Hidden Heritage : The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews

This study of contemporary crypto-Jews-descendants of European Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition-traces the group's history of clandestinely conducting their faith and their present-day efforts to reclaim their past. Janet Liebman Jacobs masterfully combines historical and social scientific theory to fashion a brilliant analysis of hidden ancestry and the transformation of religious and ethnic identity. This Engrossing Study of Contemporary Crypto-Iews -- descendants of European Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition -- traces the group's history of clandestinely conducting their faith and their present-day efforts to reclaim their past. Janet Liebman Jacobs masterfully combines historical and social-scientific theory to fashion a brilliant analysis of hidden ancestry and the transformation of religious and ethnic identity.No other scholar has explored the plight of crypto-Jews from a social-psychological point of view. Persecuted for centuries in Spain and in its colonies, crypto-Jews practiced their religion in secret and through often modified Jewish rituals, synthesizing Judaism and Catholicism in ways that have been handed down through generations. Jacobs investigates how contemporary crypto-Jews have uncovered their true ancestry and today live with the discovery of their families' Sephardic history, examining how those who chose conversion in response to this discovery have developed their spirituality and Jewish worldview.The result is a captivating account of a group's struggle to piece together a more complete -- and therefore accurate -- personal and religious history. Jacobs's fifty in-depth interviews with crypto-Jewish descendants raise momentous questions about secrecy, gender, power, and tradition. Deals with the consequences of forced conversion, exile, and secrecy resulting from the Spanish Inquisition, particularly among the Latino population of the American Southwest. Presents a psychosocial study of attempts to recover Jewish spirituality and identity, stressing the role of women in cultural preservation. Notes parallels with the second generation after the Holocaust. Ch. 1 (pp. 21-41), "Secrecy, Antisemitism, and the Dangers of Jewishness", provides the historical background for the study of 20th-century crypto-Jews. Discusses the Inquisition's persecution of crypto-Jews, and continuing anti-Jewish prejudice in the Spanish-speaking world that has made the concealment of Jewish identity a continuing phenomenon up to the present day. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism) Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: Crypto-Jewish Descent: An Ethnographic Study in Historical Perspective 14 Chapter 1: Secrecy, Antisemitism, and the Dangers of Jewishness 34 Chapter 2: Women and the Persistence of Culture: Ritual, Custom, and the Recovery of Sephardic Ancestry 55 Chapter 3: The Self-in-Relation and the Transformation of Religous Consciousness 80 Chapter 4: Syncretism and Faith Blending in Modern Crypto-Judaism 96 Chapter 5: Conversion and the Rekindling of the Jewish Soul 113 Chapter 6: Jewish Ancestry and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity 138 Conclusion: Ethnic Loss and the Future of Crypto-Jewish Culture 162 Notes 168 Selected Bibliography 190 Index 200 This study of contemporary crypto-Jews - descendants of European Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition - traces the group's history of clandestinely conducting their faith and their present-day efforts to reclaim their past One of the most intriguing aspects of modern crypto-Judaism is the survival of a culture of secrecy that is evident in the patterns of silence and disclosure that characterize twentieth-century families with crypto-Jewish ancestors.