Conference 20123 – University of Colorado Colorado Springs – Gallery of Contemporary Arts (GOCA)
Colorado Springs, CO

Please join us for the 23rd annual conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies that will be held Sunday, July 28, through Tuesday, July 30, 2013, at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. The conference will help launch SCJS’s official affiliation with UCCS as well as the establishment the first-ever Program in Sephardic and Crypto-Jewish Studies.

Our keynote speakers are Dr. Jane Gerber (CUNY-Graduate Center), author of “The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience”, and Dr. Gretchen Starr-LeBeau (U. of Kentucky), author of “In the Shadow of the Virgin: Inquisitors, Friars, and Conversos in Guadalupe, Spain.”

In addition to offering these stimulating speakers, the conference will include presentations by members of the crypto-Jewish community, arts displays, music performances, and scholarly presentations.

REGISTRATION FEES

As our conference is an intensive event, we offer complete meals and beverage services with your full registration fees. Those persons who register for the full conference event will enjoy a Sunday dinner event; Monday breakfast buffet, box lunch, and dinner event; and a Tuesday buffet breakfast. Partial registration is available for those that cannot attend all days of the conference. Vendors who wish to sell art, jewelry, and other items may reserve a sales table with their registration.

Prior to the opening of the conference, a SCJS-sponsored Genealogy Workshop will be held on Sunday from 12 to 4 pm. You may register for this event below.

Full Registration – Early – Before June 1, 2013 – $180 per person

Full Registration – After June 1, 2013 – $195 per person

Partial Registration – Only Sunday (dinner) or Only Tuesday (breakfast) – $45 per person

Partial Registration – Monday (all meals) and Tuesday (breakfast) – $175 per person

Partial Registration – Only Monday dinner – $45 per person

Vendor Sales Registration (includes 1 sales table) – $75

Pre-Conference Genealogy Workshop – $50 per person.

Register online for Conference 2013 by clicking here

Those persons who would rather register by paying with a personal check and via USPS mail may do so by mailing their conference registration information and check payment to: SCJS, 333 Washington Blvd. #336, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

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 religious commitment of many Spanish Jews is generally assumed to have been weaker than that of their contemporaries in other parts of Europe. Another assumption is that the desire to become assimilated into Spanish society with its array of benefits was ultimately too attractive to ignore for others. Even those who are willing to explain the mass conversion of Spanish Jews in the context of the explosive violence they encountered in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries fail to realize the possibility of other factors behind these mass conversions.

Whether most Spanish Jews converted as anusim (i.e. as forced ones), or voluntarily, is the principal issue of contention between the views of scholars like Cecil Roth, Yitzhak Baer, and Haim Beinhart who support the idea of a crypto-Jewish phenomena, and those of Benzion Netanyahu and Norman Roth who largely reject this view. Netanyahu and Roth, while allowing for the possibility that the initial pogroms of 1391 produced “legitimate” anusim, largely view most conversions as voluntary or simply the products of economic or social distress.1

In the end, why Spanish Jews converted remains a critical issue, but one important cause has largely been ignored: the Islamic concept of dissimulation, known as taqiyya. This article reviews taqiyya and its possible role in how Spanish Jewish communities understood conversion as a viable option in the face of persecution.
Living at the end of the fifteenth century and having personally experienced the Expulsion, Don Isaac Abarbanel noted that many Spanish Jews converted “Because of the miseries, the condemnations, and the massacres by the enemies, they left the totality of the Law, and they thought to become like one of the people of the land.”2

Abarbanel recognized quite clearly that social conditions for Spanish Jews were inhospitable at this stage. While these were immediate reasons, and the “legitimacy” of these reasons for converting can be argued, the belief that something was endemic in Spanish Jewish society is generally presumed.

The rise of the Maimonidean philosophical tradition which reflected the cultural and philosophical heritage of Jewish life in Spain is argued to have partially created the tendency of many Jews to opt for conversion in the face of persecution. This view assumes that secular knowledge and in particular philosophical studies created a greater tendency of skepticism towards religious faith. The view is supported by several Jewish sources of the period. The eminent historian Yitzhak Baer, in his work History of the Jews in Christian Spain summarizes the standard view:

“There were many, it would seem, in Spain, who found in Maimonidean philosophy convenient support for their extreme liberalism…These men accepted only a faith of reason and rejected popular beliefs. They put rational understanding ahead of the observance of the commandments…and denied the value of Talmudic Aggadot.”3
Baer finds further support in the fifteenth century writings of Solomon Alami, Shem Tov ben Shem Tov, Isaac Arama, and Joel ibn Shuaib. Alami held that the philosophical movement was the primary cause of Jewish communal collapse. Alami’s argued that in the elevation of philosophy, intellect, rational search and natural inquiry as means to “salvation,” obedience to the commandments was undermined.4 Shem Tob continued the critique of philosophy as a cause of the decline of Jewish communal life, but targeted Aristotelian thought in particular, which promoted the idea of an impersonal G-d. This view is certainly connected to Maimonides’ own perspectives. For Shem Tob, a G-d removed from the sphere of human activity undermined Jewish convictions that G-d would ultimately judge people with appropriate reward and punishment. An impersonal G-d and the elimination of belief in an afterlife, as far as Shem Tov was concerned, diminished fidelity to Judaism.5
To summarize, the root cause according to this dominant view is that pro-Maimonidean circles spread philosophical speculation and this engendered a negative impact.6 For ibn Shuaib, such speculation led many Jews to abandon belief in the coming of Messiah and hence future redemption. We can only surmise that having abandoned such a hope, many would have opted for an immediate “redemption” rather than in a future one they no longer expected. According to Gerson Cohen, rationalism helped undermine faith creating doubt about miracles such as the resurrection, and this in turn discouraged martyrdom.7
The Concept of taqiyya

While the Reconquista increasingly carved out large sections of Spanish soil formerly under Islamic rule, the influence of Islamic culture on Jewish communities remained significant. Menahem Ben-Sasson notes that under Islamic rule, Jews generally underwent extensive cultural Arabization.8 The influence of Islamic-Arabic culture in the area of religious thought is clear. Major Jewish religious works were produced in Arabic and the philosophical trend present in Arabic thought bled over into Jewish thinking. As a consequence responses to a whole host of issues including persecution were understood differently by Jews in Islamic lands. These concepts likely remained in force even after the demise of Islamic hegemony.
In Christian Europe, martyrdom or suicide was largely the preferred response to forced conversions. Whether this attitude toward martyrdom was as Mark Cohen asserts an elaboration of the martyr traditions recorded in the Midrash is unclear.9 Jacob Katz argues that Ashkenazi views of martyrdom were also influenced by their conviction that Christianity was idolatrous. Their views were further influenced by the willingness of Christians to suffer martyrdom. If Christians were willing to suffer martyrdom, so should Jews.
Cohen also notes that conversion to escape death likely occurred to a greater degree than alluded to in Hebrew accounts of the period, but that martyrdom remained the Ashkenazi ideal.10 Nevertheless, Rabbi Yehudah HeChasid’s references to both apostates and various acts of dissimulation in his Sefer Chasidim make it clear that the situation was more complicated in Ashkenazic lands than is often appreciated.11 Rabbi Yehudah for examples points to an example in Rokeach 316 and in Teshuvot Maharil 118.
“When the members of his community were offered the alternative of either converting or being killed, he the rabbi advised them to convert and afterwards to return to Judaism…when things settled down, they all returned to Judaism. Nevertheless, since the rabbi counseled his flock to defect from the Jewish faith, his offspring all became apostates, and he is being punished in the hereafter. as though he was the one who had caused them to sin.”12
As a consequence, Sephardic Jews did not maintain the same invectives against the dominant religion that Ashkenazi Jews maintained toward Christianity. More importantly, the concept of martyrdom was not a similarly significant concept in Islam as it was in Christianity. As Cohen notes, in Islam, the martyr is a warrior who dies fighting in a holy war. Suicide or execution to evade conversion is not held in the same light. Cohen states that when “Confronted by religious persecution, Muslims favored outward accommodation or dissimulation, in Arabic taqiyya while inwardly maintaining belief in Islam.”13
In addition, in all three great Islamic persecutions of the medieval period (i.e. the persecution under al-Hakim, the Almohads, and the persecution in Yemen) Jews and Christians who were forcibly converted were eventually allowed to revert to their original faiths. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui refers to the words of Ibn Abbas, a Sunni commentator:

