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.

Tex-Mex: Jewish food traditions

If one really wants to learn about how Jewish customs are manifested in a still-secret community, take a look at food traditions in southern Texas and northern Mexico.

In this article from the Harlingen News in Texas, read about how these customs - in food, oral traditions, culture and secret religious customs - are still part of the folklore, habits and practices of the early settlers' descendants in this geographical area.

In northern Mexico and what today is Texas, the Jews of Nuevo Leon and its capital, Monterrey, Mexico, lived without fear of harrasment from the Holy Office of the 1640’s and beyond.

Many of the leading non Jewish families today of that area are descended from secret Jewish ancestors, according to scholar, Richard G. Santos.

Santos states there are hundreds, if not thousands of descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews living today in San Antonio, Texas, USA and throughout South Texas. Not all are aware of their Jewish heritage.

Santos is a renowned San Antonio, Texas scholar in ethnic studies of South Texas secret Spanish Jewry.

Back in 1973, when few people knew anything about this, he presented a paper to the Interfaith Institute at the Chapman Graduate Center of Trinity University on secret Sephardic Jewish customs in the same region.

Historically, most scholars accept that the founding families of Monterrey and the Mexican border area of Nuevo Reno de Leon are of Sephardic origin. The Diccionario Porrua de Historia Geografia y Biografia states that Luis de Carvajal y de a Cueva brought a shipload of Jews to settle his Mexican colony – with some Jews being converts to Catholicism from Judaism and others “openly addicted to their (Jewish) doctrine."

The late Seymour Liebman, a specialist on colonial Mexico's secret Jews, explained in his book (“Jews in New Spain”) that Jews settled in areas far from Mexico City to escape the 16th century Inquisition.

Conversos colonized the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Tamualipas and into what would become the stateof Texas, in the 1640s-1680s and later. Most of Texas’s Spanish-speaking immigrants came from Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and Coahuila (the old Neuvo Reyno de Leon) from the 1680s.

Those who settled in today's southern Texas in the 17th century brought Jewish food customs, such as pan de semita or Semitic bread eaten around Passover and Lent.

According to Santos, the memories of delicious Jewish pastries eaten around the world in today's Sephardic Jewish communities today still live in Tex-Mex pastries, such as pan dulce, pan de semita, trenzas, cuernos, pan de hero and pan de los protestantes (Protestant’s bread).

Pan de semita is considered a 17th century recipe for unleavened matzoh, and it is never made with lard, forbidden by Jewish law. The article offered a quick recipe of 2 cups of flour, 1/2-2/3 cup water, a few tablespoons of butter or olive oil. Mix it together and bake it.

Today, according to the article, all Mexicans (regardless of religion) eat it in the geographical area detailed above.

Santos himself descends from colonial-era Conversos and he details a special kind of pan de semita - including raisins, pecans and vegetable oil - made only in Texas and along the border. This is another sign of Jewish dietary rules. According to Jewish dietary laws, pan de semita with butter couldn't be eaten with meat, but made with vegetable or olive oil, it could.

Santos' recipe: 2 cups flour, scant cup water, a handful (Note: Tracing the Tribe is not sure how to measure a handful of oil) olive oil, mixed with 1/2-2/3 cup each of raisins and pecans. Knead and bake at 350 until lightly browned and easy to chew.

In Guadalajara, semita de trigo substitutes milk for water. In Texas and in Guadalajara, there is semita de aniz (anise), but neither of these include raisins and pecans. Only olive oil or butter is used.

The article also covers the special method of chicken slaughter used today and in the 1640s.

Another Passover/Lent custom is eating cactus and egg omelets (nopalitos lampreados). The only bread eaten is the unleavened pan de semita.

In Texas, Mexican Americans throw a piece of bread dough into the fire before making tortillas or bread; a very Jewish custom. Some do not eat pork on Fridays or after sundown on Friday.

Capirotada is another food eaten around Lent and Passover. It is wheat bread with raw sugar, cinnamon, cheese, butter, pecans, peanuts and raisins.

The Inquisition preserved these ingredients and even recipes in its archives, so we know Conversos in the 1640s used them. (NOTE: In the old days, lard was the preferred fat to use in cooking and baking; olive oil and other vegetable oils were not as common. Only those people who needed to use these oils for religious dietary reasons would go out of their way to acquire them, when lard was all around. Anyone not using lard would be suspect!)

