The Sixteen Petal Flower / Sixteen Spoke Wheel symbol of Israel: Iberian Israelites: Gadites, Judahites, Reubenites & Anusim (including Cajuns & Melungeons) 2

Many Spaniards have deep emotional attachment to Jewish heritage to the point that even today they are pained by the post-Inquisition destruction of one of the world’s most illustrious Jewish communities.

The name Serón, two toponyms in Spain, might a corrupted form of the Jewish name Sharon, while the last name Salón might be a corrupted form of Shalom.

It's calculated that Spain has a population 255,000 crypto-Jews.

Reclaiming the Anusim: the Sephardic Perspective

According to an article in eSefarad ,”A decision by the ultra-orthodox rabbi Nissim Karelitz recognizes that the Chuetas of Mallorca, who were persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition and remained a distinct group within Mallorcan society until the 1970s, had the right to call themselves Jews.” How do Sephardic Jews view this?

Some in the Sephardic community ask themselves, “who is this Ashkenazi rabbi to make that decision?” They believe that the Chuetas of Mallorca never stopped being Jews. Even if they did not practice Judaism, they preserved the Jewish identity by avoiding intermarriage at all. Mallorcan Secret Jews (Xuetas) are halachically Jewish, since they did not intermarry for centuries.

More after the jump. Since medieval times, the Sephardic sages ruled that Ashkenazi Rabbis do not have powers of decision regarding Sephardic matters, and vice versa. Halachic Sephardic sources say it very clearly: Crypto-Jews, Anusim, or Conversos are Jews, as well as their children, if they have hazzaqqa (force of tradition of being Jews), endogamy (marrying only other anusim or other Jews), Jewish genealogy, and the proven historic practice of Jewish customs.

Sadly, there are not too many scholars, anthropologists, or rabbis qualified to determine who is who in the Crypto-Jewish world. Modern day rabbis, even those who are Sephardic, are not aware of how the Halacha sees these people. They are not trained to research the Crypto-Jewish phenomenon, since they are not anthropologists, or trained in anthropological research.

Ashkenazi and Sephardic hakhamim (learned scholars) disagree on Halachic matters on how to deal with the Crypto, or “secret” Jews. Sephardic rabbis have always helped secret Jews to return to the open Jewish practice, without any kind of conversion. Ashkenazi rabbis always asked for re-conversion, which makes sense, since Ashkenazi rabbis were not part of the Sephardic world and were not aware of the phenomena.

For a secret Jew, it is very insulting to be asked for a conversion (an approach supported by many mainstream Sephardic Jews, anthropologists, and some rabbis). These conversions are pasul (invalid) and totally non-Halachic. Of course, each case should be individually analyzed by knowledgeable people, using very strict criteria. After all, there are several cases of fake Crypto-Jews.

Jewish Converts to Christianity Tended to Intermarry with Remnants of the Old Visigothic Nobility

Jewish converts to Christianity tended to intermarry with remnants of the old Visigothic nobility.

Targum Yehonathan translates "Sepharad" as "Aspamiah" meaning Spain.

In 409 CE the Vandals, Suebi, and Alans invaded Spain. They were followed by the Goths or Visigoths who subdued the country by 585 CE.

The Visigoths at first belonged to the Arian Church that disagreed with the Roman Catholic one. They were pro-Jewish in many ways. Many Goths (of whom the Visigoths were a section) converted to Judaism. The Goths also ruled over southeast France in which area as well as in Spain the terms "Goth" and "Jew" were for a time interchangeable.

By the Statute of Limpieza in 1547 purity of ancestry from the "taint" of converso blood was required as well as freedom from any accusations of heresy by the Inquisition was made a condition of all future ecclesiastical appointments.

In 1556 Philip II gave his royal approval to the statute on the grounds that "all the heresies in Germany, France and Spain have been sown by descendants of Jews." As far as Germany and France were concerned, this remark was sheer fantasy, and it is especially ironic that, just at this time, Pope Paul IV, at war with Spain, described Philip II himself quite correctly as a Marrano, or descendant of Jews [E.Brittanica].

How Safe is Gibraltar and its Brit-ish Sovereignty?

There is absolutely; undoubtedly and infallibly only ONE Key to Gibraltar's future prosperous and secure self-determination and that is the ONE on its flag, which is there for all to see; except "the blind being led by the blind", naturally.

Gibraltar's Flag, which originated as the Ensign of the Phoenician/British/Israelite Tribe of Gad; who was Jacob/Israel's (Gen. 32:28) eighth son (Gen. 30:11) and was Brit-ish not Jew-ish (Judah/Jew-dah -ish was Jacob's fourth son and one of Gad's half-brothers not his dad); has sadly been deprived of its best colour - The Ruler of The Universe's colour - the colour blue, and He is definitely not amused by its removal (because He considers it to be an insult to Him and His Sovereignty of heaven - The Universe.

The very first inhabitants of Gibraltar, since the Creation of Adam, were NOT Spanish they were Brit-ish Gadites who arrived between 1500 and 1000 B.C. and were later joined by more Gadites in 722 B.C., the latter-arrival being recorded in the Gibraltar museum as Phoenician.

Their military "Camp" (castle) of Gibraltar, that, on their Ensign/Coat-of-Arms, has been changed to red, which, according to Christ, is God's enemy Satan's colour, should, in reality, out of respect for God, be deep blue; like the blue on the "Union (of) Jack"-ob /Israel - the Brit-ish flag.

In Heraldic-Symbolism the flag's red base represents the "blood-soaked" earth; the devil's domain (Rev./Apocalypse 12:1-9); where he walks to and fro (1 Peter 5:8) seeking to devour and to destroy, YOU (along with your ecological life-support system; so far with great success).

The flag's white upper-background represents the clouds. The castle, which should be coloured blue, is shown above and detached from the red earth, representing the castle in the sky - Heaven - God's Kingdom; the place that can never be taken or reached by human force, or technology, only by learning The Way of "The Force" (of God/good) and how to use it, through finding and living The Way/The Covenant, as was demonstrated by Jesus ("I am The Way - THE Example [THE Imam] of The Way/The Covenant in action, ONLY by following my example and my TRUE teaching, thereby becoming just like me, and, when you are just like me, then you can go back to heaven" - and NOT before)

The Golden Key, on the flag, represents The "Key to Heaven and Hell" that belongs to the Messiah/Mahdi (Rev./Apoc. 1:18; 3:7; 20:1 - Suras 86 & 43:61), Michael the Crown Prince of Heaven, the (star) luminous-"Being of Light", who comes down to Earth and takes on a human body (becomes a human+Being) and comes to Reign over and save Gibraltar and "his Elect" / "Chosen".

Proof that this Golden Key IS the Messiah/Mahdi's "Key to Heaven and Hell" is demonstrated symbolically by The Key being shown, on the flag, linking the castle (Heaven) and the red-ground (Earth/Hell). It is also The Key to the "Strait" Gate (note well - NOT the straight gate) through which YOU must strive to RE-enter heaven (the castle in the sky), or burn, just as you have been warned from the beginning.

Abraham's seed - [The Covenant People - Brit-ish (in Hebrew) ] - was promised the possession of the "gate of his enemies" - the strategic "sea-gates" of this planet (Genesis 22:17-18); of which, the most important to God, is Gibr-ALTAR, the "crossroads" and "gate" to the old and new world (and age). Gibr-altar - Gebal-Tariq, in Arabic, means the Rock of "The Night-Visitant.*"

The Messiah/Christ, the spirit-Being Crown Prince Michael, whilst incarnated inside the human body named Jesus and called (see Numbers ch. 6) the Nazarite (Nazir - Truth in Hebrew. Nazareth was not built until the 4th century A.D.), said, "Strive to enter in at the Strait (of Gibraltar) Gate" (Luke 13:23-29) and I ALONE have The Key to (and am) "The Door" (v. 25) to YOUR survival and also (afterwards out of that body), to "The Seals" (Rev./Apoc. chapters 5 and 6. Then please see my "The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse and The Two Witnesses" Booklet ).

The "Strait Gate" - is the ONLY "Boarding-Gate" by which you (your Being NOT the human body you are using) can leave hell/Earth, and then ONLY with The King's Permission, and travel back to heaven, onboard the "New Jerusalem" (please see my "Close Encounters of the Gibraltar Kind" Booklet), IF you find "The Way" to obtain a "Boarding-Pass" (home).

That is WHY, to prolong his survival, Satan IS using, without their being aware of it, every politician; priest and organization he can, (politician Joseph Mary Aznar has already asked the U.N.O.; THE POPE and others for their help, and they have all agreed to help him), trying DESPERATELY to take Gibraltar (the "Strait Gate") from the Brit-ish seed of Abraham.

BEFORE the *Messiah/Mahdi, inside his new body, can be recognised by the "Inhabitants of The Rock" (Isaiah 42:10-12) and acknowledged as its and their True King (Isaiah 33:16-17; Sura 52) and then SAVE it (Isaiah 42; Daniel 12:1), and his few "Elect/Chosen" (Matthew 20:16). * Revelation/Apoc. 3:3 & 16:15 - in the night.

