New Mexico's Hidden Past - Part 2

November 12, 2009

Rubén Durán found out he was Jewish when he was building a mud house on some land he had inherited, outside Albuquerque. Foraging for materials in the remains of his great-grandmother’s house, he found some weathered old wood that might be useful. “So I start pulling, separating the wood from the adobe and out popped a mezuzah ... it fell out of there, kind of a little metal box with a round cylinder. And inside, rolled up is a little scroll, which contains the shammat, which is, of course, the most important prayer to the Jewish people,” explains Durán.

Like artifacts from an adobe wall, the history of New Mexico’s Sephardic crypto-Jews, kept hidden for many generations, is now emerging.

Durán is one of several crypto-Jews depicted in the play “A Light In My Soul/Una Luz En Mi Alma,” which will be performed Friday and Saturday (Nov. 13-14), 7 p.m., at the Taos Community Auditorium, 145 Paseo de Pueblo Norte.

The production, presented by the Taos Jewish Center and Working Classroom Theater Group, is part of a 10-day festival called “¡Celebrate!, The Jewish Experience in Spanish-Speaking Countries,” which is spread out through Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos. It concludes Sunday (Nov. 15). Other events include films, music, art, theater, food, lectures and exhibits.

Tickets for the play are $12 in advance, $18 at the door and $15 for students and seniors. A free performance for students and seniors is planned Friday (Nov. 13) at 1 p.m., for which reservations are required with the TJC.

There will also be a reception and Q&A afterward in Doc Martin’s Restaurant at The Taos Inn, 125 Paseo del Pueblo Norte. Present will be the director, cast and some of the crypto-Jewish interviewees depicted in the play. Tickets for the reception are $55, which includes a ticket for the play that evening.

Working Classroom’s award-winning Albuquerque-based theater group includes an ethnically diverse group of actors ranging in age from 11 years old to 65. The play, written by Leigh Fondakowski and a team of collaborators, is based on extensive interviews conducted with New Mexican Crypto-Jews. Interview transcripts were then incorporated into historically accurate and visually exciting theater, using a process Fondakowski developed while writing her Emmy-nominated TV movie, “The Laramie Project.”

“These are the exact words (of interviewees) and their real names. It’s a very rare opportunity in theater where people get to speak for themselves,” says producer Nan Elsasser.

The play starts in Spain at the brink of the Edict of Expulsion, then travels to the New World where a boatload of expelled Jews come tumbling on stage. The action then fast-forwards to modern-times, as descendants enjoy the blessings, and grapple with challenges, their ancestry brings.

Father Clemente Espinosa grew up in Albuquerque in a family that practiced Judaism in secret for five centuries, continuously. His family is still in possession of religious paraphernalia that belonged to his 15th-century ancestors.

“Inside the house we were Jewish, but outside we were Catholics. We still had the fear of the Inquisition and things like that, because being ostracized by your own neighborhood is very terrible, especially as a little child, that’s a form of the Inquisition. I used to remember the words (they called us),” he says. “Right here in this district that happened! And we have a lot of Converso families here now and this is a very Roman Catholic state. And if you dare, you get ostracized, you lose your jobs, you lose your friends, and there’s connections, let’s put it there, nunca se acaba (translation: it never ends).”

Maria Apodaca was raised Catholic, but found out in high school that she was Jewish. “Somos Judios,” her father whispered to her after he read a poignant school essay she had written on Judaism.

“I had this feeling in my heart ... that it was very, very sacred very special that he said that to me and so that stayed with me,” she says.

The deep connection she felt to Judaism continued to grow in her and she eventually did her Return, which means she studied Jewish laws and customs for some time under a rabbi and then took part in a ceremony and ritual bath (mikvah.) Her son, Mark Tafoya is skeptical of these links to ancestry and the DNA testing his mother undergoes but he loves her and accepts her choice nonetheless. The rest of the family, however, is adamantly against her decision to embrace Judaism, a repercussion she must accept as she moves forward with her life.

Another challenge for Crypto-Jews touched on in the play is a sense of alienation from other Jews. When crypto-Jews decide to join overt Jewish communities, the Ashkenazi (Eastern-European) Jews are sometimes unfamiliar with, and therefore skeptical of, their Jewish authenticity.

There are some differences in Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions, such as singing different melodies to certain songs and eating slightly different traditional foods during holidays and ceremonies. As awareness of Sephardic Judaism grows in the Jewish community, measures are being taken to be more inclusive. According to Ariana Kramer, assistant to the director of TJC, Albuquerque now has a synagogue called “Nahalat Shalom,” which actively reaches out to Sephardic Jews and holds monthly Shabbats (Friday services) focused on Sephardic traditions.

The TJC, though not a synagogue, hosts religious and cultural events and has always welcomed everyone, “Jewish, non-Jewish and everyone in between,” says Kramer. “Some people come here for years and don’t know why they’re attracted but there’s this resonance with the traditions. Then later on they find out they have Jewish ancestry,” she adds.

New Mexico’s crypto-Jewish history has been surfacing more since the 1980s largely due to the work of researchers such as sociologist Tomas Atencio and historian Stanley Hordes. In his book, “To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico,” Hordes writes that his biggest challenge was “determining the history of a group of people who for centuries tried desperately to cover their tracks, to leave behind as little evidence as possible, documentary or otherwise, that would jeopardize their security and ... their families.”

“I believe my father’s generation was the last generation that would have any inkling that this happened,” says Durán. “We could have gone into my generation and, of course, my children’s generation, without them ever knowing about their own history.”

On his journey exploring Judaism, Durán visited Israel. “My wife and I ... we were riding around on a bus and they asked us where we’re from and we tell them New Mexico and they said, ‘Oh, you’re Jewish?’ And we’d say, ‘Well, I believe my family was Anusim.’ Now, the word anusim means forced to convert, okay. Funny how everybody knew that word ... And some of them would even reach out and touch you, kind of like, “Wow, brother. You’ve been lost for all these years. Welcome home.’ ”

For more information, call the Taos Jewish Center at (575) 758-8615.