Al-Taqiyya is with the tongue only; he who has been coerced into saying that which angers Allah (SWT), and his heart is comfortable (i.e., his true faith has not been shaken.), then (saying that which he has been coerced to say) will not harm him (at all); (because) al-Taqiyya is with the tongue only, (not the heart).14

Siddiqui also refers Abd al-Razak, who in his book “al- Dala-il,” wrote:

The nonbelievers arrested `Ammar Ibn Yasir and (tortured him until) he uttered foul words about the Prophet, and praised their gods (idols); and when they released him, he went straight to the Prophet. The Prophet said: “Is there something on your mind?” `Ammar Ibn Yasir said: ‘Bad (news)! They would not release me until I defamed you and praised their gods!’ The Prophet said: ‘How do you find your heart to be?’ `Ammar answered: ‘Comfortable with faith.’ So the Prophet said: ‘Then if they come back for you, then do the same thing all over again.’ Allah at that moment revealed the verse: ‘….except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in faith… 16:106.’15

It is clear then that for Islam, the survival of a faithful Muslim is of utmost importance. The ability to feign loyalty to another religion is not considered problematic when faced with persecution. What is important is that concern for financial and material well being is also included as acceptable reasons for feigning conversion. This is most interesting as possible financial motivations for conversion are often viewed as inherently unacceptable within Jewish thought. In Chapter 6b, Siddiqui also refers to what is narrated in al-Sirah al-Halabiyyah, v3, p61, that:

After the conquest of the city of Khaybar by the Muslims, the Prophet was approached by Hajaj Ibn `Aalat and told: “O Prophet of Allah: I have in Mecca some excess wealth and some relatives, and I would like to have them back; am I excused if I bad-mouth you (to escape persecution)?” The Prophet excused him and said: “Say whatever you have to say.”16
The influence of taqiyya is arguably evidenced in the writings of Maimonides and his father in response to forced conversions of Jews of Morocco and Yemen. Responding to the situation of Moroccan Jews, Maimonides states the following:

Now if he did not surrender himself to death but transgressed under duress and did not die, he did not act properly and under compulsion he profaned G-d’s name. However, he is not to be punished by any of the seven means of retribution. Not a single instance is found in the Torah in which a forced individual is sentenced to any of the punishments, whether the transgression was light or grave….17
In this particular case as well as in Maimonides’ letter to the community of Yemen who underwent a similar persecution, the fact that Islam was generally not considered as idolatrous was certainly beneficial to this lenient view. In addition, “conversion” to Islam only required recitation of the shahada or testimony and not the more involved procedures of Christian initiation. This certainly parallels the Islamic examples provided by Siddiqui. Admittedly, Islamic practice was also much closer to Judaism than Christianity was. This allowed for a greater degree of obscurity when practicing Jewish customs in the case of Maimonides’ letters to affected communities. Cohen states:

Jews could accept Islam outwardly, demonstrating their conversion by attending Friday prayer and avoiding acts disapproved of in Islam, while secretly adhering to Judaism in the privacy of their homes.18
In addition, at least one Islamic source of the tenth century upholds the view that the forced conversion is not binding unless the convert has overcome their fear.19 Taqiyya is a fundamental Islamic concept based on the Quran. The Quran holds blameless Muslims who disguise their beliefs in cases of safety.20
Conclusion

It is unclear to what extent taqiyya influenced Jewish communities in 1391, a period which witnessed the transition from Muslim to Christian authority; yet, the notion deserves a closer review. In the case of Christianity, the dominant Jewish perspective has certainly viewed it as idolatrous. This makes the application of the Maimonidean view toward forced conversion under Christianity more problematic. Nevertheless, the extent of cultural influence is not something that devolves instantaneously.

Furthermore, while the pogroms of 1391 eventually spread throughout Spain, they began in Seville which is located in Andalusia. Seville, historically part of Moorish Spain, had only been conquered by Spanish Christians in the middle of fourteenth century. The effects of almost six hundred years of Arabic-Islamic religious, cultural, and social influences cannot be ignored.

Whether conversos retained fidelity to Judaism in “their hearts” is what Netanyahu and Roth argue against. While we cannot know the individual reasons that Jews opted for conversion, the individual Jew may have gambled that an eventual allowance of religious behavior may have been allowed to return sometime in the future. After all, history had proven this to be the case before.

Sources

1. For more on this see David Nirenberg, “Mass conversion and Genealogical Mentalities: Jews and Christians in Fifteenth-Century Spain,” Mass Conversion and Genealogical Mentalities: Jews and Christians in Fifteenth-Century Spain,” Past and Present 174 (Feb. 2002), pp. 3-41.
2. Cited in Jose Faur, Four Classes of Conversos: A Typological Study, Revue des Études juives, CXLIX (1-3), Janiver-Juin 1990, pp. 113-124.
3. Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, (Philadelphia, 1961), Volume 1, p. 97.
4. Allan Harris Cutler and Helen Elmquist Cutler, The Jews as Ally of the Muslim: Medieval Roots of Anti-Semitism, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1986), 273.
5. Ibid., 274.
6. Jose Faur, In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity, (New York: SUNY, 1992), 235. See also Jose Faur, Anti-Maimonidean Demons, Netanya College and Jose Faur, A Crisis of Categories: Kabbalah and the Rise of Apostasy in Spain, Bar Ilan University and Norman Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1995), 11.
7. Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 175.
8. Ben-Sasson, “On the Jewish Identity of Forced Converts: A Study of Forced Conversion in the Almohade Period,” 20.
9. Ibid., 174.
10. Ibid., 175.
11. Avraham Yaakov Finkel, trans., Rabbi Yehudah HeChasid: Sefer Chasidim, (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1997), 349-359.
12. Ibid., 349.
13. Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 176. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui defines Taqiyya as “Concealing or disguising one’s beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of eminent danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury.” www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia/chapter6b/1.html
14. www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia/chapter6b/1.html
15. Ibid.
16. In addition, alal al-Din al-Suyuti in his book, “al-Durr al-Manthoor Fi al-Tafsir al-Ma’athoor,” v2, p.176, narrates that: Abd Ibn Hameed, on the authority of al-Hassan, said: “al-Taqiyya is permissible until the Day of judgment.”
17. David Hartman, Crisis and Leadership: Epistles of Maimonides, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985), p.29.
18. Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p.176.
19. Ibid. p.176.
20. Qur’an 16:106

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 I perambulated several decades ago, I find a change in the atmosphere. In the past, these so-called “Jewish villages” were easily identified by the local population, but back then it was extremely difficult to get the old women to recognize that they were anusim, let alone talk about their secret practices. Today it is different. After a few decades of increased numbers of educated people in the villages, the secret praying meetings and ritual ceremonies became almost extinct. Now, a new generation has emerged, which is anxious to learn from their grandmothers, mothers and aunts about their secret ancestral traditions. When I go there today, even the old people, who were so secretive in the past, step forwards when asked, and proudly declare: “We are Jews, we are all Jews.”

Here and there, we are invited by the local councils to conferences, which attract researchers and simple tourists, if for no other reason than our contribution to the local economy.

Jewish museums have been inaugurated or are in the process of creation. They will be included in the new “Jewish Roadmap of Portugal,” which is in-the-making in several districts.

Obviously, Belmonte, the unique village where crypto Judaism has been kept for over four centuries, is the first place and a must for the Jewish tourist. Belmonte now has a synagogue, a Jewish cemetery and a Jewish Museum, which receives thousands of visitors every year.

Several years ago, the scene in Belmonte was quite different. I met, for the first time, a family of crypto Jews from Belmonte on the evening of Kol Nidre, at the Lisbon synagogue, Shaare Tikva. Elias Diogo Henriques, the butcher, his wife, daughter and son-in-law undertook what was then considered a long journey, in order to fulfill a promise. Their enterprise was a breakthrough in the relations between Belmonte’s crypto Jews and mainstream Judaism. On their return to the village, they were received with mixed feelings.

Until the arrival of Samuel Schwarz, in 1915, Portugal’s crypto Jews did not know of the existence of other Jews in the world. The death of Samuel Schwarz and the diminishment of Barros Basto’s movement, following the return to power of the Church in 1928, re-isolated the crypto-Jewish community. Schwarz and Barros Basto had convinced them that the republican revolution of 1910 had been the start of a new era of liberty of religion and there was no reason to hide their secret religion any more. The new reality proved that this was not quite so. In the remaining areas of the Portuguese “Marrano belt,” in Tras-os-Montes and the Beiras for example, where Barros Basto’s message of redemption had been widely accepted, the comedown was ruinous. Crypto Judaism almost disappeared.

