The Islamic Concept of Taqqiya and Its Influence on Spanish Jewry
Juan Marcos Bejarano Gutierrez For years, rabbis and scholars have speculated as to why so many Spanish Jews converted to Christianity beginning in the year 1391 when faced with violence or coercion in contrast to the tendency of the Jews in Germany to opt for death or even suicide when faced with similar circumstances. The [...]
The Tale of Belmonte’s Crypto Jews
Long after their Spanish neighbors, Portuguese municipalities have finally recognized the potential of Jewish tourism. This probably has to do with a surge of interest among the Portuguese to unveil their crypto-Jewish roots, concomitantly with a new momentum among young and not-so-young historians who engage in the research of Portugal’s Jewish past. Revisiting villages, where [...]
Book Review: By Fire, By Water
Mitchell James Kaplan, By Fire, By Water (New York: Other Press, 2010) pp.320, Reviewed by Deborah Wohl Isard If ever a book should be judged by its cover, it’s By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan. The book’s cover immediately sets the tone for this well-crafted and engaging work of historical fiction that takes [...]
Member Profile: Seth Ward
Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies Vice-President for Programing, Professor Seth Ward, brings a wealth of education and experience to his position. Serving as Program Chair for the 21st Annual Conference, to take place in San Diego this August 7-9, Professor Ward has been on the faculty of the University of Wyoming (UW) since January 2003, where [...]
An historical tour through the Jewish Caribbean
Since 1995 I have led Jewish heritage cruises throughout the Caribbean. Participants most often come with the traditions of Eastern and Central European Jewry. We sail past some of the thirty plus inhabited islands of the Caribbean forming a graceful and lush archipelago (together with others sparsely inhabited) beginning with Cuba ninety miles south of [...]
How I discovered the synagogue of Coria
Originally published in Spanish “Cómo descubrí la sinagoga de Coria,” in Tarbut Sefarad, asociación cultural. March 2011 www.tarbutsefarad.com/index.php/es/articulos0/4291-como-descubri-la-sinagoga-de-coria-.html I am a businessman, with a doctorate in business ethics. I teach courses in various universities and I have published academic as well as literary works. However, I am not an archeologist, an historian, or a medium. [...]
The Position and Self-Image of Women in Sefardi Sources
First Annual International Conference Society for Sefardic Studies, Jerusalem, January 9-11, 2011 The first annual international conference of Sefarad, the Society for Sefardic Studies was held this past January 9-11, 2011 in Jerusalem. Founded in 2009 by Yom Tov Assis, its current chairman, Sefarad is affiliated with the Ben-Zvi Institute and is administered through the [...]
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