Jewish Identity and Crypto-Judaism: The emergence of a community

Seth Ward, University of Wyoming

Leslie and Gloria Mound Library

Netanya Academic College, Netanya Israel, May 23, 2012

 

Introduction from library talk

I am happy indeed to honor my friend Gloria Mound and to honor the creation of the Leslie and Gloria Mound library. For the past few years I have brought a student study-abroad delegation (havaya yisraelit limudit) from the University of Wyoming in May or June. Last year I made intense efforts to adjust my schedule to speak at the opening; in the end this proved impossible. I regretted not being able to attend the opening ceremony and conference, and thank the Netanya Academic College for this opportunity to celebrate the opening of this important resource. I am also grateful for this opportunity to recall the late Leslie Mound, z”l. I brought students to Gan Yavneh a few times; as much as they recalled the resources and enthusiasm that Gloria Mound brought to this study, they recalled the graciousness of Leslie Mound, whose kind manner and warmth was so highly appreciated by my students and colleagues at receptions made at the Mound’s home after Gloria’s presentation. He is deeply missed.

I beg indulgence of my students—this is not a part of my career that is often reflected in their classes.

 

 

In April, I spoke at an event honoring Dr. Stan Hordes, a man whose long career has had many achievements, not all of them related to crypto-Jews or Jewish history; and, as a state Historian and expert on water and other rights descending from Spanish colonial times in that area, not even to Jewish studies at all. This past May I spoke at the Leslie and Gloria Mound library in Netanya Israel, a collection of books and materials that opened last year and is part of a new program in Sephardic studies with special reference to Crypto-Jews. These occasions provided a reference point to take stock of the changes and growth over the past few decades.

Put very simply, the past three decades or so have seen radical changes in the expression and study of what I shall call “crypto-Judaism,” in the way Crypto-Judaism is understood, in the emergence of a community, and its relationship with Judaism. Moreover, this period has seen sharp changes in ways that Jewish identity is articulated, and today I hope to address themes about community and identity that may be of particular interest to today’s audience.

 

For this audience today (In the University of Shanghai) I should start with a definition: In many places around the world, there are individuals who see themselves as descendants of Jews who were living in Spain over 500 years ago. Even in the 13^th century, Jews (and Muslims) were under pressure to join the dominant society by adopting Christianity, and many did so. All of them observed Christianity in public, adopting Christian names, attending Christian worship services and otherwise living Christian lives. However, some of them continued to view themselves as Jews—some only in an ethnic sense, taking pride in the fact that they Christians who were of the same race as Jesus himself—but some in a religious sense, observing Judaism in secret and passing down their heritage to their families. The pace of conversion to Christianity hastened in 1391, after riots in many cities. In the 1400s, Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella  of Castille, uniting the two largest Kingdoms in what is today Spain—and in essence forming Spain as we know it today. They drove out the last vestige of Muslim rule in January of 1492, and in March, they decreed that all Jews had to leave Spain by the summer. But this did not affect Christians of Jewish heritage, and Jews who became Christians could stay in Spain.

My own feeling is that some converts were loyal to Judaism, others were convinced of the truth of Christianity; the situation was somewhat different in neighboring Portugal, where the entire Jewish community, including many Jews who had left Spain, were baptized and declared to be Christians in 1497. In the past 30 years in the USA—earlier in some places—a number of individuals of largely Spanish heritage have begun to assert a Jewish identity, based on their understanding that they had Jewish ancestors, and in some cases based on assumptions that their immediate ancestors had inherited some Jewish practices or beliefs—although they kept them hidden from their Christian neighbors.

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The World Over was a publication of the New York Board of Jewish Education distributed to young American Jews at Hebrew schools around the country in the 1950s and 1960s—and, I have found, fondly remembered by all those familiar with it from those days.  Their pieces about the Inquisition, especially the superb graphic-novel style histories by Morris Epstein on the back cover, highlighted the romance of Jewish survival against all odds—a theme that resonated well in this newsletter addressed to the youth of a highly assimilating community. As I remember it, the World Over never quite answered the question of what became of the descendants of the conversos who retained loyalty to Judaism. Back on those days, there were few indicators of any survival; if there were, I wonder how attractive they would have been to the World Over or to American Jews as a whole. As romantic as 16^th and early 17^th century perseverance of Jewish identity in a Christian world may have seemed, in the 20^th century North American context, converso descendants had indeed committed the arch-crime: they did not maintain Jewish identity, willfully assimilating into their environment. Indeed, the late father of the current PM, Ben-Tzion Netanyahu emphasized the degree to which many converso descendants had identified strongly as Christians and identified Spanish attitudes towards Limpieza de Sangre “purity of blood” with the beginnings of an approach to Jewish heritage in which hatred and oppression was based not on the religious orientation or even on self-identification but on determination of Jewish identity made by governments and the Church, and based more on what we would call racial heritage—the beginnings of antisemitism. Netanyahu’s conclusions are controversial to be sure, but, suggest that some of those who identified with the Law of Moses did so only because of antisemitism—a finding that is highly problematic for a community dedicated to ending antisemitism and promoting Jewish identity.

 

Indeed, a generation ago there was little scholarship at all that suggested any survival whatsoever of Jewish identity among the descendants of Conversos. Cecil Roth’s history of the Marranos had little; indeed, Roth was editor of the Encyclopedia Judaica and there is little in the 1972-4 publication to suggest the great flowering of interest and research that have ensured in the past 40 years. Raphael Patai had visited the village of Venta Prieta and dismissed its Judaic practices—a view he was later to emend. There were a few references to persons who believed they had some Jewish ancestry—although sometimes connected with personages such as the Carvajal family; one famous historian of 17^th century New Spain traced his own ancestry back to the Carvajal family with multiple strands—while insisting he had no connection with any Jewish ancestry at all. J.R. Marcus, the dean of American Jewish Historians, served the Jews of Trinidad, Colorado for the High Holy days for many years. He is quoted as suggesting that there were as some 2000 New Christians in New Mexico in the 16^th century—yet it is not clear to me that he believed the Spanish speakers in the area preserved Jewish practices or identity into the 20^th century. There was little popular awareness either. Dan Ross published a wonderful book called Acts of Faith (my first published article was a short review of this book) with accounts of his travels to Venta Prieta, of the Xuetas and other communities which preserved Jewish identity—in 1982—and had nothing to say about the New Mexico phenomenon.

 

The Six Day War—in which the old city of Jerusalem came into Israeli control and Israel avoided disaster, and attitudes toward Israel and Judaism began to change—the growth of a more denominational approach to Jewish education, and the spirit of multiculturalism changed American Jewish life. Slowly there came to be more awareness of broader diversity in Judaism. America as a whole changed too, and so did the Spanish-ancestry community. Urbanization and mobility brought many Hispanos into contact with Jews; Suburbanization and economic growth brought them together as well, as did education and shared experiences stretching back to World War II.  America had become a melting Pot, but in the aftermath of the 1960s, greater valorization of diversity and a radical drop in Antisemitism also played a role. (Charles Silberman argued that American Antisemitism ended in the 1970s when a major family corporation that had had a history of excluding Jews appointed a Jewish president and no one really made a fuss over it), and in any case, according to an important AJC study, anti-Jewish feelings among persons of hispano ancestry born in America was very low, as compared to the high rate of antisemitism among those born outside the US. The conditions were set for a reconsideration of Jewish heritage among converso descendants.

 

Stan Hordes’ often-repeated account of how people began to express a sense of Jewish identity to him refers to quiet, nearly-clandestine approaches by individuals who had heard him speak about practices reported by the Spanish Inquisition as “Judaizing,” such as lighting candles or having larger meals on Friday evenings, avoiding pork, or eating flat breads around Easter time. These twentieth-century informants told him that they had always wondered about their own, similar family traditions and that his accounts of crypto-Jewish practices from several hundred years ago explained them. In other cases, as reported to me and to others, persons of Spanish heritage who came into contact with Jewish families as domestics, college roommates or army buddies remarked on similarities of practice. At least in such cases, the quest for Jewish identity was initiated by the people themselves as the result of contact with Jews, to be sure, but not by some folklorist or journalist probing them for details, a practice which usually is seen as tainting the research.

 

Slowly, a consistent picture emerged, usually described as the survival of Jewish practices and some sense of a special identity. Hordes’ historical research work provided a sound basis for interpreting modern practices, and his familiarity with genealogical records enabled him to track the ancestry of some of the families with practices that fit the pattern—often enough finding known Jewish Iberian ancestors. At the very least, there is a sound basis for understanding some of the reported practices as evidence of survival either of Jewish ritual or converso responses to external fear of Judaism, in other words, modern testimony among the descendants of Spanish colonials to converso heritage. But it also made him keenly aware of the limitations of the sources, of the need for sensitivity and respect for privacy, and care to report findings but not over-interpret. For example, certain objects with potential Jewish significance, or the prevalence of certain names have often been adduced as evidence of a hidden Jewish heritage; he and others have shown that these arguments are of limited utility. In any case, the publication and dissemination of these research findings in the form of scholarly articles, documentaries, exhibits and more greatly facilitated the emergence of a community of individuals of largely Hispanic ancestry who identify in some way with the Jewish people

 

Claims of preserved Jewish heritage have often been controversial, in the US as well as in Israel. A fundamental difference, of course, is that in Israel, there are a number of governmental considerations such as the Law of Return, population registry, state-religious schools and many more that have official stakes in status determination; no such government institutions exist in the U.S. situation. Thus in Israel, deliberations about whether Ethiopian Beta Israel or Falas Mura, Xuetas, Bnai Menashe may be considered Jewish involve governmental bodies. In America, there is no such government involvement of course, and for the most part, no mainstream rabbinic guidance is sought. Some converso descendants have adopted a fully Jewish identity, working with Rabbis trained by some of the main Ranbbinic seminaries—I mean here the large rabbinic schools that furnish Rabbis for all of the main Jewish communities all across the American spectrum from more to less observant—but in my experience, many parts of this community are drawn to work with self-proclaimed Rabbis with no smichut or diploma at all, or whose training is from small programs with little standing in the general Jewish community.

To return to the history of the emergence of this community in America: Whereas there had been reports about Jewish identity among indigenous Mexican people (i.e. Indians) with Venta Prieta, the first inklings of a change in the notion of a “crypto-Jewish identity” in the USA began to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s. In the late 1970s and 80s there were references to contemporary Hispanic families who identified as Jews. Carlos Llaralde did a PhD on members of his own family in the Brownsville are in Texas, near the Mexican border; Some talked about Tejano (Texan)– Jewish identity in places such as San Antonio, and I learned of a number of memoires that were written in those days, but not published, perhaps out of fear of rejection in the largely-Catholic worlds in which the writers lived. This began to change radically in the mid-1980s. There were a few publications around 1985, Hordes and Tomas Atencio published a detailed prospectus in 1987; and a number of histories of New Mexico mentioned some telling details. Hordes was a standard bearer for this change: he interviewed with the American Public Broadcasting Service and was featured in some documentaries, wrote articles in professional journals and newspapers, founded two professional historical societies, and worked with the Smithsonian Institution on an exhibition. A further impetus to this development in the late 1980s was the 500^th anniversary of the Expulsion from Spain. I had just moved from Haifa to Denver Colorado in 1991, and well remember interest expressed to me in such issues as whether Spain would use the occasion to welcome the Jews back to Spain—and what this would mean to people of Spanish ancestry.

