Call for Papers: Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies' 21st conference

The Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies has announced the call for papers for its 21st annual conference, set for August 7-9, in San Diego, California.

The Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies (SCJS) fosters the research of the historical and contemporary development of crypto-Jews of Iberian origin. Additionally, it provides a venue for the descendants of crypto-Jews, scholars, and other interested parties to network and discuss pertinent issues.

The society was founded 1991 by Rabbi Joshua Stampfer of Portland, Oregon; Dr. Stanley Hordes of New Mexico; and playright Rena Down of New York.

Here is the announcement from the society:

Tracing the Tribe is pleased that this year's conference does not conflict with the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, August 14-19, in Washington, DC. Thus, we can attend this conference before going on to the East Coast.

We invite papers on crypto-Judaism from any discipline (e.g.,anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy, literature, music, etc.) and from any geographic location or time period. We also welcome papers on all aspects of the Sephardic experience and that of other communitiesexhibiting crypto-Jewish phenomena.

Papers breaking new ground in research on the California-Mexico borderlands are particularly welcome.

Interested scholars and professionals, including advanced graduate students, are invited to submit proposals for papers, presentations or workshops.

Proposals are also welcome from individuals with personal stories or other research relating to crypto-Judaism.

Proposals may be for individual papers/presentations or for complete sessions on specific topics.  Please indicate if presentation represents completed research or work in progress.

Proposals must include a 200-word abstract and a brief bio. The deadline is May 1.

Please send proposals or inquiries to Seth Ward in the Religious Studies department at the University of Wyoming,

For more information, see the SCJS website.

New Mexico: Two gen, history conferences, October

New Mexico genealogists have two October treats in store.

New Mexico Genealogical Society Conference, Friday-Saturday, October 15-16, in Albuquerque, will be followed by the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society, Friday-Sunday, October 22-24, in Las Vegas.

The New Mexico Genealogical Society Conference is its 50th anniversary. Details: Early registration (through September 15) is $35, members ($55, others); banquet, $35; hotel, $69 per night(Marriott Pyramid Hotel). The theme is ¿Quién Eres? (Who are you?). See below for speakers. Another reason to go: The New Mexico History Museum will debut “Hilos de la Memoria,” an exhibit on oral histories relating to New Mexico.

The New Mexico Jewish Historical Society Fall Conference - the 23rd - is themed "Adventures Along the Santa Fe Trail," set for Friday-Sunday, October 22-24, at the historic Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, NM. The focus is on the Jews of Las Vegas and Northeast New Mexico. See below for speakers. Pre-conference tours include: historical Jewish Las Vegas, Montezuma Castle and Montefiore Cemetery, the oldest Jewish cemetery in the state. For more details, send an email. Saturday night includes a 19th-century liturgical music at the old Congregation Montefiore. See below for speakers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Speakers: New Mexico Genealogical Society Conference

-- Paul Hutton, Ph.D, Keynote, "Billy the Kid"
Award-winning speaker and UNM history professor

-- Al Regensberg, "Migration around New Mexico"

Learn to use migratory patterns to solve the mystery of where or when your ancestors

came from; the process of reversing migratory patterns to locate appropriate Catholic parish records for genealogists with a New Mexico heritage.

-- Robert J. Tórrez, "Rio Arriba County"

Overview of a new to-be-published book on the county where New Mexico was first settled. Author, former state historian and historical lecturer.

-- Krysten Baca, "Getting the Most Out of Ancestry.com"

A genealogist on the Ancestry.com public relations and conference team, her responsibilities

have included conducting research on new content and celebrity research.

-- Jim Greene, "FamilySearch.org"

Explore how FamilySearch proposes to help curb the loss of records worldwide and increase the volume of records accessible online.

-- Krysten Baca, "Best Strategies for Researching using Ancestry.com"

Workshop and "how to" strategies on the fine points of online research.
-- Richard Melzer & Robert J. Tórrez, "Rich and Powerful Hispanic Leaders in the Rio Abajo"

Historians, authors and lecturers.

-- Rick Hendricks, "Research In and About Durango and Parral"

Researcher, author and NMSU history professor; learn how to research the archives of Durango and Parral.

