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The 2003 conference of SCJS in San Antonio, TX offered a rich mix of scholarly research and personal stories of Crypto-Judaic discovery. And for a few, it was also a time of reunion.

Rabbi Samuel Lerer, now retired to San Antonio after a 51-year career mainly working with anusim descendants in Mexico, led off by welcoming Rabbi Joshua Stampfer of Portland, OR as "my friend for 50 years." The two rabbis had not met for many years but were born blocks apart in the Old City in Jerusalem and each went on to head synagogues in the American Northwest

Early in the conference, Rabbi Lerer came face-to-face with SCJS member Yaacov Gladstone who, as an activist for black Jews, once hitch hiked with knapsack on his back, from New Orleans to Mexico City to meet the Rabbi, already recognized for his pioneer work. That was in 1967, reminisced Gladstone, who lives in New York and still works with anusim. "No, it was 1968," corrected the 86-year-old Rabbi as the pair embraced.

Rabbi Lerer, speaking with youthful fervor, confided that, even as a boy , he felt destined to become a rabbi. He remembered that when he was ordained by the Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem, he was instructed: "Remember to help your brothers wherever they are."

He likened his mission to ha lapid, “the flaming torch.” It would take him to Mexico's large cities and remote communities as rabbi of a Mexico City congregation. There he found descendants of anusim who had fled the Spanish Inquisition 500 years earlier, many still living hidden lives. Over the years, he taught and converted more than 3,000, returning to Judaism.

In each community, his arrival was greeted by throngs, sometimes by mariachi players, and on occasion, a sign bearing his name. "Incredible," he says of the receptions he has been given. Often, he was told that "others have promised to come again and not returned...." He assured them that he would come back.

In Venta Prieta, he was asked to marry a couple. No rabbi had ever officiated there at a wedding. He agreed on condition they studied and converted properly because there could have been many mixtures of religions over the centuries. The couple agreed.

"Little by little, I converted other couples, their children and their children's children." In the major eastern port city, Vera Cruz, his arrival drew hundreds who had waited patiently for hours. He lectured and answered questions from six in the morning until eleven at night and was about to stop, when his listeners begged: "un poquito más."

Often, his listeners would recall elderly relatives lighting candles on Friday night or ritual butchering of animals, or of finding a small box with a parchment paper, a mezuzah. In time, he taught them Jewish prayers to chant and these were recorded on tapes to be shared with other families. He put together a trilingual prayer book in English/Spanish/Hebrew.

“They sang with so much heart, the walls trembled---incredible!"

Where once the worshippers had gathered in unmarked buildings, there now are synagogues. A number bear his Hebrew name: "Beth Shmuel."

Rabbi Stampfer, in his turn, urged members of the Jewish community to reach out a hand in friendship to the Latin-American community, both groups having much to gain from closer ties. The Hispanic communities in the United States are growing rapidly in size and influence, he said.

The Hispanic and Jewish communities have a history of good relations, he said, recalling how votes of South American countries helped win statehood for Israel when the Middle-East Partition Plan was approved in the UN in 1947.

"Small as it is, the crypto-Jewish community has great potential to lead in developing closer relations. Moreover, the crypto Jews have the most experience with the Latinos and share their culture and history."

There already is an outreach effort underway in his home city of Portland, he reported, saying he had urged Rabbi Yosef Garcia of a small local Crypto-Sephardic synagogue, Avedyu Torah Hayah to take the lead in such an undertaking and hoped Society members would be supportive.

Meanwhile, the good will Jews have had in the black community is being dissipated by Moslems teaching hatred toward the Jews, Rabbi Stampfer added.

Rabbi Garcia at another Conference session, said he was in touch with crypto-Jewish groups in a number of Latin-American countries and encouraged them to copy the example and create crypto-Sephardic Synagogues.

Speaking later, Abraham Lavender, the Society's new President-elect, said there appears to be a measurable trend among Hispanic crypto Jews in the Miami, FL area to seek open return to Judaism. Dr. Lavender is Professor of Sociology at Florida International University. He said he observed this increase at the synagogue he attends.

Those wishing to return learn by word of mouth that Rabbi Manuel Armand of Miami’s Temple Beth Tov is responsive to crypto Jews, he said. Twenty-one Hispanics recently converted after six months of classes with the rabbi, who is Ashkenazi and Argentinean-born. The returnees come from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Peru, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina and Honduras, “a veritable United Nations of Latin-America,” Dr. Lavender commented.