As a "Sign", of Gibraltar's renewed commitment to keeping The Covenant, when it makes that very serious commitment, the castle, on the flag, will have to be re-coloured back to its original blue (to demonstrate that the People agree that God and not Satan should rule Heaven).

The next step will be the hardest for everyone on Planet Earth to come to terms with; after 2000 years of expectantly waiting, mistakenly, for the body with holes in its hands to return (to understand how everyone is mistaken, please see my "On The Way to Emmaus Again" Booklet); and that will mean the 144,000 "Elect" recognising the returned Messiah/Christ/Mahdi, inside his new body, as not only their (your?) but also Gibraltar's; the entire Brit-ish People's; the U.S.A.'s; their historical allies' and the Commonwealth's and Ireland's True and Rightful King - JAH (Ezekiel 21:26-27).

Jungle Jews of the Amazon

The River has already progressed through several shades of pink when dawn finally reaches over the shadowy fringe of jungle trees rising above the home the Hamani family has owned for more than 70 years. Claudio Hamani and his first cousin, Mary, have been married 35 years living in this house in Obidos, at the geographical center of the Brazilian Amazon. On an average weekday morning, Claudio is up to meet the 5:30 a.m. boat stopping fifty meters from their doorway, bringing supplies that the Hamanis sell in their general store. As he steps out to the waterfront, Claudio points to the small mezuzah on the inside of the front door. It is easy to miss, painted-over in the same bright turquoise hue as the door itself. "This is the first time I have noticed the mezuzah in a while," Claudio says. "But I always know it is there."

When the first Jewish pioneers came from Morocco to Obidos, they spent days journeying by boat into the jungle interior from Belem, approximately 700 miles away, at the mouth of the Amazon River. In the early years, between 1810 and 1910, 1000 Jewish families explored the jungle hoping to strike it rich on hardwoods, animal hides, plants for medicines, colognes, spices and aphrodisiacs, and above all, "black gold" - rubber. The towns they settled have names which were as foreign to the arriving North African Jewish immigrants as everything else about Amazonia: places like Itacoatiara, Itaituba, Manacapuru and Obidos, where Mary Hamani's father opened a store in 1930.

Today, Mary's nephew, 37 year-old Moises el-Mescany, is one of two rabbis serving nearly 600 remaining Jewish families in the Brazilian Amazon. The vast majority of these families have emerged from the interior to live in the region's two capital cities, Belem and Manaus, where their children have better opportunities to meet Jewish mates other than their cousins. Isaac Dahan, the Manaus community president, who still leads more than 125 active Jewish families, observes matter-of-factly, "It is a shame that the Jewish community in the interior is dying. But it finished so that we in the cities might survive."

Claudio Hamani is not so quick to eulogize his community. "Our house still has mezuzot, we still observe the High Holidays and perform Jewish burials. Traditions die hard!" he exclaims. "Judaism will be alive in Obidos as long as we are here."

When Rebecca Hamani died two years ago at age 94 in Obidos, her daughter Mary and son-in-law Claudio ensured that she received a proper Jewish burial in the town’s well-kept Jewish cemetery. Rebecca was the 16th person buried since 1918 in the tiny Obidos Jewish cemetery, surrounded by the royal palms so prolific in the Amazon jungle. Jews who caught yellow fever or malaria and died on Amazon riverboats rest under three unmarked graves. Claudio Hamani says, "When those three got here, someone said, ‘They were Jewish, take them,’ and the community buried them in Obidos."

Rabbi Moises el-Mescany, 37, is one of two rabbis serving nearly 600 remaining Jewish families in the Brazilian Amazon. Rabbi Moises, who trained in Jerusalem, grew up in Belem, one of the two large state capitals in the Brazilian Amazon. Both of the rabbi’s parents were born in Obidos, deep in the Amazon interior. Rabbi Moises remembers fondly his childhood vacations spent at his grandparents’ in Obidos. "They all taught me the Jewish traditions," he reflects, "lighting candles and saying kiddush on Shabbat, making Seders on Pesach, building sukkot, fasting on Yom Kippur. It was difficult because my grandmother sometimes felt alone in the jungle."

Trading in "black gold" (rubber) and other jungle products, Jewish pioneers prospered, building some of Brazil's finest synagogues. The towering, domed Shaar Hashamaim synagogue in Belem, the capital of the Brazilian state of Pará, houses the country’s oldest Jewish congregation, dating from 1824. The synagogue building pictured dates from 1946. Belem still has 400 Jewish families and three active, Orthodox synagogues.

'LOST TRIBE' OF MALLORCA JEWS WELCOMED BACK TO THE FAITH 600 YEARS LATER

Almost six centuries after most of them converted to Christianity, a rabbinical court has declared that descendants of a “lost tribe” from the Spanish island of Mallorca can once more be considered Jews.

A decision by the ultra-orthodox rabbi Nissim Karelitz recognises that the Chuetas of Mallorca, who were persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition and remained a distinct group within Mallorcan society until the 1970s, had the right to call themselves Jews. Chuetas faced torture and death in medieval times at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition.

Today’s Chuetas are descendants of Jews who are considered to have been forcibly converted in the early 15th century, decades before Spain formally expelled its Jews in 1492.

“Since it has become clear this it is accepted among them that throughout the generations, most of them married among themselves, then all of those who are related to the former generations are Jews,” the rabbi’s decisions said, according to the Arutz Sheva website.

The ruling does not affect the descendants of other Jews who remained in Spain rather than joining the Sephardic communities formed in other countries after the expulsion.

Some of the Chuetas continued to practise Judaism in secret and at great personal risk. They became a target for the Inquisition, which condemned hundreds to death. Members of the community were persecuted in the 15th and 17th centuries.

Today there are 15 popular surnames on the island that originate from the Chueta community. Around 18,000 people bear the surnames.

Genetic studies have shown the tendency to intermarry that continued until the 1970s had produced a degree of “genetic homogeneity”, according to researchers at the university of the Balearic Islands. The term Chueta is thought to come from the Catalan word for pig.

Rabbis will now start teaching any who are interested in embracing Judaism. Only a handful, however, are reported to have started to attend a synagogue in the Mallorcan capital of Palma.

The decision to recognise their descendants comes as another step in the hunt to recover what have been called the “lost” or “hidden” Jews. Shavei Israel, an organisation dedicated to finding them, has welcomed the decision.

“Their ancestors were kidnapped from us and taken against their will six centuries ago,” the group’s founder, Michael Freund, told the Jerusalem Post. “The Inquisition sought to quash their Jewish identity down through the ages and we are coming here today to say that the Inquisition did not succeed.

“Although there is no actual discrimination any longer against Chuetas, on a societal level many feel ostracised and to a certain extent outsiders.”

“Acceptance of the Chuetas over the past 40 years has grown, which is positive, but brings with it a greater danger of assimilation.”

• This article was amended on 8 August 2011 to remove a reference identifying “some of the island’s wealthier families” as bearing the surnames of those from the Chueta community in contravention to the Guardian’s editorial code on reflecting anti-Semitic tropes.

Fundão - Rebellion Against the Inquistion

According to Wikipedia the history of Fundão is intimately related to that of its originally Jewish, then New-Christian or Marrano population.

Although the place already was mentioned in documents from 1307 referring to 32 houses, the bulk of the population only settled after the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. Close to the border, and already home to significant Jewish minorities the Cova da Beira region received many refugees. These came to settle in the place of Fundão, which their numbers swelled to that of a city. The influx of Jewish artisans and merchants quickly transformed it into an important commercial and industrial centre. With the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition shortly thereafter, many Jews and new-Christians were arrested, tortured, executed or had their possessions expropriated. The commercial dynamism of the city was affected.

Maria Antonieta Garcia, who is a retired professor of Sociology at the the University of Beira Interior where she founded the Centre for Jewish Studies, records in ‘Inquisição e Independência, Um Motim No Fundao-1580’ (Inquisition and Independence, A Riot in Fundão-1580) the only known public act of resistance against the Inquisition in Portugal which occurred in Fundão on November 22, 1580.

Damião Mendes, a bailiff of the unHoly Office of the Inquisition reported that he was received at the door of a church by Estêvão Sampaio, the senior alderman in the town, and armed men who meant to kill him. He said they confronted him with the intention of impeding the work of the unHoly Office of the Inquisition. Bailiff Mendes complained of being pushed and knocked down, that the armed men broke his rod and took away his sword, that he was left without his hat and cape, and that he fell to the ground. They cut loose his horses and roughed up one of his men. He alleged that Sampaio spoke harshly to him and was rude, that he told him that he would take his rod and, lhe meteria pelo cu acima, and other such vulgar words.

As was customary in that period, the bailiff would have arrived in Fundão secretly, then made an announcement to the population to attend church on Sunday in honour of some saint. When the church was full, the doors would be locked by guards and the Old Christians would be called upon to identify the New Christians who would be handcuffed and led away to the subterranean jail cells of the unHoly Office, except this time, the secret was discovered and the bailiff was in for a surprise.

In July, Fundão, the town where the riot occurred, Estêvão de Sampaio, captain, was the eldest alderman. New Christians struggled against the Inquisition, and everyone, New Christians, and Old Christians, opposed the claim of jurisdiction by neighbouring Covilha and Guarda.