 

Back in 1996, I suggested that Crypto-Judaism could be studied and discussed under the rubrics of the question of genealogy, the canon of evidence, and the expression of identity. The “canon of evidence included what I call “argument from names” -- rigorous research has shown that in fact during the 19^th century this argument holds up—using a set of nine families that exhibit crypto-Jewish features, it has been shown that for a generation or two in the 19^th century there were in fact a statistically significant subset of names that were used by their ancestors; otherwise however the evidence is not convincing. A second set of evidence is artifacts—people talked about items used as mezuzot, or holy books or other items supposedly associated with Jewish practice. Again, research has shown that the description of the artifact by those associated with it is more determinative than the artifact itself—most of the artifacts cited as evidence are unconvincing when taken alone. Another part of the canon of evidence is a tradition in a family that somos judaeos “we are Jews” or accusations that these people were Jews. Again, this is not as convincing as you might think: accusations of Judaism may simply reflect an anti-Semitic slur more than actual Jewish heritage.

 

Patient genealogical work demonstrated Jewish ancestry but a “genetic essentialism” so often plagues popular treatments of this phenomenon; as DNA evidence began to be available professional, critical analysis and serious critiques to flawed arguments are even more necessary. Conclusions drawn from DNA evidence often do not stand up under scrutiny, or are irrelevant to the point being made. For example, the famous “Cohen Modal Haplotype” – a Y chromosome pattern occurring with striking frequency among men who claim to be Kohanim – occurs often enough among people with no such claim, so often, indeed, that in general, Jewish males with traditions of being Kohanim are only a small subset of males with this haplotype—put differently, a Kohen has a strikingly high probability of having this haplotype, but a person with the haplotype still has a very low probability of being Jewish or having Jewish ancestors. (This type of analysis is important even when addressed to those who are impervious to logic and, unwilling to accept the fact that often proffered evidence does not stand up under scrutiny.  I wrote these lines about some of the genetics presentations in various conference I have attended, but it applies equally well to those such as Judith Neulander or various journalists who wrote critically in general of work identifying the phenomenon of Crypto-Judaism) To my mind, the most important decision in the area of genetic genealogy was to devote much effort and energy to the medical sphere: one may quibble about the interpretation of this or that allele or group of Y-chromosome genes, but the identification of diseases and disorders worth testing among a given subset of the population saves lives.

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The most important component is the study of the expression of identity. Prof. Kunin’s book on the subject is Juggling Identities. This book has a fascinating analysis of a session offered by some Messianic Christians on how they constructed their sense of a Jewish heritage and Jewish identity—based on a conference presentation which might not have come about except for Stan’s patient insistence to program committee members and society board that giving them a space to articulate their approach was a crucial component in understanding all aspects of Crypto-Jewish identity.

So, what are the components of this community? In my teaching, I often use the typology of “believing, behaving and belonging” to organize descriptions of what is important in describing religious movements. Among the Crypto-Jews of the U.S. Southwest, there is little unanimity of belief in the traditional religious sense: some fervently believe in God and some don’t, some express beliefs that would be familiar to anyone in the normative Jewish community; most do not. Underlying this, I conclude, is an important belief: the belief in the value of continuity of their Jewish identity, at least in a hidden form, and the value of their type of identity. To rephrase this: they believe it is important to affirm that they and their ancestors have always been Jewish in at least some sense, rather than to assert that they have some Jewish ancestors or heritage and they have chosen to identify as Jews. 

 

Behavior is easier to discuss, as is the sense of belonging. Indeed, in observing this community and participating in some of their events, it seems to me that the believing and belonging components are expressed in a readily identifiable pattern.

 

1.      1.  Rituals and places. Rabbis, Conference, Purim/Esther

Some people in this community follow very traditional Jewish rituals, but most do not. Most talk about rituals and practices they believe their ancestors followed: lighting candles on Friday nights –similar to the Jewish practice—but in a hidden area in the house, or baking pan de Semita at Easter time—but few follow these rituals either. Research has shown that the Jewish festival of Purim was highly meaningful to Crypto Jews several centuries ago, especially the story of Esther, who kept her Jewish identity secret even when brought into the royal palace and married to the King—but while they talk of Esther with pride, relatively few participate in normative Purim activities.

 

Many, though, participate in various groups and forums, conferences and travel. They seek DNA confirmation of their heritage—it seems to me that this should be considered a kind of ritual. They consult Rabbis and cheer various organizations and rabbis who speak to their beliefs about the continuity of their Jewish identity—regardless of the training and standing of these leaders. Just as “Jewish continuity” seems to be a major unifying belief (rather than belief in God)—as is true for many Jews in the Mainstream Jewish world—who do not have strong religious beliefs regarding the Divine--this style of “Jewish practice” mirrors that of the general Jewish community, whose practice has only a small religious content, but often centers around leaders whose opinions are cherished, and non-religious community institutions.

 

Thus, “belonging” is the most important component—but here we see that belonging to the Crypto-Jewish community or to a Sephardic subset of Judaism—appears to be the most important component of this equation.

 

2.      2.  Minority attitudes-Crypto Jews /African American parallels 1960-1980s.

An interesting area for further research is a comparison between Hispanic Crypto-Jews and African American Muslims. Both groups share a narrative asserting a unique heritage:  “Our ancestors included Jews or Muslims” (that is not or not merely Christian Blacks or Spaniards), and a conscious choice to adopt this heritage, including the notion that some small trace was preserved – even if it was hidden or nearly destroyed. Moreover, these communities have not simply folded into the religious mainstream, both due to some of the choices they have made, and due to a feeling in the respective mainstream communities that these groups may represent historic returns – but are also marginal and have practices and beliefs that may not be “mainstream” enough.  

 

3.      3. Complex attitude towards mainstream, classic communities, multiple identities, reshaping self-image

The Crypto-Jews remind us that adopting a religious heritage can be very complex, and part of a multiple set of identities. There is no single pattern; if anything, the Crypto-Jews seem to behave more like American secular Jews than traditional Jews. Despite the protestations of Crypto-Jews that they are maintaining a religious tradition, often it is the racial component that is most important to them. DNA do not have religion—but often that is just how this is expressed in this community.

 

 

4.      4. Important roles of researchers/standard bearers/ creation of institutions and publications.

Finally, I must offer a few words about “Standard Bearers,” institutions and publications in the formation of identity.  I mentioned various processes and changes such as the Six Day War, integration into urban and especially suburban areas with large Jewish populations, shared experiences in World War II, the decline of antisemitism—and I do think these were necessary for and partially the cause for openness to or indeed desire to express a Jewish identity among hispanos. But I do not think they were sufficient: people like Stan Hordes and Gloria Mound worked to help give this phenomenon a voice, and (this is also important) combined commitment to spreading the voice with research and critical thinking. Although Stan, for example, has often been called a “booster” he is more of a “standard bearer”—both in the since of carrying the flag (i.e. the ‘standard’) but also of maintain standards. The leaders and institutions created have made it possible for hispanos interested in exploring Jewish identity to do so, and made it easy to be part of the “Crypto-Jewish Community” – and on the whole these institutions have not insisted on a traditional approach to belonging to the Jewish mainstream. It seems to me to be inevitable that this be so, and the institutions pretty much have to adopt a broad, inclusive and secular approach, in which the religious component is similar to that of secular Jewish institutions.

 

It is also inevitable that some individuals, movements and institutions are entirely committed to integrating descendants of Crypto-Jews into the contemporary Jewish community and providing them a traditional Jewish identity. Had organizations or Rabbis emphasizing traditional religious training and practice (and not emphasizing research and an inclusive approach) been more active in the US, for example, the shape of the Crypto-Judaism “community” would have been quite different.

 

POSTSCRIPT

 

Here in China, Jewish identity is not much of an issue, although it might be that individuals who believe they have ancestry from Kai Feng or for that matter from Jews of Shanghai or Tientsin of a century or more ago might come forward and assert that they hid  their Jewish identity from public view for various reasons. However, many Chinese people are wrestling with questions of preserving ethnic and – yes—religious or belief-oriented practice—and the comparison with the issues raised by Crypto-Judaism may well be instructive. 

 

 By: Dr. Seth Ward, Program in Religious Studies, University of Wyoming

 What do we mean by the term "Sephardim"?

 

Spanish Jews are called Sephardim; the singular is "Sephardi." The Hebrew "sephardi" or "sepharadi" refers either to a single Spanish Jew, or is used as an adjective meaning pertaining to the Sephardim. For example, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) called himself Moses... the Sephardi. "Sephardic" is used in English as an adjective, not a noun: someone may be Sephardic, but the people should be called "Sephardim" rather than "Sephardics;"

 

Up to the fifteenth century, "Sephardi" was used primarily to refer to the Jewish community in the Iberian peninsula itself, or to someone who was born there. Thus Maimonides called himself "the Sephardi," but his son Abraham, born in Egypt, did not. This changed in the fifteenth and especially sixteenth centuries, primarily as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula.

 

How did the Biblical term Sepharad come to mean "Spain?"

 

The place-name "Sepharad" is mentioned in the Bible only in the book of Obadiah, where the prophet refers to the Jerusalemite exiles in Sepharad. There is no scholarly concensus as to the geographical location to which this passage originally referred. Some scholars have suggested locations in Mesopotamia, Sardis in Asia Minor, or Sparta in Greece. From late Roman times, some Jews assumed that Sepharad referred to Spain. In any case, this was but one instance of the transference of biblical terms such as Sepharad, Tzarefat and Ashkenaz from their original Middle-Eastern referents to European locales. By the Middle Ages, Sepharad was the normal term used by Jews to refer to Spain.

 

A Brief History of Jewish Life in Spain

 

According to Sephardic tradition, the first Jews to arrive in Spain were the exiles from Jerusalem to whom Obadiah referred, who came in the sixth pre-Christian century. Many scholars assume Jews settled in Spain in Roman times, but we have little information about Jewish life in Spain until the time of the Visigothic Spanish kingdom, which outlawed Judaism at the end of the seventh century after the kings had become Catholics. Spain was conquered by the Muslims in 711. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Spanish Judaism flourished under the Muslims, producing poets, scholars, and courtiers of the first order. After the Christian Reconquista gained Toledo in 1085, when the Almoravids came to rule the Islamic side of the frontier, Jewish cultural achievements in Muslim Spain began to decline, disappearing under the Almohades in the mid-twelfth century. But Christian Spain meanwhile developed its remarkable convivencia in which Jews (and Muslims) were involved in cultural, intellectual, financial and even political life all over Christian Spain. By the mid-thirteenth century, the Christians controlled all of the Peninsula except for a small area from Granada to the Mediterranean. In many of the independent Spanish kingdoms, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries still saw striking religious, cultural and literary achievements among the Jews, but Jews also faced increasing religious pressures and occasionally were forced to participate in religious "disputations" with Christians.

 

Anti-Jewish riots broke out in several cities in 1391. The fifteenth century was marked by continuing hardships and religious pressure, leading many Jews to convert or to leave Spain. In January, 1492, the Muslims were driven out of their last stronghold, Granada, completing the Reconquista. In March, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decreed the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Many Jews converted or left the Iberian peninsula; other Jews went to Portugal, where Judaism could still be practiced freely. But Portugal expelled its Jews in 1497, and the tiny kingdom of Navarre followed suit in 1498. Judaism could be practiced openly nowhere in the Peninsula.