Not so in Belmonte. There it was vigorous enough to resist failure. Belmonte had a Jewish community before the forced conversion of 1497, and many of its inhabitants were persecuted thereafter by the Inquisition. However, its present Jewish population settled there only in the mid-nineteenth century, when apparently it was already “clean” of Jewish descendants. They were only a few families, who came mostly from one or two other villages: Sabugal and Monsanto. Actually, they were all members of one family. Through practice of strict endogamous marriages, this allowed for ten different branches of the same family to emerge.

In fact, in Belmonte, the word for Jews is a família (the family) and a fellow Jew is a parente (a relative). A crypto Jew from Belmonte who went to see a Jewish doctor in Lisbon, asked the nurse to announce “a relative of the doctor from Belmonte.” In Belmonte, when a man married an Old Christian, he was automatically excluded from the secrets of his ancestral religion.

Nevertheless, crypto Jews went to church, and had their children baptized. They were married and buried by the priests. At home they made their own Jewish marriage ceremonies and mourning rituals. When asked why this strange double standard they would say that otherwise they would be deprived of their citizens’ rights. This was not true, but they sincerely believed in it.

They celebrated some Jewish festivals, such as Passover and Yom Kippur, according to the Jewish dates. They didn’t even know of the availability of Jewish calendars, but they learned to calculate the dates counting from the new moon. However, “in order to delude the spies,” they celebrated Yom Kippur one day later, on 11th day of the moon of September, not the 10th and Passover on the 14th of the moon of April, not March. Due to leap years in the Jewish calendar there was a discrepancy of one month, of which they were not aware.

They baked their own unleavened bread, picked up in the fields a number of bitter herbs which they considered suitable as maror. They used olive oil and linen wicks for Shabbat lamps.

However, the first and most important commandment was the prohibition to reveal any part of their rituals and their prayers to people from “outside the family.” Even if somebody declared himself as a Jew, he was suspected of being a spy. Very seldom would they believe that the interlocutor was really a Jew.

I had the fortune of their confidence, since my first memorable visit in 1964. However, from time to time they put me on a probe. It was hard for them to believe that a Jew did not know the same practices they did.

They were particularly harsh with women visitors. Men were not supposed to be acquainted with the ritual. They were supposed only to repeat the words and acts of their wives, but women were the ultimate keepers of religion. They learned from their mothers and grandmothers. Why did women visitors not know the same prayers (in Portuguese!) that they prayed?

Their society was dominated by men, typically Portuguese, except in matters of religion. On the Jewish holy days, when the families gathered to celebrate, everybody went to the wife’s mother.

This has been so since the time of the Inquisition. Among the first couples to settle in Belmonte, there were some very dominant women, such as Maria Caetana Velha, the elder. From her stemmed a “dynasty of old women,” sometimes known as sacerdotisas (priestly women). They were the ones who prepared the blessed linen wicks for Shabbat, celebrated marriages and commanded the ritual “tehara” (purification) of the death. They were teachers to their daughters and other younger women. They responded to questions on religious behavior.

All this said, it is easy to figure out the community’s reaction to the unprecedented journey to Lisbon of the family I met in the synagogue. This opposition was especially aggravated when their daughter showed the matzot we sent her from Lisbon. Instead of baking their own “holy bread” would she eat now those “crackers” from Lisbon? Was she a new sacerdotisa, introducing new laws?

The momentum for the change arrived in the 1980s when, by the initiative of Dov Halevy Milman, then Israeli Ambassador to Portugal, two groups of crypto Jews from Belmonte visited Israel. When asked to escort each group during the first day of their visit, I anticipated that they would be shocked when confronted with the “relatives” in Israel! Some had never even visited Lisbon. Most had never flown anywhere. Jewish practices should be secret, how come they were shown in a museum? How could one speak openly about our religion?

Over the course of the visit to the Diaspora Museum (Beit Hafutsot) a very daring young lady came to meet the anusim from Portugal. Shifra Horn, now a successful writer in Jerusalem, was then the secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS). On the spot she asked me to help her bring these scattered Jews back to the Jewish people. I must confess here that I declined my help. I was so impressed with the total devotion of these people to their own Jewish tradition that I feared that this attachment to their origins would be lost, without gaining a new way of Jewish life.

Shifra won her battle and I am happy she did. But I still have mixed feelings about my own attitude. She was right; Belmonte Jews regained Judaism. But something they kept during 400 years was lost. My old friends in the village don’t say that in public, but in the secret of their homes, some of them still practice “the old religion” of their mothers. Maybe the younger people would be lost anyhow, and at least they are good Jews. So I was wrong.

One or two years later, Shifra organized an international event of the WUJS in Guarda, a city near Belmonte. The participants spent the Shabbat in the homes of the crypto Jews. This opened a new window of opportunities for the young men of Belmonte. They discovered the Jewish world. This meant for them many opportunities to find a mate, without being confined to taking a cousin for a bride. One year later, two of them, Joaquim and Elias, took part in a Jewish Summer Camp, in Dijon, France. They made new friends there, and they participated in a second camp. They learned Jewish songs and stories

Joaquim met Clara, a Jewish girl from Malaga, Spain. Soon they were married and settled in Belmonte. This was new in Belmonte, a fully normative Jewish home quite different from what they were used to. Clara respected the ancient traditions of her mother-in-law but firmly observed in her new home the Jewish traditions that she had learned from her own mother. They celebrated together with Joaquim’s parents, and soon his mother was giving-in and accepting some changes in her ritual.

Elias was the grandson and son of the two couples whom I met in 1963, at the synagogue. He joined his parents in subsequent trips to Lisbon. As a youngster he was engaged by the liberty of the cult that he witnessed there. He shared with his friends at home that joy of an open Judaism versus the secrecy which was the main characteristic of crypto Judaism.

In the sequence of the summer camps, Elias took the initiative of creating an association: The Jewish Community of Belmonte. He was elected its first President. Soon he rented an old two-room house, where he and his friends celebrated services, using photocopies of prayer books translated into Portuguese. Practicing Judaism in the open was very attractive, especially for men. Finally, the men were also in command of the religion, not just the women.

The next step was the arrival of a rabbi, sent from Israel, who formed a Beit Din and converted most of the population to mainstream Judaism. It is questionable if conversion was the proper term or just “return,” but this was not a time for polemics. Couples who returned were immediately married according to the religion of Moses and Israel. Everybody was now covering their heads, men with yarmulkes, and women with hats.

When the oldest couple in the village, Carlos and Benvinda Diogo Henriques, passed away, one shortly after the other, they had a plot of land, next to the old historical “Jewish quarter,” where they lived. Their children decided to donate the plot for the future construction of a synagogue. The money for the construction was provided by Mr. Azulay, a benefactor from Switzerland, in memory of his Father, whose name was given to Belmonte’s synagogue: Beit Eliyahu. The community initiated by Elias Nunes was now officially recognized by State authorities, and a new board was elected, who requested from the local council the concession of a ground, next to the village’s cemetery, for a Jewish burial place. The first Jewish burials took place.

As the number of visitors increased, the local council established tourist attractions. A Jewish museum was erected. Nowadays, it is also a place of study, and receives visits by high-school students from all over Portugal.

New initiatives include the production of a Kosher wine “Terras de Belmonte,” a kosher version of the famous cheese of the region, kosher meat and smoked sausages.

Lisbon has a small Jewish community and a large beautiful synagogue, where sometimes it is difficult to raise a minyan. Beit Eliyahu, in Belmonte, always has a minyan for Saturdays and holidays. Everybody can read and pray in Hebrew. In the gallery, women, who lost their status of keepers of the religion, do what other Jewish women do all over the world.

It happens sometimes that a pious Jew from Lisbon must say Kaddish and, to make sure that he has a minyan, he travels all the way to Belmonte.

It is said that every Jew needs a synagogue where he goes to pray and another where he will never go. There have been cases of Lisbon Jews who rented rooms in Belmonte, for Yom Kipur, to pray at Beit Eliyahu. So, now it is the reverse of the event in 1963 that introduced me to the crypto Jews of Belmonte.

