The program will include many important presentations from scholars in the field and from individuals who have discovered the crypeo-Jewish roots of their families.

Thanks to a grant from the Sosin-Stratton-Petit Foundation, the conference will feature artistic presentations with crypto-Jewish themes and an evening of Sephardic music.

The Conference Committee is securing a site and The Program Committee is now in the process of organizing the event. Soon the information will be posted on this site.

All are invited to join us for three days of scholarship, music, art, learning and camaraderie.

BASHERT
I am the catch
in your throat;
the wordless cry,
unexplainable.

I am the cloud
that follows you;
raining
at the slightest provocation.

I am the scar
that has
become a flower.

I am the pilgrim
you brought home;
the Jew you hid
from the fire.

I am your dark sleep.

I am your dream
of finding someone
whose arms
will hold you
when daylight comes.

HOMECOMING
Pour eternity
into the kiddush cup tonight
Drink, drink, drink,
Each drop’s
a memory revealed.

I slake my thirst
with the breath of angels
and ancestors,
and taste Sephardi
on the tip of my tongue.

I will dance this shabbat
with a rose
blooming from my lips,
a star in each eye.
Moonlight,
a ribbon in my hair.

MEMORIA
Adonai assigns each Jew a rabbi or tzadik
because you can’t eat yeshiva or angel’s wings,
Even the holy need parnassa, and a job is a job, after all.

But we still were hiding
so my great grandmother, a woman, a bird at the end of flight,
was my first rabbi, my first tzadik.
Us two, with eight more in Gan Eden.
No one else allowed, no one knowing.
Because the neighbors already looked at us with sharpened eyes,
sharp as the knife she killed chickens with for Fridays.
The two of us, the ten of us,
burned that bread, lit those lights
and sang down the slipping night
and Shekinah’s stars.

I am her patchwork Jew,
offering poor wages
to those rabbis close now.
No drush is as sweet as the honey from her table.

Lisa Alvarado is an educator, poet, novelist, and journalist. She is a Mejicana/Chicana eldest daughter of an eldest daughter of an eldest daughter of an eldest daughter. Her first time making challah was at the side of her great abuelita, who also shekered chickens, and taught her first brucha. It was with this woman and her mother that Lisa was given her Hebrew name, Leila Shulamit, whispered one night after shabbat. Lisa loves saying that name now loudly and clearly.
Alvarado is the founder of La Onda Negra Press, and is author of Reclamo and The Housekeeper’s Diary, originally a book of poetry and now a one-woman performance. Her first novel, Sister Chicas (written with Ann Hagman Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston) was released in April 2006 by Penguin/NAL. Sister Chicas is a coming of age story concerning the lives of three young Latinas living in Chicago.
Sister Chicas won 2nd place Best First Novel in English (Latino Literacy Now/2007) Her book of poetry, Raw Silk Suture, is the newest release by Floricanto Press, and was reviewed by Rigoberto Gonzalez.
Lisa is the recipient of grants from the Department of Cultural Affairs, The NEA, and the Ragdale Foundation.

Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011, San Diego

Meeting was called to order by president Dolores (Dolly) Sloan at 12 noon, after the final presentations of the Conference. About 24 people were in attendance.

Dolly presented the agenda. She thanked Gloria Trujillo for the wonderful arrangements at the Crown Plaza Hotel.

Seth Ward, Program VP, and Gloria Trujillo, Conference VP, presented early reports on the conference, which had just ended. There were 45 registrants. The conference evaluation sheets which had been filled out by the membership should be helpful in considering improvements for the future. There were comments from the membership regarding publicity to attract attendees (see below). There was also discussion of allowing interested local people to observe either gratis or at a reduced rate, without meals.

The place and date of the 2012 conference: The conference will be in Albaquerque in late July, so as to allow educators in states with August school returning dates to attend. It will not conflict with Tish B’av. Members will be informed when the exact date is formalized.

The next subject of discussion was the proposed increase in yearly membership dues.
Seth Ward explained explained that increased expenses made it necessary to increase dues. Discussion followed on the issue of special reduced prices or free access for local people to attend lectures only. There was concern that some trouble-makers might come. Abe Lavender offered to be “bouncer” for unwanted visitors. No decision was taken on this issue.

After discussion, it was moved, seconded, and approved to increase yearly membership dues in the following manner:

General membership $45 (previously $35.)
Seniors (65+) $40 ( new category)
Institutional $60 (previously $45)
Students $10 (previously $10)
Donor-Sustaining: $100
Donor-Patron: $1000

It was approved to make these dues effective January, 2012.