 

The exact number of Jews who left Spain and Portugal at the end of the fifteenth century is debated by scholars, but may be estimated at several hundred thousand, significant enough to enable Sephardim to establish their own congregations in such places as Morocco, Italy, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, the Land of Israel, and elsewhere. Eventually, Sephardic communities were established in Amsterdam, London and the New World as well. In many places the Sephardim, with their energy, resources, training and vitality, quickly took a leading role in local Jewish cultural and religious life.

 

"Sephardim" after 1492 

 

Today, Jews descended from the communities where Spanish Jews settled are called Sephardim. Indeed, the term "Sephardic Jews" is often used by extension to refer to all Jews who are not part of the Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern-European) culture-world. Although some Jews of Spanish heritage resent this loose usage, it reflects the success of Sephardic religious traditions, language and customs in many of the places in which the exiles settled. The "Sephardic Rite" is sometimes used to refer not to the prayer ritual of the Sephardim but of Rabbi Isaac Luria (d. 1573), an Ashkenazi (!) who combined elements of both Sephardic and Ashkenazic ritual. This prayerbook was adopted by the Hasidim in Eastern Europe and is probably the most common one in use in Israel today. 

 

Who are the Conversos?

 

Many Spanish Jews converted to Catholicism in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially in the aftermath of the Edict of Expulsion in 1492. These "conversos," often called "New Christians," included many who became devout, believing Catholics, or at any rate educated their children to be. Others, however, preserved Jewish practices and did their utmost to retain some sort of Jewish identity. Most knew little or nothing about the Jewish religion and beliefs of their ancestors; some may have developed an interest in Judaism only after threatened by or actually charged by the Inquisition. Scholars debate the percentage of New Christians who were loyal to Judaism; some believe it was very low. Nevertheless, a steady stream of conversos and their descendants returned to the open practice of Judaism throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and even afterward; often their communities were called "Spanish-Portuguese." Conversos or their descendants who were believed to continue Jewish practices or to hold Jewish beliefs were called "Marranos," a derogatory term meaning "swine."

 

What do we mean by the term Crypto-Judaism?

 

"Crypto-Judaism" is used to describe the broad range of secret practices and beliefs of those secretly maintaining some tie to Judaism but forced to uphold another religion in public. Although the term is almost always used with respect to Sephardic conversos, it could be said to apply to the secret Judaism practiced under Islam under the Almohades in the 12th century, in Mashhad, Iran, in the 19th-20th centuries, and possibly to the Turkish Dönme. Due to its secretive nature, a sense of community was possible only in fairly remote areas; even so, there was a constant fear that a practice might "give them away" to the authorities, or even that a family member might turn them in.

 

"Crypto-Judaism" is used to refer to a wide range of phenomena. In some cases, families are reported to have transmitted explicit statements such as "We are Jews" through the generations. In other cases, no one knew the reason for practices passed down as family traditions.

 

What about Crypto-Judaism in the New World?

 

Some of those who settled in Spain's American colonies were conversos or descendants of conversos. When Spain established the Inquisition in her New-World colonies, inquisitors soon found much evidence of "Judaizing." Whether from loyalty to Judaism or fear of the Inquisition (which confiscated property first and conducted hearings only afterwards), many New Christians found their ways to remote areas. Research documentation is particularly strong about New Christian settlement in what later became northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Inquisition records clearly indicate, however, that throughout the Spanish empire, the Holy Office located individuals who expressed loyalty to the "Law of Moses" rather than to Christianity, and suffered the consequences.

 

At the end of the seventeenth century, the Inquisition for the most part lost interest in prosecuting crypto-Jews, ironically leading to a dramatic reduction in the preservation of Judaic practices. Many crypto-Judaic families lost much of their identity and assimilated into the Catholic mainstream. Others, however, appear to have maintained some Jewish customs, and even a consciousness of their ancestral faith. Today, some of the descendants of New Christians are discovering their Jewish or converso heritage. At least in some villages, traditional converso crypto-Judaic practices have survived up to the present.

 

Not all manifestations of Judaism in these areas should be assumed to preserve converso practices brought over from Spain. There may well have been other contacts with Jews, and, curiously, several communities sometimes thought to be converso descendants who returned to Judaism may reflect instead the workings of a Judeophilic Protestant missionary church.

 

At the end of the twentieth century, many converso descendants from this area find themselves no longer in the village but in the city. They have come into contact with Jews, but also have lost some of their contact with family and village traditions. Paradoxically, as these traditions have begun to fade, those who have inherited them are in a better position to relate to them openly. This process has not only been going on in the American Southwest, but in Portugal itself, where the converso community of Belmonte openly returned to Judaism, undergoing a formal conversion ceremony.                      

Seth Ward

 

Another paper found online from the archives or from my backlog.

“I am a Jew:” An Oral History profile of Michael Atlas-Acuña

Seth Ward

University of Wyoming^[1]

 

Since the 1980s, many individuals of Hispanic heritage in the Southwestern part of the United States have come forward with claims of being “crypto-Jews”^[2]—using various terms such as Marranos, Anusim, and Sepharadim—or simply, “Jews” or “Israel”—and combinations of these.^[3] Generally, they claim that their families preserved some aspect of Jewish identity–usually unknowingly. Often they have done some genealogical work, although often this has included finding Jewish or Converso individuals with family names similar or identical to names that have been identified in their families. Strikingly, many of their reports include references to a positive view of Jews or interest in Judaism generated by a sense that Judaism is part of their own heritage. Indeed, much of the discussion and controversy about “Crypto-Judaism” in the contemporary southwestern U.S. refers to precisely these three issues: (1) Genealogy, (2) The Canon of Evidence, and (3) Identity. Only a few years ago, there seems to have been a great degree of reticence and indeed uneasiness about discussing these issues in public forums; in recent years more individuals have spoken out freely.

 

TO READ THE FULL PAPER GO TO http://www.uwyo.edu/sward/acuna%20profile%20and%20interview.htm

by Seth Ward, University of Wyoming

Originally posted sometime before 2001. Recovered from archive.org October 2012.

  The Jews of Spain, some of whom trace their settlement in the Iberian peninsula back to the sixth pre-Christian century, eventually came to call their new home "Sepharad," a place-name mentioned only once in the Hebrew Bible, in the book of Obadiah (v. 20). Perhaps this was because of a perceived similarity of the term to "Espaniah," or, perhaps, to "sephar," which in the Aramaic vernacular would denote furthermost limit or seacoast. It is also possible, as has been suggested by David Neiman, that it reflects an ancient connection with the colonization of Spain by people from Sardis, in what is now Western Asiatic Turkey. (D. Neiman, "Sefarad, the Name of Spain," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 22 (1963) 128-132.) Indeed, a bi-lingual inscription found in Sardis in Hebrew and Greek characters, and occurrences in other Greek, Mesopotamian and Egyptian writings, support the conjecture that the Old Testament usage actually refers to the city or area of Sardis, surely perceived as a far-distant location in Obadiah's time.  In any case, Jews immigrating to Spain brought along this serviceable term to express both the remoteness of the peninsula and their spiritual identification with Scriptures and Holy Land.  By early mediaeval times, Spanish Jews were referring to themselves as Sephardim. 

  Obadiah the prophet refers to the exile of Jerusalem in Sepharad.  Although the term has come to refer to Spain, there is no consensus about what the term originally meant in the Book of Obadiah. 

  Sepharad is clearly not one of the ancient Biblical "nations of the world," entities mentioned in the "Table of Nations" in Genesis 11, many of which have clear references to ancient peoples. It is not even clear  whether "Sepharad" in Obadiah represents a concrete reference to a real  location, or a veiled, poetic or prophetic reference to what may be  merely a symbolic toponym. Traditional interpreters of this verse have not even agreed about whether it refers to exiles which occured after the destruction of the first or second Temples. Obadiah, who was close in time to the destruction of the First Temple, may have been referring to the dispersion of Judaeans at that time. We know about Judaeans in Babylonia and Egypt, although perhaps they were in other locations as well. Many Jewish commentators, however, aware of the association of Sepharad with Spain, assume the passage is talking prophetically about  the exile from Jerusalem under Titus, an event far in the future in  Obadiah's time. 

  Some of the discussion of this matter depends on a sense of group pride.  Regardless of the dating of the Jerusalemite dispersion in Sepharad, the association of Obadiah's Sepharad with Spain confers upon this group the sense of an ancient heritage, and a centuries-old presence in the Iberian  peninsula. There is no reason to dismiss the possibility of Roman-period Jewish settlement in Spain, and Judaean settlement there may possibly  even predate Roman times. But the later application of the term Sepharad to Spain is irrelevant to the discussion of when Jews first arrived there.   

  Centuries after Obadiah, the Jews of Sardis in Asia Minor apparently  assumed Sepharad in the Bible referred to their community in Roman and  Byzantine times; many scholars assume that Obadiah's reference, or the  Talmudic period understanding of the term, may have been this or some  other location in Asia Minor. Presumably this is because of the  similarity in sound between Sardis and Sepharad.  

  The Targum or Aramaic translation of Obadiah, ascribed to Jonathan ben Uzziel, provides what may be the earliest example of making Obadiah's Sepharad refer to Spain: Targum Jonathan translates Sepharad in Obad. 20 as "Espamia." According to the Talmud, Jonathan was a student of Hillel, which would date him to the end of the last pre-Christian century or beginning of the first Christian century. But scholars assume that the Targum Jonathan is much later than that, and certainly "Espamia" could well be a gloss by an even later hand. 

  The Pshitta, a Christian Aramaic translation of the Bible, also glosses Sepharad to refer to Spain. Here too, the date of the Peshitta is hard to determine; any dating based on this occurrence would involve careful examination of variants in manuscript texts.

  Presumably the association of Sepharad with Spain is based on the similarity of sounds. Note, however, that the assonance is not as clearly evident or lacking in ascription of biblical terms like Tsarefat and Ashkenaz to France and Germany. 

  The editors of the Encyclopedia Judaica assert that Sepharad became the most common way of referring to Spain already in Jewish texts of the  eighth century. Yet this ascription was not so standard as to obviate comment by such twelfth century scholars as Ibn Ezra, Rashi and David  Kimchi. Nor had Sepharad had not totally replaced Espaniah or Espamiah  (or al-Andalus in Judaeo-Arabic) in other texts from this period. These references show that the term Sepharad was widely understood to refer to  Spain, but it was not so standard as to pass without comment.  

  One of the more fanciful suggestions about the derivation of Sepharad was offered by a seventeenth century churchman. Dwelling on a superficial similarity in English transcription, he associated Sepharad with the term "span," which he said meant, inter alia "hidden." In Hebrew the term tsafun "hidden" shares only one letter with Sepharad. While the "S" of Sepharad and "Tz" of tzafun might be rendered the same in English, they are distinct in Hebrew.  Perhaps the "n" was suggested by the final letter in the English name of the country. 

  To summarize: Sepharad is found only once in the Bible, in the book of Obadiah. There is no consensus about what location Obadiah had in mind when using this term. Several centuries after Obadiah, the term was appplied to Sardis, at least by the Jewish residents of Sardis, and may have been applied to other areas in Asia Minor or perhaps elsewhere.   Still later, it came to be the term generally used to refer to Spain.  While the use of Sepharad to refer to Spain may go back to the reputed  time of Jonathan ben Uzziel, the end of the last pre-Christian century,  it is really not possible to fix with certainty when this usage is first  encountered, or when it became common. Probably it was already in common use by the eighth century, but even in mediaeval times it was still necessary to provide a presumably more familiar term, Espamia, to describe the location. 

