For about 100 years before the official start of the Spanish Inquisition bloodshed and tension had been taking place in Spain due to different religious beliefs held by Jews Moors and Catholics In 1391 Catholics staged horrible bloody massacres of Jews and Moors in the cities of Castile Aragon and Seville Spanish Jews (Sephardic Jews) began to convert in massive numbers …
Helio Daniel Cordeiro has been on a quest A quest for his Jewish roots He found them and he has been helping other Brazilians find theirs In October 1996 I traveled to Brazil with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn and the Society For CryptoJudaic Studies We were interested in contacting the descendants of Spanish andPortuguese Jews who had been forced to convert to …
As delivered at the December 1996 Conference of the SCJS in Albuquerque Translated from Spanish I am grateful to God and to you for allowing me to share with you my experiences as I searched for the origins of my family I will begin by mentioning that this quest was begun in my early youth and has been transforming itself …
In 1967 during an archeological dig at the Royal Chapel site of the Santa Barbara Presidio a student from UCSB one Janet Karen discovered a complete chicken skeleton in the corner area of the sanctuary where it had been resting for over 200 years Karen had worked earlier in the year at Masada in Israel She searched the corners of …
from the July 25th edition of the newspaper Folha de Sëo Paolo HERITAGE: Venha Ver founded in 1811 in Rio Grande do Norte still preserves vestiges of its Jewish origins A little town lost in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte maintains vestiges of the Jewish origins of it population whose founders in 1811 were descendents of New Christians Jews converted …
Following is a passage from La Historia De Espana by Balisterros published in 1957 It was the textbook used in Spanish public schools Someone sent me a photocopy of this page I don’t have the next page so it ends in mid sentence Rabbi Garzon of Spain has assured me that the Spanish schools have adopted new books and this passage is …
David and Esther Rafael recently gave me a book that I find very enjoyable It is The Beauty of Sephardic Life by The late Sam Bension Maimon The book consists of a series of articles written by Mr Maimon for La Boz (The Voice) the newsletter of the Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregaton of Seattle The book can be ordered from …
Jewish food oral traditions culture and secret religious customs are showing up today in the folklore habits and practices of the descendants of early settlers in southern Texas and the surrounding areas of Mexico In northern Mexico and what today is Texas the Jews of Nuevo Leon and its capital Monterrey Mexico lived without fear of harassment from the Holy …
The Visigothic Code also known as Forum Iudicum or Libro de los Juicios were a set of laws promulgated by the Visigothic king of Hispania Chindasuinth in 642 and 643AD They were later expanded by other Visigothic Kings Their intent was to make all of the ethnic groups of the kingdom become hispaniThe laws were especially applicable to the Jews and were the first to restrict Jewish activity in Spain The …