The place was proclaimed a city in 1580, by its notables after declaring support for the attempt by Dom António, Prior do Crato, to preserve Portuguese independence against the ambitions of the King of Spain Felipe II (Felipe I of Portugal). The Municipal Council and autonomy were granted in 1747.

Under the Enlightenment of the late 18th century the Prime-Minister of Portugal, the Marquis of Pombal abolished the legal restraints on the new-Christians and equilibrated them to the old-christians. He tried to recreate the industrial preeminence of Fundão by founding the Royal Factories (today the City Hall). These efforts allowed a measure of revival to the wool industries of the city, and cloth was again exported to northern Europe. The city decayed again after its sack during the (defeated) Napoleonic French invasions of Portugal, and the following Civil War between supporters of the Liberal Constitutionalist D. Pedro and his brother Conservative Absolutist D. Miguel for the throne.

The town is an important local centre of industry and services.

Around it lies some of the most fertile land in the region, in a large valley (Cova da Beira), between the Gardunha and Estrela ranges, where the Zêzere River starts its way towards the Tagus. The most significant productions are cherries, peaches, olive oil, wine, wood pulp and vegetables.

Some of the most important wolframite (most important mineral source of the metal tungsten) mines in the world are explored within its municipal limits. Other important mines extract lead and tin. High quality mineral water is bottled from several sources.

Neo-Western Sephardim

History

A nascent community, their history is still currently in evolution and is presently intertwined with the history of the Sephardic Bnei Anusim.

In the last 5 to 10 years, a growing number "of Benei Anusim have been established in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and in Sefarad itself" as "organized groups," some of whom have formally reverted to Judaism.

Neo-Western Sephardim: Relation to other Sephardi communities

The term Sephardi means "Spanish" or "Hispanic", and is derived from Sepharad, a Biblical location. The location of the biblical Sepharad is disputed, but Sepharad was identified by later Jews as Hispania, that is, the Iberian Peninsula. Sepharad still means "Spain" in modern Hebrew.

The relationship between Sephardi-descended communities is illustrated in the following diagram:

The common feature between Western Sephardim, Sephardic Bnei Anusim, and Neo-Western Sephardim is that all three are descended from conversos. "Western Sephardim" are descendents of ex-conversos from earlier centuries; "Sephardic Bnei Anusim" are the still nominally Christian descendants of conversos; and "Neo-Western Sephardim" are the increasing in number modern-day ex-conversos returning to Judaism from among the Sephardic Bnei Anusim population.

The distinguishing factor between "Western Sephardim" and the nascent "Neo-Western Sephardim" is the time frame of the reversions to Judaism, the location of the reversions, and the precarious religious and legal circumstances surrounding their reversions. Thus, the converso descendants who became the Western Sephardim had reverted to Judaism between the 16th and 18th centuries, they did so at a time before the abolition of the Inquisition in the 19th century, and this time frame necessitated their migration out of the Iberian cultural sphere. Conversely, the converso descendants who are today becoming the nascent Neo-Western Sephardim have been reverting to Judaism between the late 20th and early 21st centuries, they have been doing so at a time after the abolition of the Inquisition in the 19th century, and this time frame has not necessitated their migration out of the Iberian cultural sphere.

Neo-Western Sephardim: Neo-Western Sephardic communities In Iberia, practicing Jews of modern returnee Sephardic origins, such as the Jewish community of Oporto, were re-established in the 20th century and early 21st centuries with a campaign of outreach to Oporto's crypto-Jews of Sephardic Bnei Anusim origins. As such, the Oporto community of modern-day returnees to Judaism is among the first, if not the first, community which may be regarded as being Neo-Western Sephardim. The Oporto community thus would constitute the delineating point between Western Sephardim and Neo-Westerm Sephardim, in that the Oporto community are clearly distinguishable from the returnees to Judaism of earlier centuries by the fact that the emergence of the Jews of Oporto as an open practicing Jewish community was a result of their return to Judaism occurring: 1) in the modern era, 2) after the abolition of the Inquisition, 3) within the Spanish/Portuguese world itself, and 4) from among the population of Sephardic Bnei Anusim.

The Oporto community's return to Judaism was led by the returnee to Judaism Captain Arturo Carlos de Barros Basto, known also as the "apostle of the Marranos". In 1921, realizing that there were less than twenty Ashkenazi Jews living in Porto, and that recent returnees to Judaism like himself were not organized and had to travel to Lisbon for religious purposes whenever necessary, Barros Basto began to think about building a synagogue and took initiative in 1923 to officially register the Jewish Community of Porto and the Israelite Theological Center in the City Council of Porto.

More recent examples of Neo-Western Sephardic communities include the Belmonte Jews in Portugal, whose public reemergence as an open practicing Jewish community dates back to the 1970's after crypto-Jews were rediscovered in 1917 by a Polish Jewish mining engineer named Samuel Schwarz.

Even more recently the Xuetes of Spain also constitute the single largest community of recognized Neo-Western Sephardim after the entire community of Sephardic Bnei Anusim in the island of Majorca was extended a blanket recognition as official Jews in 2011 by Rabbinical authorities in Israel due to their particular historical circumstances on the island which effectively resulted in a strict social isolation of the Xuetes imposed upon them by their non-Jewish-descended neighors up until modern times.

Beyond these mentioned communities, in the last five to ten years, a growing number "of Benei Anusim have been established in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and in Sefarad itself" as "organized groups." Some members of these communities have formally reverted to Judaism, adding to the numbers of Neo-Western Sephardim.

Many recent Portuguese returnees to Judaism have chosen to join the Lisbon Masorti community Beit Israel, which uses the Ashkenazi rite, rather than the older Orthodox Sephardic communities, as the latter have raised more difficulties about their religious status. It is unknown to what extent crypto-Judaism still exists in Spain and Portugal.

Neo-Western Sephardim: Language

Neo-Western Sephardim, as with Sephardic Bnei Anusim, traditionally speak Modern Spanish and Modern Portuguese. In most cases these varieties have incorporated loanwords from the indigenous languages of the Americas introduced following the Spanish conquest.

This is in contrast to the traditional languages spoken by the earlier ex-converso Western Sephardim, which although was also both Spanish and Portuguese, it was in the Early Modern Spanish and Early Modern Portuguese forms — including in a mixture of the two, and used even liturgically.
It also differs from the language traditionally spoken by Eastern Sephardim and North African Sephardim, which were even older archaic Old Spanish-derived Judaeo-Spanish dialects of Ladino and Haketia.

Main findings

Neo-Western Sephardim refers to a small but growing population among the Sephardic Bnei Anusim in Iberia and Ibero-America who in the late 20th and early 21st centuries have recently begun returning to Judaism. Descended from Sephardi Jews, some of these organized groups now operate as functional communities of public Judaizers. These communities consist of various groups categorized by Jewish religious status, which include: Those whose entire membership has received a blanket recognition by rabbinical authorities as being officially Jewish without the need of reversion to Judaism, Those whose entire membership consists of persons who have officially reverted to Judaism according to Jewish religious law, Those whose membership consists of persons where only some have as yet formally reverted to Judaism, and the remainder are either presently in the process of formal reversion to Judaism, or prospective reverts to Judaism, and finally, Those whose membership consists of persons where no member has as yet formally reverted to, but are prospective reverts, to Judaism (i.e. Judaizing persons who have not yet begun the process of formal reversion to Judaism.

CAPE VERDE

The Republic of Cape Verde is an archipelago of 10 islands about 300 miles off the coast of Senegal, West Africa. As a result of over 500 years of Portuguese colonial rule, Cape Verde is predominantly Catholic. However, beginning with the period of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition through the late 19th century, Cape Verde received Jews fleeing religious persecution or seeking greater economic stability.

These families landed primarily on the islands of Santo Antao, Sao Vicente, Boa Vista, and Sao Tiago and engaged in international commerce, shipping, administration, and other trades. The Jews lived, worked, and prospered in Cape Verde. However, because their numbers were few relative to the larger Catholic population, widespread intermarriage occurred. As a result of this assimilation, Cape Verde today has virtually no practicing Jews. Yet, descendants of these families, whether in Cape Verde, the United States, Portugal or Canada, speak with pride of their Jewish ancestry. They wish to honor the memory of their forebears by preserving the cemeteries and by documenting their legacy.

The Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project from An interview with Carol Castiel, President of Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project, Inc. 2008

The Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project, Inc began as far back as 1995, but it had a different name: “Jews of Cape Verde: Preservation of Memory.” Essentially it was a subsidiary or American partner to AMICAEL, but without firm legal status. Subsequently, B’nai B’rith International based in Washington, DC provided a nonprofit, 501(C) 3 “umbrella” for the project and even set aside a line-item in the budget for contributions. However, this association was short-lived and was eventually was terminated. In 2006, I had the good fortune of meeting a benevolent lawyer, Richard Popkin, who was involved in Jewish cemetery restoration in Cuba. He generously offered to create a private foundation entitled “Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project,” and to apply for nonprofit tax exempt 501(C) 3 status from the IRS which we obtained in December 2007. However, I was constantly inspired by people along the way, notably by Mr. Isaac Bitton, a Portuguese Jew who lived in Woodstock, Illinois. He succeeded in successfully raising funds to restore the Jewish cemetery in Faro, Portugal, the site of a large, mostly Moroccan Jewish community—not unlike that of Cape Verde. He was the one who told me of the importance of creating a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization and of mobilizing the help important political figures. Thanks to his inspiration and counsel, I hope to emulate his good works. Sadly, he passed away last year.

