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The Cyrpto-Jews and the Inquistion in New Spain
Texas A & M University
April 17 & 18
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Sephardic Anusim Center of the Americas
January 2008
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"The exiles from Jerusalem who are in
Sepharad will possess the towns of the Negev."
(Obadiah 20)
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Homecoming
Jewish Review
February 15,
2007
A Portland man, his wife, their two children, his four
siblings and his mother and father have discovered
they are crypto Jews. They have taken it to heart. They
all are coming home to Judaism and they all are
moving to Israel.
Crypto Jews-Moshe David Vasquez uses the
Hebrew anusim instead-are people whose
ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism
during the Inquisition in Spain, Portugal and Latin
America. Those who converted, usually under pain of
death if they did not do so, may have secretly
preserved their Jewish identity and passed it on to
their heirs, or those heirs may have discovered their
heritage on their own. For Vasquez, both avenues led
him home to Judaism.
Vasquez, a 42-year-old Portland-area builder who
grew up in California in a home where he said "Judeo-
Christian" values prevailed and where his mother and
father "instilled in us a deep belief in God." But they
weren't exactly Christian, by Vasquez's description, or
much of anything else, although the family dabbled at
alternative services.
In 1972, Vasquez's mother gave her husband an
anniversary gift that might be seen as the first step in
the last phase of a long journey of return to Judaism
for Vasquez and his family. She gave her husband a
trip to Israel, by himself, because they could not afford
a trip for two. Vasquez was only about 7 years old
then.
When he was 19, he followed his father's example
and traveled to Israel. "I'd still be there, if I hadn't
gotten sick," he said. He lived and worked for nearly a
year as a volunteer at Kibbutz Gavarm near
Ashkelon. "Ashkelon was my first introduction to
Spanish and Mexican Jews," said Vasquez. "I got
along well there in Spanish."
And that was a clue to his ancestry. Back in California,
when he was growing up, his father had taught him
Spanish with alternate pronunciations for some
words. "When I used those words with some Spanish
speakers (in California), I was told not to use that 'dirty
language'," said Vasquez. He would discover later that
the "dirty language" was Ladino, a blend of Hebrew
and Spanish in use in the past among Sephardic
Jews and undergoing a small revival today. Among
Spanish-speaking Jews around Ashkelon, it was no
dirty language. When, some years later, Vasquez
shared a Ladino dictionary with his father, his father
said he had thought using those words had made
him "cool;" he had no idea.
While his initial Israel experience held the kernel of a
clue to his roots, Vasquez did not begin to think he
might be Jewish until after his return to America.
Some people here told him he was of Jewish
background. He did not elaborate. "That planted the
seed," he said. "I wasn't ready to accept it."
After Israel, Vasquez traveled in Spain where he got by
working as a private English tutor. "I was told by
people and rabbis that I was Jewish," he said. What
did they know that Vasquez did not know? He
consulted genealogical texts and discovered that his
family name may be Jewish. Later, he learned that
some who feared they might become victims of the
Inquisition altered their names to hide their identity. Ez
and es, he explained, often were attached under these
circumstances to the end of names in Spanish. "EZ
stands for son of or eretz Yisrael," said Vasquez, citing
genealogical sources. That was another clue to his
heritage. There would be more.
Vasquez married when he was 25. He told his wife
that he might be Jewish and that he wanted to do
Hanukkah and put a mezuzah on the door. "She said,
jokingly, 'It's not bad enough that you're one minority.
You have to be two.'"
Further family research revealed that Vasquez had
distant uncles who had fled Portugal for Mexico at the
time of the Inquisition. In his personal files he has
lists of individuals with various of his family names
over the years, persons who were executed or
enslaved or subject to other punishments in the
Inquisition. "There is not a name associated with my
(mother's) family that does not appear on the victim
lists in the Spanish, Portuguese and Mexican
Inquisition(s)," said Vasquez. Oral history in his family
tells of uncles who arrived in Mexico at the time of the
Inquisition. "They were exposed," said Vasquez. "The
Spaniards chased them to (what is now) Nebraska,
trying to kill them. They altered their names to avoid
being captured." This, he said, affirms the practice of
changing names to avoid becoming a victim, while
also embedding a clue from which future generations
may ascertain their heritage.
