In 1962 Judy Frankel attended a Theodore Bikel concert in Cambridge Mass Bikel sang a song in Spanish but as Judy recalls "It didn’t sound like Spanish" After the concert she asked Bikel about the song He told her that it was in Ladino The song was "Los Bilbilikos" (The Nightingales) This was her introduction [...]

What happened to a celebrated scholar who refused to convert? And what happened to his descendants who became CryptoJews I was probably nine or ten and sitting in the synagogue when my father called my attention to an elderly gentleman located a few rows in front of us "Do you see that man over there?" [...]

The Jewish genealogist working in a Sephardic milieu has it easier than one who works with an eastern European family tree The Jews of Spain acquired family names beginning with the 10 th or 11 th century Most Eastern European Jews did not adopt family names until the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19 th [...]

(Also see A Messianic Epiphany The Conversion of the Dönme Sabbateans by Lillooet McDonnell ) Introduction In the following pages I would like to discuss the history of conspiracy theories about a cryptoJewish group Dönmes in Turkey I will start the discussion by describing the group’s story and then compare it with the conspiratorial accounts about [...]

In 1683 approximately three hundred Jewish families voluntarily converted to IslamThis voluntary mass conversion took place in the Ottoman city of Salonika and was the largest conversion of its kind There are several explanations as to why this conversion took place The main reason stems from the fact that this group of Jews was also [...]

The Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico has initiated a project to document the history and ethnography of cryptoJudaism on the Spanish Caribbean Islands of Cuba Dominican Republic Puerto Rico and preEnglish Jamaica The project involves the collaboration of historian Stanley M Hordes Adjunct Research Professor and anthropologist Seth D Kunin [...]

In the years of researching my Jewish family history and studying Judaism I have finally come to a place where I feel reconnected with my Sephardic ancestry As a descendant of cryptoJewish heritage I feel compelled to reclaim my Jewish faith and family lineage in order to preserve what is left and also build onto it [...]

For almost three decades intriguing stories have been published about descendants of the "secret" Jews of the American southwest Sephardic Jews who escaped five hundred years ago from the Inquisitions in Spain and Portugal and found refuge in the northern reaches of New Spain Almost always any accompanying photographs have carried the credit line of Cary [...]

"No ha de ser en vano:" Among the Inquisition documents housed at the Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley are the trials of Isabel and Leonor de Carvajal sisters of the more famous Luá­s de Carvajal The Carvajal family like many other immigrants came to New Spain in the second half of the [...]

Commentary from the TexasMexico Border Defection is considered treason and the birth of mistrust is born An exception lives in the remnants of CryptoJewish descendants along the Texas border Families who have discovered that their forefathers were of Jewish blood somehow have survived in managing to hold on to their traditions without the support of [...]