The Key to the 500-Year Old Door
This article, was printed in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the forced conversion of the Jews of Portugal It was 7:a.m. on Corpus Christi Day, 1989, when my travel companion and I left Lisbon for Belmonte. 7 1/2 hours later we stepped off the train at the tiny blue and white-tiled station nestled in [...]
The Forced Conversion of The Jews of Portugal
(From an address at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles, October 1997) The story of the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Span is well known. Not so well known is what happened five years later in the neighboring country of Portugal . Of those Jews who chose to flee Spain in 1492, large numbers [...]
Mestizo Jews: The Hidden Treasure of The World
For about 100 years before the official start of the Spanish Inquisition, bloodshed and tension had been taking place in Spain due to different religious beliefs held by Jews, Moors and Catholics. In 1391 Catholics staged horrible bloody massacres of Jews and Moors in the cities of Castile, Aragon, and Seville. Spanish Jews (Sephardic Jews) [...]
Finding Our Lost Brothers and Sisters: The Crypto Jews of Brazil
Helio Daniel Cordeiro has been on a quest. A quest for his Jewish roots. He found them and he has been helping other Brazilians find theirs. In October, 1996 I traveled to Brazil with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn and the Society For Crypto-Judaic Studies. We were interested in contacting the descendants of Spanish and-Portuguese Jews who [...]
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