"I believe Hashem will flick the switch in each
individual when they are ready to accept their
heritage," said Vasquez. In Vasquez's family the lights
have been coming on all over the place. Last year, to
confirm his research, Vasquez had a DNA test. In
recent years, millions of Jews have taken this test, he
said. The cumulative results from Jews who know or
can document their heritage provide an extensive data
base which others can use to analyze their own DNA
test results for Jewish markers. The results of
Vasquez's DNA test showed the levitical marker for
both his parents; that is, the test results indicated that
Vasquez is a descendant of the tribe of Levi.
When he decided to have the test, he said to his
wife, "I'm going to have mine tested. Let's do yours."
His wife, whose given name is Jodene and is of
Italian descent, agreed to the test, and another light
came on. Her test results showed the marker for
Cohen. Her new Hebrew name is Michela. "It answers
many questions for our children, who are very
spiritual," said Vasquez.
Vasquez and his wife were welcomed back to the
worldwide Jewish family at a ceremony of return held
Nov. 26, 2006, in Portland under the supervision of
Rabbi Joshua Stampfer, Rabbi Daniel Isaak and
Rabbi Brad Greenstein. Stampfer is the co-founder of
the Society for Crypto Judaic Studies here and rabbi
emeritus at the Conservative Congregation Neveh
Shalom. Isaak is senior rabbi at Neveh Shalom.
Greenstein is the assistant rabbi there. On a recent
trip to Israel in preparation for making Aliyah, Vasquez
met with a representative of the Jewish Agency for
Israel. He shared with that person the documentation
for him and his wife provided at the ceremony of
return. "JAFI verbally accepted the documents as
evidence of Jewish heritage," said Vasquez.
Not everyone is so inclined, a fact which Vasquez
acknowledges, albeit not happily. There are some in
the Jewish community who feel that returning Jews
such as Vasquez should go through a formal
conversion process. "We were forced to convert to
Catholicism," he said. Among his friends who are like
him he has heard it said, "Why would our brothers
force us to convert again." Further describing the
circumstances in which he and others like him find
themselves, he said, "Your authenticity as a Jew is
questioned, and that hurts because they don't even
know me." He likened the feeling to what Joseph
might have felt when confronted by his brothers in
Egypt: Are they going to accept me? Do I tell them? Do
I wait? "If you asked me to convert, I would be willing,"
he said, "but welcome me."
The couple and their children, plan to leave for Israel
at the end of next year. The rest of their family plans to
follow shortly later. Vasquez, his father and his brother
are contractors, homebuilders. That's what they plan
to do in Israel, build homes in the Negev. Vasquez
has a design for a packaged home built around a
standard shipping container. Inside the shipping
container are the studs, stringers, sheetrock and
everything one needs to build a house to U.S.
standards, everything right down to the kitchen sink.
The roof and walls of the shipping container become
the roof of the house, to be covered in concrete. The
basic cost of the house is about $63,000. It will be
even less when they can be created entirely in Israel,
which will obviate shipping costs. The house goes up
in about three months, according to Vasquez, versus
12 months for a new home built by current methods in
the Negev. This is not just a way to make a living, not
for Vasquez. "The prophet Obadiah prophesied. . . that
the exiles of Jerusalem, the tribe of Judah that dwell in
Iberia, will return to the cities of the Negev," said
Vasquez. Citing research done in Israel, he estimates
there are as many as 60 million anusim or crypto
Jews throughout the Americas. And the lights are
coming on. Vasquez made two trips to Israel in 2006
to purchase land. "There has to be cities for us to
return," he said.
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U.S. 'Marranos' Seek A Home In Israel
HAARETZ
December
4, 2007
The authorities would probably
call the 30 U.S.
citizens who scoured the Negev last week Christian
tourists. But the members of the group think of
themselves as American Marranos, and they are
determined to return to the faith they say their
ancestors were forced to renounce and strike root in
Israel.
Like Del and Helen Sanchez, who headed the group,
most of the tourists grew up going to church on
Sunday. Only recently did most of them discover what
they call their "Jewish roots."