WHAT TYPE OF ENDORSEMENTS DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION HAVE TODAY?

First and foremost, the government of the Republic of Cape Verde has endorsed the project at the highest levels. We have an eloquent letter from Prime Minister Jose Maria Neves. His predecessor, Carlos Alberto Wahnon de Carvalho Veiga, who is of Jewish descent, also endorsed the Project. Mr. Andre Azoulay, counselor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, has also endorsed CVJHP. We enjoy strong support from B’nai B’rith International as well as from the American Jewish Committee and the American Sephardi Federation of New York.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE FUTURE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION?

To physically restore, preserve, and maintain the small Jewish cemeteries; to publish several articles, pamphlets, and books about the contribution of the Jews to Cape Verdean society based on the memories of the descendants and archival research; and to encourage Jewish heritage tourism to the islands

Jewish Barrio

Wandering across Mexico’s high plains in the late 19th Century, Maria Trinidad Tellez Jirón hauled a trunk of books that had been passed down to her across the generations. The books were written in Hebrew. Though her name means “Mary Trinity,” Ma’Trini, as her descendants lovingly call her, was anything but a Catholic. Ma’Trini (ca. 1838-1938) and her ancestors were secret Jews—Marranos—and her descendants tell of their community being chased from Spain and hunted in Mexico long after the Inquisition’s official end—even into the early twentieth century. Ma’Trini was undeterred and taught Jewish customs to her children and grandchildren.

Ma’Trini and her children founded the village of Venta Prieta, which began as a dusty roadside outpost in the State of Hidalgo, where the matriarch stopped her travels. In the early 20th century, Ma’Trini’s children built Venta Prieta’s first synagogue. Ma’Trini’s children and grandchildren continued expanding the community, inter-marrying with local families. Now the elders of a Jewish community with hundreds of adherents, many of Ma’Trini’s heirs are more observant than ever in their Jewish practice, living comfortably with non-Jewish neighbors amid brightly-painted shops and homes.

Though he is growing up less than two hours north of one of the world's largest cities, young Shmuel, age 6, is not afraid of strangers. He rides, in the hours before Shabbat, down the middle of the street, between the brightly-painted stucco walls, on his shiny first bicycle, which he recently learned to ride. Skidding to a stop before a Jewish visitor, Shmuel's tzitzit dangling at his sides, his nascent peiyot moist with exertion, he looks up, asking the man, “What size is your kippah?”

Men from Venta Prieta gather daily as morning light filters through the stained-glass windows of the Negev synagogue. They pray the morning Shacharit service, each wearing a kippah, tefillin (phylacteries) and tallit (prayer shawl).

Enriqueta Ruth Tellez Olvera is the current reigning matriarch of the formerly crypto-Jewish community in Venta Prieta—the oldest surviving granddaughterof Maria Trinidad Tellez Jirón, the community founder. She looks out from her bedroom window on Cinco de Mayo Street, where the Tellez family once had its hacienda. Enriqueta rejects the notion that she and her family were ever anything but Jews. “We are not converts. We are not new,” Enriqueta asserts.She explains, with conviction, “Since we were born, we have never known anything but Judaism. Here, you can’t practice Judaism out of convenience—you must feel it in your soul, as we have always done.”

Shalom, and welcome, to number 103, 16 de Septiembre street, named for September 16, 1810, a date celebrated like July 4, 1776 in the United States. Here, long-timecommunity leader Ruben Olvera Tellez lives in a comfortable, middle-class country house, or quinta, protected by a yellow stucco wall.

The family of Jewish community president, Shimon Islas Olvera at their home in Venta Prieta, Hidalgo, Mexico.

Belmontean Jews from Portugal

On their front porch in the village of Belmonte, four hours' drive from Lisbon into Portugal's northeastern foothills, Julio and Mercedes Mendes reminisce about the songs they used to sing as Marranos (secret Jews).

Julio steps away from the terra cotta pots of bright, pink geraniums he has been watering and gazes out on the narrow, granite cobblestone lanes of Belmonte's 700 year old Judiaria, or Jewish quarter. He leans against the stucco doorframe by the Mendes' new, plastic mezuzah.

"Ay, Senhora," he sighs, "our holidays were much happier then."

Mercedes begins singing one of the songs she learned from her mother and grandmother, in Portuguese: "Our hope is not lost, to return to the Promised Land..."

Powerful Jewish communities thrived on the Iberian Peninsula before Spain and Portugal began their Inquisitions in the late 15th Century. During the ensuing centuries of Church and State sponsored persecution, the Mendes' ancestors and other Marranos formally converted to Christianity, but developed a host of unique traditions to keep their Judaism alive in isolated secrecy.

For example, they gave their Marrano holidays intentionally, deceptively Christian sounding names, though their celebrations remained essentially Jewish – praising G d and invoking the Promised Land. For example, Passover became Santa Festa, the Holy Festival, and Shavuot became, Quinta Feira da Asencão, or Ascension Thursday.

With this homegrown heritage, the Mendes' Belmonte community survived the Inquisition – the only Iberian Jewish community to do so. After Portugal finally embraced democracy, Jewish organizations and well wishers around the world rushed to encourage the Belmonte community's return to Orthodox Judaism. Between 200 and 300 Marranos were identified among Belmonte's several thousand residents. Donors built a synagogue on the finest land in the ancient Judiaria. In the late 1980's, approximately 80 people, including the Mendes', formally converted back to Judaism.

Ana Melia and Anton Diego Rodrigo, Mercedes Mendes' elderly parents, were among the first in Belmonte to embrace the Jewish renaissance. Anton Diego had a Brit Milah (circumcision) at age 79 and attended every service at the new synagogue from its opening until he died many years later.

But Ana Melia, like Julio and Mercedes, sometimes misses the Marrano days.

"Dozens from each family used to go to the country on holidays and sing so many songs," recalls Ana Melia. "The rabbi came [in the 1990’s] and said it was bad. We lost everything. People are learning the new Jewish ways, not our old ones – and those Marrano songs were so ancient, so beautiful."

Mercedes and Ana Melia still sit together for fifteen minutes every morning reciting from memory the Marrano "Prayer for the Dead," recalling Anton Diego Rodrigo and other departed relatives. It is neither Christian nor the standard Jewish "Kaddish," but springs from centuries of tradition. "Thank G d, today we are able to practice Judaism freely,” Mercedes says. “But it hurts me greatly to know our old practices will disappear."

Time will tell if the pain is too much for Belmonte's new, ancient Jewish community to bear.

Bryan Schwartz visited the Belmonte community in 2001 and presents its members in vivid text and photographs in his book with Jay Sand and Sandy Carter, Scattered Among the Nations.

Back at their home one row of stone houses above the synagogue, Mercedes Mendes is ready to share something special. She leads the way huffing up three flights of stairs to the attic, with two year-old grand-nephew Isaac in tow. Beams of light filter through a dusty skylight in the low, sloping roof and illuminate stacks of cardboard boxes and a pile of rusted iron and red and white clay and ceramic bowls, roof tiles and jugs in the corner.

Mercedes plants herself in a chair, catches her breath rearranging the Jewish charms on her necklace, and begins assembling one clay bowl with systematic punctures (like a colander) into an oxidized iron frame. Mercedes wards off energetic Isaac as she carefully lays two curving, red roof tiles on top of the clay bowl. She explains, “This big bowl is the fugareira, where we used to put the coals. On these roof tiles, we would bake the Pao Azumo, the bread of poverty, on Santa Festa – Passover.” After explaining each item, with stories of younger days spent with fellow Marranos singing, dancing and making their special bread in the countryside, Mercedes marvels, “I’ve never shown this to anyone before. You’re lucky.”

“Today we get kosher matzah from Madrid. It’s been [many] years since we made our Pao Azumo. Isaac here,” Mercedes says, grabbing the toddler by the back of his shirt, “will never know our Marrano traditions.”

During the Inquisition, "New Christians" etched crosses on their doorposts to prove to their neighbors their commitment to Christianity – though many continued to practice Judaism covertly. Before Portugal's Jewish expulsion edict of 1496, as much as one-fourth of the country's population was Jewish. In Belmonte, the centuries-old Jewish community went into hiding before 1500. However, unlike most hidden Jewish communities throughout Portugal and the New World, Belmonte's isolated community maintained its Marrano identity for 500 years. Belmonte has the only significant Jewish community on the Iberian Peninsula that survived the Inquisition. At the dawn of the 21st Century in Belmonte, approximately 80 former Marranos live among the narrow, cobblestone lanes of the medieval Jewish quarter, where the many carved doorpost crosses remind them of their ancestors' struggles. These days, Jews fasten mezuzot on their doorposts instead, reconnecting with their ancient faith.