By-Laws were ammended by unanimous vote to add the office of First Vice President to Article VI, after the description of the office of the President and before the descriptions of additional officers. Here is the wording:

“1. First Vice President: Shall be responsible for facilitating the President’s initiates, assisting the President with coordinating the work of the board’s officers, and preparing to serve as the Society’s future President. In the absence of the President, the First Vice President shall serve as the presiding officer at board, business and annual conference meetings. Additionally, the First Vice President shall identify and develop a portfolio of activities that specifically advance the development and ensure the stability of the Society. To this end, the First Vice President should be prepared to make a multi-year commitment to the Society and should anticipate serving in the future as the President for a term of two years.”
Adoption of this amendment requires adjusting the numbers in the listing for each office so that the First VP is listed as Number 1.

Dolly praised Immediate Past President Kathleen Álcala for all her work. MSA to purchase a trophy or appropriate item for Kathleen to thank her for service as President from 8/09-2/13/11.

Debbie Isard will coordinate the implementation of a new online newsletter for members and friends, to be called La Granada. Tentative date to begin is October 2011.

Deadline for the Fall/Winter issue of HaLapid is September 1. It was announced that the Editor, Lillooet Nordlinger has been approved by her doctoral committee to receive her Ph.D.

There was discussion of the need for more publicity/marketing efforts to increase number of conference attendees. Glorya Romero-Tschabold volunteered to coordinate this for the Albuquerque conference in 2012.

It was announced that the board has approved taking steps to affiliate the Society with a four-year university. Roger Martinez will coordinate efforts.

The following nominees for officers and Board of Directors were voted in unanimously. They will serve a two-year term from 8/09/11 to 8/08/13:
President: Dolores Sloan
Immediate Past President: Kathleen Álcala
Program Vice President: Seth Ward
Membership VP: Art Benveniste
Communications VP: Lillooet Nordlinger
Conference/Meetings VP: Gloria Trujillo
Secretary: Rachel Amado Bortnick
Treasurer: Diana Zertuche

Members at Large:
César Ayala Casas
Harry Ezratty
Debbie Wohl Isard
Seth Kunin
Abe Lavender
Lois Rose Rose
Arnold Trujillo
Matthew Warshawsky
Senior Advisor: Stan Hordes

The meeting was ajourned at 12:45 pm.

Submitted by Rachel Bortnick, Secretary

SOCIETY FOR CRYPTO-JUDAIC STUDIES
Questionnaire for Members

The Board of Directors of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies is conducting a survey to ensure that SCJS members are receiving full benefits from the Society’s programming. The Board also wants to know if there are other types of programming or features the members might want instituted.

In order to help us deliver the best programming and information, please take a few moments to answer this questionnaire and return it to the book table. We need your co-operation in answering this survey to help make the Society the best it can be and to create programming that will interest and stimulate members. Results and analysis will be presented in HaLapid.

Please download this form, fill it out and email it to:
mailto:cryptojews@pop.powweb.com

If you wish, you may enter your name in the space provided at the end.

1. How long have you been a member of SCJS (approximate number of years)?

2. What prompted you to join SCJS? Please check all that may apply.
academic reasons __
I am/may be anusim or crypto Jewish
of Sephardic descent __
to learn more about crypto Judaism __
to support the work of the Society __
other (please elaborate below) __

2. What is your highest academic degree? If you have a college degree, please tell us in what field.

3. Please check which of the following SCJS conferences you have attended in the past five years:

2010-San Antonio __
2009-Denver __
2008-Phoenix __
2007-El Paso __
2006-Albuquerque __
None of the above __

4. If you checked one or none, please tell us why you haven’t attended more conferences.

5. Please tell us which activities, presentations or exhibits you have enjoyed and why.

Please tell us which activities, presentations or exhibits you have not enjoyed and why.

6. What is your opinion of the balance of academic to non-academic presentations at the Society’s conferences? Would you like more or less of either? Please explain.

7. Do you believe that the Society is fulfilling its goals as you understand them? Please elaborate on your answer.

8. Is there anything the Society can do to enhance its purposes, such as adding to programming? Please elaborate.

9. The Society has met annually at the beginning of August. Does this time period work for you? Yes___ No___. Would you be able to attend the conference if were scheduled at the end of June? Yes___No___. If you replied No or either of these, what is the best time period that would work best for you?

10. Do you have further comments with respect to the Society’s programming, presentation or fulfillment of its goals? If so please set them forth below. Thanks!

Name (optional, but helpful) __________________________________________

Email __________________________________________

The Ladinokomunita Group visit Spain
October 6-18, 2010

For each of the last four years, Ladinokomunita (LK) members have gotten together to tour a country with historic or current Sephardic significance.1 After Israel, Turkey, and Argentina, in the autumn of 2010 we visited Spain, the land of our deepest roots. For many it was their first return to Sefarad since 1492.

