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.

New Mexico's Hidden Past - Part 1

November 5, 2009

Josef García’s maternal grandmother would light two candles every Friday and then move her hands around in a circle, saying words in a mysterious language. When someone died, he said she would cover all the mirrors with black cloth.

When he asked her about these traditions, she would say they were “very old family traditions taught to her by her grandmother.”

“In 1982,” García said, “my elderly great uncle told me the reason I was uncomfortable in Christianity was because we were Jews. Suddenly, it made sense to me, my mother shouting about the filth and toxicity of pork and the other family customs. My father cried when we celebrated Erev Shabbat (Friday evening religious services) in my home. It was the first time he had done so since his mother’s death.”

Modern-day descendents of New Mexican crypto- Jews, such as García, are the subjects of an exhibition by late artist Cary Herz titled “Remnants of a Hidden Past: Photographs and Essays on New Mexico’s Crypto- Jews,” which opened with a reception Thursday (Nov. 5), 5:30-7 p.m., at La Hacienda de Los Martínez, 708 Hacienda Rd. in Lower Ranchitos. The term “crypto-Jew” can refer to anyone who practices Judaism in secret, for fear of discrimination or persecution — but, it can also refer to their descendants.

To explain how a number of Sephardic crypto-Jews ended up in New Mexico requires a brief step back in time. Jewish persecution, frequently flaring up throughout Europe since the first Crusade in 1095, infested Spain in 1492. At this time, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ordered the expulsion of the Jews, saying they had to either convert to Catholicism, leave the country, or face torture, imprisonment or execution.

Some fled to the New World with the conquistadores. Mexico City in particular received such a high influx of Jewish immigrants that in 1571 a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition was established there, which also administered brutal punishments for practicing any religion other than Catholicism. Jews migrated further north, some as far as what is now New Mexico.

Although a portion of these Jews who had converted to Catholicism fully renounced their Jewish identities, others converted but continued to practice Judaism in secret and thereby became Sephardic crypto-Jews of New Mexico.

Herz (1947-2008) was photographing the Jewish cemetery in Las Vegas, N.M. in 1985 when she heard whispers of, “What about the others?” The cemetery contained the remains of Eastern European Jews who immigrated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but was missing those of the Sephardic crypto-Jews that had resided in New Mexico for centuries.

The term “Sephardic” refers to persons of Spanish, Portuguese or North African descent. This day marked the start of her 20-year “odyssey” into this hidden — and now emerging — culture. Many of her images were shot in New Mexico but some were taken as far away as Portugal, where she journeyed with some of the crypto-Jewish descendants. Herz is the child of two Holocaust refugees and her deep personal connection to this subject seems to vibrate through her images.

Gerald González is depicted in Portugal, surrounded by aging stone walls. “Sitting on the steps of an Inquisition jail in Monsaraz, Portugal, led me to think of ... the perils and journeys across the globe that my Jewish ancestors undertook to protect themselves and their faith.

“In 2007 I identify myself as a Hispanic New Mexican who is culturally Catholic, but who also has a deep awareness of and sensitivity to my Jewish roots, embracing them as part of who I am,” González says in the book. “Accepting the complexity of my family history (including the French and Italian branches along with my Jewish origins) has led me to seek a wider understanding of our relatedness as God’s creations.”

Alongside each of Herz’ portraits will be brief biographical statements offering a glimpse of the range of experiences subjects have had in integrating their ancestry. Statements are excerpted from Herz’ book, “New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews, Image and Memory,” created in collaboration with Ori Z. Soltes and Mona Hernández.

Some descendants, like González, openly accept their Jewish heritage but choose not to practice the religion. One chooses to practice both Catholicism and Judaism. A few, some of whom have only recently discovered their Jewish ancestry, feel that they’ve come home. Lorenzo Domínguez stands with his elderly mother, Felima, beside the Río Grande in Albuquerque. He wears a tallit, a shawl with about 600 tassels, each a reminder of one of God’s commandments; she drapes her grandmother’s black shawl around her.

They both look directly into the camera with soft eyes. Felima is a devout Catholic who acknowledges her Jewish heritage that dates back to 16th century ancestor Lucas Vixil.

“From the time he was young my son has always felt that he was Jewish. I have a daughter who feels the same way. For me, as long as they, my children, pray to God, as long as you live your life in a good way, that is all that matters,” she says.

Herz was also intrigued by crypto- Jews’ gravestones that were adorned with Jewish symbols, sometimes hidden, sometimes not. Jewish stars are sometimes engraved alongside or inside crosses, or above the heads of angels. Some of the imagery, Herz writes in her book, has not yet been studied by material culture academics.

These photos raise interesting questions about why crypto-Jews would choose to leave a permanent, public marking of Judaism traceable to their families when they had gone to such lengths to keep their faith a secret. The gravestones that combine Jewish and Christian imagery can also be seen from an artistic perspective, as representations of religion as a unifying force rather than the divisive one that history has sometimes proven it to be.

Part 2 in the series will delve more deeply into the complex range of issues faced by this population, drawing on material from “A Light In My Soul/Una Luz En Mi Alma,” a play based on interviews with New Mexican Crypto-Jews and descendants. Performances will be Nov. 13-14 at the Taos Community Auditorium. For more information, call (575) 758-0505 or visit www.taoshistoricmuseums. org. Herz’ book also contains an extensive bibliography of works on this subject.

Lorenzo Domínguez (Levi Ben Macario) and mother by the Río Grande, Albuquerque, 1999. Photo by Cary Herz