Overview

"What did the medieval Spanish have against the Jews? Religion and Otherness? In that Catholic world Jews were heretics, and they had customs and language that became foreign as Spain redefined itself as Christian only. Jews no longer fit in New Christian Spain, and the Spanish reacted by expelling them. Those who wanted to stay became a pariah class of people who were Spanish in language and culture but tainted by Jewishness. Even converting to Catholicism could not cleanse the mark from them. They were still suspected of being Jews, crypto-Jews. Why did crypto-Jews defy the Inquisition and the threat of death to continue Jewish lives in Catholic only Spain? Was it the inescapability of being chosen? Was it the bond of spirit that overcame the collective enmity? Why do descendants 500 years later still carry the mark? Is it family, collective mind, DNA, primal gestalt, history, culture? Can we know? In Spanish the phrase ""La Ley de Moises"", the Law of Moses, means the Torah, the five books of Moses. The Inquisition arrested conversos and crypto-Jews for practicing the teachings of ""La Ley de Moises"" or the Torah. The crypto-Jewish experience has been shrouded in mystery for a past that might have been and the imagined future that could be. In the American Southwest and in parts of Latin America there is a movement to reclaim Jewish identity, and people are describing remnants of Jewish life in their families even though their ancestors renounced Jewishness long ago. People want to learn about the Sepharad of their ancestors, the Spain of the Jews. Many ask, ""What is our place in that heritage."" Others simply say, ""Somos Judios."" We are Jews."

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9781935604846

Table of Contents

Reviews

** In Crypto-Jews Ron Duncan Hart has written an indispensable book. It presents the history and culture in a way that will inform and enlighten. This is the most comprehensive approach to crypto-Judaism for a popular audience. It presents in an approachable manner the history and culture of the crypto-Jews as well as objectively assessing the academic debates. -- Seth Kunin, Vice Chancellor, Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Author of Juggling Identities ** Crypto-Jews: The Long Journey intellectually and emotionally bridges the substantive divide between scholarship and artistry through a revealing examination of the lives of Sephardic Jews past and present...Crypto-Jews is a generous offering to those who made the journey. --Roger L. Martinez-Davila, Ph.D. Associate Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Author of Creating Conversos ** With compassion and insight, Ron Duncan Hart, Ph.D. covers a vital subject re-defining Jewish identity. From pre-Inquisition life in Medieval Jewish Spain to the modern-day awakening of the anusim, he delivers the book we've all been waiting for -- a global history of the hidden Jew, highlighting the Diaspora of the Expulsion from Iberia to the New World and beyond. --Corinne Joy Brown, Editor, HaLapid, Journal of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies. Award-winning author of Hidden Star ** Crypto-Jews is a book which should be in every Jewish and general library in the world. -- Rabbi Stephen Leon, Founder and Director of the Anusim Center, El Paso. Author of The Third Commandment and the Return of the Anusim. ** Crypto-Jews works as a great introduction, guide, and overview to the subject...While concise, it gives a holistic view of crypto-Jewish life identifying key figures as well as geographical and historical areas of interest and relevance. --Isaac Artenstein, Director of A Long Journey: The Hidden Jews of the Southwest a Cinewest-NMPBS Co-Production

Author Information

Ron Duncan Hart is a cultural anthropologist (Ph.D. Indiana University) with postdoctoral work in Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford, Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He is former President of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico and has awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, and New Mexico Jewish Historical Society among others. Duncan Hart has done research on Sephardic traditions in Spain, North Africa, and South America with special attention to the Andalusian exchange among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. He is former Dean of Academic Affairs at InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico. He was Project Director in Latin America with the Ford Foundation, the International Development Research Centre of Canada, and UNICEF. He is a former Research Associate of the Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico. He served a number of years as editor of HaLapid, the journal of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies. He is author of several books on religion, cultural history and social change, including Fractured Faiths: Spanish Judaism, the Inquisition and New World Identities (author/editor), and historical consultant for the exhibition of the same name at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe (2016). Fractured Faiths won the Gold Medal for the best book on a religious topic in 2018. Other books include Judaism, Sephardic Jews: History, Religion and People, and Jews and the Arab World. He has been an invited lecturer on Jewish life and culture for the New Mexico History Museum (Santa Fe), Neustadt Lecture (Oklahoma City University), the National Labor Relations Board (Washington, D.C.), and the Schlezinger Annual Lecture (Ohr Kodesh in Chevy Chase, Maryland) among other venues.

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