WE MUST DENY VICTORY TO THE INQUISITION
Five years ago we observed the 500th anniversary of the edict in Spain that Jews leave, convert or die. This year we observe the 500 the anniversary of a "convert or die" edict against the Jews of Portugal, some of whom -- up to 300,000 by some estimates--were refugees from Spain. But this is not a story of ancient history.
Many people think the anousim -- from a Hebrew word meaning "forced ones" -- disappeared into a story of the here and now. Because, you see, the Judaism of the anousim did not disappear. It went underground and has stayed there, weakened but alive, for hundreds of years.
The Inquisition was not a short - lived event 500 years ago. The persecutions and pressured or forced conversions started almost 800 years ago. In North America, it was Mexican independence in 1821 that freed the last prisoner jailed by the inquisition for practising Judaism. Religious freedom in Spain itself was not finally decreed until 1966.
Today we are witnessing what may be a great awakening. Trying to escape the inquisition, the anousim went to places like Brazil, the Azores, Madeira, Central America and Mexico. The former Mexican province of Nuevo Leon - which included the present states of California, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, was founded by anousim. Their leader died in an inquisition jail for failing to denounce his relatives, one of whom was later burned at the stake for practising Judaism.
In these and other places, people are beginning to realize that there may be a deeper meaning to those family sayings and practices that have been carefully and secretly handed down from generation to generation. These sayings and practices are many and varied. Some families have only a few, others several. In some families the fact of their Jewish heritage is secretly passed down; in others only the saying or practice remains, without the knowledge of its source. Some of the practices are familiar to mainstream Judaism. For example, these include fasting on a date approximating Yom Kippur, refraining from bread for a week at about the time of Passover, avoidance of blood in eggs, and covering mirrors in a house of bereavement. Others -- such as saving fingernail or hair clippings for burial or burning, and scalding meat after salting it to remove the blood -- are traceable by researchers to obscure rabbinic rulings not observed today by most Jews.
Rejoining mainstream Judaism is not easy for the anousim. After hundreds of years, the fear of discovery and retribution remains great and the social pressures and fear of rejection remain strong. We must approach the anousim with understanding and compassion. The solemn Kol Nidre prayer we recite on Yom Kippur eloquently recalls their pain. We who are devoted to denying the Nazis a victory must not allow the inquisition to get away with one either.
Published in KULANU
Autumn 1997 vol 4 no 3
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E-mail: Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbaum