Couple’s Odyssey:
FINALLY HOME
by
Michelle Guerra de Ramos and Daniel M. Ramos From HaLapid Spring 2005 Too much of Daniel Ramos” childhood revolved around the church. His mother, Elizabeth Garcia Ramos, a minister’s daughter who became a minister’s wife, and his father, Ismael, spent a lot of time on his ministry and, as a result, so did their family. Daniel, the youngest of five siblings, was never at home there. His discovery of why would shape his future in ways he could never imagine. For Daniel, church was full of contradictions he could not reconcile against his mother’s teachings at home--“original sin,” the “trinity,” and the idea that some commandments were followed and some were obsolete did not make sense and were in conflict with what he was learning from his mother. What he heard in church seemed to go directly against what his mother would teach him about the Bible. It was not until he was twelve years old that he began to understand why he felt caught between what seemed like different traditions. It was then Daniel learned that his mother’s family was once Jewish. Dan’s mother’s family, the Garcias, came to New Spain in the early 1500s and settled in what quickly became known as Garciasville, due to the prevalence of that surname (today, part of Texas). They came to New Spain fleeing the Inquisition and settled down as outward Christians with a fear of the Roman Catholic Church. They remained heavily monotheistic and their Jewry remained a secret handed down within the family. From what is known today from family trees, they remained tight-knit and tended to marry into other crypto-Jewish families—Perez, Saenz, Farias, Sepulveda; all names that recur throughout the family tree. They also retained an aversion to consuming blood. Armed with the knowledge of his true history, Daniel no longer felt comfortable at church and eventually stopped attending, feeling unable to stomach listening to what, to him, were contradictions in faith. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy and became a submariner, serving in the first Gulf War. On his own, he was free to explore Judaism and began attending services in a Navy synagogue. Suddenly, religion began to make sense. In 1996, having finished his tour in the Navy, Daniel moved to Austin, Texas. In 1999, at a wedding in the Rio Grande Valley, he met Michelle Guerra, a native of San Juan, TX, who was a senior at a Pennsylvania college. It was no coincidence that they met at a wedding; Daniel, a groomsman, was assigned to escort Michelle, a bridesmaid and friend of the bride. The two hit it off from the start. After graduating from college later that same year, Michelle moved to Austin, partly for the thriving job market, but mostly to continue seeing Daniel. After a lengthy courtship, the two became engaged and made plans to marry in May 2003. Michelle had grown up in a devout Roman Catholic family; however, as a teenager, she began to question her faith and her agreement with the teachings of the Church. By the time she was in college, she had stopped attending services and frequently got into tiffs with her family because of her criticism of Church doctrine and her refusal sometimes to go to services at all. Unfortunately, Michelle’s father, Ruben, was often blamed by her mother, Juanita, for their daughter’s aversion to the Church. “She takes after your side of the family!” Three months before Michelle and Daniel’s interfaith marriage (Christian and Catholic), Michelle’s parents were visiting with the couple. The discussion turned to World War II and Michelle mentioned to her parents that Daniel’s uncle, Canuto Garcia, had been shot down over Germany during the war and, after having been captured by the Nazis, was put into a concentration camp. Tío Canuto had insisted to the Germans that he was Hispanic, would speak to them only in Spanish, but was labeled “Juden” and taken to a camp until liberated at the end of the war. He came home weighing less than 100 pounds. Ruben’s response to the story would change the couple’s lives. “You know, the old tías say our family, your guelita’s family (Perez), was Jewish, too. That’s why we came here with a land grant, because of the Inquisition. We had to leave.” Michelle’s family history suddenly received a major renovation. The simple story of having received a land grant “for service to the King” was not entirely true. Instead, the family had come to New Span, land grant in hand, fleeing the Inquisition, and settling not far from Garciasville in the La Gloria/San Isidro area. It is possible that a “service to the King” was responsible for getting them a land grant—and a chance to escape—but the truth of the matter was that the family was Jewish and no longer safe in Spain. Suddenly, several things made sense: why her father’s family notoriously never went to church; why Michelle, as a baby, had worn a charm against ojo, the “evil eye,” on a red string when she was a little girl (a kabbalistic symbol); why the mirrors were covered when her grandmother passed away; and, in a “eureka!” moment, it became clear why Daniel and Michelle had marriages between their two families going back generations—it was “safe” to marry other crypto-Jewish families. They now understood why even today, they have so many relatives in common: Farias, Sepulveda and Saenz on both sides. Now, the families would be joining again, this time through Michelle and Daniel’s marriage. The couple had struggled with the issue of religion; they both felt God was missing in their lives and longed to return to services but neither wanted to take part in the faiths in which they had been raised. With the revelation that they came from the same secret, Jewish history, they turned their thoughts to Judaism. The couple began attending services at Congregation Beth Israel in Austin. Their first service made an impression on both. For Daniel, it was a return to the faith he had found a home in during his Navy years. For Michelle, it was the feeling that she had finally found a home. Both were acutely aware that they felt closer to God than they ever had; worship suddenly made sense. At the wedding, Daniel’s mom surprised the couple by reading a Jewish wedding blessing during the ceremony, in Hebrew. After their marriage, Michelle and Daniel enrolled in a Living a Jewish Life class—“basic Judaism”—and, after celebrating a full year of the Jewish calendar and having learned to read Hebrew, they both returned to Judaism formally with their conversions in July 2004. At Congregation Beth Israel, which is home to a surprising number of Sephards, they have found more than a community; they have found an extended family, where they have been welcomed warmly. Today, Michelle and Daniel are anxiously awaiting the birth of their first child, a son, in April 2005. Both feel deeply how important this birth is to them—with the brit milah of this baby, the couple knows it will be the first child to be raised as a Jew, openly, in either of their families, in nearly 500 years. They cherish the old traditions they will be bringing back to their family, the covenant, long abandoned but not forgotten, now being fulfilled. |
Society For Crypto Judaic Studies
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