  The original meaning of Sepharad as used by Obadiah cannot be known with certainty if at all; nor can the date by which it was commonly adopted to refer to Spain. Thus from the historian's viewpoint, it has no historical relevance for determining the beginnings of the community. The true significance lies elsewhere. The term "Sepharad" symbolizes the high aspirations of the Jewish community of Spain, and their deep sense of heritage. It is no doubt the source of the uniform ascription by Sephardim of their ancestry to exiles from Judaea, more specifically, from Jerusalem, (to give only one example, Ibn Verga's title Shevet Yehuda "The Tribe of Judah" for his history of Spanish Jewry) and supports the antiquity of their arrival in Spain. (Apparently this is also the source of the assumption sometimes encountered that the exile of Ashkenaz comprises non-Judaeans; since the Ten Tribes went off into captivity these must be descendants of the erev-rav "mixed multitude." The earliest reference of which I am currently aware is from Israel Zangwill's King of the Schnorrers). Ancestry from Judah connects the community with Scriptures and prophecy, and with a promised return to the Holy Land. Thus, underlying the application of Sepharad to Spain (or to Sardis before it) is a statement of great cultural and even ideological meaning. Although it tells us little if anything about the actual history of the community, it provides a clear symbol of values Jews see within history. 

  Seth Ward  

I discovered recently that some of my articles and essays archived on my computer are either unreadable in the current computer environment or were completely compromised. Here are links from the Wayback Machine on archive.org. Please remember that these items were filed in the 1990s and that the du.edu email address listed on them is no longer in service: use sward@uwyo.edu 

Papers, Publications and Essays

By: Dr. Seth Ward

Sepharadim, Converso Descendants, Crypto-Jews

·  Review of a cookbook based on recipes developed from ingredients mentioned in Inquisition records

·  Crypto-Judaism in the U.S. Southwest

·  Profiles of Converso Descendants in the U.S. Southwest

·  Profiles of Converso Descendants in the U.S. Southwest: Lecture in Los Angeles, August 1999

·  Sephardim and Crypto-Jews: A Definition of Terms

·  Sepharad: A brief history of the term.

Lively opinion on Jewish Topics

·  Quranic sources on The Chosen People and Holy Land

·  The Jewish Street

·  Hebrew Literacy

Papers and addresses on other Jewish issues

·  Luther and the Jews

·  Does Judaism have a Catechism?

·  Are Hamantaschen like communion wafers or Christmas Cookies? Inpraxation and a Jewish Typology for food

·  The Jewish Year: The zero-date of the Era

·  Tisha Beav: In what year was the Temple Destroyed (Or: What does the year 5761 mean?)

·  Passover

National Narratives and History

·  On the Holocaust in North Africa, Sephardim and the Islamic World

·  The Battles of Kosovo as National Narrative

New Testament and Jewish Sources

·  The Presentation of Jesus: Jewish Perspectives on Luke 2:22f.

Selected additional documents for teaching, introductory lectures; course syllabi

·  Follow links from Home Page

Converso Descendants in the American Southwest: A Report on Research, Resources, and the Changing Search for Identity

by

Seth Ward University of Denver (Colorado, USA)

Reprinted from Proceedings of the 1998 Conference of the European Association for Jewish Studies, ed. Angel Saenz-Badillos. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999, pp. 677-86.

 

(I have been at the University of Wyoming since January 2003. This article was on my University of Denver website over a decade ago. I know it has been reprinted elsewhere. I am trying to recover some of the articles and essays that I posted at that time. In some cases the ravages of computer failures and advancing technology have made them inaccessible in the electronic formats I have saved myself, so I am trying to find them in some cases via archive.org, reposting them here and/or at http://uwyo.edu/sward.) I have not edited this at all, except such procedures as removing superfluous spaces and fixing some errors introduced by migrating the file. I was not able to fix all such errors correctly.)  

Over the past fifteen years or so, journalistic and academic publications have carried articles about the survival of "Crypto-Jewish" family practices and traditions in New Mexico, U.S.A. and adjacent areas, and about individuals with roots in these areas who have become increasingly open about their "Jewish" or "Crypto-Jewish" identity. For members of the Jewish community, this reawakened awareness and openness is a kibbutz galuyot, a "coming together of exiles," allowing distant relatives to rekindle links, and giving the topic of the "Secret Jews of the American Southwest" tremendous power and popularity. It combines interest in North American Jewish history with the U.S. Jewish community's continuing focus on anti-Semitism-in this case reflected back as interest in the Inquisition and its horrors-and the romance of Jewish survival against all odds.

 

Curiously, a somewhat essentialist approach to descent and genealogy is frequently highly valued among both researchers and crypto-Jews: "Jewish ancestry makes someone a Jew." This attitude is common enough in some contexts within the American Jewish community but stands in stark contrast to its well-known worry about whether their grandchildren will be Jews; many who claim crypto-Jewish descent are far more worried about whether their distant ancestors were Jews.

 

To my mind, the issue of identity has been inadequately or improperly addressed in the research. But before looking at the research and at these issues, we need to briefly review -to the extent space permits-the size and names given to the phenomenon, its "foundation narrative," and some of the elements cited in support of the "Crypto-Jewish" identification.

 

Name and size for the phenomenon

 

It is not clear that there is a standard name to describe the contemporary phenomenon and its provenance, although "Crypto-Jews of the contemporary American Southwest" or "... of contemporary New Mexico" appears to be most common. Other terms are known: "Sephardic Jewish legacy" (Hordes 1993) or even "Southwestern Jews" (Neulander 1994:26); the term judios "Jews" is also encountered within the tradition, and some individuals refer to themselves as Sephardim or Sefarditas, sometimes in contradistinction not only to Ashkenazim but to Jews in general. Tomas Atencio uses the local term "Manito," a "shortened diminutive of Hermano," to refer "to New Mexico's Indohispanos and Indohispanas whose historical threads are anchored in the Colonial period." But he refers to "Crypto-Jews" among the Manitos (Atencio 1996). Others prefer "anusim," (sometimes without differentiation of singular and plural, e.g., "She is an anusim" (e.g. Sandoval 1996). Anusim is of course the typical Hebrew name for Marranos and has been favored in other communities and by some scholars. "Marrano" is also used by some to refer to their community as a mark of honor, not of shame. "Crypto-Jews" or "Secret Jews," however, seems to be the most well-known term.

 

One of the first publications about the New Mexico phenomenon used the term Converso descendants (Nidel 1984:257), a term which is academically attractive as neutral, uncontroversial and descriptive. But few if any inside the community refer to themselves as Conversos or New Christians, and some appear to find this nomenclature offensive or problematic. It is rarely encountered in the literature.

 

Provenance: While the core population seems to have links to villages from central New Mexico to southern Colorado, many discussions of the phenomenon include areas along both banks of the Rio Grande south into Texas, especially around El Paso, and in what is today northern Mexico. "New Mexico," "American Southwest" and several other terms are used more or less interchangeably. Many, however, find it difficult not to include individuals from northern Mexico, Cuba or indeed the entire Spanish speaking world, although presumably speaking only of the New Mexican population.

 

Size: The New Christian community probably reached its heyday in the seventeenth century. The late J.R. Marcus suggested that there were 20,000 Europeans in 17th century Mexico, including parts which are now within the United States about a tenth of them New Christians. (Fierman, 1987:7). Of course, it seems likely that the overwhelming majority of Conversos were not "Crypto-Jews" and were not able to or not desirous of passing along meaningful components of an explicitly Jewish way of life (Fierman, 1987:16, citing Greenleaf).

 

Tobias relates that in the late 1980's, Reverend Carmona estimated there were some 1500 families in New Mexico who were part of this tradition (Tobias, 1990:19). Few others have ventured any reliable guesses about contemporary numbers.

 

One 1996 study, based on a small sample of 28 came up with astounding statistics about Jewish identification. Over a quarter of her sample has formally converted and 60% of those who have not converted nevertheless report attending Jewish services and celebrating holidays (Jacobs 1996). The sample is tiny and based on unscientific affinity group and "snowball sampling" (i.e. various organizations recommend subjects who in turn recommend others). Moreover, just over 40% report descent from Spanish colonial settlers in New Mexico; the rest were themselves born in Mexico and have moved to the area. Jacobs does not comment on whether the converts were Mexican or New Mexican, or on the difficulty of focusing on a single geographical provenance. Nevertheless, these numbers clearly reflect sampling idiosyncrasies, and boldly underscore the identity issue.

 

Foundation Narrative

 

The "foundation narrative" of this phenomenon-the story participants and some researchers tell about the history of New Mexico Crypto-Judaism-starts in the 16th and 17th centuries, when many New Christians or their immediate descendants came to the northernmost parts of New Spain to seek their fortune along the frontier. They settled along the Rio Grande, its tributary creeks and upland villages, from El Paso northward to what is today New Mexico and southern Colorado. Some chose this remote area because they worried they might become targets for the Inquisition, either because they were Judaizers or simply because they were "New Christians." Others came because opportunity knocked-in the form of a colonial settlement expedition which had obtained a release from the usual requirement of limiting participation to those with pure Old-Christian bloodlines (Hordes 1996:82ff). Among those who came to this region were members of families known to have Judaized, such as sons of Luis de Carvajal. According to this foundation narrative, these families married primarily among themselves, maintaining their identity to the present day.

 

Traditional Practices Associated with the New-Mexican Crypto-Judaism

 

According to the foundation narrative, some families lost all knowledge of any Jewish heritage, traditions, or practices. Nevertheless, some of their descendants today are aware of the history of Judaism in Spain, and the presence of many converso descendants in the early Spanish settlement in the region. Many contemporary New Mexico Hispanos believe and in some cases have demonstrated that their ancestors include individuals who were prosecuted by the Inquisition for loyalty to the "Law of Moses." Other families appear to have kept alive traditions describing their families as "Jewish," and still others maintained practices or traditions which have come to be associated with the phenomenon, although without glossing them as Jewish in any way. Space permits only a limited review of the practices and traditions associated with this phenomenon.

 

Names: Many reports indicate that both given names and family names are a source of identification as Crypto-Jews. Florence Hernández has counted about 143 surnames believed to be part of this phenomenon. (1993:419-20). She notes, however, that most of these names were "taken from Christian sponsors," i.e., they were Old Christians names as well. Given names may be a more reliable support for a Crypto-Jewish background. Hernandez lists such names as Sara, Raquel, Rosa, and Betsab , for women and Aron, Abrán, Adán, Efren, Eliséo, Jacobo, and others for men. "Adonay" is sometimes used as a given name, paralleling the use of "Jesus" as a popular given name among Hispanos. This would be anathema to traditional Jews, of course. Although most of these personal and family names are well attested outside the New Mexico group, the presence of "Adonay" and of Old Testament names to the exclusion of Gospel would be striking in any Hispano context. It is also easier to trace than many of the practices, possibly allowing some historical perspective, but conversely is also easily open to alternative explanations (e.g. Neulander 1996).

 

Rejection of Christian or Catholic Practices: Some individuals report a parent advised them that they were not really Christians, or that they never went to church, or were not baptized or waited as long as possible to be baptized, or never took communion or were not confirmed. Some report they were advised not to pray to Jesus and "not to worship Saints," or trinity but to concentrate only on God" (Hernandez 1993:423, Halevy 1996:69). As in the case of the personal names, some note an emphasis on Hebrew Bible stories to the exclusion of New Testament stories. A sense that they were "different" from the mass of Catholic Hispanos may be included within this theme.