-- Bennett Greenspan, "FamilyTreeDNA"

President & CEO of FamilyTreeDNA.com, Greenspan; DNA testing for Genetic Genealogy, how to pick the right person to test, understanding results and other questions regarding DNA. Bring your questions!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speakers: New Mexico Jewish Historical Society Conference

-- Susan Califate Boyle, National Park Service

"History of Hispanic Participation in the Santa Fe Trail Trade"

-- Laura Gonzales, New Mexico Highlands University

"Las Vegas: Place of Encounter"

-- Sharon Niederman, Raton

"Synagogues on the Santa Fe Trail - History of Temple Aaron (Trinidad, Colorado) & Congregation Montefiore (Las Vegas)"

-- Melanie LaBorwit, Albuquerque
"History of the Jews of Las Vegas"

-- Noel Pugasch, University of New Mexico

"The Jewish Commercial Presence in Mora County, New Mexico, 1860s to the 1940s: A Brief Overview"

-- Panel 1: Crypto-Jews in Las Vegas and Northeast New Mexico:
Isabelle Medina Sandoval, Santa Fe (Mora)
Orlando Mondragón, Santa Fe (San Luis, Colorado)
Hon. M. Christina Armijo, Albuquerque (Las Vegas)
-- A. David Scholder, Founder
"Reflections on the Establishment of the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society"
-- Panel 2: Legacy of Las Vegas’s and Northeast New Mexico’s Rich Jewish Past:
Betty Mae Hartman, Albuquerque
Gerald Meyer, Laramie, Wyoming
Nancy Paxton, Albuquerque
Mortimer Herzstein, San Francisco
-- Panel 3: Renaissance of the Las Vegas Jewish Community:
Diana Presser
Kate Immerman

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In words that are moving for all genealogists, the New Mexico Genealogy Conference theme is taken from a poem by Sabine R. Ulibarrí, PhD. See the conference link above for the Spanish version of ¿Quién Eres?

Who Are You?

If you forget where you came from, can you know where you're going?

If you've lost your past, where is your future?

If you're a man without a history, you're a man without a future.
If you turn your back on your parents, what can you expect from your children?

If you have no kinship with your family and your community,
when you laugh, you laugh alone, when you cry, you cry alone.

A solitary present without a yesterday or a tomorrow without parentage,
without fellowship, without friends, without brothers.

How alone you are in the world, How lost in the white mist.
Alone, with your guilt on your back. Alone, with your loneliness.

We can all relate to those words.

Houston: Legacy of a Hidden Past seminar, May 23

Congregation Shaar Hashalom (Houston, Texas) will present a seminar on the history of the Crypto Jews in New Spain and Mexico, on Sunday, May 23.

"Discovering the Legacy of a Hidden Past" is open to the public and runs from 8am-3.15pm.

Crypto Jews were Jews from Spain and Portugal who, after being forced to convert to Catholicism beginning in the late 14th century, continued to practice Judaism secretly, and passed on a hidden legacy to their descendants. Among the indications of such a heritage are:

-- Lighting candles on Friday nights without knowing why
-- Sweeping to center of room, not over the threshold
-- Covering mirrors when a relative died
-- Observing these or other unusual practices, not understanding why

More than 500 years after the Alhambra Decree of Exile - which sent many Sephardic Jews around the world and many more who went underground to stay in Iberia - the descendants of these individuals are now beginning to rediscover their hidden past. Readers who are interested in learning more about this intriguing history of Jews who hid their faith during the Inquisition (and even from 1391, a century earlier) will enjoy this lineup of speakers.

Some descendants know their ancestors were Jewish and some have passed down Jewish customs through the century. Sometimes traditions are practiced today, but the families don't know why. Others have learned about their hidden legacy and are trying to reconnect.

The seminar will provide general information to those seeking more insight on the topic through experts on the subject matter and informational outlets which they can use as a reference point for their personal research.

Speakers and their presentations are:

-- Rabbi Peter Tarlow, Texas A&M Hillel: Setting the Stage: History of the Crypto-Jews
-- Bennett Greenspan, FamilyTreeDNA,com: Family Tree DNA and the Crypto-Jews 
-- Rabbi Jimmy Kessler, Temple B’nai Israel, Galveston: Crypto-Jews: How This All Got Started
-- Dr. Janet Jacobs, University of Colorado-Boulder; author, "Hidden Heritage; The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews": Women and the Persistence of Culture (Ritual, Customs and Recovery of Ancestry)
-- The program concludes with a Q&A panel.

To register online ($18 donation is suggested) or for more information, visit Crypto Jews of Houston or Shaar HaShalom, or contact Rabbi Stuart Federow.

New York: Three Catalan Sephardic programs, May 2-4

The American Sephardi Federation has scheduled three programs from Sunday, May 2-Tuesday, May 4.

-- A History of Jewish Catalonia
4pm, Sunday, May 2

A lecture on this book, along with a sale and signing, will feature authors Sílvia Planas and Manuel Forcano.

This beautifully illustrated book traces the rich and fertile history of the Jews in Catalonia from the time of the late Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages, until the drastic decree of expulsion by the Catholic Monarchs.