Mexican Americans eat meat on Fridays, even before the Catholic church relaxed the rule about not eating meat. Older women cover their hands while praying, a custom that may come from Jewish women covering their heads.

The Inquisition, according to the article, never was established in what is today's Texas, which encouraged settlement by Converso families.

Some 16 families from the Canary Island arrived in 1731 and founded San Fernando de Bexar township - today's San Antonio. Many Canary Islanders were Conversos.They married with families from Nuevo Reyno de Leon, many of whom were Spanish and Portuguese secret Jews who moved there because the Inquistion wasn't there.

Although not all Mexican Americans are of Sephardic origin, many continue to transmit oral Sephardic traditions.

Read the complete story at the link above.

New Mexico: More details, resources, traditions

Tracing the Tribe has been reminded by a Converso friend about Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, who was Onate's historian (and who left detailed writings) and also about the Aguilar Expedition.

Our friend also stated that most researchers in the area don't know their own roots.

Remember that, after the 1492 Expulsion, there were supposed to be no Jews left in Spain. And New Christians (the Conversos) were prohibited from leaving Spain for the New World.

This makes sense as the Church realized that those who left would soon take up their Jewish traditions again when they were living in freedom, and this was also the impetus for the Inquisition setting up branches in Mexico and other South American countries. The Inquisition was determined to find the "backsliders" and convict them for Judaizing, which meant burning at the stake in an auto-de-fe, confiscation of their assets or transport to the Philippines, which was a penal colony at that time.

In Mexico, an auto-de-fe was held as late as 1815, and the Inquisition wasn't abolished there until the country's 1821 independence. Not so long ago, was it?

This means that there were confirmed Conversos following Jewish traditions there as late as 1821 - in the official sense - and, of course, until today There was no need for an Inquisition office if there were no Conversos or New Christians to be accused of, or to be informed on, for Judaizing.

For a person to leave Spain, a limpieza de sangre certificate was required. This guaranteed that the passenger was pure of blood (and religion!) and was an Old Christian (or who had acquired some sort of dispensation through "connections." As expected, there was a very busy black market in forged documents based on elaborate false genealogies which enabled people to leave with their assets for the New World.

Many people also are not aware that in the port of Veracruz, Mexico, soldiers were ordered to inspect the goods of arriving passengers and to carefully look for "suspicious" items. Suspicious meant anything having to do with Judaism. Many Conversos brought Jewish artifacts, Hebrew books, even Torah scrolls, Shabbat candlesticks and menorahs, and the "inspectors" were bribed to look the other way.

There are families in Southwest states who still have these "suspicious" possessions hidden away. They are priceless family heirlooms.

The Inquisition in Albuquerque was eventually closed as it received little cooperation from the mostly Converso inhabitants who refused to inform on their neighbors and relatives.

For readers interested in Jewish, Sephardic and Converso history, here are some links to see the names (and details) of participants who traveled with Don Juan Onate, on the expedition's historian Gaspar Perez de Villagra well as information on the Aguilar Expedition.

For additional information, compare the family names of the people on these expeditions with the Sephardim.com and SephardicGen.com name search engines for documented Sephardic names. Another source for comparison is Pere Bonnin's Sangre Judia, (4th expanded edition), which lists thousands of names documented as Jewish from pre-Inquisition records, Inquisition court records and other sources.

There are many sources for New Mexico genealogy research. Sites hold transcriptions of census records; birth, marriage and death; and much more. Google "New Mexico genealogy" and have fun sorting out all the hits.

The Gateway to Mexico page has an amazing amount of information. The complete and very detailed Onate list is here.

The Bernalillo County (New Mexico) page offers excellent information, such as a partial list of the Onate settlers (some are not on this list but do appear on the Gateway to Mexico list above). There is a list of married women who joined Onate's expedition in 1600. For a partial list of settlers who arrived in 1600, click here.

The New Mexico Genealogical Society has been publishing a journal for 40 years (available on CD), offers many articles online and information on archival resources.

The Converso community is not limited to New Mexico - they are found in Texas, Arizona, Colorado, California - indeed everywhere Hispanics live today. Some know who they are, some suspect, some are not yet aware of their history, some don't refuse to accept the facts when the evidence is provided.