 

Sabbath Observances: The most common and striking observance reported is lighting candles Friday night, although often without considering it a "Jewish" practice. Typical reports note women lit candles in bowls in an interior part of the house, or that draperies were drawn (Hernandez 1993:423). Other Saturday-Sabbath reports note that the men did not go to church on Sunday but gathered in a building or in the fields on Saturday, or that the men worked on Sunday but not on Saturday.

 

Food Practices: The avoidance of pork is frequently mentioned; so is slaughter in which the neck was slit by a knife checked for sharpness, and the carcass allowed to hang upside down until all the blood drained out. In a case attested by Neulander, the wife of the informant family nevertheless collected the blood to make morcellina (1996:27). This is a familiar archetype in many contemporary Jewish families: despite a desire on the part of one parent to observe "as much as possible" of kashrut, the other one prepares or brings home clearly non-kosher treats. Some recall avoiding meat with milk, not eating eggs with blood-spots, soaking, salting and soaking the meat, and covering the blood of slaughtered animals with dirt (Halevy 1996:69-71). Use of Kosher wine is also reported: Marie Quintana Snowden wrote me that her family's only Christmas custom was to share a glass of Mogen David Wine (Personal communication, 1998). Isabel Sandoval recalls her family used kosher wine, with a picture on the label of a family sitting around a table wearing funny little hats. Her mother also prepared her own chokecherry wine although she was a member of churches which prohibited wine drinking. (1996:77-8).

 

Holiday Observances: Playing a gambling game with a top, sometimes called pon y saca "Put in and take out" (Hordes 93:137) often cited as a Hanukkah-like practice, as is lighting one more candle or luminaria bonfire each night, starting over a week before Christmas, so that there are 9 flames at Christmas. The observance of a feast or fast in honor of "Esther" is often cited. Baking of pan de semita "semitic bread" is reported at Easter, a heavy bread that did not rise. Some of the reports-e.g. Mrs. Snowden's wine-sharing-may indicate that practices, if they are to be explained as "Crypto-Jewish" were transferred to a different season or occasion, others seem at best to have been corrupted by or understood in the light of normative (i.e. "non-crypto-) Jewish practice.

 

Language: One of the first individuals to come to my attention in Denver, a Spanish teacher, noted that the Spanish in Erensia Sefardi resembled her village Spanish more than Castillian, Mexican or any of the Latin American dialects. Indeed, some refer to the distinctive dialect of the New Mexico villages as "Ladino," but any assessment of this issue is beyond our scope here.

 

Other traditions include gathering nail clippings, sweeping to the center of a room, next day burial, mourning for a year, bathing after contact with the dead, covering the mirrors in a house of mourning, leaving pebbles on graves, and circumcision. Much is sometimes made of the presence of "Star of David" motifs on gravestones and in churches. Neulander notes (1996:29-31) that the hexagram was a Christian symbol as well as a Jewish one and that Scholem has shown that it did not become a universal marker of Judaism until modern times. (Although Neulander correctly read Scholem, she nevertheless did not cite Scholem's references to medieval Jewish hexagrams (1971:269)

 

Genetic: In testing of 18 patients in El Paso and New Mexico associated with a rare genetic disease, it was found that 12 of 13 hispano patients had "genome and protein sequencing associated with Jewish patients" (Hordes 1996:89). Hordes does not say here whether this relates the hispanos to Ashkenazim or to Sephardic Jews, and the extent to which this relates to observed cultural practices, or any other genetic testing; presumably these issues will be addressed in a medically-oriented report which is being published.

 

Many or indeed most of the elements cited in the literature as identifying "Crypto-Jewish" practices are problematic. Merely identifying Jewish parallels, or for that matter Protestant or Ashkenazi sources, is only part of the story.

 

Research Literature and Resources

 

Looking at the research literature as a whole, one notes that prior to the early 1980's, there may have been some hints of awareness of aspects of Jewish identity among families of colonial Spanish heritage in New Mexico, but essentially the phenomenon was unknown and unreported. Hordes did not begin to note these contemporary survivals until after he had completed his 1980 Ph.D. dissertation on Crypto-Jews on seventeenth century New Spain (Hordes 1996), and the New Mexico phenomenon goes unmentioned by Patai (1996 rpt), or in popular works such as Ross's Acts of Faith. (1982).

 

There were some earlier indications of awareness of these traditions, to be sure. Some Rabbis reported inquiries. Tobias recounts items from the 1880's and just prior to 1920 in which there seems to have been awareness of Jewish heritage (Tobias 1990:20). Fray Angelico Chßvez was certainly aware of the New Christian heritage of many families descended from Spanish-period colonials, and perhaps reflected on the continuing meaningfulness of this heritage in comments on the similarity of his New Mexico homeland to ancient Palestine. (1954, 1974). Given that assertions have been made that Jewish heritage and the survival of customs associated with it was unknown even within the New Mexico community itself, it will probably be useful to gather and analyze as many pre-1980's references as possible.

 

Although preceded by research on southern Texas "Chicano Jews" (Larralde 1978, Santos 1983), the first articles specifically relating to New Mexico Crypto-Judaism began to appear in the 1980's. Nidel (1984) published on the New Mexican phenomenon, and Blake wrote a manuscript on "Secret Signs of Judaism in New Mexico," which has never been published (Tobias 1990:195). 

 

After 1985, there seems to have been growing awareness in research and journalism. Halevy has a lengthy list of journalistic articles on the subject stretching back to 1985 (1996:75, fn 1). Hordes has published several articles, most recently an illustrated overview in the Journal of the West. Tomas Atencio and Stanley Hordes published a 35-page prospectus for a research project on "The Sephardic legacy of New Mexico" (1987). Roger Parks studied lingustic traits (1988). In 1987, Floyd Fierman's Roots and Boots discussed many aspects of Crypto-Judaism in New Mexico in the sixteenth century, but has only a little to say about it in the twentieth. He calls Angelico Chßvez's assertion that his ancestors were Crypto-Jews "charming" (1987:16) but does not dismiss such claims (143). In 1990, Tobias' History of the Jews of New Mexico, gave a fair but brief description-although to be sure, within the context of a discussion of New Mexico's primarily Ashkenazic Jewish community. The importance and visibility of this motif took a giant leap when Cohen and Peck's Sephardim in the Americas included a full, descriptive chapter on "The Secret Jews of the Southwest" by Florence Hernßndez (1993). Janet Liebman Jacobs, cited above, is most interested finding evidence of women's transmission of the tradition, a point made by others (e.g. Halevy, 1996), and is currently working on expanding her research, a series of field-work interviews. (Jacobs, 1996). Renee Levine Melammed is preparing a report on this phenomenon for the Israeli publication Peamim (personal communication).

 

Perhaps the most important set of articles on the subject is a series published in the Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review (henceforth JFER). In 1993, Hordes published a brief note about his ongoing research in contemporary phenomena in JFER; the same volume also included an account of an Iglesia di Dios church in El Paso Texas, with many Jewish-like practices. In 1994, JFER published Judith S. Neulander's "Crypto Jews of the American Southwest: An Imagined Community," in which she described her attempt to do a professional ethnographic field study of this phenomenon, as a dissertation at the University of Indiana. Not surprisingly, she found that several elements prominently cited as part of a tradition of Crypto-Judaism were unsupportable as proof of its survival from Colonial times. G. Haskell, the editor of the JFER, reports that in response to this article he received "impassioned letters" from both sides: "The emotions on both sides were strong, and the Review, its editor, and the authors were vilified and demonized with vigor." (JFER 1996:1) JFER decided to do a special issue dedicated to this phenomenon. The issue was dedicated to the memory of Raphael Patai, who had just died, and included reprints Patai's two articles on Venta Prieta, a community near Mexico City which considered themselves to be Jewish. In addition to a second, much longer article by Neulander, there were pieces by Tomás Atencio, Schulamith C. Halevy, and Isabelle Medina Sandoval, a brief article by David M Gradwohl, a letter from Stanley Hordes, and two letters from individuals within the New Mexico Hispano community.

 

Neulander (1996) analyzed the theology and activities of millenaristic Protestant sects such as the Seventh Day Adventists and Church of God (Spanish: Iglesia di Dios) in great detail, which she believes provide explanations for several crypto-Jewish practices and traditions, and thus for the phenomenon as a whole. In this she follows Patai, who found just such a background for Venta Prieta, as shown in the reprinted articles. Neulander suggests the Iglesia di Dios model can even explain non-Biblical and highly "Hebraized" customs as lighting candles on Fridays.

 

In the other JFER pieces, Halevy also focuses on the practices, but concentrates on documenting Jewish sources for them in Mishna and Talmud, Shulhan Aruch, responsa of Moshe Hagiz, Ibn Habib and others. Tomás Atencio-one of the individuals described by Neulander as the "primary academic promoters" of the Crypto-Judaic idea-does not come across as a "true believer" in his JFER article. He notes that a "goal of the study, which is to uncover more information to make the hypothesis more plausible, has been partially accomplished [but] ... has not gotten any closer to empirically verifying crypto-Jewish presence in New Mexico."  Dr. Sandoval's contribution to this issue is essentially her own story; Gradwohl's describes his initial skepticism but argues for "meaningful scholarly inquiry and civilized debate" (JFER 1996:84).

 

Some of those who read JFER may feel the editor himself was not totally above the fray, e.g., by the comparison implicit in his comment about those who accept claims about crypto-Judaism uncritically-"That Germans earlier in this century called themselves Aryans did not make it so"(JFER 1996:86)-or, more importantly, by titles allowed for Neulander's articles and by reprinting Patai's findings about similar claims made in a very different type of community. Nevertheless, JFER's articles on the New Mexican phenomenon are well balanced. Haskell correctly noted that "Neulander does not presume to tell people who they are or are not." But (as JFER found out) Neulander's calling it "an imagined community" had a far stronger impact than had she merely said that a pure crypto-Jewish lineage for the canon elements cannot be supported. Like Patai's work in Venta Prieta, her work carries a deep meaning for this population, even or perhaps especially if it is correct. Patai's views seem to have been able to become accepted even within the Venta Prieta community, and may have helped them determine what relationship they want today with Judaism. Although he came to offer a radically different interpretation than they of the genesis of their practices, he did not imply their sense of community was imaginary. Neulander, on the other hand, has not yet and may never overcome the negativity and is perceived with some justice as having called scholars and informants prevaricators, i.e., liars (JFER 1996: 85, 86f.). Informants' glosses of practices, even if "ethnographically unsupported" are not "lies" but a central key to their own systems of understanding; this is no less true if, as is almost always the case, "remembered" practices include some that were never quite as reported.