Journalist and writer Inacio Steinhardt lives in Israel.
Visit his website

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 place during the Spanish Inquisition and the days leading up to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. The cover image hints at fragments from an ancient Hebrew text, the proven existence of which would shake the very foundation of Christianity. Toledoth Yeshu is the name of the scroll that surfaces in the possession of Genovese merchant mariner Cristobal Colon. The scroll is then hidden again after passing through the hands of the novel’s main character, Luis de Santangel, Chancellor of the Treasury for King Fernando of Aragon. The search for this parchment and the fear that its possession engenders, weaves throughout the novel.

Immediately, the reader wants to know how the image of the woman on the cover informs the context of this historical novel.

She wears a crucifix: perhaps she is a converso struggling with her decision to renounce the faith of her ancestors in order to stay alive? She wears a wedding ring: perhaps she comes from a family of New Christians but hasn’t revealed her Jewish heritage to members of her new household? Perhaps she has been asked to provide the names of religious cohorts in order to spare the life of a loved one? Never did I imagine that the image is actually a small segment of a much larger work of art.

The portrait on the book’s cover is of Queen Ysabel, a detail from an 1843 oil painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, entitled “Columbus before the Queen.” Kaplan’s interpretive account indicates that the portrait of Queen Ysabel shows her in the throes of spiritual confusion. Kaplan artfully conjures-up questions Queen Ysabel poses to herself: “To what extent was her desire to purify Castile and Aragon motivated by her love for Jesus, and to what extent was it motivated by her resentment over the Muslim theft of her land, centuries before her birth? If anger more than love fueled this desire to cleanse her nation, was that desire unholy?”

Before the Queen can formulate a clear position, she succumbs to the influence of the notorious Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada, whose tentacles of distorted ecclesiastical authority spread far and wide. As both her confessor and her political advisor, it is known by historians that Torquemada held terrible sway over Ysabel. As a character in this historical novel, he seems to appear whenever the reader needs to be reminded that evil can exist even in the guise of one purporting to be doing God’s work on earth.

The title By Fire, By Water, is borrowed from an ancient Hebrew piyyut, a poetic meditation on destiny, death, and God’s perceived intercession. Recited for centuries by Jews all over the world on the most holy of days Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it is known as the unetanneh tokef: “Who shall live and who shall die, Who at the measure of days, and who before, Who by fire and who by water, Who by the sword and who by wild beasts…” It is a fitting title and one which reminds the reader that the characters’ destinies have been pre-written.

The search for a second book, a manuscript of the transcribed deposition testimony of a certain tortured converso, is another piece of the story. With plenty of mystery and good old-fashioned intrigue, Kaplan unapologetically depicts what men will do when confronted with the dire consequences of looking evil in the face.
Kaplan’s experience as a script writer serves him well as he supplies his characters with believable dialogue that is consistent with their personalities. We know what the characters think and feel, and the words they speak are credible given what we know about their circumstances. Indeed, the assortment of languages within the novel: Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and Italian, make the storyline all the more plausible.

In keeping with the genre of historical fiction, the novel’s characters are composites of known historical figures who faced similar challenges and opportunities. The characters themselves are truthful insofar as they shed light on a dark and mysterious period of history. Kaplan offers the reader a convincing amalgam of historical context within which fictional characters, portrayed convincingly, bring alive a world that is at once exotically beautiful yet insidiously treacherous.

Through the fictional female protagonist of the story, Judith Midgal, a highly skilled silver-smith, Kaplan introduces the living conditions of Jews during la conviviencia period (711-1492). Circumstances place Judith on a dramatic path, including her association with Luis de Santangel, an actual historical figure, indisputably descended from a converso family and responsible for helping to finance the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

A multitude of characters inhabit the complex world into which Kaplan invites the reader. Some minor characters turn out to have played a pivotal role in their only scene. Occasionally, it might be frustrating for a reader, having bonded with one of Kaplan’s skillfully depicted characters, when the character does not appear again or ends up playing only a temporary or minor role. Conversely, one might consider lightly the actions or words of a character who is briefly mentioned, but later discover that the individual deserved closer attention. Some may consider this inconsistency to be a weakness of the author’s writing; however, this reader considers it to be one of Kaplan’s strengths.

In life, we do not know ahead of time the moments, the people, or the situations that will ultimately influence the course of our personal journey. Uncertainty of loved ones’ welfare was typical of the times, as was the possibility for people to go for years without knowing if a loved one was dead or alive, if a secret was discovered or still intact, if a choice made was the right one. It behooves the reader to pay attention to what Kaplan chooses to include or omit.

Kaplan’s very readable book could be described as a story about deadly secrets, intentional and inadvertent betrayal, political intrigue, crises of faith, and religious zeal. It is also a historical, sociological, and anthropological study of the late fifteenth century of the Iberian Peninsula in the years preceding the discovery of the New World. By Fire, By Water will appeal to both the academic or pleasure reader. Ultimately, this is a book about people and the choices they make within the context of the particular circumstances of the world in which they live.

I recommend this novel especially for those who enjoy the genre of historical fiction. They will be engaged in the well-crafted plot-lines and develop empathy for the characters while becoming informed about the connections between four simultaneous world-changing events: the establishment of the New Inquisition in Castile and Aragon, the re-conquest of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and Columbus’ ambitious quest to sail across the ocean. Kaplan is a gifted storyteller, who has used the historical novel By Fire, By Water to, in his own words, “reveal the dramatic core of history.” At the conclusion of the book, Kaplan treats the reader to the section, “Author’s Notes,” and reveals what in the story is fact, embellishment, and well-intentioned fabrication. Do yourself a favor and wait to read this section until you have completed the novel.

By Fire, By Water may be ordered from www.otherpress.com

The Society for Crypto Judaic Studies is proud to announce inauguration of La Granada, its on line newsletter.

La Granada will present up-to-date news, articles, announcements and much more about our society and about the field of Crypto Judaic studies.

La Granada will be emailed to all SCJS members PLUS anyone who subscribes by requesting to be added to the mailing list.

Click here to see the first issue

The Bavli Talmud (i.e. Babylonian Talmud) in Tractate Makkot relates story of Rabban Gamaliel, Rabbi Eleazar Ben Azariah, Rabbi Joshua, and Rabbi Akiva and their journey to Jerusalem. Upon arriving at the Temple Mount and seeing it in ruins, all the sages rent their clothes in sorrow. As they reached the place where the Temple once stood, a jackal emerges from where the Holy of Holies had been situated. At this sight, the sages, with the exception of Rabbi Akiva, began to weep. Awkwardly, Rabbi Akiva laughed. Stunned by his response, the Sages asked Akiba about his laughter. He responded that the Scripture foretold that the Temple would be lain to waste and that the Holy of Holies would one day become the haunt of jackals. But the Scripture, he added, also stated that old men and old women would one day sit again in the broad places of Jerusalem. As long as the first prophecy regarding the jackals had not come true, he feared that the restoration of the Jerusalem and hence the Temple would also not take place. Upon witnessing the fulfillment of one prophecy, Rabbi Akiva was assured that the prophecy of Jerusalem‘s restoration would also come to pass. Hence he laughed in expectation. In hearing this response, the Sages were comforted and took heart.1

At first thought, this section from the Bavli may seem unrelated to the historical situation of Spanish and Portuguese Jewry and of crypto Jews in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Yet the work of Samuel Usque, entitled the Consolations for the Tribulations of Israel seeks not only to provide a review of Jewish history from antiquity to his present day, but also to frame the challenges and persecutions of the Jewish people including those of the anusim as part of a greater Divine plan and destiny, in much the same way as Rabbi Akiva did.

Usque examines the trials and misfortunes of the Jewish people in an effort to both comfort and encourage anusim (i.e. forced or coerced converts to Christianity). For Usque, .history. serves a divine purpose. And in the context of his audience, the anusim, it served to alleviate their pain, to convince them of the reasons for their current predicament, and to convince them that an imminent redemption was soon to be realized. To achieve this, he argued that they should return openly to Judaism.

Usque also sought to address the great challenges presented by Christianity, principally the notion that G-d’s covenantal relationship with Israel had been terminated following the destruction of the Second Temple, where Christians saw themselves as replacing the Jewish people.