Family customs and stories are the most important clues to ancestry origins.

Does a family today (or did the grandparents) follow la dieta (kashrut, no pork)? Are there distinctive family customs surrounding birth, marriage, death - that are not followed by everyone - only within a certain group of families? Of grandparents repeating what their own grandparents said: "Be careful whom you marry. Do not break the chain." Do certain families marry only with certain other families? Are children told not to eat in the homes of their friends?

Are there unusual wedding customs, such as stepping on a cup or glass, or of women embroidering cloths used at a wedding? Are special engagement ceremonies held by some families? Is there some sort of bathing ceremony for bride or bride and groom before a wedding? Are animals or chickens killed in a special way, perhaps by the members of one particular family in a community? What is done with the blood? Are the girls in the family told about family secrets by their grandmothers? Do older family members touch a certain place on the doorframe when entering or leaving their house?

Common customs include avoiding pork and lard, lighting candles on Friday nights, observing Saturday as the Sabbath, burying within a day, men in certain families not entering a cemetery even for close relatives' funerals, mirrors covered in a house of mourning, observing unusual holidays with specific foods for those events, circumcision, and sometimes a ceremony on the 30th day after a male infant is born, special customs for 40 days after giving birth, burying or burning nail clippings, sweeping the floor to the center of the room, throwing a small piece of dough into the fire when making bread (accompanied by words or not), or special traditions for washing hands before eating.

Sometimes a family has retained only a few customs. They don't know why they still keep those traditions, but they continue to do so because their ancestors did it and tradition is very strong in those families. Other families know why they observe some traditions but have forgotten much of what their ancestors knew.

Tracing the Tribe has always been fascinated by these communities and awed by those families who have maintained so many traditions and so much knowledge over the centuries since arriving in the New World.

Miami: Hispanic incidence of breast cancer

Tracing the Tribe frequently covers issues relating to Sephardim and Conversos, including the incidence of so-called "Ashkenazi" breast cancer (BRCA1 and BRCA2) in Hispanics.

On Friday, CBS TV-4 in Miami, Florida reported that research shows breast cancer is high in Hispanics:

Doctors have known for years that BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 mutations are more common among Ashkenazi Jews. But a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found there are also a higher percentage of BRCA 1 mutations in Hispanics. BRCA 1 mutations appear in 8.3 percent of Ashkenzai Jewish, 3.5 percent of Hispanic patients and 2.2 percent of non-Ashkenzai, non-Hispanic patients.

These types, of course, are not exclusively Ashkenazi, but merely Jewish, and date from before the Jewish world split into Sephardim and Ashkenazim. ManyHispanics are descendants (whether they know it or not) of Conversos - those forced to convert to Catholicism or die - with origins in Spain and Portugal. These individuals spread out globally, to Central and South America, to the US (particularly the Southwest), the Caribbean, the Philippines, Asia, Western Europe and even Eastern Europe.

In another recent article in a Pennsylvania paper, it reports:

Ten percent of breast cancer is caused by an incidence of a specific gene, which carries a 1 in 500 incidence rate. In those of Hispanic and EasternEuropean or Ashkenazi Jewish descent, the risk is 1 in 40.

While those who are aware of Sephardic history understand why so-called "Ashkenazi" breast cancer shows in the Hispanic community, it is worth repeating.

Tracing the Tribe often hears about cases in Southwest states in which Hispanics who present with the mis-named condition are asked if they have Ashkenazi background, which really confuses the patient and the family, who may or may not know their family's roots.

It is obvious that much more education is needed among health professionals and genetic counselors everywhere. Hispanics also need to learn more about their own origins so that they can evaluate their own risks and roots.

This sounds like an excellent project for the Hispanic genealogical societies to get involved in by informing their own members.

Cancer specialist Dr. Marilyn Raymond said, in the interview, that "The reason the BRCA 1 gene is found in people of Hispanic ancestry is because during the Spanish Inquisition Jewish people, Sephardic Jewish people, left Spain and fled to Mexico to avoid persecution. Then they intermarried and had children with people in Mexico which led to the dissemination of the gene into that population," Dr. Raymond said.

