Late last year I received several emails regarding a conference sponsored by Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM) in Scottsdale Arizona I have to admit that the conference title was very intriguing "Converso as Metaphor: A Paradigm Shift" It was to be held at the Sylvia Plotkin Judaica Museum I wanted to find out more [...]

"Behold I will save my people from the east country and from the west country; And I will bring them and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem And they shall be my people and I will be their God in truth and righteousness" Johannesburg South Africa My interest was first ignited a few [...]

And Adonai went ahead of them in a column of cloud during the daytime to lead them on their way and at night in a column of fire to give them light; thus they could travel both day and night Neither the column of cloud by day nor the column of cloud at night went [...]

When the first Valerio Martá­n Fernandez Valerio marched up into Northern New Mexico in 1694 what dreams prayers and fears were in his mind? He was only a twelve year old boy and there are no records of his parents They did not accompany him He walked singly up through the long harsh desert passage [...]

The word "Marrano" is not generally used in Halapid articles because of the common understanding of its pejorative nature generally believed to have come from the Spanish word for swine Exception to this policy are made when the term is inimical to an article Our page one article by David Ramirez in the Summer 2000 issue [...]

Repression of Crypto Jews intensified in Portugal with the beginning of John III’s reign On March 23 1536 Pope Paul III authorized the establishment of the Inquisition and in 1540 the first Portuguese autodafé took place Fearing the worst Crypto Jews began their immigration into neighboring France Nantes in Brittany became both a temporary and permanent [...]

This research focuses on the role of women in sustaining cryptoJudaism in twentiethcentury American society The historical significance of such women has been identified in the work of Cecil Roth (1932) and Renee Levine (1982) both of whom studied the role of women in sustaining hidden Judaism during the Spanish persecutions of the fifteenth and [...]

Pirke Avot Haggadah and Bible: The cryptoJewish community in Italy published a number of Ladino translations of traditional Jewish texts the earliest of which is the Ferrara Libro de Oracyones de todo el año (the prayer book for the entire year) printed by Yom Tov Atias in 1552 A year later the same print shop in [...]

It is conceivable that during the worst periods of persecution by the Inquisition many of the Portuguese Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism in 1497 who could not leave the country certainly the poorest families without any means to buy their freedom abroad may have sought refuge in mountainous areas on the northeastern strip of Portugal [...]

It’s difficult to say when my interest in cryptoJews began For as far back as I can remember I was intrigued by stories of secret Jews lighting candles in their cellars In my memory the stories of these rituals take place in the mountains of Peru isolated towns in Spain or in longforgotten places shrouded [...]