And the trip to the Negev was the first step in a quest
to realize the prophecy in Obadiah 1:20, stating
that "the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad
[Spain], will possess the cities of the Negev." The
group was looking at places to settle as Jews in
Israel.
Like all the other members of the group, the
Sanchezes believe that their ancestors were in fact
Spanish and Portuguese Jews who escaped the
Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century to flee the
Spanish Inquisition. Soon after arriving, some of these
Jews found themselves once again under the rule of
the Spanish conquistadors, who set up colonies in
the Americas.
According to Sanchez's theory, these Jews were
forced to convert to Catholicism to escape
persecution. And like their Marrano relatives in the old
country, the American Jews living under Spanish rule
continued to practice Judaism in secret
Although Helen's family went to church on Sunday,
she says they "always knew that Catholicism was
forced upon them." According to Helen, her family
adopted unusual habits like not working on Saturday,
thereby observing the Jewish day of rest. They also let
all the blood drain from slaughtered livestock, which
corresponds with kosher slaughter.
Helen says her family spoke about being descended
from Marranos, but she says this was not something
they would openly talk about. Her husband Del says
his family dealt with the same issue in a very similar
way.
"It was a secret that passed from mother to daughter
and was kept by the women of our family," says Del,
who said he learned of his Marrano roots only 11
years ago, from his father. Del says his father learned
of this from his niece.
"The women didn't tell the men about this because
they were afraid they might get drunk and tell
someone about it," Del says. "In retrospect, I
understand that expressions we used in the family
which we thought were just broken Spanish were in
fact Judeo-Spanish," he says, referring to the dialect
based on old Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews.
After discovering this, Del and Helen have devoted
themselves to bringing other U.S. Jews who regard
themselves as descendants of American Marranos
closer to their roots. The couple, who live in San
Antonio, Texas, say they have retraced their lineage as
far back as the 12th century. Del has written nine
books on the subject, and has a TV program in a local
channel about it.
He travels with Helen around the U.S., mostly in New
Mexico and Texas, trying to convince people from
Hispanic backgrounds to take a deeper look at their
ancestry and see whether they have any Jewish
forefathers.
For Del, this is no metaphor. He says he has taken a
DNA analysis, which shows that his genetic profile
matches that of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula.
According to Del, there are many others like him.
"We're talking about potentially staggering numbers.
Historians estimate that 10 to 15 percent of all the
people of Hispanic backgrounds in North America
descend from Spanish Jews. The U.S. alone has 40
million Hispanic people."
To further demonstrate the validity of their theory, Del
and Helen have documented old cemeteries across
the southwest United States with graves and
headstones featuring Jewish names and motifs.
But Del says that despite the evidence, the Israeli and
Jewish establishment has treated him with
skepticism. "Israel is taking in non-Jewish immigrants
from the former Soviet Union along with Ethiopian
Falashmura and Indian people claiming to be
Jewish," he says. "How come it won't accept us - the
descendants of proper Jews who have gone through
the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition?"
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Anusim Office To Open In Negev
Finally, I would like to tell you about our new office in a
brand new complex in the Negev of Israel.
Miraculously, God opened a door for us to have an
office in the Ramat Ha-Negev Regional Council in the
heart of the Negev in April last year. The administrator
told us, it's in the safest room in all our
building. When
we got there, sure enough, it was the "Safe Room"
also known as the bomb shelter. This bunker was
being used as an office.
We were thrilled to inherit this safe place but before
we left the country, we were told: the mayor wants
you
to have an office in our new building instead. It
wasn't
that we weren't wanted in that safe room but were
preferred in the new building across the corridor from
the old complex. However the story gets even more
interesting.
During our trip to Israel last month, in the midst of a
major conference on Sephardic Anusim in the Negev,
we were "gently kidnapped" and taken to a brand new
structure that wasn't quite complete. We thought the
Israeli administrator that was showing us around was
simply boasting about this wonderful building devoted
to research, business and tourism.
At the end of touring this amazing building, he asked
us, do you prefer to have your office in here or at the
other location? We stood in modest shock. Are
you
saying that we can have our office here instead of that
other building? And if so, it'll probably cost much
more, won't it? His response was very Israeli and
definitive, No! Take your pick, it's up to you.
