On September 8 of this year the impressive Kadoorie synagogue (Mekor H’aimfountain of life) in Porto Portugal came alive with singing and dancing on the occasion of the dedication of a sefer torah donated by a rabbi whose grandfather was saved from the nazis by the then fledging anusim community founded by Captain Barros Basto [...]

The history of the anusim while often not on the forefront of Jewish historical studies is well known to many scholars Oftentimes Crypto Jews are considered the primary example of a culture and religion kept alive by secretive cultural and religious expression during an era of extreme oppression and genocide (Jacobs 2002) What is less known [...]

Being raised Catholic didn’t seem to make me Catholic Some how I never felt as if I fit in to what seemed to be the religion of my ancestors I can remember praying with my Granny three times a day when we were around one another At her house she had a little altar facing the [...]

Reviewed by Arthur Benveniste The pages of HaLapid have presented reviews of many books dealing with the history and culture of crypto Jews some of them quite scholarly others written in a more popular style some fiction and some histories But until now the books have been directed towards an adult readership What a pleasure [...]

This article concerns the commonly shared ideology of those Sephardim who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula as well as those who were forced to undergo conversion and remained there or immigrated to other countries The messianic hope for religious and national restoration was for them a commonly held one that would bring an end [...]

Captain Barros Basto whom the noted historian Cecil Roth called "the apostle of the Marranos" was the subject of the first of a series of tertulias or salons in September sponsored by Ladina a registered nonprofit society in Porto Portugal which focuses on the history and culture of the Sephardic Jews of Portugal The event which [...]

A Couple’s Odyssey Too much of Daniel Ramos" childhood revolved around the church His mother Elizabeth Garcia Ramos a minister’s daughter who became a minister’s wife and his father Ismael spent a lot of time on his ministry and as a result so did their family Daniel the youngest of five siblings was never at [...]

INKIZISION I KRIPTODJUDAIZMO EN CANARIAS SIGLOS XVIIXVIII reprinted by permission from Aki Yerushamayim (Translated from Ladino by Michele Greene) The reestablishment of Crypto Judaism in the Canary Islands dates from the first quarter of the Seventeenth Century The peace achieved in 1604 between Spain and England greatly increased the trade of sugar and wine from the [...]

Considering the diverse origins of the Israelites the large numbers of conversions into and out of the Jewish community and major disasters which have befallen Jewish communities throughout history what is the genetic composition of Jewish communities today? In the days before genetic testing the famous Jewish anthropologist Raphael Patai used cephalic indexes and blood [...]

The Jewish Publication Society Philadelphia 2003 Reviewed by DOLORES SLOAN In presenting the background and biographies of Jewish women for more than 2000 years the authors of this comprehensive sourcebook have undertaken to correct the picture usually presented in works of history Their final product The JPS Guide to Jewish Women: 600 BCE1900 can be [...]