Samuel Usque: A Short Biography

Biographically speaking we know very little about Samuel Usque, but it appears that he was born shortly after the forced conversions of 1497 in Portugal. He mentions that he was part of the Diaspora of Castile, referencing the initial expulsion in 1492. His real name is unknown; Usque may have some relation to the town of Huesca which figured prominently in the history of the Jews of Aragon.2 Usque was a man of high culture and was well versed in the Bible and the Apocrypha as is seen throughout the Consolation. He was also familiar with classical authors such as Plato, Ovid, and Lucan. He appears conversant with sources such as Josephus and made extensive use of the medieval Yosippon. He was acquainted with strains of Jewish mysticism and was knowledgeable of classical Jewish sources such as Talmud, Midrash, and even the Rambam’s works. While Portuguese appears to have been his native tongue, he also understood Hebrew, Spanish, Latin, and most likely Greek.3 The source of his extensive educational background as Martin Cohen notes is quite mysterious: Where Usque acquired such an extensive knowledge, particularly of Hebrew, is mystifying. The learned Immanuel Aboab, writing in 1624, called him a rabbi, which he could hardly have become in Portugal. Numerous sources attest to the New Christians’ dread of owning books
in the sacred tongue and to the general decline of traditional Jewish knowledge in Portugal in the sixteenth century.4

The fact that some anusim may have retained sufficient knowledge of Hebrew to pass this on to Usque and others is possible, but does not explain the breadth of the rest of his textual knowledge. Martin Cohen speculates that Usque like many of his fellow anusim may have actually studied for the priesthood and studied at a renowned university like that at Coimbra.

The exact date of Usque’s escape from Portugal is unclear. Yet the Consolation mentions various key events including the deportation of Jewish children to São Tomé; Emanuel’s forced conversion of Jews; the massacre of 1506, and the rise of the Portuguese Inquisition. The latter may indicate Usque left Portugal sometime after 1531.5 Usque used a variety of non-Jewish historical sources including Alfonso de Spina’s Fortalitium Fidei, Estorias de S. Denis de França, and Coronica Dos Emperadores e Dos Papas.6

Usque appears to have journeyed from Naples to Constantinople and then on to Salonika which had became a major center of Sephardic exiles and returning anusim.7 From Salonika, he travelled to the land of Israel and spent time in Tsfat, which likely
explains his affinity for Jewish mysticism and messianic speculation including the return of the Ten Lost tribes.8 Usque’s journeys did not conclude in the Land of Israel, however. He returned to Europe where he traveled through Bohemia and finally back to Italy to the city of Ferrara.9 He appears to have been related to Abraham Usque, though the exact relationship is not known. The latter published his work in Ferrara in 1553.

Dedicating his work to Dona Gracia, Usque heaps praises on this Sephardic heroine and refers to her as the .heart in the body of our people..10 He lauds her further for her work in helping anusim escape from the Iberian Peninsula. Usque praises Dona Gracia for bringing forth into the light the fruit of the plants [i.e. anusim] that lie buried in its darkness..11 He was also intimate with the Abravanels. The remainder of Usque’s life is like the earlier portion—veiled in uncertainty. The exact year of his death is unknown, but Isaac Akrish writing in 1577, spoke of Usque as having passed—possibly some time before.12

The Style and Message of the Consolation

Usque‘s treatise is an extensive review of the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people, together with his views on the theological causes of the grief endured by them. The Consolation is divided into three dialogues between the patriarch Ycabo (Jacob but also a play on the word Ichabod meaning the glory has departed) who is introduced as a shepherd lamenting the fate of his children and Numeo (Nahum) and Zicareo (Zechariah). Critical to understanding Usque is the person of Ycabo. As Cohen notes:
Though Ycabo narrates the past history of his people, he stands in the present as a contemporary of Samuel Usque: he sees in the past not the dear relics of bygone generations but his own reflection and the reflection of his people’s lives. When Ycabo bemoans his fate, when he raises questions or voices doubts, he does so from this vantage point in the present, fully aware that the entire sweep of his history has failed to provide him with satisfactory answers.13

In the first two dialogues, Usque relates the history of the Jewish people through the destruction of the Second Temple. He then turns to the rise of Roman rule following the fall of Hasmonean rule. In the third dialogue, Usque provides a lengthy review of Jewish history once again, but this time recounts the sufferings of Jewish communities up to his own day. He quotes Biblical prophecies which he believes reflect fulfillment of the events in question. Usque begins his narrative by recounting the persecution by Sisebut, and continues with the stories of the alleged desecrations of the sacred host by Jews in France and Spain. He reviews the persecution of Jews in Persia, Italy, England, and Germany and a series of other accusations against the Jewish community once again in Spain and France. He relates their then recent persecutions in Spain and Portugal; and the fortunes of those who were exiled from the Iberian Peninsula following the two Expulsion decrees.

Usque begins with the goal of his work in mind from the beginning. In the pastoral introduction, Ycabo articulates the desperation of the anusim: When will I see the end to wrongs and offenses against me, to my longings and agonies, to my bruises and the wounds in my soul? When will my happiness not be confined to dreams and my misfortunes not be real…When will peace come to my battered body, or to the fears, suspicions, and apprehensions of my spirit? How long must I moan and sigh and slake my thirst with my tears.14

Ycabo’s and by extension the desperation of the anusim is also an appeal for a response to the claims of Christianity. Christianity saw the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent hardships of the Jewish people as proof that G-d had rejected His covenantal relationship with them.15 Christians pointed to sin as the ultimate reason for Israel’s continuing sufferings. On this, Usque is actually willing to agree, but not for the reasons that Christians argue. Instead, Usque argues that the sin in question is the sin of assimilation. Cohen notes: It was the sin of assimilation to gentile peoples, leading Israel to apostasy, idolatry and marriage with non-Jews. By this sin, Israel broke its covenant with G-d and provoked the divine punishments recorded in the Bible.16

Usque seeks to address the trials of anusim by appealing to various examples from Israel’s history. Usque looks at the experiences of the Ten Lost Tribes, for example, with whom many anusim must have certainly shared a connection to: I fear above all that the L-RD, so provoked and offended, has not rejected me as His people. And then I fear lest He has gone over to another people, after seeing how little effect His remedies and
punishments have had on me. And if He has left me, I dread still a third evil, namely that being thus deprived and absent from His favor, my memory may end and be consumed in the paws and teeth of the animals of this world, this frightening desert through which I travel.

Usque responds to the concerns of anusim who fear being lost to G-d and the people of Israel. Usque, like Rabbi Akiva, believed that since the prophet’s promises of punishment had come to pass, so too would their predictions of Israel’s happiness and restoration also be realized. Like the Ten Tribes of Israel who were now indistinguishable from the neighboring peoples, but would eventually be regathered, so too would the anusim be reassembled and restored to Israel.17 In holding this view, Usque was not alone. For his complicated approach to the status of anusim, Don Isaac Abravanel also believed that a return to G-d by anusim and their descendants would occur: .In the future redemption there will return to G-d all the criminals of Israel who left the fold and assimilated among the nations, either forcibly, at the point of the sword, or through temptation and in other
ways. In the end of days they will regret their deeds and return to the G-d of their fathers.18

For Usque, anusim have not been abandoned by G-d. Nevertheless, reconciliation to G-d involves the rejection of idolatry. Ycabo states: .You have placed me in a frame made of clay and adobe, subject to temptation’s unabating winds and storms; how can that which is infirmed by its very nature sustain itself when it is buffeted to and fro.19

Usque seeks to comfort anusim in their despair by stating the following: .The force of divine mercy toward you has not diminished, nor does the pardon of your children and the healing of your wounds depend upon your good or evil deeds alone. Many and incomprehensible are the ways by which the L-RD performs lofty action and marvels..20

For Usque, the situation of the anusim is not an anomaly but simply reflects a recurring pattern in Jewish history of Jews adopting the ways of the nations. When Jews sin they experience the same type of punishment. The very people and lifestyle they seek to emulate become the source of their oppression. In ancient Israel, the temptations toward assimilation may have been evidenced in Canaanite practices; in Usque’s day the drive was towards Spanish and Portuguese society. Hence the anusim are not outside the fold of the Jewish community. They are like their Israelite ancestors in the wilderness, like the children of Israel in the plains of Moab, and the like the countless other times, at a crossroads where they must choose to follow G-d’s paths or abandon them.

In Dialogue II, Usque reviews the history of the Maccabees and the struggle against Hellenistic assimilation. The stories of the aged priest Eleazar who suffered death while being tortured at the rack as well as the death of Hannah and her seven sons by fire are vivid reminders of the Inquisitional methods that anusim faced in their own day.