In an attempt to not sound overly childlike with
excitement, we said Let us pray and think it
over. This
was a good way to stall and wait on the Lord for His
response. However, before departing we asked,
Can
we also have space in here for our Sephardic Anusim
Exhibit which includes hundreds of items portraying
the history of our people since the days of King David
and King Solomon? His response was again very
resolute, yes, of course!
So here's the photo where our office will be in the
heart of the Negev. We plan to furnish and occupy it in
our next trip very soon. In fact, this next trip might well
be our official immigration as Israeli citizens. We'll
keep you posted on this as we go.
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Partnering Together
Before I close this newsletter, I'd like to share one
more little story about something that impacted me
when we donated a substantial amount of money to a
Jewish settlement in the Negev. You might recall
reading of it and, who knows, you may have been one
that also donated for this cause. This donation went
directly for the sole purpose of a water system in the
settlement named SHOMRIYAH which means
something like God is our Guardian. You may
recall
that this settlement is populated with many of the
settlers that were extracted out of Gush Katiff over a
year ago.
When we handed the check to the CEO of Shomriyah,
he warmly said: I take this not as a donation but as
your partnering together with us! This statement
has
shaken my inner man up until today.
My question to you is WILL YOU PARTNER
TOGETHER WITH US IN THIS ENDEAVOR OF FAITH
IN ACTION?
As you know, the vision God has given Helen and me
is to reach as many Hispanic/Latinos in the Americas
as possible. We're to reach them with the story of the
true history of how many of us are descendants of
Jews that suffered under the Spanish and the Mexican
Inquisitions. Not only are we to set the record straight
but to also equip the remnant to make aliyah. And
that's not all, we're to also help create a special
community for Sephardic Anusim in the heart of the
Negev. As you can see, we're making good progress
in these and other areas.
However, we need to furnish our new office, we need
to transport our exhibit to Israel and we need to
empower a staff to oversee these functions.
Meanwhile, we need to continue journeying to various
parts of our continent with accurate knowledge and
information in order that we begin sending our people
to occupy the Negev.
The prophet Obadiah told us over 2,500 years ago that
Sephardim would possess the Negev. As we stand at
the threshold of what Obadiah saw we must realize
that it will take a broad effort of a community of people
to realize this prophetic occurrence. Helen and I will
need the partnership of a host of cohorts to
accomplish this comprehensive vision of the aliyah of
Anusim. It will be through the joint venture of these
partners that the visions of Obadiah, as well as David
Ben-Gurion, will be realized. Would you consider
becoming a part of this grand partnership in the
restoration of Anusim to their promised homeland?
Because of the swiftness of the rate that these events
are unfolding we need an immediate response from a
multitude of people like you to meet the immediate
needs that are before us today. We also need people
who will partner with us on a monthly basis to
continue to meet the challenge that lies ahead. We
ask that you prayerfully consider joining with us in this
enormous task of the return of the exiles of Sepharad.
While any amount of donation is appreciated we offer
to you the following suggested partnerships:
PIONEERING PARTNERS
Obadiah Partner . . . . .
$1000
David Ben-Gurion Partner . . . . .
$500
Negev Partner . . . . .
$250
Aliyah Partner . . . . .
$100
Caleb Partner . . . . .
$50
You can make your check or money order payable to:
ALIYAH SEPHARDIC CENTER, INC. or
ASC
(Don't forget we're a tax-exempt organization.)
Mail your contribution to:
P.O. Box 75, Helotes, Texas 78023
Monthly Partnership:
Please
also consider becoming a faithful monthly partner in
this joint venture. Please let us know your monthly
commitment by emailing us at
negevdell@hotmail.com.
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We GRATEFULLY thank each of you and are excited
about
this new partnership in fulfilling the prophecies of
Obadiah and the vision of David Ben-Gurion, as the
exiles of Sepharad possess the Negev . . . and the
kingdom will be the Lord's.
Shalom,
Dell F. Sanchez, Ph.D.
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Contact Information
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Dr.Dell F. Sanchez | |
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210.326.6570 | |
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