Hernán Rodríguez Fisse
SEFARDIES EN EL EXILIO
Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Zéjel, 2019
Reviewed by Regina Igel1
A broad historical panel covering the end of the Ottoman Empire, the two world wars, the foundation of the State of Israel, the Cold War and other world changes compete with the history of the Turkish Jew Eliezer Fisse’s large family in this biographical book written in Spanish. The narrative voice belongs to Hernán Rodríguez Fisse, Eliezer and Raquel’s grandchild, who was born, raised and educated in Chile, South America.
On reading this exciting, dynamic and instructive novel – is it so, or is it a compendium of biographies and historical events? – one may feel that the people who populate the writing are alive in their respective countries, doing their individual tasks in life, living their lives as well as possible. Given the dates of their births, we have to assume otherwise in relation to their lifespans.
Let`s start as the author did, catching his grandfather Don Eliezer Fisse, at age 46, opening his store of spices, located in the ‘Mercado de las Especias de Estambul.’ Mr. Fisse, born in 1884, as usual was there before seven in the morning, the diverse aromas of pepper, cloves, cardamom, oregano, among many other herbs wafting from his store. A good-spirited person in his almost six foot frame, a swimmer in excellent shape, we read that he was upset after a sleepless night due to a letter he and his beloved wife, Raquel Cohen, had received the day before. It was from the Notre Dame de Sion School, where Esther, their second daughter, was studying. As the name indicates, it was a Catholic school, which attracted families who were able to afford the expenses related to room and board, where Fortunée, five years younger than Esther, also was studying. The letter that changed the mood of their parents, signed by the school’s director, informed them that their daughter Esther had decided to convert to Catholicism, besides thinking of becoming a nun. It also let them know that she would be, according to the rules related to would-be novices, isolated from everybody, including her family, and that she had opted to change her name from Esther to Therese. Mr. and Mrs. Fisse were absolutely shocked with this news, prompting Señora Raquel to go to the school to cancel the registration of her two daughters. She was unable to contact Esther, but was able to take Fortunée out of the academy. Such an interruption and suspension of the younger girl’s studies was an incident that Fortunée would resent for the rest of her life. Eventually, Esther abandoned the idea of becoming a nun but still converted to Catholicism, becoming an ardent follower of Christianity, and marrying an American diplomat, descendant of a Catholic Polish family that had settled in the United States.
Back to that unfortunate day for the Fisses, as the narrator tells us now about the origin of the Fisse family: escaping from the Inquisition in the 16th century, an ancestor of Eliezer fled Spain toward France, where he created the surname ‘Fisse,’ as a remembrance of ‘Ben,’ the Hebrew word indicating patronymic linkage. In ‘Fisse,’ according to that forebear of Mr. Fisse, the name included the idea of ‘son of’ (in French, ‘fils de’).
Don Eliezer’s father was a rich merchant who had traveled between Wallon and Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire, for business purposes. In one of his stays in the capital of Turkey at the time (then called Constantinople), he met, fell in love with and married a young local woman, the daughter of a prosperous merchant, of traditional and conservative Sephardic Judaism. They established themselves in Istanbul, where Eliezer Fisse was born.
Like his father, as an adult Eliezer became a business man, traveling between the capital and Smyrna (Izmir), where he met Raquel, whom he married. Different from Eliezer, who was a sort of agnostic, Raquel was very religious and respectful of all Jewish rites, and their home was a fortress of Judaic rituals and Jewish faith. For that reason, one can appreciate the shock the family got when receiving a letter from the nun-director about Esther’s wish to convert. The reason that such a devoted Jewish family sent their two daughters to a Catholic school was that it was an open academy for Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim girls, after President Atarturk, the open-minded leader of a new Turkey, established a secular direction for the country. Moreover, the school had a reputation of being a very good institute for girls, and because of the non-existence of lay schools for women it was the only schooling route for the two Fisse girls. After the episode with Esther, the family turned to other means of schooling for their daughters, the newly opened English High School for Girls. Albert, the first son, had no problem in the selection of school. Men in Turkish society had a much more privileged situation.
Eliezer Fisse and Raquel Cohen, whose father gave his son-in-law substantial financial help as part of the young lady’s dowry, established themselves in Istanbul, where we found him opening his store of spices, much expanded after his marriage. The couple had one son and five daughters. Their first child, a male, was followed by Becky, Esther (or Therese), Fortunée, Leyla and Ida. Judeo-Spanish, the language spoken by his wife`s family, became the means of communication among all members of Eliezer`s family too, in spoken and written ways.
All of the changes occurring within the heart of that clan, like their children’s marriages (some arranged by their parents, some coming from spontaneous love between the couple), departures to other countries, births and deaths are described along with transformations occurring in Turkey and in the rest of the world. Therefore, descriptions of the two world wars, as well as an account of Turkish Zionist movements, the effects of the Cold War and more universal changes, are faithfully related in the narrative. Furthermore, ways of preparing culinary delights and other Jewish Turkish practices are included in the rich and detailed descriptive panel the author inserts about some of the Sephardic habits in Turkey.
Fortunée, daughter number three, married David Rodríguez, who had a younger brother, Jacques, in South America, where he owned a small shirt factory. Upon receiving an invitation from Jacques to join him in Chile, David decided to move to South America, to the extreme discomfort of Fortunée, who loved Turkey, her family and friends. But she had to follow her husband, a duty that her mother reminded her was part of the Jewish and Turkish tradition. The couple established themselves in that country, where their son, the narrator of these stories, was born (June 14, 1950).
The author conveys the main changes in the lives of his uncle, mother and four aunts, from their childhoods to their adulthoods, according to what he heard from his mother, and as he read in letters, postcards and other kinds of information. He describes each one of them during happy moments or facing unpleasant situations in their own and in their families’ lives.
A unifying element among all members of the Fisse clan was their love for each other, their understanding – even if emerging later in the course of years – of some of their members’ decisions (when two of the sisters married out of the Jewish sphere, for example), and their intense joy in seeing each other again, whenever it occurred in Israel, the United States, France, or Turkey, since geographical separation was the fate of most of them. Their communication took place almost exclusively in Judeo-Spanish, either personally, by letters, or through phone calls, as if the language were a seal of recognition of their loyalty to their Sephardic legacy.
The iconography in the book shows a picture of the Fisse family when the children were still young, while its cover presents two photos: one of the boy and the five girls of Eliezer and Raquel Fisse, and another one of buckets of colorful spices, as we can still see them in any store of condiments in Turkey.
1 Regina Igel is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Director of the Portuguese Program at the University of Maryland, College Park (USA).