That is correct as far as it goes, but the doctor may need to brush up on Sephardic history. I don't think it is because they married non-Jews in Mexico as she seems to state. Many, if not most, of the early Conversos who went to Mexico married other Conversos.

The bottom line: What is most important is that these findings mean that Hispanics need to be aware of their risks and their roots. Search Tracing the Tribe for many posts on this subject (use the search box in the right side bar).

World Jewish Studies: Latin American topics

The World Jewish Studies Conference, held in Israel during August, also covered Latin American Jewry.

Readers may ask the purpose of listing topics from a conference that has concluded. Tracing the Tribe believes that this list, and the others to follow in other posts, will inspire, educate and encourage readers to investigate topics of interest relevant to their own history or those in which they may have other interests.

These topics cover important volunteer participation in archival projects, organization of collections, and information on specific communities (Mexico, Morocco, Argentina, US, Israel) .

Here's that section of topics, which was sponsored at the conference by the Latin American Jewry Research Association (Sección del Judaísmo Latinoamericano AMILAT – Asociación de Investigación del Judaísmo Latinoamericano).

Here's some of what you missed (S=Spanish, E=English, H=Hebrew):

Special Panel on Archives with Collections on Latin American Jewry
Alicia Gojman de Backal (E) The Documentation Center of the Ashkenazi Community in Mexico City and its Recognition by UNESCO
Project of Registration of Documentation in Israeli Archives by members of the Israeli Association for Promotion of Jewish Latin American Studies
Hadasa Assulin (E) Latin American Volunteers and their Contribution to the Archive’s Work
Moshe Goler (H) Recruitment of Volunteers
Theodor Bar Shalom (H) Organization and Registration of Material from Latin America
Iosef Rozen (H) Organization and Registration of the Collection of the Jewish Colonization Association

American Jewish Communities of Syrian Origin
Margalit Bejarano (E) Between Law and Reality: Mixed Marriages and Conversions among Syrian Ladino Speakers and Moroccan Jews in Buenos Aires
Sarina Roffé (E) The Takanah Against Marriage to Converts of the Syrian and Near Eastern Communities of Brooklyn
Alicia Hamui Halabe (E) La “Retakanización” de la Comunidad Maguén David en México
Susana Brauner (S) Religión, etnicidad y política: los argentinos-judíos de origen sirio

Tracing the Tribe is investigating whether the transcripts will be posted for the sessions and will report back.

Mexico: The Jews of Tijuana

These days, Tijuana is synonomous with violence. Here's another take on the city, focusing on its Jewish community by Paul Rockower, who authors the Tales of a Wandering Jew blog.

Paul's been schlepping around the world and blogging from numerous places. His story on Tijuana focuses on the two Jewish communities of this south-of-the-border location: the Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California and the Centro Social Israelita congregations.

They say the Pacific Ocean has no memory — perhaps that was what the Jews who arrived here centuries ago sought: to forget the fiery Inquisition that chased them from the Iberian peninsula and to the New World in search of refuge. For far later waves of Jewish migration to Tijuana that occurred in the 1940s, it was to escape later forms of persecution in Eastern Europe. Many settled near the border after they were denied entry to the United States because of stringent quotas. More recently, Jews have migrated for the bustling business opportunities on the Baja border city from Mexican cities such as Guadalajara and Mexico City, as well as from South America.

The Centro Social Israelita offers a mikvah, a synagogue and a kosher restaurant (Tante Jane's).

Read about Ezra Yosef, the Argentinean/Israeli/American Rabbi Polichenco's wife (daughter of a Milan, Italy rabbi), and how the rabbi wound up in Tijuana, Jewish businessmen and medical patients, and the growth of the Baja Jewish community.

Before welcoming in the Sabbath, the Rabbi and Ezra finished up last tasks, like moving pounds upon pounds of frozen kosher chicken into a freezer unit, to be transferred to Cabo San Lucas. The rabbi noted that the celebrated port of call at the bottom of the Baja Peninsula has a burgeoning Jewish population. For that matter, the whole of the Baja Peninsula has a growing Jewish population. Jewish babyboomers, who have long been visiting Baja, are now retiring there in growing numbers, in places like Rosarito, Ensenada and down the Baja coast. And Rabbi Polichenco is helping to ensure that the Baja communities have the kosher elements needed.

