The Hidden History of Jewish Life in Latin America

Elkin begins her study by returning to the roots and examining the state of Jewish life and identity in the Iberian Peninsula in the period surrounding the discovery of the Americas and the Alhambra Decree expelling the Jews in 1492.

Judith Laikin Elkin (Photo courtesy of Amazon)

Judith Laikin Elkin
(Photo courtesy of Amazon) Judith Laikin Elkin

While many Jews found refuge from the Spanish Inquisition outside of the Holy See, some remained in Spanish lands, and for them life was determined by the reach of the Church. This remained true even for those who tried starting life anew in the New-World Spanish colonies. Refusing sentimental readings of the past, Elkin traces the course of Jews who willingly converted to Christianity together with those who tried, in some way, to hold on to some kind of Jewish identity; the Inquisition viewed both groups with suspicion.

In time, Jews of various stripes would flee Spanish persecution by finding refuge with the Portuguese in Brazil and then, later, with the tolerant Dutch, as Elkin writes: “Once the Dutch established a foothold on the Brazilian coast, this New Holland attracted settlers from the homeland, including Jews.” But that refuge also turned out to be short-lived,

[w]hen the Dutch were driven from the Brazilian coast by the Portuguese Brazilians in 1654, the Jews had to evacuate with them. One hundred fifty Jewish families now returned to Amsterdam; others went elsewhere in the Caribbean; and twenty-three stragglers wound up in the port of New Amsterdam, where Governor Peter Stuyvesant reluctantly admitted them on orders from his stockholders back home. The congregation they formed, appropriately named Shearith Israel (Remnant of Israel), was the first Jewish congregation on Manhattan Island.

The fate of Jewish communities in South America was ultimately bound up with the dissolution of the Inquisition, even though, as Elkin points out, “the Inquisition mentality” remained: “For years, the Spanish word judio (Jew) was used to mean a miser, hebreo as a synonym for usurer, Cohen to mean a sorcerer or a bawd, and sinagoga to imply a conspiracy.” That flourishing Jewish communities ultimately took root in Latin America is a testimony to the resilience of the Jews and their capacity to flourish in various contexts. After all, “[e]ven after the Inquisition ceased to function, the possibility that some people possessed a secret dual identity fostered suspicion… The charge of racial impurity was viewed as a valid political ploy, and it retained its sting through the twentieth century.”

As for today, Elkin notes that,

[i]n the waning years of the twentieth century, handfuls of Hispanics of the American Southwest, abandoning traditional reticence, came forward to confide that, like the conversos of the sixteenth century, they possess a unique mix of Catholic and Jewish identities. That is to say, in religiously wide-open America, they are crypto-Jews.

Scholars debate if these crypto-Jews are indeed rooted in crypto-Jewish communities from the 16th century, but the fact that such identities are emerging into the open at the beginning of the 21st century reflects the degree to which Jewish history has impacted life in the Americas, even if that history has been hidden for much of the past few centuries.

For the month of January, Sephardi Ideas Monthly is happy to introduce our readers to some of the deeper currents of Jewish life and identity in the Americas with the Introduction to Judith Laikin Elkin’s seminal study, The Jews of Latin America.

Book Talk: What Survives by Phyllis Skoy

18 January 2017 at 6:30PM
The Oded Halahmy Gallery at ASF
Center for Jewish History 
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011

Phyllis Skoy’s debut novel, What Survives, explores how the past and present intertwine in a deeply personal story about love and loss in the post-9/11 world. Follow Adalet (a Turkish divorcée severely burned in a massive earthquake) and Mark (an American art professor seeking out his Sephardi roots in Turkey) as sweeping cultural changes make their unlikely romance possible.
 
Join ASF for a reading and Q&A with the author. 
 
Phyllis M Skoy lives with her husband in Placitas, New Mexico, where she settled after living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for a number of years. She currently maintains a small private practice in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in Albuquerque.  What Survives was short-listed by the Santa Fe Writers Project, and Skoy was named “Discovery of the Year” by Bosque Press for her short story, Life After. She spends most of her free hours working on a prequel to What Survives.

Space is limited. RSVP required. Please click here to register.

When Baghdadi Jews Baruch and Ellen Bekhor (née Cohen) succumbed to the camera’s gaze for their denaturalization pictures in 1951, they became stateless. Ellen was in her eighth month of pregnancy. Permitted to bring no more than a few kilos of belongings out of Iraq, Ellen carried their wedding picture and ketubah in her pocketbook. Laissez-Passer, Royaume D’Irak by Leslie Starobin (2016) 

The Last Address

Now Through April 2017
in ASF’s Myron Habib Memorial Display 

Center for Jewish History 
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
 

The American Sephardi Federation proudly presents excerpts from The Last Address, a multi-year, photo-montage series and oral history and book project by award-winning artist Leslie Starobin that explores the enduring texture of memory and culture in the lives of Greater Sephardic families from dispersed Jewish communities in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and Lebanon.

Her exhibition in ASF’s Myron Habib Memorial Display is sponsored in part by CELTSS: The Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching, Scholarship and Service at Framingham State University in Massachusetts, where Starobin is a Professor of Communication Arts.
 

Please click here for additional information and viewing hours

Portugal, The Last Hope: Sousa Mendes’ Visas for Freedom

April 2016 through January 2017
Center for Jewish History 
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011

The American Sephardi Federation, Portuguese Consulate of New York, the Sousa Mendes Foundation, and the Municipality of Almeida, Portugal proudly present a new exhibition in the Leon Levy Gallery honoring Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the courageous and creative Portuguese diplomat who saved Salvador Dali, the authors of Curious George, and thousands of other Holocaust refugees.
 

Please click here for viewing hours

Donate now and your tax-deductible contribution will help ASF preserve and promote the Greater Sephardi history, traditions, and culture as an integral part of the Jewish experience! 

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