Reflections on Crypto-Jews in North America

CHAPTER 11 Reflections on Crypto-Jews in North America Steven K. Baum Here’s some lyrics that will hit you with a thud, millions of Latinos got Jewish blood! hip hop hoodios from 1492 The exact date when European Jews first arrived in North America has not been conclusively established. When Sir Walter Raleigh recruited metallur- gist Joachim Gans for a 1584 expedition to Virginia, Gans—according to some historians—became the first person of Jewish descent to step on American soil. Another candidate for that distinction was French vineyard expert Elias Legarde (nee Lagardo), a Jew of Sephardic origins, whose 1621 indentured arrival under Anthonie Bonall would help bring winemaking to America. “Catholic only” Canada would not present itself as an immigration option until 1760. By contrast, Cypto-Jews had by then been quietly residing in the Caribbean, Mexico and Dutch Brazil for generations. Whatever the truth about the first Jews in the Americas, there is little controversy regarding the unsatis- factory conditions for Jewish life in the Old World and the desire among many for new opportunities in the New World. There were those in Europe who envi- sioned America as the New Jerusalem, as the City upon a Hill.1 This chapter will review some aspects of the history of Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, focusing on how this history has shaped the arrival and experiences of Sephardim in the New World. More specifically, we will show how antisemi- tism has had, and continues to have, important implications. Finally, we pay particular attention to how these issues played out for one group of Crypto- Jews from New Mexico. Crypto-Jews are Jews who secretly adhere to some aspects or remnants of Judaism while publicly professing to another faith. The descendants of expelled Spanish and Portuguese Jews are known as Sephardim. Most migrated to the Netherlands, its colonies, North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. The designation Sephardim includes those forced to migrate throughout the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Balkans, Italy, Syria and Israel; the term also has been generalized to include Jews indigenous to those regions.1 Some Sephardim are Bnei Anusim (children of forced converts), 1 Ines Nogueiro, João C. Teixeira, Antonio Amorim, Leonor Gusmão and Luis Alvarez, “Portuguese Crypto-Jews: The genetic heritage of a complex history.” Frontiers in Genetics 6, © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/9789004307�48_0�� Reflections on Crypto-Jews in North America 211 or Crypto-Jews who chose to remain on the Iberian Peninsula and to practice Catholicism. While acknowledging Jewish roots, these Bnei Anusim never wavered from the 1492 family decision of Catholic conversion. There are also those descendants of the originally expelled who initially remained on the Peninsula and converted to Catholicism. Once they left, they reverted back to Jewish customs and practice. Descendants of the originally expelled who resettled throughout the Ottoman Empire, Balkans, Egypt, Salonika, Turkey and Bosnia Herzegovina are labeled eastern Sephardim. They have developed identifiable cultural components involving the arts, literature, music and language (Spanish-Jewish based Ladino). The North African Sephardim are descendants of the expelled who resettled in the Maghreb areas of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya and in many cases continue many Arabic cultural practices. In the middle of the 17th century, those of Sephardic background outnum- bered those of Ashkenazi background by a ratio of three to two. As a func- tion of industrialization, a reversal was to take place. Modernized Europe made for both economic and population growth and it was not long before the Ashkenazim outpaced the less technically advanced Sephardim. As a direct result, the proportion of Sephardim declined to between one third and one quarter of global Jewry. The migration patterns of Sephardic Jews are not well-known or under- stood. For the expelled who migrated to nearby Holland, England, Germany, Italy, France, Malta and Majorca, Judaism was sometimes practiced side by side with Catholicism. For those who fled to Turkey and became devotees of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbati Tsevi, they never outlived their Donmes (apostate) reputation even after converting to Islam. Whether apostate or crypto-Jewish, the social stigma and labels that accom- panied Sephardic ancestry were less than respectful. Majorcans would refer to Catholic converts as chuetas (pork), a term somewhat less hostile than Marranos (pig, dirty), but both mocked dietary law that avoided eating hoofed animals. Labels such as New Christian and Crypto-Jews while less demeaning, were softer reminders of all that Jews were not. As violators of cultural and religious norms, Jews were not to be accepted. They were not to be treated as equals. Small wonder that those who identify themselves as Spanish Catholics do not all thrill at the findings of the following. According to a December 2008 study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, 19.8 percent of (2015) 12 http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/131008/ncomms3543/full/ncomms3543.html (accessed 5 June 2015)..

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