It captures their wedding songs, the smells from their cooking pots, and reconstructs the soaring intellectual edifice they created despite the difficulties of a daily life fraught with religious persecution and social degradation.
 
The program is in collaboration with and the support of NYU's Catalan Center, an affiliate of the Institut Ramon Llull, and the European Institute of the Mediterranean

Fee: ASF members/students, free; others $5. It will take place at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, NYC. Reservations requested.

-- A Certain Identity: Crypto Jews Around the World
6.30pm, Monday, May 3

Thousands of Iberian Jews went "underground" at the time of the Inquisition and the expulsion from Spain. They dispersed across Europe, across the ocean to South America and the Caribbean, to North Africa and the Middle East. With tremendous tenacity, they preserved their heritage, married among themselves, and passed it down from generation to generation.

Gloria Mound, Director of the Casa Shalom-Institute for Anusim Studies in Israel, will illuminate their fascinating history, their presence in the Caribbean and in European countries, as well as previously unsuspected links with French Huguenots.

Fee: ASF members/students, $5; others $10. It will take place at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, NYC. Reservations requested.

-- Traces of Esther: The Jewish Presence in Contemporary Catalan Literature
6.30pm, Tuesday, May 4

Manuel Forcano, PhD (Semitic Philology), poet and essayist, will offer a Catalan perspective on Jewish culture as reflected in the writings of the great 19th and 20th century Catalan authors. Offering rich passages from the literature, Dr. Forcano will guide us from the negative stereotypes of the 19th century, through the fascination with Israel as both a religious and political inspiration, and the Bible and the Talmud as references, to the emergence of a modern, nuanced view of the place of Jewish culture in Catalonia.

The program is in collaboration with and the support of NYU's Catalan Center and the European Institute of the Mediterranean.

Fee: no charge. It will take place at the King Juan Carlos Center, 53 Washington Square South (bet. Sullivan & Thompson Streets). Reservations requested.

Florida: Secret Jews of the Caribbean, Feb. 4

"Hidden Jews of the Caribbean" is a symposium at Florida International University on Thursday, February 4.

It runs from 8-10pm, at FIU's Biscayne Bay campus, in North Miami, Florida.

Dr. Stanley Hordes (University of New Mexico) will speak on "Identities of Crypto Jews in the Caribbean - A Historical Perspective."

Hordes is an adjunct professor at the UNM Latin American and Iberian Institute. His doctoral dissertation was on the Crypto Jews of the southwestern US. He is the co-founder and immediate past president of the Society for Crypto Judaic Studies, and author of "To The End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico (Columbia University Press, 2005).

Dr. Seth Kunin (University of Durham, UK) will speak on "Contemporary Identites of Crypto Jews in the Caribbean - An Anthropological Perspective."

Kunin is vice chancellor of arts and humanities at the University of Durham, and holds a PhD in anthropology. He has many years of experience conducting ethnographic research among New Mexico's Crypto-Jews, and is the author of "Juggling Identities: Identity and Authenticity Among the Crypto-Jews (Columbia University Press, 2009). Read an interview with Kunin about his book.

Dr. Abraham Lavender (FIU, Sociology) is the respondent.

Hordes and Kunin are currently working together on the history of crypto-Jews in the Caribbean and the identities of their descendants today, with specific attention to Cuba, Jamaica and in the Miami area.

FIU is home to the President Navon Program for the Study of Sephardic and Oriental Jewry.

The program provides academic training in Sephardic/Oriental Studies for undergraduate and graduate students interested in pursuing a multidisciplinary track certificate (within the College of Arts and Sciences) and, in the future, degrees.

Lectures and seminars are presented by national and international scholars and artists,along with outreach program participation and close ties and cooperation between academic and lay communities.

Academics and artists will lecture or teach relevant courses, conduct research and share their findings and expertise at university-held conferences, seminars, and community-outreach programs.

For more information on the certificate program, click here. For general information, click here.

Sephardim, Crypto-Jews: Article abstracts

"The Journal of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Crypto Jews" (JOSPIC-J) offers 10 truly fascinating articles in Volume I (Spring 2009).

Available online, in addition to the abstracts, is the entire first article and an article on three major DNA studies.

To learn more about the journal, click here. Read the entire first article - "The Secret Jews of Spain, Portugal, and Italy and Their Descendants Today: Major Issues in a Growing Field of Academic Research" - here, with an extensive bibliography.

According to author Dr. Abraham D. Lavender's detailed article:

"Crypto-Judaic Studies is a rich field of potential research, with multi-disciplinary interests, especially as it is integrated with other areas of study. For the truly curious and open-minded, the field is unlimited."