Ana Melia Rodrigo and her daughter, Mercedes Rodrigo Mendes, tell stories and sing songs from the Marrano days. After a lifetime of practicing their family traditions in secret, it was not easy to adjust to open, modern Jewish practice.

Since the community lost its rabbi, it has been sharply divided between those wishing to rush ahead with modern Jewish practice and those clinging to vestiges of their former, Marrano existence.

His whole life, Julio Mendes has sold goat, lamb and sheep skins in Belmonte -- a village four hours’ drive from Lisbon, in the foothills of northeastern Portugal. Anyone might have said Julio was just another Belmonte villager brushing the wool off his shirt at the end of each workday. But in 1988, Julio came out of hiding with approximately 80 other Belmonte residents and formally returned to Judaism, undergoing conversion. They had grown up as Marranos – a derogatory term meaning “pigs,” used to refer to Portugal’s Jews who adopted the appearance of Christianity and secretly maintained Jewish rituals during centuries of Inquisition. Now they were ready to be known as Jews again.

GOA AND THE INQUISITION

In 1510 the Portuguese conquered Indian Goa when it became a major centre of the spice trade their stay lasting over 450 years. During this time Christian conversions started with the help of the Inquisition only Catholicism being allowed. Many Hindu temples were destroyed and mass conversion to Christianity took place. Goa reached its Golden Age with over 300 churches and a population of 40,000.

In 1961 Jawaharlal Nehru sent armed forces and India took over Goa.

Most of the Goa Inquisition's records were destroyed after its abolition in 1812, and it is thus impossible to know the exact number of the Inquisition's victims. Based on the records that survive, H. P. Salomon and I. S. D. Sassoon state that between the Inquisition's beginning in 1561 and its temporary abolition in 1774, some 16,202 persons were brought to trial by the Inquisition. Of this number, it is known that 57 were sentenced to death and executed in person; another 64 were burned in effigy. Others were subjected to lesser punishments or penanced, but the fate of many of the Inquisition's victims is unknown.

An Interview with Richard Zimler

In Portugal, where I live, people generally speak in glowing terms of the "Golden Age" of Goa. It was then, during the latter half of the sixteenth century, that a fabulously lucrative spice trade turned a sleepy, palm-shaded Indian port into a world-renowned, multi-cultural city of elegant palaces, churches, gardens, and markets. Yet on reading about this legendary colony, I soon discovered a far darker side to the story . . .

Shortly after Portuguese troops conquered Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur in 1510, they began forcing the tens of thousands of Hindu residents to convert to Christianity. In 1540, during a wave of fanaticism, they destroyed 300 Hindu temples, many of them built in ancient times. Then, in 1545, a Spanish-Jesuit missionary, named Francis Xavier, petitioned the Portuguese Crown to establish the Inquisition. Once the king's approval had been secured, the former Hindu population of Goa, as well as the hundreds secret Jews living there, found themselves at the complete mercy of the Church.

Simply keeping a statue of Shiva in a family shrine, or whispering a Hebrew prayer over the grave of a loved one, became a serious criminal offence. Those discovered to be practicing their old beliefs in secret were summarily arrested and tortured in dungeons, kept in shackles by priests hoping to force them to divulge the names of friends and family members who had joined them in their "heretical" practices.

Prisoners who refused to identify others or give up their beliefs in Hindu or Jewish "sorcery" were strangled by executioners or burnt alive in public Acts of Faith - from 1560 all the way up to 1812, when the Inquisition was finally abolished.

As a writer, I've always been very interested in exposing instances of injustice that other people would prefer to forget, and as soon as I read about this neglected period of unrelenting persecution, I realized I wanted to make it the background for a new volume of my Sephardic Cycle, a series of independent historical novels about different branches and generations of a Portuguese-Jewish family named Zarco. The first two novels in this cycle are The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and Hunting Midnight, both international bestsellers.

I felt particularly inspired (and angered!) upon learning Francis Xavier, the fanatical priest ultimately responsible for the torture of tens of thousands of Hindus and Jews, had been canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. As far as I know* he remains the patron saint of all the missions of the Catholic Church.

Even though victims of persecution were only ever given their freedom on the condition that they never reveal what they had suffered while in prison, a few courageous men and women dared to write about their experiences - sometimes in excruciating detail - and I was soon able to obtain copies of their narratives. These texts enabled me to accurately describe the workings of the Inquisition and helped me to give emotional depth to the characters in my book who suffer at the hands of the Church - Tiago and Berekiah Zarco, as well as Phanishwar Bakliwal. They also filled me with admiration for the authors and instilled in me an urgent desire to give greater voice to their bravery.

History of the Jews of the Caribbean

After Columbus claimed the New World for Spain, the Pope was asked to decide how the land was to be divided. He drew a line down the Western Hemisphere: everything east of the line, (most of Brazil) would belong to Portugal, and everything west of that was given to Spain. This ignored, of course, claims of other European countries, whose ships also voyaged to the New World. Holland, England, and France would all eventually fight against the Spanish and Portuguese to seize parts of these new lands for themselves.

The colonies could provide much-desired agricultural and mineral imports and serve as a market for European goods.When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, many fled over the border to Portugal. But in 1497 the Portuguese government banished Jews from that country as well. Many of the Jews fled to other more hospitable European countries, such as Holland, but some sailed to Brazil to start over in this Portuguese territory. They set up trade routes between Portugal and its colony, started farming, and became wealthy plantation owners. With the Inquisition still in effect, they were forbidden to practice Judaism but set up secret societies so they could continue their faith. Back in Portugal, authorities were separating the children of remaining Jews from their parents and sending them to Brazil to be raised as Catholics. The crypto-Jews already in Brazil used their secret groups to teach these children about their true heritage thereby sustaining the Jewish faith in Brazil. During the time the Jews were creating their large plantations in Brazil, they provided their most lasting benefit to the Caribbean economy. Sugar cane was imported from Madeira in Portugal, and it became the basic foundation of the entire Caribbean economy until the 18th century. Sugar cane could be easily grown in the hot climates of South America and the Caribbean, then converted to sugar to be shipped to Europe.

Spain dominated most of Europe, including Holland, during the 16th century. Holland finally won its independence in 1581. After years under the control of the Catholic Hapsburgs, the new Dutch government established religious tolerance as one of its primary goals. In 1588, the Spaniards tried to overpower England; the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the British Royal Navy marked the beginning of Spain's downfall as master of Europe. A weakened Spain meant that her colonies were vulnerable to other European powers looking to establish themselves in the New World.

Holland was a burgeoning rival to Spain and Portugal and was hoping to gain from their misfortunes. The Dutch hoped to capture for themselves some of the Portuguese and Spanish territories in the New World. In the 1630's, the Hollanders sailed into the harbor of Recife, in the northeast corner of Brazil, conquered the region, and claimed it for The Netherlands. They had the help of many of the secret Jewish settlers living in Brazil. Since the Jews had been persecuted by the Portuguese, their sympathies lay with the more tolerant Dutch.

DUTCH GUIANA (SURINAM)

On the northeast coast of South America, is a special case among the British colonies for two reasons. First, it was only a British colony for a short while, but Jewish settlement started while it was British. Very soon it became a Dutch colony, going by the name of Dutch Guiana. In addition, Surinam is not geographically located in the Caribbean Ocean since it is on the northeastern coast of the South American continent. It has, however, always been considered part of the Caribbean region because it is inaccessible by land from the rest of South America, and its economic and social focus has always been to the Caribbean.

Great Britain claimed the territory of Surinam in 1665. Rather surprisingly, given their history of colonizing other tropical colonies of the British Empire, British citizens did not seem to want to settle in Surinam. The British government decided to attract Jewish settlers to Surinam by offering them full British citizenship, recognition of their Sabbath, and ten acres of land to build a synagogue. The Jews had never before in modern times had full citizenship in any country (Kishor 16). It was around this same time that the Jews of Brazil were being forced from their homes. Therefore, it is natural that a large number of Jews were attracted to Surinam, given Britain's uniquely hospitable attitude. The Jewish community became successful there, as in Brazil, as traders and in agriculture. The colony passed to the Dutch, in 1667, and was known henceforth as Dutch Guiana.

BARBADOS

Although the rights of the Jews (in Surinam) were not changed, many Jews moved to Barbados to retain their British citizenship. Jews are believed to have been established in Barbados as early as 1628. In 1661, three Jewish businessmen requested permission to institute trade routes between Barbados and Surinam, which was still part of the British Empire. As will be seen repeatedly, even though the Jews had full legal citizenship and were allowed by the government to trade and conduct business, their success caused the other settlers to try to limit the scope of Jewish trade. British businessmen claimed the Jews traded more with the Dutch than the British, and the government did finally put limits on the Jews' ability to trade. They were not allowed to purchase slaves, and were required to live in a Jewish ghetto. By 1802, the colonial government in Barbados had removed all discriminatory regulations from the Jews living there. A Jewish community remained on Barbados until 1831, when a hurricane destroyed all of the towns on the island.

