mediterranean states.

Samuel Toledano was a founding member of the Center for Judeo-Christian Studies in Madrid. He has involved also in the business circles, having been a board member and financial director of Jusan company in Madrid

He died of a heart attack in Madrid, Spain on July 22, 1996. Was married twice and had one son, Mauricio and three grandchildren.

In his memory was founded the Samuel Toledano Prize which is attributed every year by the Misgav Institute in Jerusalem to people from Spain, Israel and other countries who contribute to the research of the Sefaradic heritage and its Christian and Muslim context.

Writings

• Samuel Toledano, Espagne: les retrouvailles, in: Les Juifs du Maroc (Editions du Scribe) Paris 1992 (article in French in a book about the Jews of Morocco)

References

• NYT July 25, 1996 (page B8)

External links

• Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered. - book reviews in National Review on December 5, 1994, by Ben Toledano
• Toledo :Capital of Sepharad - lecture of Samuel Toledano in Los Angeles - in "Encounters" Autumn 1990, p. 37-41 at the Wayback Machine (archived June 27, 2007)
• Raanan Rein - Diplomacy, Propaganda, and Humanitarian Gestures:Francoist Spain and Egyptian Jews, 1956-1968, Iberoamericana VI,23,(2006), 21 -33