"Research helps retrieve the Sephardic past, and film and literature make it attractive to the public," according to Anna Dulska, a researcher within the Creativity and Cultural Heritage project of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at the University of Navarra, at the III Sefarad Session.

This event, entitled “Sefarad imagined and represented (female literature and documentary film),” highlighted female contribution within the framework of International Women's Day (March 8). Participants included writer Toti Martínez de Lezea, who recreated the Sephardic past in several of her works. The seminar hosted the European premiere of the documentary ‘En busca de Sefarad’ (Searching for Sefarad) by Argentine journalists Carina Gurovitz and Paula Castiglioni.

At the seminar, Anna Dulska related details about the project she is developing, which aims to better understand memory of the Sephardic past. To do so, she will recruit participants, and ask them to either fill out a brief questionnaire or sit down for an interview. She will also analyze a centuries-old traditions that has survived, namely that expelled Jews took the keys to their homes with them in hopes of one day returning.

With regard to other Sefarad-related lines of research, she mentioned studies on Jewish texts kept in various archives, in addition to archaeological work in a variety of geographical areas that attempts to recover its "material culture."One example includes excavations in search of Jewish culture in Estella "that have called attention to this history both for the local population and for tourists."

Bring life to archaeological findings

According to Anna Dulska, these archaeological findings "come to life with stories told in literature and cinema," as is the case of a story about a Jewish girl from medieval Estella that Toti Martínez de Lezea XV included in the book Voces de Sefarad (Voices of Sefarad), which she presented during the seminar.

"It is difficult to write about the Middle Ages in Spain in a literary context without mentioning the presence of the Jews," the ICS researcher argued. "Portraying their daily lives also helps to break down stereotypes that remain in force as regards economic activities. The truth is that they had a very rich culture."

In terms of the documentary, she remarked that "it contributes to recovering contemporary stories, giving a voice to Sephardic people today, who remember a world that no longer exists: A still frame of the fifteenth-century Iberian Peninsula." In this vein, she praised the work of América TV journalists Carina Gurovitz and Paula Castiglioni, who in their documentary portrayed the life of the Sephardic community of Buenos Aires, the largest in the Hispanic world, and their efforts to keep Sephardic culture and traditions alive.

Finally, Anna Dulska noted that the Creativity and Cultural Heritage project will later organize an edition of the Sefarad Session around music because of its importance to Sephardim: "It helps them to maintain their identity and memory of the past and live it out in the present."This year’s seminar opportunely included a surprise performance from the Navarran artist Maite Itoiz, who sung two songs in Ladino.