A synagogue for Sephardis, the Jews of Spanish or Portuguese descent, had been established in Barbados in the 1650's. The settlers named this first Barbados synagogue Nidhe Israel, "The Dispersed Ones of Israel". The original Barbados synagogue building is still standing but no longer serves as a place of worship. The attached cemetery is in disrepair but the inscriptions on the headstones were copied and have been saved. They provide important historical and genealogical data for researchers. The Jewish cemetery on Barbados is believed to be the oldest Jewish graveyard in the Western Hemisphere with citations dating back to the 1660's. Graves of several famous people are there, including Samuel Hart, son of the American Moses Hart, and Mosseh Haym Nahamyas (Moses Nehemiah), who died on Barbados in 1672 and was the first Jew to live in Virginia (AJA 18).

JAMAICA

The British attracted Jews to their colony in Jamaica as well. There were settlements at both Kingston and Spanish Town. The account of their communities in Jamaica followed a pattern similar to that in Barbados. The Jews became economically successful there, and, in 1671, the citizens of Jamaica petitioned the British government to expel all members of the local Hebrew community.

Governor Lynch, the colonial governor in Jamaica, opposed this petition and it was not enacted. The citizens did manage to get a special tax decreed against Jews in 1693. In 1703, Jews were banned from using indentured Christian servants, and in 1783, they were again taxed, previous exemptions of duty on the Sabbath were taken away, and they were prohibited from holding any public positions. The Jewish communities flourished despite these restrictions and when the British Empire declared equal rights for Jews living in any colony in the early 19th century, ten percent for the Whites in Jamaica were Jews (Kishor 20).

THE LEEWARD ISLANDS

The Leeward Islands are a small group of islands at the eastern end of the Caribbean. Because of their small size, their history is sketchy. It is known that some Jews did settle in the area in the 1600's. In the now familiar story, the other citizens there resented the successes of the Jewish merchants. In 1694, they enacted special legislation to prohibit the Jews from cornering the market on imported commodities. They evidently attributed the success of the Jews to unfair business practices: when the law was repealed in 1704 the Jewish citizens were required to promise to be fair and honest in their future dealings and to support the Islands in case of a war.

BENJAMIN BUENO DE MESQUITA

Sometimes the easiest way to understand history is by seeing it in relation to the life of an ordinary person who lived at a particular time. Benjamin Bueno de Mesquita was a Jewish merchant who settled in the Caribbean. His life illustrates the historical flow of Jews into the New World. It is not known where Bueno de Mesquita was born but there is little doubt that he was of European descent. He referred to himself as a Portuguese merchant but it so believed that he was actually Spanish, as Portuguese was often a euphemism for "Jew". A paper, dated December 11, 1654, with his signature was discovered in Leghorn, Italy, so it is known that travelled there. He had settled first in Brazil. There is a document with his signature, matching the signature found in Italy, in Recife, the colony in northern Brazil established by the Dutch in the 1630's. He was driven out when the war there between the Portuguese and Dutch began. He actually lived on several Caribbean islands, as business and political fortunes waxed and waned in those turbulent times. In 1661, he requested the British government to release him from the restrictions of the Navigation Act, which limited trading with the countries with which Great Britain was at war. He received permission for free trading and set up business in Jamaica. When he did not find the gold mine had pledged to begin, he, his sons, and several other Jews, (possibly his partners) were deported. It is thought that his wife and daughters were not in Jamaica at the time of their deportation.

One of his sons, Joseph, had moved from Barbados to New Amsterdam (New York). About 1679, Benjamin joined him there, and died in New York in 1683. He is buried in the Chatham Square cemetery belonging to the oldest Jewish Synagogue in America, the Congregation Shearith Israel in New York. Benjamin's tombstone marks the oldest Jewish grave in New York.

MARTINIQUE AND HAITI

The French, like the other European powers, strove to gain a foothold in the Caribbean. Their holdings included the small island of Martinique, on the eastern edge of the Caribbean to the north of Venezuela. Another major colony was Haiti, which comprises half of the island containing Santo Domingo. There was an early, sizeable Jewish population on Martinique; however, there were never notable Jewish settlements in what is now Haiti. France conquered and claimed Martinique in 1635. At that early date there were Jewish merchants and traders already settled there who had arrived earlier with the Dutch. They lived in peace until the 1650's. Although the French did not conduct an Inquisition on the scale of the Spanish and Portuguese, they were a Catholic nation, and many of the settlers were Catholic clerics serving as missionaries. As with the British colonies, the French merchants in Martinique and, in this case, the Jesuit priests as well, resented the success of the Jews and caused discriminatory legislation to be enacted. In 1683, King Louis XIV ordered all Jews expelled from French colonies in the New World. Apparently the Jews, and the colonial government as well, ignored the rule, as Jews continued to settle and flourish on Martinique. After the French Revolution, all legislative discrimination against Jews on Martinique ended.

SANTO DOMINGO

The life of David Gradis illustrates the story of Jews in the French colonies. Despite official religious intolerance, Jews on Martinique prospered. In 1722, David Gradis started a trading business in St. Pierre, Martinique. He was successful enough to start a branch in Santo Domingo in 1724. The Gradis family became so powerful that the colonial government was unable to banish them from the island despite French law. As was common at that time, their trade pattern was a triangular route between Europe, the Caribbean and North America. The Gradis' business interests involved trading with Bordeaux, France, where ships picked up cargo of pickled meat and alcohol to bring back to the Caribbean and American ports. His son, Abraham, increased the family's wealth and power. Abraham was so powerful that he was exempted from the discrimination that plagued the rest of the Jews and was allowed, for instance, to own property.

ST. THOMAS AND ST. CROIX

Even tiny Denmark had control of a few islands in the Caribbean. St. Thomas and St. Croix, part of what are now the United States territory of the Virgin Islands, were once Danish colonies. By the late 1700's, there was a congregation, Berakah We-Shalom U-Gemilut Hasadim, and record books exist for births (dated 1786) and deaths (dated 1792). Most of the records were sent to the Royal Archives in Denmark or to the U.S. National Archives in Washington D.C.

Many of the details concerning Jewish history among the Danes has not been extensively studied by scholars. Still, in considering the history of Jews in the Caribbean, it is important to know that there were Danish colonies with Jewish settlements.

Holland, at one time, controlled several islands and territories in the Caribbean under the control of the Dutch West Indies Company. Jews were among the first settlers to travel to the new colonies, many of them descendants of Jews who had arrived from Spain in 1492. The most important of the Dutch colonies were Curacao and Surinam (which was originally British).

LESSER ANTILLES - CURACAO

Curacao is part of the Lesser Antilles, the southernmost group of islands in the Caribbean, quite close to the mainland of South America just above Venezuela. The Dutch were much more tolerant of Jews than the Spanish, Portuguese, or French. The Jews were allowed to build up their businesses, contributing to the success of the Dutch in the Caribbean. By 1650, there were twelve Jewish families living on Curacao. The Dutch West Indies Company was in charge of administering the Dutch colonies. The company ordered the governor to give these new settlers land, slaves to work the land, livestock and tools. The Jews settled in an area still known as Jodenwyk (Joden is "Jewish" in Dutch). In 1651, a large number of Jewish settlers, in flight from the persisting battle between the Portuguese and Dutch in Brazil, arrived in Curacao. By 1750, the population of Jews reached 2,000.

WILLEMSTAD

In 1656, there were enough Jews to establish a congregation in Willemstad, the Sephardic (Jews of Spanish or Portuguese descent) Congregation named Mikveh Israel, which is still in existence. They built a synagogue in 1692. It was not until 1864 that a second Jewish congregation was established in Willemstad, a Liberal Jewish Congregation, Temple Emanu-El. The Jewish community in Curacao was so strong that it helped support new communities in the United States. One such example was the Newport, Rhode Island congregation that, in 1765, sent a letter begging the Curacao congregation for financial help to pay off the mortgages on their synagogue building (AJA 11).

SURINAM

Jews had first settled in Surinam when it was under British rule. A document dated 1643 from Surinam exists in the Amsterdam Jewish Archives. A boatload of Jews arrived from Britain in 1652, while Surinam was still British. Under British rule, the Jews there were offered rights that they did not have anywhere else, including he right to be full British citizens. In 1667, the British surrendered Surinam to the Dutch at the Treaty of Breda, for which they gained New Amsterdam, renamed New York. The Dutch intended for the Jews to maintain the rights they had under British rule.

All British subjects were to be allowed to leave, and a ship was sent by His Majesty Charles II to carry all those wishing to depart. The Jews were accustomed to being forcibly sent away from countries, but this time the government would not allow them to leave! The new Dutch government refused to let the Jews board the English ships, evidently fearing that the loss of the businesses owned by the Jews would damage the economy. A list survives claiming that ten Jews, many belonging to the Pereira family, and their 822 slaves wished to emigrate to Jamaica, but were not allowed to do so.

When Surinam became Dutch, the Dutch thought they had a traded the ordinary little town of New Amsterdam (which became New York City) for a rich tropical paradise. For awhile, it seemed they were right. The plantation-based economy of Surinam, with its riches for sugar cane, coffee, and chocolate turned out to be the leading community of the Americas by 1730. It far surpassed the wealth of such better known places as Philadelphia, Boston, and New York.

