El Otro Camino: 1492

The same week that Columbus sailed west in 1492, the last Jews of Spain were being expelled. Even though they had lived there for a thousand years, religious intolerance threw them out. Where did they go? Who took them in? The answer will surprise you: while most found refuge in Portugal (briefly), Antwerp and in Amsterdam, and then in the western hemisphere, most of these Spanish Jews, or the Sephardim, settled in lands ruled by the Ottoman sultans. Around 180,000 lived in the Balkans, and they lived alongside their Christian and Muslim neighbors. Until 1941 and 1942, when the Germans invaded the region and--with some local collaborators--murdered most of them. But then came the 500th anniversary of the expulsion in 1992, and the very last of the Sephardic Jews in the embattled, war torn city of Sarajevo said: We remember what intolerance did to us. We know what hate does. It is not our way. We travel another path.

Study Guides

Jewish Life in Spain/Expulsion

The precise origins of the Jewish communities of the Iberian peninsula are unclear. There is inconclusive evidence of a Jewish presence dating from pre-Roman times. More substantial references date from the Roman period, when substantial Jewish immigration probably first occurred. 

Ottoman Empire

Many of the expelled Jews re-settled in the Ottoman Empire, to which the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged, and where they were welcomed by Sultan Bajazet II. The descendants of Jews from Spain (and Portugal) are referred as Sephardim, as “Sepharad” means Spain in Hebrew.

Yugoslavia

After the First World War, Bosnia and Herzegovina became part of the newly founded "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes", which stretched from the Western Balkans to Central Europe. This territory was ethnically very diverse.

Sarajevo

Today, Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina and has about 300,000 inhabitants.

Lesson plans for this film

4 results
For grades Documents

Roads

History

This lesson plan is based on Centropa's El Otro Camino film. The lesson is designed for Hungarian students, who usually have minimal knowledge about the Sephardic Jewry.

12, 9

El otro camino - Materialien für den Spanischunterricht

other projects
10

Ladino, language of the Sephardic Jews

Literature

LADINO, LANGUAGE OF THE SEFARDIC JEWS

Grade of class: middle and junior high
Course lesson taught in: transversal during Spanish language and English language lessons
Category of lesson...

9

Getting to know and “adopting” my neighborhood

etika, hit- és erkölcstan, History
A year-long project that includes several parts—making videos and a photograph tour of the local Jewish history in Thessaloniki, creating a Holocaust library for the school, creating an exhibition for...
10, 11, 12, 9