There was a problem obtaining circumcisions in Florida because of state medical liability laws, he said. Still, when he talked with Rabbi Armand just before the SCJS conference, he learned that another fifteen individuals have begun conversion classes.

Stanley M. Hordes, a Society co-founder, told members his new book, tentatively titled To the End of the Earth: A History of Crypto-Jews in New Mexico, will be published early next year by Columbia University Press.

He focused his report on the years 1846 to 1950, observing that these were the least documented in terms of crypto-Jewish records. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were well-documented, and recent events could be learned from elderly anusim, he explained. Researchers had to resort to logical historical deductions that have withstood the test of time.

It is known that under Spanish royal rule, only Catholicism was permitted in the New Mexican territory, forcing Jews into secrecy. This persisted until 1846 and the US invasion and annexation; though free then to practice any religion, long-standing taboos persisted and many chose to continue living in secrecy; "only some ventured out of the shadows, if only a few steps."

Still, hints of converso identity could be gleaned from marriage, occupational patterns and the names given to children, Dr. Hordes continued.

There was also growing evidence that anusim descendents were drawn toward the Protestant faiths now penetrating the areas because they would then have access to the bible, denied by the Catholics.

"One might surmise they were attracted to a faith which, like Judaism, emphasized a direct relationship with God, eliminating the need for intercession by priests or saints."

The increase after 1846 of names such as Abraham and Isaac, Sarah and Rebecca, he argued, "represented an early attempt of some descendants of crypto Jews subtly to express their ethnic identity in a public manner for the first time since the Inquisition in 1492.”

The full impact of Americanization came in the early and middle decades of the 20th century, he said, listing as factors the arrival of radio, movies and later, television; participation of New Mexicans in two World Wars; and the introduction of public schools.

"In just a couple of decades, many centuries-old traditions were lost," he said, "including the phenomenon of crypto Judaism. In families, specific knowledge of the Jewish heritage ceased being transmitted....While some customs continued to be passed down, such as circumcision, dietary laws, and naming patterns, these practices became disconnected from a larger cultural context. Children growing up in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's witnessed their families lighting candles on Friday night, refraining from eating pork and slaughtering their meat with special care not to consume the blood, without being told the reasons for the observances.”

Only when they demanded answers, Dr. Hordes explained, were they told reluctantly: “we were Jews."

The search for roots has caused tensions within families, and provoked controversies among academics, he remarked, but it has the positive effect of leading to better understanding of history and identity.

Seth Kunin, ordained rabbi and social anthropologist at University of Aberdeen, Scotland, is writing a companion to Dr. Hordes' work, based on nine years of inquiry, Juggling Identity of Crypto Jews of the Southwest.

In his talk, "Crypto Judaism Through the Lens of Ethnicity," he explored how language might identify heritage, such as the widespread practice by Northern New Mexico crypto Jews of speaking archaic Spanish. This practice is not exclusive to Jews and it is not a foolproof marker, he cautioned. Neither is the practice of forming and joining groups an indication of Jewish background.

Dr. Kunin noted that SCJS was identified as a group promoting academic study. Should the Society undertake fundraising, this might then express an altered identity and a political or advocacy aim. Groupings, he concluded, are not a foolproof sign of identity either.

In suggesting untapped areas for future study, Michael Perko, Professor of Religious Studies, Loyola University, Chicago, suggested there was a need to explore further the impact of Protestantism in the southwest. He also suggested studying forced conversion of Moslems.

Father Perko further observed that crypto Judaism was a transnational phenomenon. He advised scholars to study the Jews of Ethiopia and to give attention to the experience of Jewish refugees from the Inquisition who fled to India and China. Father Perko, who has written extensively about Jewish-Christian relations, also suggested studies of crypto Jews who chose to remain Catholic. He further proposed that research projects be tackled by "outsiders," meaning scholars outside the group under study.

In some ways, recent unfair criticism and academic disputes have made this the worst of times for scholars, but it also is the best of times, he insisted. "We are on the threshold of exciting times in crypto-Judaic studies."

Another speaker, Rabbi David Kunin, who has served synagogues in Scotland and the US and now serves in Canada, discussed how crypto-Judaic practices fit into modern Judaism as practiced in Orthodox and Conservative groups.

"We get worried when we see differences,...We want easy answers," he said, citing instances in which current practices have been tempered by widely practiced customs--minhas--but also observed religious law was not subject to such changes.

