Shalom
Today marks the celebration of
my first Rosh Hashanah as a Jew! When I entered
the mikveh, or ritual bath, at the University of Judaism
in Los Angeles before a Beit Din, or rabbinical court, it was the
single defining moment of my life. It is difficult to describe in
words what happened on that day, Monday, March 25, 2002 (12 Nisan 5765)
when Stephen Gomes, a Portuguese-American Catholic,
completed his conversion to Judaism. It was a completion – a sense of coming
full-circle, of finding and reclaiming my elusive long-lost Jewish soul,
my neshama, for now and always - never to be lost again. All of
the pain, challenges and uncertainties I experienced over the years in
this search, pale by comparison with the magnificent emotional splendor
of that defining moment. When Rabbi Steven
Tucker of Temple Ramat Zion of Granada Hills, Rabbi Mark Diamond and others,
including my 81-year old Catholic mother and members of my Jewish community,
witnessed my return to my people, I knew I was home at last.
It has been a 50-year journey
to recover the Jewish heritage of my ancestors. My tale could begin with
the discovery in 1996 that my father’s 16th century ancestor
was buried in the Field of the Jews in the Madeira Islands off the coast
of Portugal. Or it could begin with telephone conversations
with relatives bearing my maternal great grandmother’s name, De Quintal,
who whispered in carefully shaded tones, “you know they say we are Jews”.
Instead
I want to tell the story of my conversion from the highly personal perspective
of self–discovery. Starting from about seven or
eight years old, I began to realize that, in some important but seemingly
unknowable way, I did not fit in with the rest of the kids at the Catholic
schools I was sent to. By the time I was in college, the feelings began
to change, becoming more insistent and more impossible to ignore. I experienced a growing realization that something nameless,
ineffable undefined was calling me. But what was it? One
day, in graduate school, my best friend, Stephen Wiel, with no warning,
popped a totally startling and mind altering question to me, “Why are all
your friends Jewish?” Not only did I not have answers
for what I thought at the time a completely crazy question; I couldn’t
fathom why he asked it in the first place. But ultimately,
it was the first clue that put me on the track to my return. His question stayed with me, resonated, stewed, percolated,
until one brisk Pittsburgh winter day, I woke up with the question, “Could
I possibly be Jewish?”
For those of you who have been
Jewish from birth, I am not sure you could put yourself in the mindset
of the unsettling road of inquiry this question posed for me. It is an identity shattering kind of question which
at that time had no basis in fact. It was relentless. I could not shake
this feeling that I was, in fact, seemingly Jewish somehow – someway. It
is very hard to describe this feeling. One author who had a similar experience
described it as a journey Through the Unknown
Remembered Gate. My drive to unravel the mystery of this illusive
Jewish identity became like a mysterious, unexplainable compulsion. At the time, the best way I could find to describe it
was to compare it to how the main character was portrayed in the movie
Close Encounters of a Third Kind.
After I received my PhD, I moved
to Reno, Nevada. One cold snowy night, I found myself
sitting in my hot tub with another good friend, a psychiatrist named, Ed
Lynn (Jewish naturally) discussing this feeling I had.
I said “Ed, is there something wrong with me?”
At first he laughed about it. But then
he said “You know that there is something called the Jewish soul or neshama. You might be having an experience with that phenomenon.” For some reason, that really rang a chord with me.
But at the time I knew nothing
about the concept of a Jewish soul nor did I have any knowledge of the
anusim, the Hebrew term for Jews who were forced to convert to
Christianity. In 1980 I moved to San Francisco. The
“calling” was continuous and unrelenting. I spoke to many rabbis. They all uniformly discouraged me. Then one day I was
introduced to Rabbi David Zeller. He accepted me as a student. Unfortunately,
before I could make much progress toward conversion, the rabbi’s wife suddenly
died and left him with three very young children to raise. He moved to Israel and my study took a detour.
For the next ten years, I filled
much of my spare time studying my family history. I
engaged in a lot of genealogical and historical research.
It began to become increasingly evident that I could actually be
a direct descendant of Jewish ancestors from the Portuguese Inquisition
in 1497. I studied the history of the Inquisition in Portugal which convinced
me to redouble my effort to convert.
I have since learned that on
my mother's side of the family, her grandfather who, it is speculated,
knew that he was Jewish, changed his name when he entered the U.S. in Hawaii
in 1868. He changed his name from João Baptista de Quintal to John Q.Baptist.
Right now I am trying to learn
all I can about the Quintal family name and history. Recently, I had the
wonderful opportunity to participate in a Portuguese Jewish Heritage Tour. While I was in Portugal, with the help of members of
the Saudades-Sefarad Group, I was able to locate the medieval Portuguese
village of Quintal in north central Portugal, which, I was told by a passerby,
“This was a Jewish village.” This was the source of
our family name. Some of the buildings are still in use. I was amazed to
find a Hebrew inscription carved into one of the solid rock Lintel stones
in the interior of one of the doorways.
So far, I have learned that
during the Portuguese Inquisition while many Jews fled to other countries
to avoid forced conversion, most were forced to remain and then forced
to convert as opposed to Spain where observing Jews fled the country. According
to Flavio Mendes Carvaho, in Raizes Judaicas no Brasil: O Arquivo Secreto
da Inquisicao (Jewish Roots in Brazil: from the Secret Archives of
the Inquisition), available in Portuguese only, there were 177 cases of
judaizing (New Christians practicing Judaism) prosecuted during the Lisbon
autos do fe against persons with the surname Gomes and five with
the surname de Quintal. The name means from the
village of Quintal. with a population of 200 men, women and children at
the time.