Read "Recent Research Articles: From Roth to DNA," which discusses three recent articles about the growing field of Sephardic and Crypto Jewish DNA.

For many people, the consequences of the Inquisition still live today, as we will see these consequences in this and future issues of JOSPIC-J. Sociology, history, religion, and other areas of study join together to analyze and explain these consequences. Crypto Jews lived in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and today their descendants live in a large number of countries, providing a fascinating international flavor to this area of study.

The journal is published by the School of International and Public Affairs, within the College of Arts and Sciences, at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.

If Sephardic or Crypto Jewish studies is an interest, you will want to subscribe to this journal.

Here are the abstracts:

-- “The Secret Jews of Spain, Portugal, and Italy and Their Descendants Today: Major Issues in a Growing Field of Academic Research”
Dr. Abraham D. Lavender

The Journal of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Crypto Jews (JOSPIC-J) brings together in one place, for the first time in a refereed academic journal, research on the three countries whose historic Jewish communities, each predating the Inquisition for centuries, suffered directly and greatly from Inquisitions. There is no consensus on whether to use the term marranos, conversos, crypto Jews, secret Jews, hidden Jews, lost Jews, New Christians, or anusim. But, whatever the term, significant research continues in international, sociological, cultural, religious, political, historical, and other areas, and the number of books and articles is increasing. Research on crypto Jews and their descendants should be integrated more with other interdisciplinary research, a major goal of this journal.

-- “The Crypto Jews of Spain and Portugal”
Dr. David M. Gitlitz

Prior to the riots of 1391, Spain's Jewish community was the largest in Europe. By 1491, following expulsions and conversions, Spain had the largest single community of former Jews in the post-biblical history of Judaism. Depending on the definition of Jewishness applied, these conversos were arrayed along a continuous spectrum ranging from fully Jewish to fully Christian. This article analyzes four groups on this spectrum—Christians, Jews, seekers of truth, and skeptical dropouts. Brief attention is also given to Portugal which originally had less violence and less forced conversions than Spain, but which also developed a more tenacious crypto-Judaism which led to the establishment of an Inquisition in 1539.

-- “The Barajas Women, Madrid 1634"
Dr. David M. Gitlitz

For the past quarter century, the author has immersed himself in Inquisition trial testimony in the archives of Spain and Mexico. The historical documents are difficult to read, but are worth extensive research, revealing fascinating and inspiring lives of unfortunate conversos. The following, based on these historical documents but with the addition of fictional narration, describes the lives of one representative family, Beatriz Álvarez and her daughter of the same name, known in 1630s Madrid as Las Barajas. It is an excerpt from a forthcoming book with the working title The Lost Minyan.

-- “The Jews of Sicily and Calabria: The Italian Anusim that Nobody Knows”
Rabbi Barbara Aiello

Rabbi Barbara Aiello is the first woman rabbi and first non-orthodox rabbi in Italy, where she has served a progressive synagogue in Milan. She is currently rabbi of Ner Tamid del Sud, the first active synagogue in Calabria in 500 years. Rabbi Aiello has written extensively about her crypto-Jewish background and her efforts to uncover the hidden Jewish traditions of Calabrian Jews that date back to Inquisition times. Her work in the deep south of Italy and Sicily includes directing the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria (IjCCC), an organization dedicated to the anusim of southern Italy to help them discover and embrace their Jewish roots.

-- “Crypto Judaism in New Mexico and the American Southwest”
Dr. Seth D. Kunin

Crypto Judaism in New Mexico is a highly complex phenomenon, both respecting history and modern ethnography. This paper outlines many of the significant aspects of both of these areas. It presents the historical arguments relating to the movement of conversos and descendents of conversos into New Mexico, and the aspects of the settlement of the colony that may have shaped aspects of crypto-Jewish culture as manifested in New Mexico today. The paper also touches on some of the ethnographic research relating to modern crypto Judaism, examining the forms of identity and the cultural elements out of which those fluid identities are formed. Given the significance of arguments about authenticity in relation to this community, the paper examines Neulander’s arguments in light of both empirical and ethnographic data. It suggests that when tested on that basis Neulander’s work cannot be seen as academically credible. The uniting theme of the paper is the need to eschew simple explanation in the light of a historically and ethnographically complex community.