The first four days of our tour in Madrid, Toledo, and Segovia included members from France and their local organization called Aki Estamos (We are here). (What a beautifully defiant and proud name for these Sephardic remnants of the Holocaust!) Thereafter, in Sevilla, Jaen, Cordoba, Granada, and Barcelona, our tour group numbered only twenty four. We traveled by bus, high-speed train, and airplane. Our tour was arranged by one of our Spanish members, Jose Galves, a descendant of anusim, who is now returning to Judaism and who co-owns “Pissarro Sefarad Tours.” Among the extraordinary arrangements Jose made for us included a very official reception in Sevilla, which I will describe below. Also, we had the cooperation of “Tarbut Sefarad,”2 whose representatives greeted us wherever we went, and whose president, Dr. Mario Saban, gave us an unforgettable tour of Jewish Barcelona, and a lecture during a wonderful Shabbat lunch. But in this short space, let me give a few short notes on impressions of some of the towns.

Madrid holds no visible traces of its Jewish past. We toured the city one rainy Saturday and the guide recited her usual spiel, mentioning perhaps that this church was built on the site of a synagogue, or that convent on the site of a Jewish cemetery. In Plaza Mayor, there was no mention of the spectacular auto-da-fé that took place here, where countless “Judaizers” were burned alive to the delight of thousands.

The main synagogue, where we attended Friday night services, is a nondescript building on a remote side street, as if trying to hide from the public eye, even though Madrid has about 12,000 Jews. Since 1994, national Spanish radio has hosted a weekly Sephardic program presented by our friend Matilda Barnatan who resides there.3

Toledo has not a single Jew, but the spirit of our ancestors is everywhere. With its two medieval synagogues (although one is a Jewish museum, both structures bear Christian names), and a well delineated Juderia (Jewish quarter), Toledo flaunts its Jewish past for touristic purposes, largely ignoring the sordid side of that past. The Santo niño de La Guardia (Holy Child of La Guardia) is greatly revered, and the ignoble Inquisition-invented legend, which resulted in the burning of 11 Jews in 1491, is depicted in a painting at the entrance to the Cathedral of Toledo.4

Segovia, a beautiful town with the largest Roman aqueducts anywhere and the city of Abraham Senior, also has a well-kept Juderia. In a convent, we heard about the accusation of “desecrating the host,” which caused the confiscation of the Mayor Synagogue. As we came out, a group of us broke into song: Am Israel Hai (the people of Israel lives).

In Sevilla, on October 11, 2010, at the appointed time at the Alcazar, in the Salon de Embajadores, we were welcomed “home,” by an official, Rosa Mar Prieto-Castro Garcia-Alix (Teniente de Alcalde Delegada Fiestas Mayores.) Coming to the microphone, she added:

Estamos encantados de acogerles en Sevilla y esperamos que se encuentren como en casa, porque esta es su casa. Para muchos, quizás, nunca ha dejado de ser su casa.

She spoke at length, of the multicultural history of the city, and of Jewish history in particular—mentioning for the first time anywhere—the murderous anti-Jewish riots of 1391 which had begun here. She also spoke of our language:

Es un verdadero placer ver cómo mantienen vivo el idioma de los habitantes de nuestra antigua Sevilla. Los pueblos que comparten un idioma, comparte por ello mismo, unas raíces culturales que facilitan la amistad y el entendimiento. Por ello, espero que se sientan como en casa entre nosotros.5

We had tears in our eyes.

In Cordoba who can forget the welcome and attention we received at Casa Sefarad, a gem of a Jewish museum and center, especially from its founder, Sebastian de la Aza? Or, standing in front of the statue of Maimonides, as we read a poem in Ladino describing the outpouring of emotions?6

In Jaen, center of Spain’s olive oil industry, home to largest preserved Arab bath-house and host to a city-square and street bearing the name of Rabbi Sabetay Djaen, we received the most congenial and longest welcome and personal attention, especially from Rafael Camara, town historian and representative of Tarbut Sefarad. We also attended the Andalusian feria (fair). There we were wined and dined and welcomed by the alcaldessa (lady mayor) and her entourage. Our friend Al DeJaen, from Seattle, got special attention for carrying the name of his Spanish ancestral home.

Granada, like Madrid, has erased all traces of its Jewish past. Nevertheless, in the Alhambra Palace, our guide (who claimed to be of Jewish ancestry) did mention that the edict expelling the Jews was signed there. The next morning, Jose R. Ayoso, Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Granada, lectured briefly on the Jewish history of the town, and led us through the area that was once Jewish.

