Grand Old Boycott

Wrote Christopher Columbus: "In the same month that Their Majesties [King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella] issued the edict that all Jews should be driven out of the Kingdom and its territories--in that same month they gave me the order to undertake my expedition of discovery."

Jewry's answer to Ferdinand & Isabella was to declare in 1492 a Jewish boycott of Spain which was still in effect last week. For 443 years Orthodox Jews have eschewed trading with Spain or felt twinges of conscience for doing so. Last week in Warsaw the hoary Boycott of Spain was ended at last for Polish Jews by their Rabbinate.

"The [Jewish] ban against Spain was not against the Spanish people but against the evil rulers of Spain in the 15th Century," ruled Poland's Rabbinate. "Therefore the boycott is no longer valid at present, when the Jews are treated like everyone else by the Spanish Government."

No other rabbinate followed the forgiving lead of Polish Jewry, for many an Orthodox Jew cherishes the tradition of boycotting Spaniards. In his able We Jews, Journalist George Sokolsky characteristically reports : "England and Holland which used him [the Jew] prospered, while Spain, which excluded him, collapsed economically and its great Empire sank into a Mediterranean memory."

Cheered last week as they recollected the fate of Spain. Jews took fresh courage to boycott Germany, if necessary, until the Fatherland becomes a Baltic memory and the boycott of Nazis a hallowed tradition in timeless Israel.

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