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 [...]

When Jorge Yoram Torres moved to the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic he never dreamed he would become the founder of the largest congregation on that island Born in Westchester County New York he has lived in Puerto Rico and Canada A young Orthodox Jew Torres sports a beard a kippah and the [...]

I have been asked over and over again "When did you find out you were Jewish?’ It’s as though being Jewish is something that can be acquired at some precise time and place How does one qualify to being Jewish? At what time in life does one acquire all of the attributes that define a [...]

I will never forget her wrinkled glistening elderly eyes It was a beautiful spring day in 2001 and my secretary informed me that there were three people who had just rushed into the Synagogue and insisted on seeing me immediately I invited the three strangers to come in and asked them to please be seated [...]

My parents came to Canada from Zabludow a small poor Shtetl (a Jewish town) in Poland famous for its beautiful 16th C wooden synagogue It was burnt down by the Germans and their willing helpers during World War 2 My parents experienced antiSemitism hunger and a pogrom in which my mother’s younger sister was killed [...]

When is a top just a top? While the interdisciplinary study examining the existence of the cryptoJewish community of the Southwest United States is less than twentyfive years old it has already become a focus of scholarly controversy Some scholars accept the authenticity of the Jewish heritage of the community while others question the realities [...]

Catholics Jews Conversos Collaborated in the Bishopric of Plasencia In 1442 as the fabulously wealthy and militarily powerful Catholic Counts of Bejar began to assert their seigniorial control over the Extremaduranvalley city of Plasencia Spain a tightly knit network of Catholic converso and Jewish families utilized the Cathedral of Plasencia to not only outmaneuver the [...]

From the 1500’s to the early 1800’s in Northern Mexico and what is now the American Southwest strong industrious optimistic Jews thrived in Colonial Mexico as merchants peddlers salesmen soldiers farmers and even as slave agents Like their ancestors in Spain Jewish women were merchants or moneylenders but very often they were midwives In New [...]