#anusim

🇧🇷 Recife, Brasil, fue el lugar donde se construyó la primera sinagoga en el Nuevo Mundo en 1636, en una ciudad que hoy se conoce como la "Venecia de Brasil" debido a su red de canales. Desde 1500, los judíos llegaron a Recife, principalmente anusim (judíos conversos al cristianismo), quienes aprovecharon la oportunidad de vivir lejos de la Inquisición. Durante el dominio holandés (1630-1654), la comunidad judía floreció, con la construcción de la sinagoga Zur Israel, la primera de su tipo en América. La comunidad alcanzó las 4,000 personas, incluidas familias de Amsterdam y anusim locales, e incluso tuvo su primer rabino en 1642, Ytzhak Abuhab. Sin embargo, con la reconquista portuguesa en 1654, la comunidad se dispersó hacia Curaçao, Barbados, Jamaica y Nueva Amsterdam (posteriormente Nueva York), fundando la primera comunidad judía en EE. UU. Hoy, Recife sigue siendo un lugar de interés para los descendientes de estos judíos y una inspiración para muchos turistas, pero la comunidad judía local, que llegó a unos 1,500 miembros en el siglo XX, enfrenta desafíos como la asimilación y el escaso número de matrimonios judíos. Shavei Israel, una organización dedicada a conectar con descendientes de judíos en todo el mundo, trabaja para fortalecer los lazos de esta comunidad. La escuela comunitaria de Recife, creada en 1918, es un ejemplo de los esfuerzos para preservar la identidad judía, aceptando estudiantes no judíos para mantener su funcionamiento y, recientemente, logrando que su comedor sea kasher.

found this while looking into conversion in brazil for a friend of mine :’) (from American Jewish History: A JPS Guide by Norman H. Finkelstein)

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“Welcoming the Descendants of Anusim

Descendants of anusim have found difficulty in obtaining religious acceptance from many religious authorities who question their authenticity. One who went out of his way to make them welcome was Rabbi Chaim Halevy, the chief rabbi of Tel-Aviv. Writing in an Israeli newspaper, he stated:

There should be no concern regarding their return to Judaism. No doubt, if they desire to return to Judaism … The return of anusim to the Jewish world will signify the final victory of Judaism over those who tried to destroy it. it is the ultimate act of publicly praising God’s name, and a tribute to the large numbers who died on the altar. (Translated from Hatzofeh, April 1, 1991, 4)

The foundation for the modern acceptance by Jews of anusim can be traced back to Maimonides in his Epistle on Forced Conversion, written in 1165:

Although Queen Esther was not canonized by the Catholic Church, the anusim transformed her into Saint Esther. They called her Santa Ester or Santa Esterica. They were able to continue honoring Purim by reinventing it as “The Festival of Saint Esther.”

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Mod here. By nature of the question, this looks to have a Reform FOR. Respondents who would like to respond from another FOR are welcome to send in an ask that includes their scope.

Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam

I used this extensively during my dissertation to help draw a picture of life in the Amsterdam Jewish community that was formed primarily by former Conversos. Its short work but an excellent resource for anyone interested in this area of Crypto-Jewish/Sephardic history.

Drawing on family and communal records, diaries, memoirs, and literary works, among other sources, Miriam Bodian tells the…

For the first time, “long-lost” Jewish communities in three Central American nations will have their own full-time rabbi.

The Bnei Anousim — whose ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition — will be led in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala by Rabbi Elisha Salas of Shavei Israel, an organization that contacts and educates far-flung communities of Jews and those of Jewish ancestry.

Jews first arrived in El Salvador and surrounding areas to escape the Inquisition, which led to the conversion or expulsion of Spain’s Jews upon penalty of death. Those Jews, Bnei Anousim — sometimes derogatorily as “Marranos” or “pigs” — were forced to practice Judaism in secret, losing knowledge and traditions along the way.

[June 2018] - Barkan Wineries is facing a furious backlash after an undercover investigation revealed that the company banned Ethiopian employees from coming in contact with its wine due to an ostensible doubt about their Jewishness. Israel’s chief rabbi condemned the ban as “pure racism,” the president castigated the winery, the Knesset speaker called it shameful, while an MK backed a growing public boycott of one of Israel’s leading winemakers.