 

Some general comments Crypto-Jewish "foundation narrative" tends to exclude post-colonial influence and heritage elements, to project all elements back to the colonial period or to Spain, and to be articulated in unlikely terms of coherence and purity of culture and heritage, for example, among individuals with only partial Colonial-Jewish heritage (e.g. "My mother was French") (In this it is similar to a general phenomenon observed in Santa Fe by Wilson, 1997:312-13). Some elements may indeed go back to secretly-Jewish New Christians, but even if one rejects Neulander's Protestant explanations, some elements cited cannot be explained as uniquely Sephardic survivals or reflect mixing in of outside sources, at least in the way they are presented. Frequently one encounters Ashkenazic glosses-Purim cakes referred to as Hamentashen, top as dreidle, etc. Ashkenazim have been in New Mexico and northern Mexico for some 150 years, and it seems likely that there may have been some influence and modeling on what openly-Jewish individuals were doing, or from reading-those within the tradition always characterize it as intellectual. This process accelerated (or may even have only started) with the changes of the twentieth century, for several reasons: soldiers' World War international experiences, the move from villages to towns and cities, the move from extended kinship/village groups to more nuclear families within much more heterogeneous communities, and greater access to a standardized "American" education. Neulander's work also reminds us that especially in the past fifteen years, many terms and glosses adopted by contemporary informants may have been influenced in part by discussions with researchers and journalists, or by reading their reports.

 

The "canon of New Mexican Crypto-Judaism" is only a part of the story. It may be impossible-and ultimately irrelevant-to explain every last item as either Jewish, converso, Protestant or happenstance in origin. Such concentration on "are they Jews,"or "are their traditions Jewish" detracts from an important theme, an openness and interest in Judaism and in the Jewish part of the Spanish heritage. It is difficult to understate the degree to which this appears to be diametrically opposed to long-held attitudes, and it is a change which has taken place primarily in the last fifteen years. No doubt many claims of heritage, of survival of tradition, or of genealogical purity, are too grandiose, but the primacy given Judaic heritage and identity is striking. It may be misplaced to some outside observers, yet still must be understood and appreciated.

 

Many of the leading representatives of this group meet together at various formal and informal venues around the country. For many of them, joining the Jewish community represents four problems. One: Most Jewish communities would require them to undergo formal conversion. This rubs some as the wrong approach: "We have struggled hard to retain our Judaism-and we have to convert? Why can't we be recognized for what we "are"?" The second problem is that for many Judaism-even merely a recognition of Jewish ancestry-represents a very strong break with family Catholicism or with New Mexican Hispano sensibilities. A third problem is theological: many cannot reject some sort of faith in Jesus; some have explored so-called "Messianic" Judaism as an alternative. Fourth, and related to the previous ones: for many the identification with Jews is genealogical and heritage oriented more than religious or cultural. 

 

Research needs to focus also on the emerging community of individuals who are making these claims, seeking out the meaning to them of being Jewish, and ways in which they will-or will not-continue the tradition. We may never be able to paint a full picture of "traditional New Mexican Crypto-Judaism," to determine the extent to which it reflects survival of the practices of earl;y colonial Judaizers, or even to prove it existed. It is perhaps impossibly complicated by the variety of practices and by issues of how practices are remembered. Yet let us not forget that the glossing of these practices as "Jewish" by a significant body of hispanos-in the New Mexico community and elsewhere-is truly an amazing story. Even if many of the reported elements of the canon are slippery and can be interpreted in various ways by scholars, the way they are being interpreted by those who hold them dear, and are alternately pained and exhilarated by them, drives our interest in them. This interpretation, as it is developing and unfolding, requires not romanticization and emotionalism, but further research and understanding.

 

Atencio, T., and S. Hordes 1987: The Sephardic legacy in New Mexico: A Prospectus, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico, Southwest Hispanic Research Institute.

 

Chßvez, 1954, F., Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period, Santa Fe Historical Society of NM, (originally published 1954; rpt.)

 

___, 1974, My Penitente Land: Reflections on Spanish New Mexico Albuquerque UNM press.

 

Fierman, F., 1987: Roots and Boots: From Crypto Jew in New Spain  Hoboken, Ktav.

 

Halevy, S.C. 1996: "Manifestations of Crypto-Judaism in the American Southwest" JFER

 

JFER: Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review, G. Haskell, ed.

 

Hernßndez, F. 1993: "Crypto-Jews of the American Southwest," in Cohen and Peck, Sephardim in the Americas, Tuscaloosa, American Jewish Archives.

 

Hordes, 1993: "'The Sephardic Legacy in the Southwest Crypto-Jews of New Mexico' Historical Research Project Sponsored by the Latin American Institute, University of New Mexico," JFER 15:2 137-38.

 

---, 1996 in: , Journal of the West 35 (1996), 82ff.

 

Jacobs, J.L., 1996, " Women, Ritual and Secrecy: The creation of Crypto-Jewish Culture"  Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 35, 97-109.

 

Larralde, C.M. 1978 "Chicano Jews in South Texas" Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA

 

Neulander, J.S. 1994: "Crypto Jews of the Southwest: An Imagined Community" JFER 16:1, 64-68.

 

____ 1996:, "The Crypto-Jewish Canon: Choosing to be Chosen in the Millenial Tradition" JFER 18:1-2 (1996) 19-58.

 

Nidel, D. 1984: "Modern descendants of Conversos in New Mexico," WSJHQ 16:3 (1984) 194-262.

 

Parks, P., 1988: Survival of Judeo Spanish Cultural and Linguistic traits among descendants of Crypto-Jews in New Mexico, M.A. Thesis, University of New Mexico, 1988.

 

Patai, R. 1996: "The Jewish Indians of Mexico" [originally published 1950] JFER 18 1-2, 2-12, and "Venta Prieta Revisited [Originally published 1965] JFER 18:1-2, 13-18.

 

Ross, Dan, 1982: Acts of Faith: A Journey to the fringes of Jewish Identity, New York, St. Martin's Press.

 

Sandoval, I.M. 1996: "Abraham's children of the Southwest" JFER 77-82.

 

Santos, R. 1983: "Chicanos of Jewish Descent in Texas." WSJHQ 15: 327-333.

 

Scholem, G.S. 1971: The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, New York, Schocken

 

Tobias, H. J., 1990: A History of the Jews in New Mexico, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press.

 

Wilson, C. 1997: Myth of Santa Fe: Creation of a Modern Regional Tradition, Albuquerque University of New Mexico Press

 

This paper was retrieved from archive.org. I have made no changes in the paper from the form it was in 1999 other than correcting some spacing problems, and minor editing. It was based on several oral testimonies videotaped at the Hispano Crypto-Jewish Resource Center in Denver. All the participants signed releases, including the use of the tapes for scholarly analysis. One later clarified that she did not want her name used on web postings.

Persons of crypto-Jewish heritage, like everyone else, modify their opinions as they develop and grow. Acceptance and understanding of the Crypto-Judaic heritage today has advanced beyond what it was in the 1990s and the profiles here should not be considered to reflect the current views of these individuals—only the views they expressed in the video testimonies and my analysis.

Seth Ward

Reposted October 16, 2012

Profiles of Converso Descendants in the Southwest U.S.: Manito, Marrano, Sephardic and Jewish Identities among the Crypto-Jews of contemporary New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

Seth Ward

University of Denver

This paper is a revised version of a paper presented August 8, 1999, to the Society for Crypto-Jewish Studies, meeting in Los Angeles, CA, which is in turn a fuller presentation of a paper presented to the 11^th British Conference on Judeo-Spanish Studies in June, 1999. For other papers and essays by the author: http://www.du.edu/~sward/essays.html. The process of reformatting this to Html format precluded inclusion of notes, and transcriptions of the videotapes shown at the Conference have not yet been included.

© Seth Ward, 1999

 

Introduction

Potchin bikhvod

Potchin bikhvod akhsania. Many thanks to Gloria Trujillo for her work in organizing the conference but for her enthusiasm about accepting my paper. Also to Stan Hordes for never-ending encouragement, and Isabelle Sandoval for the inspiration of her poetry.

Introduction

As members of this society are well aware, since the 1980s, many individuals of Hispanic heritage in the Southwestern part of the United States have come forward with claims of being "Crypto-Jews"—to be sure, using various terms such as Marranos, Anusim, Sepharadim, etc. Generally, they note (1) that they have Jewish ancestors; (2) that their families preserved some aspect of Jewish identity–often unknowingly; and (3) that therefore, as they might put it, somos judios "we are Jews." Indeed, much of the discussion and controversy about "Crypto-Judaism" in the contemporary southwestern U.S. refers to precisely these three issues: (1). Genealogy, (2) The Canon of Evidence, and (3). Identity.

I would like to add my comments about the current gathering and the wonderful spread in the Los Angeles Jewish paper. The report underscores the great changes that have obtained in only the past few years regarding the degree of communi ty identification. For many people here, the openness and the direct way in which issues of heritage can be discussed is a great and important change. Although this observation is necessarily subjective, only a few years ago, there seems to have been a fa r greater degree of reticence and indeed a disease about some of the directions in which people might proceed. Some members of the community have made peace with where they have chosen to stand; a large and committed crowd present at this conference is fu rther indication of healthy progress. Yet the changing nature and degree of identity in the late 20^th century and into the early 21^st century are areas which needs to be even more deeply researched.

I will try in the following to avoid some of the extremes: finding examples of Crypto-Judaism under every stone, and conversely, rejecting an attitude which couches a negative approach in scientific terms. Moreover, we must balance sens itivity to research needs and and respect for individuals; some of the poetry produced my members of the Crypto-Jewish community has compared the prodding of researchers to the Inquisition—unfavorably, I might add.

This evening I will show excerpts from taped interviews conducted by the Hispano Crypto-Jewish Resource Center in 1996. The interviewer was Yitzhak Kerem. All the interviewees were happy to sign releases clearly allowing use for researc h purposes and inclusion in educational presentations.

The original aim of the project was to interview individuals who participated in what is sometimes called "Manito" culture. The word is based on the Spanish hermanito, and is used to refer to descendants of sixteenth an d seventeenth-century Spanish colonials who reached the northernmost parts of New Spain along the frontier in what is now northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, especially in small villages near Santa Fe. Their ancestors, according to what I have cal led the foundation narrative of this phenomenon, , strove to avoid the inquisition, prior to the seventeenth century, by migrating to remote villages along the Rio Grande. There, in what is today New Mexico, southern Colorado, Texas and northern Mexico, t hey retained various practices, married primarily among similar families, and secretly maintained some sort of identity until the twentieth century. In practice, however, our formal interviews and our informal records encompass primarily individuals who h ave found their way into Colorado. The U.S. phenomenon includes individuals originally from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. It seems to me that studies need to take into account the very real differences in the histories of converso descenda nts from various areas—whether Mexico, South America, Belmonte, or Ibiza. But it also seems that narratives about identity by American adults—wherever their provenance—are clearly shaped in much the same ways as their neighbors. Perhaps, therefore, the in formants should be characterized as persons currently living in the cities of Colorado’s Front Range. Research perhaps needs to devote more attention to the degree to which the statements of our informants share points of contact with persons whose spirit ual quests fall outside the framework of the Crypto-Jewish narrative.

Genealogy, Evidence, and Identity

Time permits only brief introductions to the general themes.

 

(1) Genealogy.

Are they really descended from New Christians? Jacob Rader Marcus estimated that 10% of the Spanish colonials were New Christians; more recent research, such as that of Stan Hordes, has been unable to confirm his guess or to provide a m ore accurate quantification of the percentage. But whether or not this number is correct, inquisition and other records provide ample testimony for new Christian settlement in this region. In his important encyclopedia of eighteenth century residents of N ew Mexico, Fray Angelico Chavez traced multiple genealogical links from his own family back to Luis de Carvajal and other well-known New Christians of the first century of Iberian colonization of Mexico. Even if few others demonstrated their genealogy so convincingly and completely, it seems unlikely that they would reach other conclusions. It hardly seems open to doubt that many Manitos have at least some New Christian ancestors, although it would seem that some individuals also find Jewish ancestors fro m more recent times.