Rabbi Carlos Salas of the Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California (established 1967) has achieved numerous accomplishments and has exciting future plans. Known as Maestro (teacher, Spanish) he's been conducting spiritual outreach to Mexicans of Jewish ancestry, crypto-Jews practicing in secret and Mexican Catholics interested in learning about Judaism.

Salas estimates that 90% of the congregation are converso descendants, and another 10% are Catholics interested in conversion.

Despite the nontraditional background of the congregation, Salas was firm in grounding his followers in traditional Jewish ritual and customs, including eating kosher food, and circumcisions for male converts.

The first conversion was for 24 students, with a three-member American bet din, and a mikvah in the ocean at Rosarito Beach. Seven years later, a group went to the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, examined by the Conservative movement’s bet din, with a more comfortable mikvah. Another six groups of converts have since travelled to Los Angeles.

His students study for three to four years, until they are ready. Salas says he stopped counting after 200 of his congregation converted.

Salas has an under-construction rabbinical school at Rosarito Beach. He plans to educate community rabbis, open synagogues throughout Mexico aimed at conversos in every Mexican state for those with Jewish ancestry. One is already open in Durango, with some 40 families. He's making plans for an old-age home and a Tijuana Jewish cemetery.

Paul also addresses the security situation in his post.

Read the complete post at the link above.

New Blog: Kulanu for 'lost' Jewish communities

Kulanu.org now has a blog. The site is devoted to helping lost and dispersed Jewish communities and contains many interesting articles.

The blog was inaugurated by volunteer Matthew Feldman and is for Kulanu updates and to provide a location for reader comments.

The Kulanu site has numerous volunteers working to improve it, so check out Kulanu.org as well as the Kulanu Blog.

The latest blog posting concerns a free event with Dr. Carlos Cortés, at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation (Bethesda, Maryland) on May 8.

An international lecturer on multiculturalism and education, Cortés is a history professor at UC Riverside and is cultural consultant to Nickelodeon’s popular pre-school series, "Dora the Explorer" and "Go Diego Go." However, his appearance is not for toddlers.

Part of the program is a one-hour, one-person autobiographical play written and performed by Cortés, who grew up Mexican and Jewish in the Midwest.

The son of a Mexican Catholic immigrant father and a US-born Jewish mother, he learned to navigate Kansas City’s rigid racial, ethnic and religious fault lines, while simultaneously dealing with his own divided family's internal conflicts.

Kabbalat Shabbat service is at 6.30pm, the free performance at 8pm, and a short concluding service. There's also an opportunity to share in a Shabbat dinner - click here.

Food: More south-of-the-border Passover fusion

Gefilte fish in Veracruz sauce (peppers, olives, capers)? Gribenes with a side of guacamole? Stews served with salsa?

It's all in Joan Nathan's great article in the New York Times about cooking Passover favorites with a Mexican twist by Mexico City native Patricia Jinich.

Jinich teaches regional cooking at Washington DC's Mexican Cultural Institute, and recently showed a large group of women at the Lubavitch Center how to cook for Passover.

Jinich grew up in Mexico, one of 40,000 to 50,000 Jews, most of them descendants of Eastern European immigrants.

(The first Jews came to Mexico from Spain during the Inquisition. “To this day,” Ms. Jinich said, “there are women in regions of Mexico who light candles on Friday night in secret.”)

Her father’s parents escaped from pogroms in Poland at the turn of the 20th century, moving to Mexico City’s Polanco neighborhood, named for the Polish Jews who had settled there. Her mother’s parents fled Austria and Slovenia in the 1930s.

They, and their food, blended in.

Passover and holiday cooking were a mix of European and Mexican when Ms. Jinich was growing up: chicken soup with matzo balls, mushrooms and jalapeños; meat stews with salsa on the side; Austrian tortes made with Mexican vanilla and chocolate; and a Passover flourless chocolate pecan torte, served with berries sweetened with shaved piloncillo, raw Mexican brown sugar, and flavored with lime juice.

Yum!

She comes from a cooking family: sister Alisa Romano is a pastry chef near Miami; sister Karen Drijanski is a Vancouver caterer; while sister Sharon Drijanski in Miami has written vegetarian cookbooks.