But the plantations, with the crop of sugar cane as their main export, were dependent on the labor of slaves imported from Africa. In the late 17th century, these slaves began rebelling and escaped into the jungle. There they set up communities of their own, emerging periodically to attack the plantations. This resulted in a shortage of labor at the same time there was a banking crisis in Holland. These factors, along with the discovery that sugar could be obtained from beets, a crop that could be grown in Europe, caused Surinam's economic decline, from which it has never recovered.

The first synagogue in Surinam was built out of wood in the 1660's at a site upriver from the capitol at Paramaribo called the Joden Savanne (Jewish Savannah). It was surrounded by a town which acted as headquarters for the Jewish plantation owners. A more permanent brick synagogue building was erected in 1685, and a rabbi, David Pardo, arrived from London. In 1734, Ashkenazic Jews (of Dutch, German, or Eastern European descent) began arriving. The Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews did not get along well, and ultimately two congregations were founded. Sephardis, who were mostly wealthy and well-educated business people, were considered the elite of the Jewish people. Ashkenazis were, in general, poorer people than the Sephardis. When their population had grown to a substantial size, they wanted a synagogue of their own. They bought the old Sephardic satellite "prayer house" in Paramaribo from the Sephardis. The Sephardis specified that the Ashkenazic Jews must follow the Sephardic minhag, or order of the service. Thus, there was never a synagogue that followed the traditional Ashkenazic order of prayers in Surinam and, today, both congregations are served by the same rabbi.

Among Jews settling in Dutch territories, David Cohen Nassy played a part in the history of both Curacao and Surinam. Nassy was born in Portugal in approximately 1612 as Christovao da Tavora. With the Portuguese Inquisition behind him and with religious freedom in Holland ahead of him, young da Tavora headed for Holland where he changed his name to Joseph Nunes da Fonseca. This was done probably either to protect his family still in Portugal, or just to make it harder for anyone to find him. He emigrated to Brazil, but was driven away during the war between Holland and Portugal. In 1662, he and a financier, Abraham Cohen, established a colony in Cayenne, which was later French Guiana. By this time, he had adopted the name of David Cohen Nassy. He received a charter from the Dutch West Indies Company to start a new Jewish settlement in Curacao, but eventually moved on to Surinam. He founded the early Jewish colony in Surinam in the Joden Savanne. When the slave revolts started, he organized the other Jewish plantation owners to try to combat the raids of the runaway slaves. He was killed during a foray into the jungle in search of one of the slave encampments. The community he founded in the Joden Savanne was decimated by the French in 1712 during an attempt to capture Surinam from the Dutch. His two sons, Samuel and Joseph Cohen Nassy, were also military leaders.

CUBA

There was never much of a Jewish population on the largest Caribbean island, Cuba. A Jew, Luis de Torres, was on one of Columbus's ships for the 1492 journey and served as an interpreter.

It is believed that de Torres settled in Cuba. Spain's Inquisition spread to its colony of Cuba, and Cuban Jews were its victims as late as 1783. The Inquisition was not officially abolished until 1823. Although Jews have been on Cuba for centuries, they were only lawfully allowed to settle in 1881 and still suffered legal discrimination until after the Spanish-American war. In 1898, they were finally allowed to publicly worship and built a synagogue or the congregation.

The history of Jews in the Caribbean is one that is not well known. Their place gets lost in more colorful tales of Spanish conquistadors, cutthroat pirates, and continual battles between the European powers over territory. But their importance cannot be underestimated. A Jew introduced sugar cane to the Caribbean; this crop was the mainstay of the economy for several hundred years.

Jews started trade routes between the islands and their mother countries. As we have seen, the Caribbean Jewish merchants were so successful that the other businessmen often persuaded their governments to tax or restrict Jewish trade. In spite of these attempts to put them out of business, Jewish communities flourished.

UNITED STATES

In a time when the United States did not exist but was itself no more than a set of colonies, Jewish settlers looked to the religious and economic freedom they found in the New World to make new lives for themselves. We know Jews fleeing Brazil went to North American colonies as well as to the Caribbean. The Caribbean congregations helped support the Jewish communities that were starting in the United States. We know there was much travel and trade between the communities in the "future" United States and the Caribbean. In fact, the Jews of the Caribbean are regarded, by many scholars, as the "missing link" in the Jewish settlement of the early United States. It is clear that as Europeans fanned but to set up colonies in the Western Hemisphere, the Jews were among the vanguard of the settlers who made important contributions in the colonization of the "NewWorld."

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean

They did not sing "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Manischewitz," nor do they ever seem to appear in any of the Disney films about pirates in the Caribbean. The website piratesinfo.com carries not a single reference to them.

And while September 19 has for a number of years now been designated International Talk Like a Pirate Day (there are even Internet courses available in pirate lingo), none of its initiators seems to have had Ladino (the language spoken by Jewish refugees expelled by the Spanish and Portuguese after the Reconquista) in mind.

Swashbuckling buccaneers who took time to put on tefillin each morning? Better get used to the idea. Long overlooked, the history of Jewish piracy has been garnering increasing interest, with several serious books and articles telling its epic tales.

Many Jewish pirates came from families of refugees who had been expelled by Spain and Portugal. They took to piracy as part of a strategy of revenge on the Iberian powers (though lining their pockets with Spanish doubloons was no doubt also a motive). Many of these pirates mixed traditional Jewish lifestyles with their exploits on the high seas.

Jewish refugees from Portugal first settled in Jamaica in 1511, probably originally as sugar growers, and some took up piracy. The British, led by Admiral William Penn (the father of the William Penn who established Philadelphia), took over the island from the Spanish in 1655, reportedly with assistance from local Jews and Marranos (crypto-Jews), all of whom were allowed to remain.

By 1720, as many as 20 percent of the residents of Kingston were Jews. Over time, Ashkenazi Jews arrived and their synagogues operated alongside the Sephardic ones (the congregations all merged in the 20th century). Jewish tombstones dating back to 1672 have been found there, with Portuguese, Hebrew and English inscriptions.

Some Jews went into local Jamaican politics, and there were so many in the Jamaican parliament in the 19th century that it became the only parliament on earth that did not hold deliberations on Saturday. The Jewish community of Jamaica today numbers a couple hundred and calls itself the United Congregation of Israelites in Jamaica (UCIJA). The active synagogue there is built in Sephardic style and is one of the few left in the world with a sand floor. Naturally, its official website includes a page on the pirate ancestors of Jewish residents (The United Congregation of Israelites - Kingston, Jamaica).

According to an article earlier this year in the Israeli weekly Bakihilot, municipal workers in Kingston recently uncovered a long forgotten pirate graveyard. Among the tombstones are those with Jewish stars and Hebrew inscriptions, together with pirate symbols such as the skull and crossbones.

Similar Jewish pirate graves have been found near Bridgetown in the Barbados and in the old Jewish graveyard in Curacao. Jamaican-born Jewish historian Ed Kritzler claims that Jewish pirates once operated there, raiding the Spanish Main wearing tallis shawls. He's just published a book titled ‘Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean’ and conducts private tours of the "Jewish pirate coves" of Jamaica.

Kritzler's book includes the saga of one Moses Cohen Henriques, who participated in one of history's largest sea heists against Spain. In 1628, Henriques sailed together with Dutch Admiral Piet Hein, of the Dutch West India Company, who hated Spain after having been held as a slave for four years on a Spanish galleon. They raided Spanish ships off Matanzas Bay in Cuba, commandeering large amounts of gold and silver.

Henriques set up his own pirate "Treasure Island" on a deserted island off the Brazilian coast on which Jews could openly practice their religion. (He also served as adviser to Henry Morgan, perhaps the most famous pirate of all time; Errol Flynn played Morgan in the movie "Captain Blood.") After the recapture of Brazil by Portugal in 1654, some of these Jews would sail off to set up a brand new Jewish community in a place called New Amsterdam, now known as New York.

In many cases Jewish pirates collaborated with Holland, a friendly and welcoming state for Jews. One such pirate was Rabbi Samuel Pallache, a leader of the Moroccan Jewish community in Fez. Born in The Hague, he was son of a leading rabbi from Cordoba who ended up in Morocco. From there he was sent to Holland as envoy of the Moroccan sultan, who was seeking allies against Spain. He became a personal friend of Dutch Crown Prince Maurice, who commissioned him as a privateer, and served for years as a pirate under a Netherlands flag and with Dutch letters of marque. Rabbi Pallache recruited Marranos for his crews.

In other cases Jewish pirates worked for the Ottomans. A Jewish pirate named Sinan, known to his Spanish prey as "The Great Jew" was born in what is now Turkey and operated out of Algiers. He first served as second in command to the famous pirate Barbarossa. (No connection to the fictional Barbarossa of the Disney films.) Their pirate flag carried a six-pointed star called the Seal of Solomon by the Ottomans.

Sinan led the force that defeated a Genoan navy hired by Spain to rid the Barbary Coast of corsairs. He then conquered Tripoli in Libya, and was eventually appointed supreme Ottoman naval commander. He is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Albania.

A Jewish pirate named Yaakov Koriel commanded three pirate ships in the Caribbean. He later repented and ended up in Safed as one of the Kabbalah students of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria) and is buried near the Ari's grave.

