From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 1997 2:14 AM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Sephardic Jews
From: Kathleen Marion
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: Testimony of Stefan Blad -Reply
From Eddie:
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We have members on this newsgroup who have been called to
minister to Sephardic Jews. This note by Kathleen Marion may be of
interest to you.
From Kathleen:
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What a wonderful testimony, I am blessed. I
spent three years in the South of Spain from
1972-76. I loved the country, but sensed
great sadness there. It was not my time for
revelations from God.
An interesting note, we recently visited the
second oldest Synagogue in the Western
Word, which is in St. Thomas, US Virgin
Islands. I asked them why they had at least
18 inches of sand on the floor and they told
me that during the inquisition in Spain many
Jews who were forced to convert to
Catholicism practiced their new faith in the
Church but continued their Jewish faith in the
basements of their homes by putting a layer
of sand on the floor to muffle the sound.
The following is an article from the San Diego
Union Tribune, February 28.
Secrets of the past | Inquisition left legacy of
hidden' Jews in Southwest, but clues about
conversion remain shrouded in mystery
SANDI DOLBEE
28-Feb-1997 Friday
Charlene Neely
Charlene Neely remembers how her
maternal grandmother, a faithful Hispanic
Roman Catholic, would go into her bedroom
on Friday nights and light candles.
And as she researched her mother's family
tree, with roots going back 350 years in what
is now New Mexico, she discovered the
branches were filled with names like Esther,
Sarah, Solomon and Abram. Yet among all
these Hispanic Catholics, she could not find
one Jesus.
"All the hints were there," Neely says now.
But it wasn't until about 10 years ago, when
she began reading the research of a historian
named Stanley Hordes on secret Jews in the
Southwest, that Neely made the connection.
The East County resident believes she is
living proof of these conversos, Sephardic
Jews who were forced to convert to Roman
Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition,
which began in the 15th century.
As "New Christians," many of these
conversos immigrated to the New World,
only to encounter the Mexican Inquisition,
launched in Mexico City in the 16th century.
Desperate to keep both their faith and their
lives, some practiced their Catholicism on the
outside and their Judaism on the inside,
behind closed doors. They became known as
"crypto-Jews," or secret Jews.
Because of the secrecy, following the legacy
of these crypto-Jews is tough. For Neely, the
proof is in the pattern -- the Hebrew Bible
names and the rituals that are more Jewish
than Christian.
"It would be illogical to find some other
answer for this," she says.
Hordes would agree.
He remembers arriving in Santa Fe in 1981
as the newly hired state historian for New
Mexico, and how people would come to his
office and furtively close the door behind
them.
They'd lean forward and whisper stories
about Hispanic Christians in the area who
didn't eat pork or who'd light Sabbath candles
on Friday night.
"The more I began to look, the more I began
to find," he recalls.
Somehow, ancient Jewish practices had been
passed down from generation to generation
of families who are now Catholics or
Protestants.
What was even more intriguing was that
many of these families had no idea where
these customs came from. Only that their
parents and grandparents had done them.
Some refused to discuss the issue, as if they
were hiding a terrible secret. Others would
answer in whispers and riddles.
It is a mystery that has not been solved. And
while Hordes may have ignited the
modern-day fascination in New Mexico, it is
now catching fire in San Diego, where the
legacy of these secret Jews is being explored
in a photo exhibit and the world premiere of
an opera.
"The Conquistador," which opens tomorrow
at the Civic Theatre, brings to the opera stage
the true-life story of Don Luis de Carvajal, a
16th-century conquistador of New Spain
(colonial Mexico) and founder of Monterrey.
Though Carvajal was a devoted Catholic, his
relatives were secret Jews. It is this struggle
between his faith and his heritage, along with
the politics of the time, that seals his fate. His
sister and her family are burned at the stake
by the Mexican Inquisition and he is left to
languish in prison.
San Diego composer Myron Fink got the idea
for "The Conquistador" several years ago,
when he read a book about the Mexican
Inquisition while teaching music at New
York's Hunter College.
Fink, who is Jewish but raised his children as
Unitarians, admits he's always been intrigued
by "the experience of Jews in societies that at
first welcomed them and then turned against
them, which has certainly happened a number
of times."
In conjunction with the San Diego Opera, the
San Diego Museum of Man in Balboa Park
last week opened a three-month exhibit of
photographs by Cary Herz, an Albuquerque
photographer who has spent much of the past
decade capturing what she thinks are clues
about crypto-Jews.
Many of Herz's pictures are from graveyards
throughout the Southwest, where she found a
curious mixture of Christian and Jewish
symbols on headstones -- not from the 16th
century, but from this one.
She found crosses etched next to Stars of
David and menorahs. At one grave, she
found two markers side by side. One had a
Star of David. The other had a Christian
cross. Both markers were for the same man,
who died in the 1930s.
Herz, who was in San Diego last Tuesday for
the exhibit's opening, says she began her
search about 10 years ago, as she, too, heard
snatches of the same kind of stories that
Hordes was hearing.
As she discovered these graveyards, many of
them in out-of-the-way territories, she was
struck by how these people lived as
Christians, but then upon death "wanted some
connection with the other part of their soul."
Secrecy continues
Perhaps the most curious part of this mystery
is why descendants would be so reluctant to
come forward.