 

(2) Evidence

The question of evidence has perhaps been the most explosive. Many of the individual elements of the canon are problematic, to say the least. For example, some individuals recall playing pon y saca, a put-and-take game with t ops in December. Clearly, many who proudly point to this as evidence of a crypto-Jewish dreidle game are projecting Ashkenazic customs. Similarly, finding the six-pointed magen david, is hardly unambiguous. Although it is found in Hebrew-character Genizah texts from 12^th -century Cairo, it is also clearly in evidence in Medieval Iberia and for that matter, in nineteenth century Protestant religious movements. Taken individually, many if not most of the phenomena taken as evidence are pro blematic, and polemics and counter-polemics about names, tops, pork, blood, and even candles are familiar from the literature and from personal experience. Much of these assume that the converso descendants adapted ancient traditions to their environment, and did so in a vacuum, totally lacking exterior contacts. For the most part this is patently false, even if perhaps contacts were few.

I would maintain that what is important is not only the elements of the canon of evidence, but the way they are understood by those who practice them. Some clearly include mixed references, e.g., referring to a meeting place for secret Jews of Sephardic heritage by the Ashkenazic term "shul;" referring to dreidels and potato pancakes and the like. Seth Kunin has described the process by which some Crypto-Jews attach Jewish understandings to items from their culture whi ch seem to be similar to Jewish practices—even if those are Ashkenazic and not precisely Sephardic, employing the term "bricolage" as used by social anthropologists. Far from indicating its falseness, this process, which has sometimes been calle d "imagining culture," underscores the healthfulness of a culture which continues to enrich itself by attaching new meanings to old practices, and to adopt and adapt customs that speak to the culture’s sense of vitality and meaning.

(3) Identity

Let me restate my point: deliberations about genealogy and evidence tend to obscure what may be the most important question, that of identity, even if such issues quickly are reduced to questions of genealogy and evidence. In the p opular mind, the identity question is indeed often the one which looms largest: "are they really Jewish?" seems to underlie much of the debate; it was this question, for example, which motivated the piece in the LA Jewish newspaper.

Contemporary Crypto-Jews, whatever they call themselves, see themselves as heirs to a Jewish heritage, in some sense as being Jews or Sephardim. This impacts how they see the evidence and the genealogy. Thus one sometimes encounters a c urious use of unambiguous Jewish ancestry to support what I have called "evidence" – and not genealogy. Several informants, for example, cite their father’s marriage to a woman from an unambiguous Jewish background from the Middle East. Unfortun ately, I do not have these individuals on tape, although, as we shall see, I do have a similar example in which paternal ancestors who are unambiguously Jewish and Ashkenazi are downplayed. In any case, what is interesting is that the fact of Jewish ances try is not presented to establish their own unambiguous Jewish identity –although typically they do not deny this—but read it as evidence that Father was a crypto-Jew—otherwise why would his family have accepted his marriage to a Jewish woman? In such cas es, the informant might well be aware that the maternal heritage is important for halachic reasons—for example, it would make formal conversion unecessary if the informant were interested in association with a synagogue or normative Jewish community—but i s sometimes presented as irrelevant or less relevant to the informant’s description of the desire for Jewish identity, which is based on a Crypto-Jewish background.

 

The Oral History project

The tapes I am showing are from a pilot project if the HCRC. We received a small grant and several sessions were conducted. The subjects were individuals who had filled out a form indicating their interest in sharing their personal stor ies "with a facilitator." Those who participated in the project were all willing to sign releases for their oral history, and none indicated any restrictions on the use of their videotapes. While one can hardly call this system scientific sampli ng, we contacted everyone who had filled out a form for the HCRC and checked the appropriate box, and interviewed everyone who was able to meet with us during the scheduled time.

In reviewing the tapes at this time, the difficulty of concentrating on the identity issue is manifest. Try as I might, I often selected passages which made better video, even if they were less relevant to my central theme. I have not g one back to follow up with these individuals, although in most cases it would not be difficult. One further word: the tapes were made with professional quality equipment. The copy I made for today’s presentation was necessarily made on home equipment, and has a number of technical problems.

The narratives

Lita Rodgers

Born in 1945, as Lita Sandoval, in Wagon Mound, in northern New Mexico. She lived in a ranch not far from there. Her husband is from Ohio; she ran away to get married, as it were, although late came back with her husband and lived for a while near her family before coming to Denver.

Her narrative about crypto-Jewish roots starts in the cemetery she played in as a young girl. (Video clip). She claims that the weird practices, as she called them in the interview, were on her father’s side, although she pointed out th at her maternal grandfather made the design for the tombstone, not anyone from her father’s side, Also, it turns out that the stars were not the six-pointed ones associated by many with Judaism.

Food practices also have given her cause for reflection. Her grandmother always made "Papitas" but it is not clear to me that they were traditional for December only. (video clip).

Here we see an example of one of the great problematics of the oral interview tradition. The interviewer is very suggestive, although the suggestion was already made by others well before the interviewer came around. Rogers also referre d to not eating pork, and to panocha made at Easter time, a flat bread.

Rogers had no idea why they spent September in town, although the interviewer assumed that it was to observe the High Holy Days.

(Video)

[At the Los Angeles conference, a researcher presented parallel evidence that in some crypto-Jewish communities, playing cards was practiced to avoid suspicion of the Inquisition, maintaining that this was documented in Inquisition reco rds and practiced in other locations. Specifically, he recounted awareness of contemporary individuals in Barcelona, Spain who play cards on days which turn out to be Rosh Hashana. I have been unable to follow up on this as of yet].

Rogers is aware of family members who said "non son Catolicos" did not go to church; her father, for example, could only be dragged once a year by her mother. But she is searching for "signs" that, as she would put i t, "we might be Jewish."(two last clips).

Michael Atlas Acuña

Acuña was born in 1950, in Douglas, AZ, a border town. He moved to San Bernardino in southern CA at a young age. His parents came from Sonora in Mexico; his father was born in Pachuca, in Mexico, a town described by Raphael Pata i when he studied a nearby community of Venta Prieta. Here is how he begins his personal narrative: (video)

According to his personal narrative, Acuña began his interest in Judaism independently of family, when he met the woman who became his wife. But he also recalled family practices of his Mother’s mother’s mother, Guadalupe Mendoza , and his mother’s own interest in Judaism. Even so, he reports that he began his interest in crypto-Jewish heritage only after reading an article in the regional Jewish newspaper. (video, video)

Acuña reports that his great-grandmother lit candles on Friday nights, never went to church on Sunday, refused to recognize Jesus and called worship of saints "idolatry." Of his grandmother, however, he says that she li t candles "all the time."

He reports having Abondegas, a soup made of meatballs and rice at Eastertime, and asserts that it is a Sephardic dish for the Seder. He also recalls Christmas tamales made with beef and finding it strange that Hispanos in Pueblo used po rk—although he reports that pork was eaten in his home. He does report that their Spanish dialect was somewhat different than those around him, headstones with no symbols.

His mother was an important link in this chain, but her knowledge and attitudes towards Judaism came from other sources. Acuña reports that she worked for a family that was Jewish and later for a company owned by Jews. She began to read about the Jews in Spain, and had begun to study with a Rabbi in northern California. He believed that her "last wish was to die as a Jew." So Acuña and his brothers arranged for the conversion to be completed and and they were abl e to give her a Jewish burial. He concluded: "She started to see all these things, dropped all this on us and then was gone."

Amalia Romero

Amalia Romero is somewhat older than Acuña and Rogers. She was born not far away from Rogers in a small town in Mora County, New Mexico.

Like Acuña’s mother, Romero could trace part of her interest in Judaism from working for Jews. (video).

She began to work cleaning the home of Dr. Grezias, a Jewish physician, about 1986, after her kids finished school. According to her account, she began to realize "this and this were done the same in my family." Although she m entioned ways in which the house was cleaned, when pressed for more examples she said "I can’t put my finger on it."

Nevertheless, she requested a mezuza from her employer, and reported having it on her door. Her father, also, had come into contact with Jews. He worked on occasion for a Jewish storekeeper in town, bringing in freight from the train st ation in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Interestingly, she offered the account of her father’s Jewish employer in response to a question from the interviewer regarding working on the Sabbath; her response about working for the Jewish employer did not address his question about the Sabbath at all.

Father did not like hunting, and did not to consume blood. She reports that while blood was a delicacy for the Indians, he did not like it and believed that the blood should be drained from an animal before eating. Romero reports that s he has traced her grandfather back to 16^th century Spain, although in context it (although it seems to me that she may have traced only the name, not the specific genealogy). She also believes that her family has been living in northern New Me xico for 400 years. They did not feel different from Catholics, her father was not a member of the Penitentes, went to Church only once a year. Some people lit candles, and were called brujas "witches." Her godmother lit candles once a we ek; in the interview, she sometimes said it was Saturday and sometimes Friday night.

Romero reported few other elements of the "canon"—no special language, no feeling of difference, no oral tradition about endogamy or names. Nevertheless, she did report in her own family, some married close relatives of their siblings’ spouses, and the males’ names (but not the females) were Biblical; the oldest boy was "Adonais." She did, however, mention a feeling of persecution, more specifically, of prejudice against Hispanos which made it hard to get jobs in the mines or as migrant workers.

Romero noted that people from her area in northern New Mexico had unusual practices, but do not know why, and she reports being unaware of anyone from these circles who has converted. Still, she would like to know more, to be able to un derstand her family’s background.

G.A.

According to G.A.’s report, her original family name was Augusta de la Silviera, and her father’s ancestors came from Floris in the Azore islands. Thus, she is more like the Portuguese in fall River studied by David Gitlitz. Her great grandfather married an Ashkenazi woman, and she reports that her research turned up a German or French Jewish traveler to the Azores who married one Maria de Armas in the 1840s. Nevertheless, she sees her Jewish identity entirely from the Sephardi c side: Note that she does not deny the truth of the "crypto-Jewish" label—indeed, she stresses that her father tried to hide his ancestral religion from her. But note which label she prefers, and how she views that identity (Video).

Her narrative emphasizes her father’s unwillingness to discuss details with her, noting that he had "no desire to leave the Jewish identity," yet no interest in talking about it. She quotes him as often having said "I’m just the son of a Portuguese Jew," although she had thought merely that her father "came from a black people" and wanted to keep some distance. He had some obvious antagonism to Catholicism, and approached it with sarcasm, making sure, for example, to take thirty pieces of silver with him if he was cajoled into going to church. The animosity and sarcasm she attributed to her father rubbed off on her: she referred to autos da fe as "entertainment for the Spanish and Portuguese" noting "they didn’t have a problem filling the seats, people would come out." She referred to a few practices from the canon: they did not eat pork, and separated milk and meat, but explained that it was for health reasons. She reports they had Matza at Eastertime, and reports eating lamb only once a year, also at this time. Her mother used coarse salt in preparing meat; they ate apple dipped in sugar in the fall, although she associated it with Halloween. Nevertheless, her father made anti-semitic remarks, prevented family members from attending some of the family events of the "Jewish side" of his family, and appears to have resolutely refused to discuss this issue with his daughter.

