#1492

And we wouldn’t have to pay to see ourselves in museums.

Many converted outwardly, but behind locked doors and in hidden basements, they kept lighting Shabbat candles, whispering Hebrew prayers and passing their faith to their children in silence, sometimes for five or six generations. 

They were called Marranos, or Conversos and the Spanish Inquisition hunted them relentlessly. The mass trials, torture, executions and property confiscation did not end until 1818. 

Their descendants became scattered all over the world and now, centuries later, many are discovering their Jewish roots. 

They are ‘Bnei Anusim’ - the ‘descendants of the coerced ones’.

to honor the jewry of that region, my mother’s people, who suffered at the hands of that horrific organization, i wanted to post some excerpts from Forgotten Giants by Rabbi Yosef Bitton and other things people don’t typically know:

the inquisition was abolished 300+ years later. it existed and held power for over 300 years. (1815 is particularly interesting bc napoleon got rid of the second class citizenship of jews and closed the ghettos and gave us basic human rights…and then when he was defeated, our rights were stripped away again. but also cristina abolishing it was a moot point then. the emancipation etc came from napoleon and his reforms. )