But the Consolation does not simply serve as a lengthy martyrology. For Usque, the time of redemption was drawing near and the suffering endured by anusim was a sign that an eschatological redemption was at hand. The suffering of anusim in Spain and Portugal signals the beginning of the end of Israel’s tribulations. Usque states, .You have run the entire gauntlet of misfortunes and have reached the end of your tribulations…The ancients were unable to attain this proof as were, for we find
ourselves living it in experience, which is the mirror where truths are clearly seen.21

Usque through the person of Numeo relates the prophecy of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy which states that the L-RD will scatter the people of Israel among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other. Furthermore, the prophecy continues, as long as the children of Israel do not walk in G-d’s paths, they will be given a .constant restlessness of heart, sunken eyes and sadness of soul.. Their lives will .dangle on a thin thread…. But in this chapter and with this calamity, Moses ends his enumeration of the curses. When all these things have transpired, Moses adds, .you shall turn your heart, there among the nations, and consider the state in which you are and why so many misfortunes befall you, and you shall repent.. With this, Numeo declares; .G-d’s mercy will descend upon you and He will gather you from all the peoples whither He scattered, you.22

Usque’s Description of the Inquisition

For anyone looking to contextualize the nature and activities of the Inquisition and diminish their severity in light of contemporary events, Usque describes the Inquisition as a horrific and deadly monster.

The king and queen sent to Rome for a wild monster, of such strange form and horrible mien that all Europe trembles at the mere mention of its name. Its body, and amalgam of hard iron and deadly poison, has an adamantine shell made of steel and covered with enormous scales. It rises in the air on a thousand wings with black and poisonous pinions, and it moves on the ground with a thousand pernicious and destructive feet. Its form is like both the awesome lion’s and the frightful serpents in the deserts of Africa. Its enormous teeth equal those of the most powerful elephants.23

The purpose of the Inquisition was to pollute and perverse its victims.24 The power of the Inquisition as Faur notes, enticed some conversos to molest, persecute, and assail their fellow conversos who continued to adhere to Jewish practices. .There was something Machiavellian and perverse in the Christian practice of using former Jews to persecute other Jews, especially members of their own families.25

Usque describes the dire conditions that anusim living in countries under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition could expect: They are martyred so much that in the poverty and abandon to which they were driven by this monster, they kill their own children, burn their husbands, deprive their brothers of life, increase the number of orphans and widows, impoverish the rich, destroy the powerful, make thieves of the nobly born, and sow base and infamous places with modest and chaste women.26

Usque does not simply respond to Christianity’s supercessionist claims regarding the nature of Israel’s current and past sufferings. Instead, like the Biblical prophets of old, Usque takes aim at Christianity through the imagery of Edom to paint a dire picture of G-d’s pending retribution on the former: .As though you, Edom, soar as high as the eagle and set your nest among the stars, I will throw you down from there by force (Obadiah 4). And on that day, says the L-RD, I will destroy your wise men and discernment from the mountains of Esau. I will destroy your wise men and which you committed against unto your brother Jacob; you shall be injured and forever cut off from the earth. (Obadiah 8:10).27

Conclusion

For Usque, anusim are not non-Jews. They are instead the latest example of Jews who have become entangled by the ways of the nations only to learn that the nations are interested in their destruction, socially, spiritually, theologically, and at times physically. For Usque, the Inquisition, contrary to popular views that it did not concentrate Jews, does exactly that. The Inquisition focuses on Jews. For Usque, they were Jews who had sinned, but Jews nonetheless. Jews who make must a choice to return to the G-d of Israel- but Jews nonetheless. As Usque writes: .But you shall be called priests of the L-RD, and ministers of our G-d shall be your name. And you shall not be occupied in vile things; rather you shall eat the wealth of the nations and you shall delight in their splendor.28

Sources

1. Babylonian Talmud Makkot 24a-b.

2. Martin A. Cohen. Trans. Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel,
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1977), 12.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., 13.

5. Ibid., 13.

6. Samuel Usque, Jewish Encyclopedia, (Funk and Wagnalls: New
York City, 1901), http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?
artid=57&letter=U&search=abraham usque#231

7. Martin A. Cohen. Trans. Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel,
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1977), 13.

8. Ibid., 14.

9. Michael A. Meyer, Ideas of Jewish History, (Wayne State University
Press: Detroit, 1988), 105.

10. Martin A. Cohen. Trans. Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel,
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1977), 15.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid., 16.

13. Ibid., 19.

14. Ibid., 19.

15. Ibid., 20.

16. Ibid., 20.

17. Martin A. Cohen. Trans. Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel,
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1977), 21.

18. Don Isaac Abravanel‘s Commentary on Ezekiel, Introduction p. 7a
quoted in Benzion Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain: From the Late
14th Century to the Early 16th Century According to Contemporary
Hebrew Sources, (Ithica: Cornell University, 1999), 190.

19.Martin A. Cohen. Trans. Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel,
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1977), 22.

20. Ibid., 22.

21. Ibid., 27.

22. Ibid., 235.

23. Ibid., 198.

24. Jose Faur, In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the
Dawn of Modernity, (New York: SUNY, 1992), 194.

25. Ibid., 45.

26. Martin A. Cohen. Trans. Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel,
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1977), 206.

27. Ibid., 239.

28. Ibid., 241.

SCJS Conference reports
This year‟s annual Society of Crypto-Judaic Studies (SCJS) conference took place August 1-3, 2010 at the hotel Hilton Palacio Del Rio in San Antonio, Texas. The conference not only
enriched us intellectually, socially, and culturally, but artistically as well. Besides lectures and discussions, it featured an exhibition of works by three visual artists who artistically portrayed the crypto
-Jewish experience. The conference also featured the third concert of Sephardic songs in memory of Judy Frankel, our dear friend with the crystalline voice, who passed away in March of 2008.
(Both events were made possible by grant from Martin Sosin-Stratton-Petit Foundation.) As always, there were also author tables, vendors of Judaica and other items. For the meals, the SCJS provided special meals (kosher, vegetarian, etc.) for those who had previously submitted their dietary requests ahead of time. To make the preparations, the organizers of the conference arrived a day or two early, as did some of us eager to have extra time to sight-see in San Antonio and socialize with friends. I had the special pleasure of meeting in person a longtime “virtual” acquaintance from Ladinokomunita, Dr. Charles Baruch Abraham (see photo) and his lovely wife Rivka, who also attended the conference.You may not think that holding the SCJS conference in Texas the beginning of August would be advantageous, but believe me, it was! After being in the overly-chilled conference rooms of the hotel for a few hours, it felt good to step outside into the steaming summer‟s heat of the famed River Walk along the Rio del San Antonio, where the hotel was located. Of course you can also consider it from another point of view: it was so hot outside that we preferred to stay inside the hotel to listen to the lectures! I hope that the following summary of the 2010 SCJS twentieth annual conference will bring back good memories for all who were present, and inspire all of those who were unable to attend to make plans to come to next year‟s conference in San Diego, California.

Sunday, August 1
The tone of a pleasant time to come was set at the registration table in the afternoon, where all conference attendees were met by Helen Hordes and Diana Zertuche. There we picked up our innovative name tags and programs designed by Diana Zertuche. The name tags and programs were made out of lotería cards (from the Mexican game of chance, similar to bingo), which were then tied with festive red-white-and-green satin ribbons. As in a real game of lotería, some conference participants did indeed win prizes:
Edward García won a bottle of fine Texas red wine, and Helen Hordes and Abigail Seldin each won a large bottle of authentic vanilla essence.Dinner began at 6:00 p.m., with welcoming words from Seth Ward (in absentia) read by Art Benveniste, as well as from the conference chair, Stanley M.
Hordes and the SCJS President, Kathleen J. Alcalá. Marie-Theresa Hernández, Presidential Fellow at the University of Houston, was the keynote speaker. She spoke on “The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Secret Jews in the Mexican Church.” Her research was based on the unpublished papers of Manuel Espinosa de los Monteros (1773-1838), which she discovered in the archives of the New York Public Library. Manuel Espinosa de los Monteros was a Catholic priest, who, from 1835 until his death in 1838, worked as the official archivist for the Collegiata, commonly known as the Sanctuario de la Virgen de
Guadalupe (after partial restoration in the year 2000, the church was renamed Templo Expiatorio a Cristo Rey). In 1835, it was Mexico‟s most important Catholic Sanctuary. In the late nineteenth century, the church became the most important sanctuary in the Americas. Prior to his archival duties at the Collegiata, Monteros completed Interpretación del Misterio Guadalupano in 1825. Hernández argued that Monteros‟ work is clearly a Jewish inspired text. She demonstrated how Monteros spoke of Guadalupe as representing the Jewish nation and about how he showed that Guadalupe will restore the nation of Israel to its former glory. Hernández noted that the manuscript provides an analysis of the Pentateuch along with the narrative of Guadalupe. Hernández explained that the text is a testament to Judaism surviving in the hearts and minds of those who faced persecution for outwardly practicing Judaism, and yet remained in isolation from outwardly practicing Jews. Hernández also noted that Monteros‟ writing is significant because it is a testament to the strong Jewish influence “…located in the heart of the Mexican colonial church almost two hundred years after the great Auto-da-fé of 1649.” Following the lecture and discussion, we all enjoyed visiting the SCJS Art Gallery, with works by Mercedes Gail Gutierrez (Nitzah Avigayil), from Netanya, Israel and Davis, CA; Laura Cesana, from Lisbon, Portugal; and Dan RiiS Grife, from Coupland, Texas.