-- “The Sephardic Legacy in the Spanish Caribbean: Crypto-Jewish Settlement in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica”
Dr. Stanley M. Hordes

The Latin American and Iberian Institute of the University of New Mexico has initiated a research project to document the history of crypto-Jewish settlement on the Spanish Caribbean islands of the Greater Antilles, comprising Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and pre-British Jamaica. Based on archival research in Europe and the Americas, as well as ethnographic analysis, this study will examine the role played by the descendants of Iberian conversos in the economic, religious and cultural life of an area of Spanish America that was situated on the major trans-Atlantic shipping lanes, yet administratively remote from centers of Inquisitorial persecution. The data derived from these investigations will be of great value not only in helping to understand the socio-cultural fabric of a vital part of the Caribbean, but also in bringing to light the activities of the earliest Jewish communities in the Americas.

-- “The Jewish and Crypto-Jewish Participation in the Age of Discovery”
Dr. Barry L. Stiefel

The following article is on the Jewish and crypto-Jewish participation in the age of discovery, from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Though relatively small in number compared to their Catholic and Protestant counterparts, the Jews and Crypto Jews played a pivotal role in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas as financiers, scientists, and explorers. Not only did they contribute to the prosperity of the empires that they lived under (even when the respective monarch did not show the same kindness to those of Jewish extraction), but also to the perpetuation of crypto-Jewish and Sephardic Jewish life and culture wherever they ventured.

-- “Jews, Catholics, and Converts: Reassessing the Resilience of Convivencia in Fifteenth Century Plasencia, Spain”
Dr. Robert L. Martinez

A systematic reappraisal of fifteenth century Jewish and Christian convivencia, or coexistence, is long overdue because within it resides a hidden history of cooperation among Old Christians, conversos, and Jews. Utilizing a historiographical lens to evaluate interfaith relations in several Castilian and Aragonese communities, one finds a broader range of communal outcomes than is traditionally acknowledged. New findings pertaining to the cohesive collaboration and intertwined relations of Jews, conversos, and Old Christians in the Extremaduran city of Plasencia refute the long-held assumption that Jews and Christians were routinely segregated from one another and corrects the misguided belief that the converso Santa María family persecuted former co-religionists. This study reveals the previously unknown strategic partnership of the converso Santa María and Old Christian Carvajal family in Plasencia and it’s role in maintaining medieval norms of interreligious cooperation.

-- “Catholic, Jewish, and Crypto Jewish in the 1600s: The Geographic and Spiritual Peregrinations of Pacheco de Leon in Spain, Italy, and Mexico”
Dr. Matthew Warshawsky

Due to his knowledge of Judaism and his influence among Judaizers in Mexico City, Juan Pacheco de León (Salomón Machorro) was a prize catch among conversos arrested in 1642 for crypto-Jewish heresy. Yet his name is less well known than those of more famous crypto Jews in Latin America, including Luis de Carvajal the Younger, Tomás Treviño de Sobremonte, and Francisco Maldonado de Silva. This essay rescues Juan de León from such relative anonymity by exploring the interrelated questions of why the Inquisition prosecuted him so painstakingly, what his case teaches us about crypto Judaism in colonial Mexico and the ordeal its practitioners suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, and why he did not achieve fame more proportional to the gravity of his trial. In order to answer these questions, it examines how León differed from other Inquisitorial victims due to his biography, knowledge of Judaism, and personality.

-- “Cecil Roth’s Disrupted Love Affair With the Secret Jews of Italy: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants”
Dr. Abraham D. Lavender

Cecil Roth’s 1932 book A History of the Marranos popularized the term “marrano,” and increased knowledge about the secret Jews of Portugal and Spain, and also discussed secret Jews in Europe and the Americas. But, the secret Jews of southern Italy were mostly neglected. Roth corrected this omission in 1946 in The History of the Jews of Italy, discussing the secret Jews in Sicily, the Kingdom of Naples, and Sardinia. Cecil Roth and his wife, Irene, who was also his constant research companion for forty-two years, expressed strong emotional attractions for Italy and had planned to retire there before their plans were disrupted by World War II and the Holocaust.

-- “Recent Research Articles: From Roth to DNA”

Many historical research resources have been used to study crypto Jews. But, especially since the 1990s, DNA research also has been able to add more information to crypto-Judaic studies. DNA research frequently cannot provide definitive answers about a specific individual’s possible secret Jewish ancestry, but it can provide insightful information about history. There are many articles on Sephardic DNA, but this brief report describes three recent reach projects about crypto-Jewish DNA, including the research project from Iberia which documents that about 20% of all Hispanic males (mostly Christian today) whose ancestors came from Spain or Portugal have a Jewish genetic ancestry.

Learn more about the journal and subscriptions. Single issues are $10 (+$4 p&h), while annual subscriptions for individuals are only $10 (+$4 p&h). International subscriptions are $6 for postage and handling.