"I don't think crypto Jews should be made to become straight Ashkenazi Jews or straight Sephardic Jews," he declared, adding that their experience was in its own category. "It should be preserved and enhanced and developed within traditional Jewish norms."

Greg Cuellar, a Hebrew Bible scholar and doctoral candidate at Brite Divinity School in Texas, discussed the practice by crypto Jews of pinching off a small piece of dough while kneading bread and tossing it into the fire as God's share, or "priest’s dough."

Jews who fled Iberia were able to maintain the practice in Mexico, but as they fled northward from the Inquisition, they no longer had a supply of wheat. Corn was the only cultivated grain, and it was used for tortillas.

Although religious law proscribed some substitutes such as rice, there was no specific prohibition against corn. Moreover the corn, made into masa, met another requirement: that the dough reflect the life-process of making bread. Masa held for a day ferments and so the tortilla dough became an acceptable substitute for "priests' dough."

"I would like to think that this type of Judaism, able to innovate and deal with the problems arising in time, is the Judaism that latter-day Jews are in search of," he declared. An expanded article by Mr. Cuellar on this subject will be published in the Spring 04 issue of HaLapid.

Kevin S. Larsen, Spanish Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Wyoming, shared his analysis of Miguel de Cervantes’ work in a talk entitled: "Colleagues and Friends From the High Plains or Cowboys, Crypto Jews and the Spanish Golden Age."

In Don Quixote de la Mancha, Cervantes has his hero turn his back on the traditions of the Dons, and choose his name as did the Jews forced to become new Christians. He also includes forbidden aspects of Hebrew scripture.

Contrary to some scholarly interpretations, the inclusion of such material was not proof the author was a secret Jew, affirming his heritage, Dr. Larson hypothesizes. Rather, Cervantes probably was a Catholic who confronted the authorities because he would not permit limitations on his work

"He adopted an ‘in your face’ attitude toward the Inquisition. Why? Because he could. It was perilous to use Hebrew references," Dr. Larsen declared. "Cervantes quotes openly from Hebrew scripture. This is not to say he was any the less Christian: he just would not permit anyone to dictate to him."

Seth Ward of the University of Wyoming at Laramie offered an analysis of conclusions reached by Scholar Benzion Netanhayu regarding the question who is a Jew.

"Just because people have Jewish roots does not mean Jews consider them part of the Jewish community," he observed underscoring that scholars need to remember that Jewish heritage, identification and Jewish religious practices are not the same thing."

Elizabeth Hirschman of Rutgers University reported on her investigations of the Melungeons, an enigmatic ethnic group in Appalachia. She described it as existing since the 1500's and including Sephardic Jews and Moors who had escaped the Inquisition, settled in remote areas, and intermarried with local Indian tribes in the eastern US.

Herself of Melungeon descent, she theorized the Jews likely were descended from crypto Jews who were attracted to refuge in Protestant Scotland and then ventured overseas as traders with the Indians. She also suggested this development might have paralleled the experience in the southwest where crypto Jews were drawn toward Protestant faiths in the 1800's.

Donald Panther Yates from North Carolina University, who shares a common Melungeon ancestor with Ms. Hirschman named William Cooper, reported on his genetic study of Indian tribal descendents among the Mulungeons.

"Only in the last two years have I found out my family, on both mother and father's side was Jewish, specifically, crypto-Jewish with numerous ties to the Cherokee, Chocktaw, Creek and Chickasaw"

Since he wanted concrete contact with the vanished past, he made a pilgrimage to Sand Mountain, TN where his great, great, great, grandmother was buried in the Cooper-Blevens plot.

He dressed the graves in the Indian manner, putting down a tobacco offering. He regretted not knowing the mourners' kaddish but said the shema and shecheanu. "I had a strong feeling that the ancestors would have been pleased."

Developments in DNA testing and genetic findings were discussed by Dr. Panther-Yates, Dr. Lavender and Bennett Greenspan of Family Tree DNA.

Turning from science to personal experience, a number of speakers shared their recollections of youthful discovery of Jewish roots or encountering others who still grappled with their uncertainty.

Author Trudi Alexi related her four-year correspondence with a conflicted crypto-Judaic priest, the basis for her book The Marano Legacy: a Contemporary Crypto-Judaic Priest Reveals Secrets of His Double Life. She said he always had regarded himself as Jewish, attending services regularly on weekends, and was deeply anguished when Orthodox Jewry regarded him as a non-Jew needing confirmation.