Herz, who is Jewish and was raised in New
York, says even people who let her into their
homes, like the woman who has on her wall a
Jewish mezuzah next to a picture of Christ,
grow anxious about revealing too much.
Herz believes this reluctance is as ingrained
as the customs themselves, handed down
through the generations. The fear didn't end
with the Inquisition -- the one in Spain or in
Mexico City. It was simply "easier to be what
everybody else was -- and safer," she
suggests.
Historian Hordes, who was in San Diego last
week for lectures associated with the opening
of the opera and the exhibit, says some
residents know about their ancestry.
He's heard stories of fathers who'll take sons
into fields and tell them, "You know, we are
Jewish and not Catholic. But you must never
tell anyone because you will put your family
at tremendous risk if they find out."
Why the secrecy? He shrugs.
"After 500 years of keeping a secret, the
secrecy becomes part of your life," says
Hordes, who is Jewish and currently an
adjunct research professor at the Latin
American Institute at the University of New
Mexico. "That's just what you do. It's not
even a conscious process, you just do it."
But even Hordes, who is continuing his
research into the legacy of the secret Jews,
admits that he has more questions than
answers.
The history
The Spanish Inquisition was part of an
attempt by Queen Isabella and King
Ferdinand to unify Spain by tying together
church and state, according to Eric Van
Young, a history professor at UCSD who
wrote a background essay for "The
Conquistador."
Jews, Muslims and other non-believers were
given three choices: They could leave,
convert or face being burned at the stake.
Historians estimate as many as 100,000 Jews
converted to Catholicism during the Spanish
Inquisition. Many went to other parts of
Europe or to the New World, hoping for a
greater degree of freedom.
Those that came to New Spain faced yet
another Inquisition -- so some tried to
distance themselves by moving north into the
frontiers of what is now New Mexico and
other parts of the Southwest.
Van Young, who also is associate director of
the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, notes
that not all the conversos were crypto-Jews.
Some genuinely embraced the Catholic faith.
But it's the crypto-Jews who have captured
the fascination of Hordes, Herz, Fink -- and
others.
A lecture room at the Museum of Man last
week was nearly full for Herz's opening-day
presentation. A series of other related
lectures held over the last two months in San
Diego County also have been well-attended.
"I'm hard put to say why," admits Van
Young, who has spoken at some of these
presentations to help tout "The Conquistador"
and the Museum of Man exhibit.
Perhaps, he suggests, families today can
identify with the struggles of faith and
heritage portrayed in the opera about the
Carvajals. "It really is a modern dilemma
that's also ancient," he adds.
But Hordes believes people are curious about
this piece of history, at least partially, because
"it throws a bucket of cold water on people's
perceptions."
Hispanics are not only Catholics. Jews are
not only from Eastern Europe. The fabric of
America, he says, is much more
interconnected.
"I think, in the long run, it just shows how
tremendously diverse and complex American
society is," agrees Neely, the local woman
who believes she is a descendant of
Sephardic Jews.
Catholic bashing?
But this research has its critics. Some say
Hordes has invented much of this legacy for
his own gain. Others label the effort as
Catholic bashing and an attempt to proselytize
for Jews.
Hordes rejects these arguments. "History is
not a morality play," he says. "History is not
the forces of good vs. the forces of evil. You
cannot impose the standards of 1997 on
1497."
Fink agrees.
"It was not our intention to write an
anti-Catholic or a pro-Jewish piece," says
Fink of himself and Donald Moreland, who
penned the libretto for "The Conquistador."
Fink points out that one of the heroes in the
opera is a Franciscan friar. "It shows the
Catholic church, like all human institutions,
has wonderful sides and not so wonderful
sides," he adds.
Neely converted to Judaism when she was a
teen-ager, long before she suspected her
Sephardic Jewish connections. She
remembers going into a San Diego synagogue
at 15 and just feeling as if she were home.
Was it her roots calling to her? Maybe. But
Neely says she doesn't dwell on that.
"I'm more obsessed with being Jewish today,"
says Neely, who teaches adults at Adat Ami
synagogue in Mission Valley and is area
resource center coordinator for Hadassah, a
women's Zionist group.
She also isn't bothered that she has no real
proof of her ancestry.
"No one's going to find the piece of paper
that says, `Oh, by the way, you're Jewish.'
You have to remember, these people were
very good at hiding.' "
Hiding still
Generations later, they're still good at hiding.
The story of Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright made news across the country
earlier this month after a Washington Post
reporter discovered three of her grandparents
were Jews killed by Nazis.
Albright's parents never mentioned their
Jewish background. She was raised Catholic
and is now Episcopalian.
In an interview recently in Newsweek,
Albright said she did not question her parents'
version of why they fled Europe nearly 60
years ago. Their accounts seemed so logical.
Everything fit. There was never any
hesitation in their recollections of past Easters
and Christmases.
Now that Albright knows the truth, she says
she just wants to move on.
"I know this is a story that interests people,
but I want to get down to work and have my
personal life be personal," Albright said. "I
have been proud of the heritage that I have
known about and I will be equally proud of
the heritage that I have just been given."
Neely can identify with that. She didn't
convert to Judaism because of heritage. She
converted because of religious conviction.
And she doesn't begrudge those who choose
not to change their faith. "In truth, if they
say they are Christians, then they are," she
says.
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