While this history is and continues
to be under researched in Portugal, there is mounting evidence (see Netanyahu’s
The Origins of the Inquisition) that this massive crime committed
against Jews by the church and royal establishment was actually motivated
primarily for greed, to allow confiscation of the property
and assets of those accused. The religious accusations
were primarily a diversion designed to enlist the support of the uneducated
illiterate masses and incite their anger. Remember, at that time the church
did not allow peasants to learn to read –- even to read the Bible. Only the Jews could read, write and do math and accounting
because of their emphasis on reading the Torah and on education in general.
For me,
stepping into the mikveh brought me full circle -- I was home at
last. The feeling is still very new and very vivid for me; I am fully
certain for the first time, I truly know who I really am at the core of
my soul - without a trace of doubt or lingering hesitancy. This sense
of certainty is a great gift, both s concrete as the presence of my limbs,
yet as ineffable and ephemeral as vapors arising from San Francisco Bay
on a misty winter morning. Others have also written
about their feelings when the moment they discovered their Jewish identity.
The descriptions are almost always in the same general tone.
Besides great joy, the certainty
of this "knowing" also brought with it a great sadness. I felt the pain
of our forefathers and ancient grandmothers, having their children, their
traditions, their very heritage forcefully ripped away - seemingly forever
until now. Somehow these events of 500 hundred years ago became
as fresh and vivid inside of me as if it happened yesterday. And now I
feel such a great responsibility to rectify this loss in some way- to make
it somehow worthwhile. Even if I only could have a small role in helping
a few Portuguese descendants find their way back to their heritage, their
true identify, their real roots, then I will be at peace.
Until
then, I cannot seem to rest. I feel such a commitment and dedication to
helping my fellow Portuguese understand the overwhelming evidence and
artifacts of their former connection to their Jewish roots. Once my own
"discovery" sank in - never to be lost again - I could look at my fellow
Portuguese with wonder and amazement. Now I can't be in Portugal or with
Portuguese and not see the evidence of their Jewish heritage everywhere -
in their mannerisms, superstitions, body language, words, family practices,
their way of being in the world, personal philosophies, customs, and their
stubborn propensity to debate. All of these practices and cultural effects
have roots in their common Jewish ancestry.
For me,
Judaism is a proud common history that influenced a culture, and, through
adversity, forged a unique people who made tremendous contributions to
the world and to tikkun olam, repairing the world. The Portuguese,
my people, are as yet almost totally unaware of just how deeply linked
they are to their Portuguese-Jewish roots and how their culture derives
so directly from their Jewish heritage. Their continuing inability to
embrace their inheritance is such a shame. But
there are signs of hope that seem to be gaining momentum, including our
ground breaking Jewish Heritage Conference Tour to Portugal in June (see
Summer 2002 issue of HaLapid, page ). Since participating in the tour, I have spoken many times at synagogues
about my discovery of my Portuguese-Jewish roots and what it has meant
to me.
I speak about how, even in my own immediate family, these vestiges of
Jewish family practices persist. They are small clues into the past but
for most of us that is all we have. Just last week I discovered that my
great grandfather on my mother's side: João Baptista de Quintal actually
had two sons named Jacob and two sons named Benjamin (of twelve sons and
one daughter, Ludvina - very Dutch). I asked my mother why that was, since
I only knew about one great-great uncle Benjamin and one great-great uncle
Jacob? She said it was because for generations her family had a “peculiar”
tradition - as long as she could remember, they named their children after
relatives who had died. So when their first son Jacob died in his first
year of life, they named another son after him and the same with Benjamin. Even my middle name, Laurence, is named after my mother's brother, a pilot
in WWII who died trying to making sure that a German tank did not overtake
an American position.
Another
touching remnant of our tradition is the fact that my grandmother on my
father's side always baked braided Portuguese sweet bread on Friday mornings. It looked and tasted exactly like challah –-
the first time I saw challah I thought it was Portuguese sweet bread.
As a kid, I could hardly wait for Fridays
because we would stop at my grandmother's house after school and have toasted
fresh Portuguese sweet bread with butter and dip it in hot chocolate.
My brothers and I thought it was such a great treat. When I asked her
why she did that she said she did not know, but it made her feel good because
that is what her mother and her mother's mother and all the women in her
family did as far back as she could remember from the time she was a small
girl.
An additional vestige is the tremendous focus in my family on the value
of education. My brothers are all either very
highly educated or own their own businesses. I am a college professor,
former CEO, businessman and consultant and am blessed (or cursed, depending
on one’s perspective) with an intense curiosity about everything. The Jews
in Portugal were instrumental in establishing one of the earliest known
universities in Europe. They stressed education even at the smallest village
levels. On our tour, we could see the symbol of
a candle flame on the doorpost at the entry to their one room schools,
indicating that education and the study of Torah brought light into the
world.
It saddens me to see that most modern Portuguese don’t see this link to
their Jewish heritage, much less honor and cherish it for what it gave
them, much of their cultural sou, the very essence of what it means to
be Portuguese. My hope is that in some small way by participating in and
supporting activities such as the Saudades website/listserve (www.saudade-sefarad.com),
I can play a small role in helping modern Portuguese at least catch a glimpse
of the magnificent tradition and heritage that was taken from them and
how it has so influenced who they are to this very day. Since I have discovered
my Jewish Portuguese roots, I feel so proud to be Jewish and to know that
once, before the inquisition,we were major contributors to the art, culture,
business expansion, trading life, and the very heart of Portuguese society. ¡Va com Hashem!
STEPHEN
L. GOMES, PhD, addressed the 2002 SCJS Conference on this subject. He has also spoken about his return to Judaism before
synagogue and cultural groups.