She recalls discovering her ancestry at age 28 or 29, although she is the only one in her family who is interested. She did not give any particular reason why she started doing this research. Her first husband was not Jewish, her second husband is, but she did not connect this with her spiritual journey. Her comment on her studies about her ancestry was merely: "When I started doing my research I felt like I was coming home."

Leonora Cordova

Leonora Vera Cordova was born in 1947 in Villa Hermosa, Tabasco, Mexico. Although the town was remote, she was born there because her father, an engineer was sent to the rain forest.

When asked, she recalls virtually no knowledge of any of the items usually cited as evidence of crypto-Jewish background. Names are often considered part of the "canon of evidence," and the Biblical names on the male side of her family fit the scenario: her father was Joseph, and in addition to her brother Antonio (not a fit), there were Baltazar, Emanuel, Isaiah, and Elias. Nevertheless, she did not think the names of the male members of her family were unusual in any way. She did, however, recall that friends in college claimed that Perez was a Jewish name, a claim she was uninterested in at that time. (video)

Although she recalled burying the dead as soon as possible and noted that her father did not work on Saturdays, she did not think these practices different. Indeed, she reported that the family had almost no religion, practicing Catholicism only for baptism, marriage and burial. This, however, she attributes to religious persecution—not of Jews but of religion in general, when a provincial governor burned churches.

Cordova’s search for spirituality involved going to Rome to become a nun. She later left the convent, deciding to get married at have a family, but also wondering about some of the things that Rome did not teach her. Regarding the interest in Jewish identity, she did not cite a particular narrative for how this came to be important to her, although she cited things which–at least to my mind—are primarily subjective, such as the resemblance of a man from Jerusalem to her Uncle Isaiah an d her love of Middle Eastern music.

In the interview, she reported studying with a Rabbi in Fort Collins and hopes to be immersed. What does it mean to be Jewish? Cordova’s response is that her study of Judaism helped her understand some of the basics of Christianity.

Identity Issues

Several questions may be addressed:

1. Do the individual narrative match the general foundation narrative for the phenomenon?

Of these five individuals, only two hail from the manito area, although neither used the word. Of these, neither had reported close contact with Jews in their home villages, but neither they nor anyone else—with the possible exception of Cordova—were as isolated from Judaism as usually thought. Even Cordova reported Jewish friends in college. Despite great dissimilarities in details, the stories, are similar in some of the main outlines and values, suggesting that they share a cultural background which plays a role in shaping the narratives.

2. How do they relate to the Jewish identity of their ancestors? To what extent to they see their heritage as Sephardic as opposed to Jewish?"

Acuña began his narrative by stating "I am a Jew," and others wondered whether they might be Jewish. This type of involvement in Jewish identity is far different from a statement along the lines of "we have Jewish ancestry."

This approach is hardly unique to the Sephardic world of the U.S. Southwest. While in England to give an earlier version of this paper I met a genealogist in Manchester who describes inquiries couched in much the same way—individuals who believe that they feel Jewish and must have Jewish ancestors. Her job was quite easier than that of the genealogist working with the manitos, as the Jewish ancestry in this case is usually no more than three to five generations back—and almost always Ashkenazi.

For GA, the Sephardic ancestry is the only one that matters: as noted, she found an Ashkenazi man who married into the family in the Azores in the early nineteenth century, and had an Ashkenazi grandmother, but she consistently downplays their importance to her identity. Yet others did not express any discomfort: Cordova is meeting with an Ashkenazi rabbi and Acuña is president of a largely Ashkenazi synagogue in Pueblo.

3. How are the differing issues of Family vs. Community articulated?

There are numerous aspects of the problematics of identitifcation accross the generations, and identification with the broader community. Janet Libman Jacobs’ research suggests a high degree of positive identification with the Jewish community among those who were available for full interviews: some who had formally converted to Judaism, others studying or attending synagogues and reporting consideration of conversion. My records of informal interviews showed much smaller percentages. Yet those who were available for formal videotaped testimonies were even more likely than Jacobs’ informants to either have achieved or to be actively exploring unambiguous Jewish community identification.

As far as family concerns, it is interesting that only Acuña, the only male in this sample, was primarily concerned with his mother, who had a positive attitude to the phenomenon. The women all recounted the Jewish connection on the father’s side, in some cases aware of possible or undisputed Jewish backgrounds among some of the female ancestors but ignoring it, or devoting more energy the paternal side, at least at first. As for the children: it would appear that for GA and Acuña, the attitude is unambiguous. Both referred to bringing up children as Jewish. For others, it is not so easy. I have written elsewhere about the striking difference between this community and the normative Jewish community, with its emphasis on whether one’s grandchildren will be Jewish. Yet I should also stress that the difference is that members of the Crypto-Jewish community are still wondering about their grandparents’ grandparents. Only once they are able to address their tradition openly and cognizant of its rich heritage will they have the luxury to consider what their children will make of it—and in some cases, we can already see a deep and sensitive approach among the kids.

4. Does the interview process bias the answers?

Our interviewer did not adopt a totally neutral protocol. Some questions were phrased in a totally neutral fashion, but others clearly were leading questions which directly suggested the answers expected, or offered an explanation to the informant for him to confirm. Nevertheless, time and again, the interviewees did not take the bait. They approached this seriously, not being led astray by suggestions. Given the high degree of interest by the informants in discussing their Jewish identity –and evidence for it—the degree to which they did not follow the lead is far more striking. None of the interviewees was untouched by the Jewish community; most could tell of contacts not only in their own but in their parents’ generations. The interviewer’s approach can be faulted, but it cannot be blamed for creating these ideas.

 

In conclusion

These personal narratives represent individuals at different stages of their spiritual search. All have ample reasons to believe they are part of a crypto-Jewish tradition, on the basis of genealogical research or on the basis of what is sometimes called the canon of evidence. Yet among those of us who have come forward for interviews, questions about identity, indeed the quest for identity –especially a religious identity—seems to me to be paramount, and colors the respo nses in the other areas. Moreover, these issues relate to family and individuals; unlike crypto-Jews from other places, the converso descendants who have made their way to the Colorado Front Range have not posited their Jewish identity within the framewor k of an intact, traditional community. The context of their current search should be as much a part of our retelling of our stories as the study of ancestry and evidence. It seems to me, moreover, that the key to the phonomenon, is not so much the ancest ry and evidence as it is the issues of religious and cultural identity which give the ancestry and evidence the significance and power to so many members of the Converso-descendant community.

Seth Ward

 

I was asked today by journalist and author Andrée Aelion Brooks about the term “attrition” – a term she has coined to discuss persons of Crypto-Jewish ancestry who had identified with the Jewish community falling away from this identity, a phenomenon she found prevalent in Portugal, and one she reported was much-discussed at a recent conference in El Paso.

Even though I am not sure I would use the term, it reflects an important concern. (As are issues of continuity and disappearance through assimilation at many levels of the Jewish community). 

Various Jewish communities have worked hard with persons of converso background interested in a return to Judaism. Brooks reports a considerable phenomenon in Portugal that persons who had been interested in asserting a Jewish identity, and returning to Judaism, either no longer do so, or their family members either no longer support them, or their children have not use for this identity. I certainly have seen that there is something similar in the US although I have no way of assessing the prevalence of this phenomenon.

She asked me about ways to respond: It seems to me that a "birthright" style program might be particularly useful to counterqact this, especially for young adults. (Taglit-Birthright provides heritage trips to Israel for young Jews from around the world). Although Birthright has not been around long enough to assess its long-term effect, it appears to be very successful in promoting a sense of Jewish identity in a cohort in which this was a problem.

In general, individuals who have taken major steps to identify as Jewish, including asserting a strong identity with the Jewish community as it is, seem to me to have less “attrition.” This should hardly be surprising; I would say the same about any component in the Jewish community and for that matter, any population in any diversity group. But let me stress that this means that these individuals assert a complex and rich identity:they have moved, in some important ways, from having their most important identification within the community as “Anusim descendants returning to Judaism” --to identifying “Jews.”  

It seems to me that this reflects, at least in part, the coming of age of this phenomenon, and its broad acceptance both in Jewish and Iberian-heritage populations. While we can identify references to modern survivals of crypto-Judaism, and movements to among such persons to identify with the Jewish community going back to the 1930s, for example, in Portugal, and the 1970s and earlier in the United States, there was an explosion of interest in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, the idea that some Spanish-heritage persons had Jewish ancestry was shocking to many. Twenty years later, the idea is highly acceptable to many—even welcomed as part of the heritage. There may be a controversy in some circles about whether Jewish practices were preserved, or whether the practices that are cited as “Jewish” actually are. But in my experience, the Iberian-heritage community is proud to assume that some of their ancestors were Jews or Moors, not only Spanish or Portuguese Catholics—and this is far different from what went before. There are some who assert a kind of classic limpieza de sangre "purity of blood" notion that Iberians were all Catholics; with Moors and Jews trampling in the Peninsula for some eight centuries but then all thrown out. But I encounter this approach a lot less today than two decades ago.

The greater acceptance of this heritage may mean that there is less driving a person of Spanish –Jewish heritage to identify as Jewish. The United States has provided a society in which Jews could fit in, and would not always be reminded by society of their difference. This has now happened for descendants of Anousim: having Jewish heritage is seen as necessitating a specifically Jewish or “Crypto-Jewish” identity by fewer people, and it is no longer necessary to identify as “Jewish” to find acceptance as a descendant of conversos.

I am not sure there is a backlash, so much as a “been there done that” approach. The approach, too, reflects the maturity of the movement: it’s been twenty years, and it is time to take stock.

It seems to me that the members of this group who will retain Jewish identity are those who fully identify and assimilate into the Jewish community—being active in the community or moving to Israel and being nearly indistinguishable from other persons in the Jewish community—and firm enough about their own identity as “Jews” (rather than “Anusim”).  This does not preclude also identifying as converso descendants, but it seems to me that if the converso identity is their sole mode of belonging to the Jewish community their identity is not as strong. Indeed, this is already the case, as many from traditional crypto-Jewish communities and other communities not part of the Jewish mainstream have largely either adapted mainstream Judaism--sometimes with a few unique nods to their heritage--or have rejected this, in favor of retaining their host culture (and weakening ties to Judaism, which is seen as the mainstream form of Judaism). This has inevitable negative impact on the preservation of the overall traditional lifestyle that may have brought them or their parents to identify as Jews: it is either rejected in favor of some part of mainstream Judaism, or the link with the mainstream Jewish community is downplayed; in the modern world, the forces leading to the globalization of culture mean that in the latter case, maintaining customs unique to a small number of villages or a single region is likely a losing battle  

A number of models suggest to me that it might be crucial to retain and adapt one or two traditional practices as markers of this identity (for example, special candlesticks or developing a strictly kosher taco-based food item with a name recalling a crypto-Jewish past) to serve as ethnic Jewish food alongside the knish and felafel. This means that the "Anousim Identity" and most of the ways this group asserts a unique identity will become watered down--one of many choices that are clearly part of a mainstream Jewish identity. But it is probably inevitable for those who wish to identify as Jews, and finding a way to make Anusim descendants no more unusual than, say, Russian or Moroccan Jews within the Jewish community may be the only viable way to counteract attrition. But it will not in and of itself help such persons assert and retain a Jewish identity: ultimately, they will see this as a choice, and such things as the relative attractiveness of the Jewish and  overall cultures, the welcome offered by the community, and succeful acceptance into such communities will play important roles.   

Seth Ward 
Religious Studies
University of Wyoming