Any Jew who goes to Barcelona must contact Tarbut Sefarad first! Mario Saban knows the history and the sites, even where the famous disputation involving Nahmanides took place, and he has permission to enter places where no one else can. And to be inside the Mayor Synagogue, the only medieval synagogue which has been rededicated as a living synagogue, gives one a sense of triumph.

Girona and Besalu are two towns close to Barcelona with a lot of Jewish reminders, but not a single Jew. Girona’s Jewish museum is a jewel, and the Judaica bookstore below belongs to J. Vicente Zalaya, a member of LK.

This trip was a “once-in-a-lifetime” emotional experience for all of us. In 1492, Spain “cleansed” itself of Jews and much of that hostility remains to this day. We saw an example of this at the Jewish monument in the form of a sculptured menorah in Jaen, which was covered in antisemitic graffiti. Almost everywhere we went we saw or heard some expressions of anti-Jewishness. But we also saw incredible congeniality and pro-Jewishness. Were the official welcomes we received genuine, or were they, as cynics would say, a ploy to promote tourism? I believe they were both. Still, none of us wish to move to Spain anytime soon.

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 he teaches Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. Prior to this, he directed the University of Denver’s Institute for Islamic-Judaic Studies for ten years. Today he continues to be a Research Associate of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver (UD).

Professor Ward received his academic degrees from Yale University, with additional studies at Hebrew University and at the Jewish Theological Seminary. His teaching has included courses on Islam, Middle East, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, Encounters between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and Women in Judaism, The Splendor of Spain, Jewish Mysticism, and other topics. Ward initiated and taught the Arabic program at UD, and has taught both Arabic and Hebrew at UW.

Professor Ward has not confined his professional activities to the classroom. As a Wyoming Council for the Humanities Forum presenter, Ward has lectured on Islam, Middle East, and other issues in towns and community colleges throughout Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. He is widely published in a number of scholarly journals. From 1996 to 2001 he served as Director of the Hispano Crypto-Jewish Resource Center in Denver, maintaining a reference library on the University of Denver campus, preparing resource folders, acquiring funding, and supervising oral history projects, consulting and advising researchers, journalists and crypto-Jewish descendants.

Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies
21st Annual Conference Program
August 7-9, 2011
Crowne Plaza Hotel, San Diego

Sunday, August 7, 2011
4:00–5:00 pm Registration
5:00 Welcome
Seth Ward, University of Wyoming, Program Chair
Gloria Trujillo, VP for Conferences
Dolores Sloan, Mount St. Mary’s College, President

5:15-6:15 Session One. Chair:

Erin Graff Zivin, University of Southern California “Crypto-Narratives in the Americas”
Kathleen Anne Murphy, Charlottetown, PE, The Acadian “CryptoJews” of Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia
6:30–8:00 Dinner

Greetings: Rabino Carlos Vicente Salas Diaz, Congegración Hebraica de Baja California, Tijuana

8:00 Keynote Lecture
Roger Martinez, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Introduction
Rabbi Barbara Aiello, Italian Jewish Cultural Center in Calabria and Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud, The Jews of Sicily and Calabria – The Italian Anusim that Nobody Knows
Screening: Film trailer of Carl Perkal’s The Secret Jews of Calabria
Discussion

Monday, August 8, 2011
7:30– 8:30 am Breakfast
8:30–10:35 Session Two. Chair:
Seth Kunin, Durham University: Crypto-Judaism as Discourse

(five minute intermission to set up panel)

Panel: Writing Fiction About Crypto Jews: Issues of Identity, Appropriation and Agency.*

Dolores Sloan, Mount St. Mary’s College, Chair

Corinne Joy Brown, Denver CO: Fiction versus Reality—Transformative Lessons in the Crypto Jewish Journey

David Gitlitz, University of Rhode Island, Emeritus: Bringing converso stories to life

10:35–11:00 Break
11:00–12:30 pm Session Three. Chair:
Judith R. Cohen, York University, Library of Congress:”Os nossos – ou dos goios”—Music in the lives of Portuguese Crypto-Jews*

Yitzchak Kerem, Aristotle University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Sabbatarians in Transylvania

Abraham D. Lavender, Florida International University: Crypto Jews (Neofiti) in Sicily: Comparisons and Contrasts to Spain and Portugal

12:30 Lunch
Lecture/Recital: Songs of the Sephardim Who Left and of Those Who Stayed*
Judith R. Cohen
2:30-3:30 Session Four. Chair:
Panel and Interactive Walk-Through: Crypto-Judaism as Muse*