Monday, August 2
The first panel, 9:30-10:30 a.m., included three presentations followed by a question and answer period. David Ben Yosef (see photo), of the Spertus Institute, delivered the first paper, which was entitled, “Maimonides‟ Letter on Apostasy and H. Solveichik‟s critique.” Ben Yosef discussed how Maimonides addressed the issue of the anusim in Iggeret ha-Shemad (Letter on Apostasy). Ben Yosef explained how during the 12th century, Spanish and Western North African Jewry faced forced conversion to Islam. In his epistle, Maimonides discusses the status of apostatized secret Jews from the perspective of Jewish law; specifically, whether or not they are to be considered apostates and idolaters. The Rambam‟s letter was written in response to a letter from another rabbi, who had condemned the Jews of Morocco as heretics. The contemporary halachic scholar Haym Soloveitchik agrees with that rabbi. Ben Yosef compared these two positions, and also examined Maimonides‟ work Hilchot Teshuva, which addressed the reinstatement of the anusim to Judaism. The second speaker was Juan Marcos Bejaranno Gutierrez (see photo insert), also of the Spertus Institute. He reviewed Samuel Usque‟s Consolations for the Tribulations of Israel. Usque‟s work was written after the expulsion from Spain and the subsequent forced conversions that occurred in Portugal; Gutierrez explained how Usque saw history as serving the “divine purpose” and that it should be used to alleviate the suffering of crypto-Jews. In doing so, Gutierrez explained how Usque tried to console the crypto-Jews and how he urged them to openly return to Judaism. Then spoke Kathleen Alcalá, of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, on “The Illegal Alien as flâneur.” She pointed out commonalities between the 19th century flâneur and the 21st century Mexican immigrants to the United
States. Alcalá used the term flâneur as it was used by Charles Baudelaire to mean “a person who walks the city in order to experience it” as well as to indicate a border-crosser. Both definitions denote individuals trying to survive in a society and an economy which is in constant flux, while at the same time such individuals live on the fringes of the larger society. The second panel, 11:00 -12:00, featured only two speakers, Martin Salvucci, from the University of Chicago, and Abigail Seldin, from the University of Oxford. (See inset photo.) Salvucci‟s paper was entitled, “Leo Strauss, Baruch Spinoza, & the Theoretical Foundations of Crypto-Judaism,” and dealt with the critique by Leo Strauss (1899-1973) of Baruch Spinoza‟s (1632-1677) universalistic rhetoric, and its importance to the development of crypto-Judaism. Salvucci argued that Jewish religious tenets as well as philosophical concerns motivated Strauss‟ criticism of Spinoza‟s line of thinking. Spinoza‟s political objective, Strauss argued, was the assimilation of the Jewish people at the cost of annihilating the Jewish faith. Salvucci linked Strauss‟ interpretation of Spinoza with the development of crypto-Judaism. Seldin‟s paper was entitled, “Exploring Politics of Emergence in New Mexico: Work in Progress.” Seldin is just commencing field work for her doctoral dissertation (autumn of 2010); specifically, she will be exploring “the roles [that] various interested constituencies (including anthropologists) play in the authentication of „new‟ old identities” among crypto-Jews in New
Mexico and throughout the southwestern United States. She added that “the consequences of academic research in legitimizing new identities may alter the ways in which anthropologists approach groups pursuing identity-related agendas, and change perceptions of the implications for that kind of research.”

Panel three activities started after lunch, with the visual artists‟ panel, “Self and Image in the Converso Journey” at 1:30–2:15 p.m., followed by a walk through the SCJS Art Gallery with the artists. Mercedes Gail Gutierrez (Nitzah Avigayil), born in Los Angeles of secret Jewish ancestry on her mother‟s side, has been an art professional for the last 45 years. Gutierrez formally returned to Judaism through conversion in 1997 and emigrated to Israel in 2007. In Israel, she exhibits her work under her Hebrew name, Nitzah Avigayil. Her current work is related to the conflicts in her self-identity between her social identity and her ancestral works. Her exhibit at the conference centered around an installation she is doing on Doña Gracia Nasi y Mendes, on the 500th year of the anniversary of her birth. Laura Cesana, from Lisbon, Portugal, has exhibited her art internationally, and has authored the book Jewish Vestiges in Portugal, Travels of a Painter, inspired by site research in crypto-Judaic communities in northern Portugal. Much of her art is
“dedicated to aspects of Judaism, such as crypto-Judaism, candles, roots, signs and blessings …[as well as] interiors, elements in space, walls, women and fantasies.” Cesana also spoke on Tuesday with
a PowerPoint presentation on An Artist‟s Journey: An Update of Judaism in Portugal.

Dan RiiS Grife, of Coupland, Texas, who has a BFA from the University of New Mexico, grew-up amidst the multicultural diversity of the Central Rio Grande Valley. The imagery in his art, especially in his most recent work, reflects his personal journey of return to Judaism, and his multitude of cultural influences.
Panel Four, 3:30-4:30 p.m., featured Professor Stanley M. Hordes,
from the Latin American and Iberian Institute, at the University of
New Mexico, whose paper was entitled, “The Sephardic Legacy in
the Spanish Caribbean: A History of the Crypto-Jews of Cuba,
Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and pre-British Jamaica” and
Professor Abe Lavender from the Florida International University,
whose talk was entitled, “The Secret Jews and New Christians of
Brazil.”
Hordes discussed the crypto-Jews of the Caribbean islands under
Spanish rule. He discussed their demographic, occupational and
migration patterns; their significant role in commerce throughout
the region; the position of converso merchants as economic and
cultural links between Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, and the
Iberian Peninsula; the role of Cuban, Dominican, Jamaican, and
Puerto Rican conversos in the slave trade; and the extent to which
crypto-Jews interacted with openly-practicing Jews living on the
British, French, Dutch, and Danish Islands.
In speaking about Brazil, which “probably has more descendants of
New Christians than any other country in the world,” Dr. Lavender
discussed the debated over the future of these descendants –particularly the effect that both Brazilian Catholicism and
Brazilian Judaism have in the debate, as well as the controversies over the approach to their conversions or return to Judaism.
This session was followed by some free time to visit exhibits and
author tables. After dinner, we attended the Judy Frankel
Memorial Concert, “Songs of Sefarad: From Folk to Classical,”
performed by Debbie Bussineau-King, soprano, and Ruth
Friedberg, pianist. Extra chairs had to be brought in, as more
people from the general public attended the concert, which ended
with a standing ovation for the performers. This was my first
concert named in honor of my dear friend Judy, and it was difficult
to hold back tears as I remembered our shared times, her sweet
voice, and her faithful rendering of our Ladino songs.

Tuesday, August 3
Panel Five speakers included Laura Cesana, Diana Zertuche, and
Miriam Herrara, who all focused on their own personal
experiences.
Laura Cesana, was one of the exhibiting artists in the SCJS art gallery. She gave an illustrated presentation titled “An Artist‟s Journey: An Update of Judaism in Portugal,” giving examples of the Portuguese Jewish legacy in secular and religious manifestations, and how she has depicted some of these in her work. Cesana is also is also author of a
bilingual book, Jewish Vestiges in
Portugal: Travels of a Painter.
Diana Zertuche, of Del Rio, Texas, gave a very lively talk on the
subject of “Nopalitos: The Crypto Jewish Remnants Along The
Texas Borderlands,” exuding her intense love and appreciation of
life, and her commitment to better the lives of the people in her
community who, as she explained, are descendants of Sephardic
Jews who had settled in the Northern Parts of Mexico, especially in
Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas beginning in 1530. She said, “Today the remnants are still alive in the synagogues in
Monterrey and Saltillo, in our cemeteries, our food, our customs, our rituals and in many of our daily dichos (sayings)!” For the
last three years she has been informing and inspiring people via the weekly column she writes for the Del Rio News Herald newspaper under the heading “Nopalitos.” Having researched the local dichos and comparing them with those of the 17th century settlers, she concludes that “…we have been missing a link to our very important history of Tejas/Texas.”