Recipes include chicken with apricot, tamarind and chipotle sauce, spinach salad with mushrooms and hibiscus flower vinaigrette, Nana Jose's chocolate pecan cake (garnished with brown piloncillo sugar, strawberries, blackberries, lime juice and whipped cream if desired).

There's even a recipe for caramelized almonds, which is what Persian Jews call badam sukhte (burned almonds), also made by the Syrian Jewish community. Reminds me that I have to add it to my to-do list. I make it every year.

Jinich's recipe calls for maple syrup or brown sugar; we just use white sugar, but the maple syrup sounds great!

Food: Mexican flavors Passover

Four years ago, New York City chef Julian Medina of the contemporary Mexican bistro, Toloache, began adding Mexican-flavored Passover fare to his menu, drawing on Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions and spicing them up.

In the early years, 10 people came to eat. Now 100 people order food for Passover. He also prepares his own creative take on fare for Rosh Hashanah and Chanukah.

This JTA story focuses on Medina and his delicious food. It might even turn into a DNA genetic genealogy story if Medina tests with FamilyTreeDNA.com, as his wife suspects Medina's family has Converso roots. The name is among documented Jewish Sephardic names.

Why would a chef from Mexico City who had dazzled clients at Maya and Pampano, two of Manhattan’s best Mexican restaurants, turn to Jewish cuisine for inspiration?

Although Medina was born a Catholic, he converted to Judaism. Six years ago, when he was dating the Jewish woman who would become his wife, he started spending holidays with her family. It sparked a curiosity about her religion that continued to grow the more he learned about Jewish rituals.

From the beginning he was intrigued by each holiday’s traditional fare as he tasted the foods his future mother-in-law prepared. It wasn’t long before he started seasoning Jewish recipes with the flavors of his youth.

Medina explored Jewish cooking, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi.

“This is what chefs do when exposed to cuisines that excite them -- they conduct research to develop new recipes,” he says. “Food is never static. It changes every day.”

Many of Medina's recipes benefit from these cuisines.

See the link for the recipes for some delicious new ideas: matzah ball soup with cilantro, jalapeno and lime juice, brisket con chipotle pepper, matzah tortillas, matzah tostada Yucatan-style (with achiote smoked sea bass salad and horseradish-jalapeno salsa), roast halibut with cauliflower "latke" and hibiscus chipotle glaze. One recipe not provided is matzah pudding with roasted bananas. I guess you'll have to drop into Toloache to learn about that one. If you do, please send me the recipe!

Medina's wife says she suspects the family has Jewish roots. Many Conversos (those forced to convert to Catholicism during the Inquisition) were among early settlers in Mexico.

The origin of their name is Hebrew and Arabic. Several Jewish families in Spain have carried the surname Medina. In the Spanish province of Cadiz, in the city Medina-Sidonia, it was customary among Sephardim to be named for the city of origin.

Of course, Sephardic genealogists know that many Sephardic surnames reflect geographic locations, not just that of Medina-Sidonia. Pere Bonnin's book, Sangre Judia, lists CADIS (Mallorca, 1391), CADIZ (Jerez, 1266), and MEDINA (Avila, 1409). There is also a MEDINA with a J1 haplogroup (carried by some 28% of Sephardic Jews) in the New Mexico Project at FamilyTreeDNA.com.

Medina might want to consider taking a Y-DNA test.

In any case, the recipes seem delicious.

Mexico: Syrian Jews' conference, 9-11 Sept.

An international conference - Syrian Jews and its Diaspora in America - will be held September 9-11, at Mexico City's Mount Sinai Social Center and the Maguen David Center.

Planning and organization is by Dr. Liz Hamui Sutton de Halabe, Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and specialist on the Jewish Syrian communities in Mexico; Lic. Renee Dayán, Comunidad Maguén David; Lic. Marcos Metta, Alianza Monte Sinaí; Dr. Daniel Fainstein, Director of the Universidad Hebraica; Dra. Shulamit Goldsmith, director, “Programa de Cultura Judaica de la Universidad Iberoamericana;” Tere Urfali, conference assistance and logistics; and Sr. Isaac Aspani, Federation Sefaradí Latinoamericana.

Sponsoring institutions include Alianza Monte Sinaí (Jews from Damascus and Lebanon); Comunidad Maguén David (Jews from Aleppo); Universidad Hebraica (Mexico); and the Jewish Culture Program, Universidad Iberoamericana.