Lois Rose Rose, Los Angeles: Gifted Hands: the Crypto-Jewish Artisan

Corinne J. Brown, Denver: Talking Pages: Bringing A Story To Life

Tour of gallery*

3:30-4:00 Break and time to view exhibit

4:00-5:30 Session Five. Chair:
M. Miriam Herrera, Malta NY: Fear of Snakes: The Dynamics of Fear and Hiding Among Survivors of Crypto-Jews. (A Prose/Poetry Piece)

Rogelio Quesada Cervantes, San Diego, California: Star of David Family Heirloom: The Cervantes Family

Arnold Trujillo, Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists: On the claim that Crypto-Jews of New Mexico learned about candle-lighting from Seventh-day Adventists

5:30-6:00 Free time to visit exhibits
6:00–7:15 Dinner
7:30 Judy Frankel Memorial Concert: Music of the Sephardim*
Introduction: John Bilezikjian, Oud

Tuesday, August 9, 2010
7:30–8:30 am Breakfast
8:30–10:00 Session Six. Chair:
Mary Anne Curray, La Jolla CA: My Personal Story

Carlos Larralde: Estefana Cavazos: South Texas’ “Cast Iron Matron” 1846-1867

Elena Saad, La Jolla CA : Professor Francisco Rivas Perigcerver

10:00–10:15 Break

10:15–11:15 Session Seven. Chair:

Roger L. Martinez, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs: The Inquisition’s Sacrificial Lambs: Evaluating the Collapse of a Family Network in 16th Century Spanish America

Matthew Warshawsky, University of Portland: Out of the Shadows and onto the Syllabus: The Iberian World through Jewish, Crypto-Jewish, Converso, and Morisco Perspectives

Adjournment
11:15 Annual Meeting of the Membership
Meeting of the incoming Board of Directors

Flypaper Press, Ignacio, CA, soft cover, $19.95

reviewed by Gloria Trujillo

Philip has self-published his book which has nine fact filled chapters of his Jewish family’s odyssey from Madeira, which is about 400 miles east of Casablanca Morocco, to the Sandwich Islands in 1885 aboard the Stirlingshire, a three-masted sailing ship.

In the first three chapters, the family’s Jewish background and repressive economic conditions on Madeira are covered extensively. The reasons for the family leaving the small island were to find a better life, and the patriarch’s opposition to sending their sons to Africa to fight in the Portuguese army.

The ship left Funchal holding 451 Madeirans in steerage and a crew of 45 men. Included were the twenty-two members of the Pereira family who boarded with the other passengers on November 21, 1885. Tragically, on the forty-first day of the voyage, off the coast of Argentina near the Straits of La Marie, Maria de Freitas-Pereira, Phillip’s grandmother dies and is buried at sea. The grandparents many years later recalled that the sailing around Cape Horn in January was at the mercy of the ever-present wind and currents.

After a long and hard ninety-six days at sea the ship arrived at its destination, Honolulu on the evening of March 2, 1886. The ship was the fifteenth to arrive in Hawaii carrying Portuguese immigrants since the Portuguese exodus began in 1878. They are to appear before the Portuguese counsel and register before being given an assignment to work a sugar plantation.

The personal price the immigrants paid for a better life, after having crossed the ocean at great risk and then having to reestablish their humanity on the plantation was just another of the indignities they were forced to endure in order to realize their dreams of a better future. These families had been forced to give up their name, their religion, their homes and their possessions, and lastly their human dignity with their arrival on the plantation.

Next described is the family’s move in 1893 from the Hawaiian sugar plantations to Northern California. Chapters VII and IX describe the family’s arrival in California up to the present.

A glossary and extensive bibliography are found at the back of the book. The author has provided an abundance of photographs and diagrams although out the book and the information been thoroughly footnoted. He has also included an index at the end of the book.

Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1997.

For those interested in the life of the conversos who moved to Amsterdam in the 16th and 17th centuries, the book written by Miriam Bodian provides an excellent insight on the conversos. The author analyzes the reasons why they left Portugal and Spain after they had converted to Christianity and difficulties encountered in the transition from Catholicism to Judaism. Also, she provides an excellent picture of the conversos and Jewish communal life: synagogues, social classes, and the Sephardim cemeteries.

Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation

Hamadrich

Hamadrich by Jacques Cukierkorn is the first non-orthodox guide to Judaism in Spanish and also the ONLY practical step guide with step-by-step direction for Jewish practice.

It can be ordered by email directly from Rabbi Cukierkorn at rabbi94@hotmail.com.

The price is $22.

See Rabbi Cukierkorn’s website