Secret Jews came to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico which was discovered by Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1493 They were hoping to avoid religious scrutiny But the Inquisition followed the colonists so many secret Jews settled in the island’s remote mountainous interior as did the early Jews in all [...]

Below we present three views on the subject ETHICS AND CRYPTO JEWISH STUDIES: + Ethical Framework For SCJS by Seth Kunin + Identity and DNA Testing by Abraham D Lavender + Alleles Have No Religion by Seth Ward Ethical Framework for SJCS By Seth D Kunin PhD Some of the perennial issues that have been raised in many recent conferences and [...]

As a youngster I grew up in a very good Roman Catholic home I went to Catholic parochial school in El Paso TX The Irish nuns that taught me always told their students that what they taught in religion class had to be believed by us They told us on the one hand that we [...]

The story of Esther Brandeau known to many as the first person of Jewish origin to set foot in New France exemplifies the situation that many possible Jewish emigrants faced when they arrived in this northern land today known as Quebec Esther Brandeau was the daughter of David Brandeau of Bayonne France Esther disguised as a [...]

Image of Santo Niño de La Guardia on wall of Cathedral of Toldeo Spain Rabbi Baruch Garzon called to me "Arturo ven aqui" He was standing at the side door of the great Cathedral of Toledo Spain He wanted to show me something It was 1992; we were part of the group from the American Sephardi [...]

The Holy Office followed Spanish settlers to New Spain How did this affect everyday life for cryptoJews in the area to the North near Monterrey? What is now Mexico endured as the Spanish colony New Spain from 1521 to 1821 Within this territory crypto Jews had immigrated from Europe the Azores and the Middle East [...]

Moshe ben Maimon or Maimonides was the most important Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages His writings on the Torah are well known What is less well known is the fact that he was also the most important Jewish physician of the Middle Ages When forced to convert to Islam by the Almohad dynasty in Córdova [...]

After the disruptions of the many expulsions of Jews from most West European kingdoms from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries¸ it is no wonder that Jews as medical practitioners tended almost everywhere to fade away The two places where they remained in evidence however were those lands where major disasters had not yet taken [...]

In crossing the Atlantic Ocean en route to the Iberian Peninsula I could imagine the journey my ancestors made from Barcelona to the New World in the eigthteenth century In many ways my journey to Madrid Spain can be described as a return journey to an obscure homeland It is from this obscure homeland that [...]

The Society of CryptoJudaic Studies like most academic organizations devotes most of its attention to the written word either findings from scholarly research or personal stories by descendants of the Jews of Spain and Portugal (Sephardim) many of whom had to keep their heritages and identities secret in order to survive Poetry and dramatic plays [...]