Last year, Barkan’s management decided to pursue an additional, more rigorous kosher certification from the Eda Haredit, a private hardline ultra-Orthodox group, according to a Monday investigative report by public broadcaster Kan (Hebrew link).

...In order to obtain Eda Haredit certification, Barkan was required by the group to ban all its Ethiopian workers from coming in contact with the wine, citing a halachic ban on gentiles handling wine, even though the Chief Rabbinate of Israel recognizes the Ethiopian community as Jewish.

Some ultra-Orthodox communities do not recognize Ethiopians who immigrated to Israel in the last 30 years as Jewish according to religious law.

Barkan agreed to comply with the Eda Haredit demand, and in recent months began transferring its Ethiopian workers from the production to other positions in the factory.

In a recording of a phone call between an Ethiopian worker and a senior manager, Barkan said that the employees were being moved due to religious considerations.

“Because of the kashrut, I need to transfer Yair (another Ethiopian worker) to a different work station… so that he won’t be next to the doors touching the filling [containers],” he said.

“Everyone has their values, and I have mine, and you are a Jew, he’s a Jew and I’m a Jew. But, at the end of the day it’s business, and business is business,” Assouline told the worker.

...A number of the workers who spoke to Kan said they were angered and humiliated by the new policies.

“Once I touched the wine, and the [kashrut] supervisor ran over to me and smashed the bottles right in front of me,” one Ethiopian Barkan employee told Kan.

“Every other Jew who comes to work there comes in contact with wine, but we are not allowed to. Why, because I’m different?” another said. “I feel humiliated. This is racism.”

...The Kan report on Monday immediately generated an outcry from both secular and religious Israelis, with calls for a boycott and an investigation into the company’s policies.

Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef vowed to investigate the employment practices at Barkan, which he described as racist.

“I view the directive issued by the so-called ‘Kashrut Corps’ to ban religiously observant Ethiopian Jews from making wine with the utmost severity,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “There is no excuse for issuing such instructions other than pure racism.”

Yosef vowed to “act on the matter under the full extent of the law.”

President Reuven Rivlin also weighed in on the report, praising Yosef for his “clear and resolute statement against this terrible injustice at Barkan wineries.” The president called on the company to rectify its “serious error.”

Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein tweeted: “I have a hard time imagining a Jew who would refuse to drink wine produced by Jews of Ethiopian descent. Racism is shameful.”

Meanwhile, a growing number of Israelis took to social media to express outrage at Barkan, demanding Assouline resign and calling for boycott of the company, with many quoting the CEO’s “business is business” remark.

MK Yael German (Yesh Atid) joined boycott calls, slamming Barkan’s “shocking and disgusting behavior.” In a statement, she urged “anyone who cares about racism to boycott this wine until they apologize.”

...In the 1980s and 90s, Israel clandestinely airlifted thousands of Ethiopian Jews from Ethiopia, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to bring the ancient community to the Jewish state and help its members integrate. About 140,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel today, a small minority in a country of nearly 9 million. But their assimilation hasn’t been smooth, with many arriving without a modern education and then falling into unemployment and poverty.

While Ethiopian Jewish immigrants from the Beta Israel community are recognized as fully Jewish and did not need to undergo conversion upon arriving in Israel, immigrants from Ethiopia belonging to the smaller Falash Mura community, which converted from Judaism to Christianity in the 19th century, are required to undergo Orthodox conversion after immigrating.

...Though Ethiopian immigrants have made strides in certain fields and have reached the halls of Israel’s parliament, many complain of systemic racism, lack of opportunity, discrimination by religious authorities, endemic poverty and routine police harassment.

Those frustrations boiled over into violent protests three years ago after footage emerged of a uniformed Ethiopian Israeli soldier being beaten by police. Thousands of Ethiopian Jews and their supporters blocked main highways and clashed with police in a bid to draw attention to their plight, including what they say is unchecked police brutality against their community members.

Reconnector, in Israel, is working with the Israeli government and rabbinate to help individuals return to Judaism, and on creating support networks for those in the exploration phase. A matching service, reminiscent of an online dating site, will help connect Bnei Anusim to Jewish friends who practice in ways that interest them, with an emphasis on involving those from similar Sephardic backgrounds.