The arrival of Jewish immigrants from Aleppo and Damascus and their descendants has been of great interest to academics despite the fact that Jewish communities in Syria are nearly extinguished. However, the culture is still preserved through intergenerational transmission of values, beliefs, practices and representations that had been remade in Israel and in a century of American Diaspora.

Syrian Jewish congregations in different geographical locations have different characteristics according to the culture and social, economic and political conditions in the places where they have established themselves.

The goal of this conference is to get to know the history of the Aleppo and Damascus communities, their similarities and differences in America and Israel.

Scheduled programs include lectures as well as music, dance and food.

Topics range from Aleppo and Damascus culture and heritage, Rabbi Isaac Abulafia, Aleppo Alliance Schools, migration from Aleppo in the 18-20th centuries; rabbis of Syria; popular culture, superstitions, culture and identity, anthropological perspectives on Mexico City Syrian Jewish life; minority way of life; Latin America's Syrian Jews and Arabs, Syrians in Brazil, Syrians in Lebanese eyes; Argentina's immigrants, Jews and Lebanese in Mexico; entrepreneurial Jewish-Aleppo life; educational models, orthodox women, and Syrian Jewish identity in Mexico; North American Syrian Jews, Syrian Jews in Brooklyn and New Jersey, Syrian Arabs and Jews in New York City, Syrian Jewish immigration to early 20th century New York, identity and memory of Syrian Jews in New York City; Syrian Jews in latin America, Buenos Aires Syrian Jews, Argentinean Syrian Jews, Brazilian Syrian Jews, changing customs and boundaries in Latin American Sephardic Jewry.

Program abstracts are here.

For more details, click here.

National Archives: September programs

September programs at the National Archives (Washington, DC) will highlight genealogy, Hispanic military service and Puerto Rico.

Hispanic records - such as military records and Puerto Rican records - are important to genealogists searching Jewish roots because of the Converso presence, in general, as well as immigration patterns.

Mexican border crossings, as another example, demonstrate many Jewish records (Sephardic and Ashkenazi). If you have an Ancestry subscription, go to this record group and search for COHEN and other common Jewish names. The results indicate many individuals and families. There are more than 400 COHEN, KOHAN and variations, double names in the Hispanic naming patterns and many obvious Sephardic names added to Cohen or Kohan.

Footnotes: National Archives Librarian Jeffery Hartley will discuss how the Archives and Footnote.com are providing access to holdings. (11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 4; 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 6.)

Mexican Border Crossings: Archivist Claire Kluskens will discuss Mexican border crossing records documenting the arrival of permanent and temporary immigrants to the U.S. at the U.S.-Mexico border. (11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 13.)

Hispanic Volunteers in the Antebellum U.S. Army: Archives Specialist John Deeben will discuss service records and other documentation for Hispanics who served in the U.S. Army (1835–55), including the Second Seminole War, the Mexican War, and the Apache and Navajo wars. (11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18; 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 20.)

Hispanic-Related Films from the National Archives: A variety of film clips illustrating Hispanic population, culture, activities, and families in the early-mid-20th century. (11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 21.)

Documenting Community, Politics, and the Economy in Puerto Rico, 1898–1950: Archives Branch Chief Kenneth Heger will provide an overview of records of the two Federal agencies that administered Puerto Rico - the Bureau of Insular Affairs and the Office of Territories - focusing on their value to local historians. (11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25; 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 27.)

From the Records Book Group: "The Archaeologist Was a Spy: Sylvanus G. Morley and the Office of Naval Intelligence," by Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler. The Archives Shop offers a discount for participants. (noon Wednesday, Sept. 26.)

Hispanics in the 19th Century through Military and Census Records:
Archivist Constance Potter and Archives Specialist John Deeben will present a workshop on 19th century Hispanics in the Southwest, focusing on Civil War military service, regimental and pension records for volunteers from New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, population and non-population census schedules. (9.30-11.30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26.)

Who’s on Your Family Tree? Beginning Your Family Genealogy: Marie Melchiori, CG, CGL, will help you get started with a look at home, local, county, Federal sources, with a look at the Internet as well. (10.15 a.m.-12.30 a.m. Friday, Sept, 28.)

Read more here, including fees for some programs, locations, directions, making reserveations and other information.