The next presentation was a prose/poetry piece by Miriam Herrera,
of Malta, New York, on making her first altar for El Dia de los
Muertos (Day of the Dead). She described how she
transformed the traditional Mexican holiday into her own ritual,
one that both appeased and honored her crypto-Jewish traditions.
After a fifteen minute break, it was time for the last discussion
panel, on “Publishing Fact and Fiction about Crypto-Jews.” Abe
Lavender spoke on the issues he faced in publishing the Journal of
editor of HaLapid and in charge of the SCJS Website, reviewed the history and evolution of both publications. Dolores Sloan, of Mount St. Mary‟s College, Los Angeles, discussed the proliferation of published works of fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction with crypto-Judaic content, and how to decide which works are of value and worth reading.

In short, the entire event was a great success, for which we
congratulate everyone involved in its organization and direction.
The entire conference proceeded smoothly; the speakers graciously
concluded their presentations at the end of their allotted time, and
every session and activity stayed on schedule. We hope that
everyone is looking forward to next year‟s conference in San
Diego.

Rachel Amado Bortnick, a native of Izmir, Turkey, is a retired ESOL teacher in Dallas, Texas. She has been promoting, writing, and teaching about Sephardic culture for many years, and she is the founder of “Ladinokomunita,” a Ladinoonly correspondence group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ladinokomunita/

During the twentieth century, numerous civil rights leaders surfaced in South Texas. Leaders such as Aniceto Pizana, Luis de la Rosa, and Jose Cantu and others, whose sensibility, confidence and industriousness made them legendary. They all loathed aristocratic snobbery and pretensions and hated class divisions. Everyday these leaders, along with other Texas Latinos, faced the harsh realities of impoverished life in the region. A majority of Texas Latinos lived below the poverty level, due to the fact that most of them had lost their land when Texas became part of the United States. Throughout the countryside, wretched sanitary conditions existed. Yet, the legislative body in Austin had no interest in ameliorating these dire problems.

The remote late nineteenth century figure of Carlos Esparza (1828-1885), a nonconformist poet and rebel in his own right, inspired Texas Latinos to take action. These included his sturdy and fearless relatives Francisca Reyes Esparza and J.T. Canales, who became fervent civil rights leaders during the 1920s through the 1950s. As Canales said, “Esparza blazed a path for all us when it came to civil rights.”1 Latino civil rights leaders became devoted to studying Esparza‘s political activities. In a sense, they helped their fellow Latinos in political and economic matters while they were inspired by Esparza‘s honesty and blunt ideas.2

Carlos Esparza was born in 1828 in Matamoros, Tamauilpas, to Pedro and Felicidad Villarreal Esparza, and was privately educated. His mother was the granddaughter of the anti-clerical crypto Jew, Tomas Sanchez, who established the settlement of Laredo in May, 1755. Sanchez was a direct descendant of Luis de Carvajal. With his father, Esparza managed a ranch twenty near Brownsville on the Lower Rio Grande.

During Esparza‘s era faith was part of the philosophical underpinning of crypto-Jewish genealogical efforts. Just like New England families, who settled the area in the 1600‘s, and later dedicated Mormons, care for historical family materials were typical among Latino settlers. They focused on the eternal family unit and different religious concepts that extended throughout time and eternity. They were all obsessed with genealogical material and preserved and studied precious documents. By the twentieth century much of this material ended-up in religious or federal archives.

To the crypto Jew, genealogy was a noble connection to keep in touch with those who brought and nourished the faith in Monterrey before the Inquisition dismantled Carvajals‘ colony during the 1590s. At times during Friday evenings, they lit candles and read a collection of special prayers, some dated during the 1600s.3 Sometimes scrolls of genealogy were used to recite the names of ancestors as far back as the Carvajal‘s settlement. While the Bible was used, only the Old Testament was read. To them, the New Testament was kept as a pretense of Christianity. In Texas there were certain curanderos de la Fe, (spiritualists of the faith) while in New Mexico they were called resardores.4 They served as the rabbis in some parts of the Southwest.

In 1850 Esparza married Francisca Garcia, daughter of Roman Garcia, a prosperous merchant. They married in a local Catholic church in Brownsville. Marriages were conducted in Catholic churches to give their relationship lawful meaning and a gesture of
good public relations as .a noble Christian family.

Esparza, along with his father and an associate, Enrique Sanchez, and other citizens of the area attempted to establish a territorial government and separate themselves from the rest of Texas, known as the Territory of the Rio Grande. At first it promoted the interests of Hispanics. The proposal became politically complicated and was eventually dropped.5

A spirit of rebelliousness overcame Esparza. As always he questioned deeply held beliefs and traditions. Upsetting the status quo was his nature. From 1859 to 1876, Esparza became a guerrilla strategist and a spy against the Texas Rangers and other enemies of Juan N. Cortina. The stern and persuasive Esparza persisted in supporting Cortina and the Cortinistas. A bitter civil rights movement to defend Latinos ripped throughout South Texas and it caused much desolation, untold causalities and endless sorrow.6

With his sturdy perseverance, Esparza encouraged the participation of women in politics. He also recruited them as spies and soldiers, a far cry from when women were segregated in the synagogue from men and forbidden to teach doctrine. Even in the Catholic Church, women were forbidden to be priests or teach theology as well. Esparza respected prostitutes in a world where Anglo-Puritan tradition detested them. He recruited them as spies. He needed aggressive women who really understood men and he was not disappointed. They were excellent spies.

Esparza chose his aids for their merit and strict discipline. With Cortina he played the Union and Confederate forces against each other, while promoting the Cortinistas‘ cause. From 1860 to 1876 he provided military supplies and funds for the Cortinistas. Esparza appeared as an ordinary rancher, possessing neither Cortina‘s striking appearance nor leadership qualities. The eccentric, sharp-tongued Esparza remained Cortina‘s man in the shadows. Cortina gave him an honorary superintendent‘s position in Matamoros so that he would have access to city resources and information.

In 1873, Esparza was appointed special deputy inspector of hides and animals in Cameron County. Texas Ranger Leander H. McNelly was probably referring to Esparza when he referred on January 24, 1876, to the Cortinistas‘ .organization….called the
=rural police.‘ The chief man is owner of a ranch, or the superintendent. He is a civil officer…He sends an alarm to one ranch and it is sent from ranch to ranch in every direction..7 After Cortina was arrested in 1875, Esparza retreated to his ranch. Except for his activities as a stockholder with the Rio Grande Railroad Company in Brownsville and other business matters, he became a recluse to avoid criminal charges for his controversial political activities.

Despite his reclusiveness, Esparza did not deteriorate or stagnate. Instead, he saved himself with his witty sayings and business talents until he died on September 28, 1885. The kinds of dichos (sayings or proverbs) that Esparza said or wrote were also popular in Levantine Sephardim literature.8 And they were often the product of fasting and mystical meditation. In a sense, these sayings revealed the vibrant Sephardic cultural background of Esparza‘s world. Some of his sayings were also echoed in one way or another by other Sephardic figures along the Lower Rio Grande. They, in return, were reverberated from the Monterrey colony of the Carvajals‘ followers, victims .by the forces of obscurantism.9

Esparza‘s sayings reveal his love for books, a common Sephardic habit. .Love of books went hand in hand with love and encouragement of the written word. Book collecting would continue as an active tradition..10 It started in Sephardic Spain where new forms of creativity flourished.

In a sense, Esparza was the product of that tradition with its unique rabbis, mystics and spiritual personalities. One can see him attacking orthodoxy while his house became an intellectual gymnasium where new ideas and revolutionary ideas were tested.
As we shall see with the following sample of some of his sayings, Esparza refused to view any intellectual concepts as sacred.

A Sample of Esparza’s Proverbs

Authority – Authority must be questioned. When authority becomes scared, then it becomes dangerous.

Criticism - To help ourselves more effectively, we must be more critical of ourselves.

Devil – In this life, even the devil has a noble purpose. If he sees a man idle, he will assign him a task.