This article was printed in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the forced conversion of the Jews of Portugal It was 7:am on Corpus Christi Day 1989 when my travel companion and I left Lisbon for Belmonte 7 1/2 hours later we stepped off the train at the tiny blue and whitetiled station nestled in [...]

(From an address at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel Los Angeles October 1997) The story of the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Span is well known Not so well known is what happened five years later in the neighboring country of Portugal Of those Jews who chose to flee Spain in 1492 large numbers went [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]