Trampling on Jews

A childhood memory: walking on the outskirts of my hometown and, upon finding a certain small plant with a purple, grape-shaped flower, being told "they are Jews, stomp on them." And I, assuming that those Jews growing on the edges of the orchards must be a weed, would crush them with conviction, to prevent them from harming anyone.

To write this article, I conducted a small investigation to find out what species this plant from my memory belongs to and, above all, what is the origin of the practice of stomping on it, which, for some reason, has remained fixed in my memory.

A few clicks were enough for me to discover that it is a bulbous plant with the scientific name Muscari neglectum. It was not so easy to find out why, when I was a child, we called it judíos (Jews). Did we only do it in my town? Why? In none of the botany websites I consulted did I find any answer, leading me to think that perhaps I had made it all up. Then I came across a hiker's blog that reproduces a photo of the plant in question and writes: "We called them Jews." Eureka! I browsed the web a little longer and then discovered that it is also popularly known by other names such as nazareno (Nazarene) or clavos de Dios (nails of God). Also a couple of equally revealing details: it is a poisonous plant and it blooms during Christian Lent. Therefore, although I have not found a way to confirm it (if any kind reader can help me gather more information about this tradition, please write to me and I will be grateful), I am quite convinced that the popular practice of stomping on a poisonous plant that blooms before Holy Week and relating it to Jews is, as I suspected, a clear example of atavistic anti-Judaism.

A few years ago, leaving Yad Vashem, with tears in my eyes and completely moved by this impressive museum dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and located on a hill near Jerusalem, this childhood memory came to my mind precisely and, suddenly, I felt a deep shame. Becoming aware of the negative symbolic load of a supposedly innocent tradition that, as a child, I reproduced without being aware of it, as well as the underlying hatred in that stomping on Jews, has these things.

The stigmatization of Jews in our country goes back a long way. It is splendidly explained by The Lost Mirror. Jews and Converts in the Middle Ages, recently opened at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. An exhibition organized jointly with the Museo del Prado to showcase, through a series of first-rate artworks, the view of Christians in Spain during the period 1285-1492 on their Jewish and convert neighbors. Due to their enormous indoctrinating power over the popular classes, we could say that these lavish and terrible altarpieces were the TikTok or Twitter of the time, since, like these social networks today, they also served to viralize messages of hate and fake news. Art was the tool and the reflection of a rampant anti-Judaism that would lead to the expulsion of Iberian Jews in 1492. I recommend that you visit the exhibition and do so carefully, as there is much to see, read, and reflect upon. 

As I also recommend Stefan Zweig. Universal Author, an exhibition dedicated to the great Austrian writer that can be seen at the Entrada de carruatges of the Ateneu Barcelonès. For those who have not read him, you should know that Zweig was Jewish and, like so many others, had to leave his home to flee the Nazi horror. The exhibition follows the travels of this cultured, free, and cosmopolitan man through original manuscripts, letters, photographs, film fragments, and sound recordings, and asserts the relevance of his message: the utopia of a peaceful world without borders.

Coincidentally, these two magnificent exhibitions, which directly or tangentially address hatred towards Jews, have coincided in Barcelona. Two exhibitions that, in time, also coincide with a new bloodbath in the Middle East. The Hamas attack on October 7 against Israel and the subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip by the Israelis has once again plunged the region into a spiral of violence. Again, hatred, evil, suffering, and death, the most execrable crimes, us against them. And, therefore, also the intact aspiration for a world at peace where no one wants to kill and no one has to die to defend borders. For this reason too, these are two very timely and highly relevant exhibitions.