In other panels, Lupe Garcia Mandujano from Austin introduced herself: “I am a woman, am an American, a Mexican and I am a Jew." Raised as a Catholic, she said her journey began when she started asking questions and searching for her ancestors. She found herself drawn toward the spirituality but also the warmth encountered from Jews.

On one of her frequent visits with her husband to Portland, OR, she decided to investigate a crypto-Jewish Sephardic synagogue she had read about.

In a "funky neighborhood," she said, they found their synagogue virtually hidden in the basement of a church. Rabbi Yosef Garcia welcomed them warmly. They talked of San Antonio and Panama and suddenly recognition came: The rabbi was Uncle Tony’s son – hence a first cousin!

"We had untangled another piece of the yarn to discover who are we," she declared.

Rabbi Garcia also described his youth, born and raised in Panama as a Catholic. At fifteen, dissatisfied, he tried to stop attending church. The family lived in a small town and soon, garbage and mail services stopped and the electricity did not function. He was induced to resume church attendance but defiantly sat in the rear. All services were resumed, he said, exclaiming "And this was in 1960!"

More and more crypto Jews are emerging now, he reported, saying it was exciting to have these first generation Jews. But he said it was like a "slap in the face." for them to be told they must be converted. He also cautioned crypto Jews against becoming isolated from other Jews and declared "let us show we are part of the whole."

A number of Society members also shared their experiences as contemporary descendents of Crypto-Jews: Randy Baca, the Society's membership Vice-President, was baptized and lived as a Catholic and later an Episcopalian but "always felt there was something weird" about her family roots. She discovered crypto-Jewish ancestors on both sides.

Since determining to live as a Jew, she has made adjustments to accommodate her family's Christian observances:

At Christmas, she decorates her house for the holidays, no religious symbols but such additions as a five-foot Santa for her Christian grandchildren. But she was very pleased at Hanukah when her first-born son presented a gift: a dreidel, traditional Jewish top.

Max Valerio, a San Francisco writer, was not present but sent a paper read by Dolores Sloan, in which he described himself as an "amalgam" of fragments: His father's people are crypto Jews from New Mexico. His mother is a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy of Northern Plains Indians, he said, adding "It's not easy being a mixture."

He discovered his paternal side includes prominent crypto Jews and began to study Judaism. He always had an affinity for Jews, and now at age 40 he had "fallen in love" with a religion that taxes the intellect.

Alan Lopez, anusim researcher from south Texas, told the conferees that it had taken him 25 years to unravel his puzzling background but now goes to temple regularly. He discovered his Judaism on his own, although his uncle had been told that he is Jewish. He investigated family practices and did genealogical research.

Mr. Lopez discussed identity issues with being a Jew in religion but having a culture different from most Jews.

The conference also had its cultural and entertaining moments. Nora Glickman, Professor of Latin American Literature at Queens College, NY, shared some of the differing reactions of audiences to her play Liturgies about Blanca Días, an 18th century martyr of the Inquisition. In Miami, an audience of retired elders was curious but skeptical and gays in the audience appreciated the parallel with the difficulty crypto Jews face in "coming out," she reported.

In Israel, she had to modify her female rabbi, who was “not acceptable.” In New York, a Hispanic audience wanted entertainment and some shrugged off the notion of crypto Judaism among Latinos. "Who wants to be Jewish? It is enough to be Latin," was one comment.

Prof. Glickman regretted not being able to sing one of the songs in the play for the audience, prompting Society member Sharon Malca to volunteer. Her rendition met with enthusiastic calls for an encore. She tells HaLapid that she has not been professionally trained but did come from a musical family. She also is a “history buff” and a "people person."

Kathleen Alcalá, Seattle novelist, directed a reading from Spirits of the Ordinary, her work based in part on the life of her great-grandfather who had "gold fever." She pictured dual scenes of a couple celebrating a seder while, far away, the errant son searches for gold in bandit territory.

The play had an all-star cast with no time for rehearsals that included Society President Arthur Benveniste, HaLapid Editor Dolores Sloan and SCJS Member Daniel Ramos.

Many members arrived early to attend Shabbat services Friday eve at Agudas Achim Synagogue and to enjoy social reunions with friends. The conference program of 23 speakers ended with a business meeting and election of new officers (see page 3 for meeting and election details).

"I think it was a good conference," declared former president Benveniste after Conference Chair Gloria Trujillo, agreed everything had been said.

Next Year in Portland! The weather will never rival San Antonio's sticky 1000 and rising. Do bring your umbrella!