A pirate named David Abrabanel, evidently from the same family as the famous Spanish rabbinic dynasty (which included Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel), joined British privateers after his family was butchered off the South American coast. He used the nom de guerre "Captain Davis" and commanded his own pirate vessel named The Jerusalem. According to at least one report, he was the person who discovered what is now called Easter Island.

Several Jewish corsairs operated against Spanish ships off the coast of Chile. There are reports that their galleys were kosher and they abstained from raids on the Sabbath. A maritime museum in Chile today holds letters of communication among these pirates composed in Hebrew.

One pirate leader was named Subatol Deul. On a trip up the coast he stumbled across a ship under the command of the pirate Henry Drake, son of Sir Francis Drake. They decided to create an alliance of anti-Spanish pirates, the "Black Flag Fraternity."

Deul and Drake reportedly buried treasure on an island near Coquimbo in 1645. A chapter in the book Piracy & Plunder: A Murderous Business, by Milton Meltzer, is devoted to Deul's swashbuckling career.

There also were Jewish corsairs based in Curacao next to Venezuela. The local Curacao rabbi once berated his community's pirates when they thoughtlessly attacked a ship owned by a fellow Jew. At least it wasn't done on the Sabbath.

The history of Jewish pirates goes far back: Josephus mentions Jewish pirates operating in the seas off the Land of Israel in Roman times. There is a drawing of a pirate ship inside Jason's Tomb in Jerusalem. The Hasmonean Hyrcanus accused Aristobulus, his brother, of "acts of piracy at sea." In its last days, the Seleucid empire (the one fought by the Maccabees) was plagued by Jewish and Arab pirates.

Pirates operated from coves along the Levantine coast for centuries, and my own city of Haifa was once known as The Little Malta because of its notorious pirates. (The local pirates these days seem to specialize mainly in computer software.)

The fact that some Jews seemed to have taken so easily to the pirate lifestyle may have been due in part to other skills developed by Jews over the centuries. Cartography, for example, was considered a Jewish specialty in the 15th and 16th centuries, and Christopher Columbus is believed to have consulted the work of a Jewish cartographer, one Abraham Cresque of Mallorca, who produced the Catalan Atlas in 1375. Portuguese Jewish cartographers and scientists contributed to Vasco Da Gama's voyage of discovery to the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. Jews also worked on ships as navigators.

Perhaps the most important Jewish pirate of all was the Caribbean pirate Jean Lafitte, a familiar name to many American schoolchildren. He and his men, pirates trained in cannon fire, came to the aid of General (later President) Andrew Jackson and played a critical role in winning the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. A Jean Lafitte National Historic Park stands today on the outskirts of the city.

What is still largely unknown is that Lafitte was a Jew, born either in Western France or in what is now Haiti. A while back my friend Edward Bernard Glick, a retired professor of political science living in Oregon, published an article in the Jerusalem Post (July 14, 2006) on Lafitte's Jewish origins and it stirred up a storm of interest. Parts of Rabbi I. Harol

According to Glick, "[Lafitte] was a Sephardi Jew, as was his first wife, who was born in the Danish Virgin Islands. In his prime, Lafitte ran not just one pirate sloop but a whole fleet of them simultaneously. He even bought a blacksmith shop in New Orleans, which he used as a front for fencing pirate loot. And he was one of the few buccaneers who didn't die in battle, in prison or on the gallows."

Glick claims the British tried to recruit Lafitte to guide them through the swamps to ambush the Americans, but Lafitte instead showed General "Old Hickory" Jackson Britain's battle plans to attack New Orleans. The rest is history.

Years before the Battle of New Orleans, Louisiana Governor William C. C. Claiborne placed a reward of $500 on Lafitte's head. Lafitte retaliated by putting a $5,000 bounty on the head of the governor. Neither collected.

Lafitte later commanded his own "kingdom" named Campeche on the island of Galveston, Texas, then nominally under Spanish rule. Some of Lafitte's trading activities were conducted by Jao de la Porta, a Portuguese Jew from Spanish Texas. Among their clients was Jim Bowie, made famous at the Alamo and also for the special knife.

Mention of Jewish pirates can pop up in some unexpected places. Just before Rosh Hashanah this year, the liberal Huffington Post website carried a post by humorist Andy Borowitz "reporting" that the group of Somali pirates who had just hijacked a ship full of Ukrainians in the Gulf of Aden was calling a halt to the piracy in honor of the Jewish High Holidays.

Wrote Borowitz: " 'To all of our Jewish friends, we say a hearty Shana Tova,' said pirate spokesman Sugule, moments before the pirates hoisted a Star of David flag over the captured ship. Sugule took pains to indicate that while the pirates were taking a Rosh Hashanah break from their usual plundering and pillaging schedule, they were doing so only out of respect for Jewish pirates and not because they are Jewish themselves. 'None of us Somali pirates are Jewish,' he said. 'Except for Abe in accounting, who's half.' "

And there are others who are getting into the spirit of things. The Bangitout.comJewish humor website listed a set of halachic challenges for Jewish pirates, including the following:

If you have a hook instead of a hand, on which arm do you put tefillin?

Does your treasure map show how far the eruv extends?

How long do you wait, after capturing a plundered ship, to put up a mezuzah in the captain's cabin?

Should you cover your eye patch with your hand when you say the Shema?

Can you wear a leather boot over your peg leg on Yom Kippur?

Are you able to carry on the plank on Shabbos?

If your parrot is on your shoulder, is that carrying?

Personally, I think the biggest challenge to Jewish pirates occurs at Purim. After walking around all year decked out like that, what could they possibly dress up as? Accountants?

In a way, the legacy of Jewish pirates is alive and well in Israel today. One of the most outstanding examples of the Jewish state's derring-do was when it stole five gunboats out of the port of Cherbourg in France - ships that had already been paid for by Israel but that France, as punishment for Israel's Six-Day War victory, was refusing to deliver.

Israeli agents operating through a front corporation seized the ships on December 25, 1969 and sailed them to Haifa. The details of that piracy are engagingly told inThe Boats of Cherbourg (1997) by Abraham Rabinovich.

So let's swab the decks, count our doubloons and grant the Jewish pirates their proper place in history. In other words, it's time to put the oy back into "ahoy."

Who are the Paisa people of Colombia;do they have a Jewish origin?

As in the American Southwest, in the department of Antioquia, Colombia, as well as in the greater Paisa region, many families also hold traditions and oral accounts of Jewish descent. In this population, Y chromosome genetic analysis has shown an origin of founders predominantly from "southern Spain but also suggest that a fraction came from northern Iberia and that some possibly had a Sephardic origin". The Medellín tradition of the marranada, where a pig is slaughtered, butchered and consumed on the streets of every neighborhood each Christmas has been interpreted as an annual affirmation of the rejection of Jewish law.

It is a matter of debate of the presence of Jewish ancestry in the Paisa people. It has been possible that Spanish Jews (known as marranos) fleeing the Cartagena de Indias Inquisition took refuge in the Antioquian mountains during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Some Colombian authors like Jorge Isaacs and Miguel Ángel Osorio claimed that Paisas have Jewish ancestry. Several Paisa surnames are of Jewish origin like Alvarez, Espinosa, Perez and many others. Some scholars agree that the presence of Sephardic Jews in the ancestry of Paisas is a fact, but it does not mean that all Paisas come from them, as proven by their origin in other groups like Basques, Extremadurans, Andalusians and Catalonians.

Samples were taken from 80 individuals in Medellín from among students and staff of the Universidad de Antioquia Medical School and San Vicente de Paul University Hospital. To select individuals of Antioquian ancestry, we applied a genealogical interview that recorded the names, dates, and places of birth of ancestors up to the great-grandparents. None of the selected individuals shared any of the ancestors recorded in the interview.

Interestingly, haplotype 4, which carries a DYS388 allele with 16 repeats, corresponds to the Cohen modal haplotype (CMH) of Thomas et al. (1998). This haplotype has frequencies >10% among Jewish populations but seems to be rare in Arab populations and has been proposed as an indicator of Jewish ancestry (Thomas et al. 2000). Two other haplotypes (12 and 29) are one mutational step away from the CMH. Haplotypes 3 and 5 also match haplotypes detected among Jewish populations; they correspond to haplotypes 2 and 27 in Thomas et al. (2000). In that survey, Antioquian haplotype 3 was observed only among Sephardic Jews. These matches occur in haplogroup C and, on aggregate, imply that ∼14% of the Antioquian haplotypes could have a Jewish ancestry.

Pride and Prejudice

For centuries, villagers from the mountains and valleys of the Basque country have made the solemn pilgrimage to the town of Gernika, to stand beneath an ancient oak tree and defend their rights and liberties - and demand homage from the kings of Spain. The tree represents their identity, their assertion of nationhood, their refusal to bow to outside domination.

Last month this mighty oak died, killed by fungal infection and a freak summer drought. Now the lifeless trunk sports only spindly twigs and a few dead leaves that flap and spin in the wind. The parched relic sits incongruously in the center of a rainsodden park that shimmers with blinding iridescence between intermittent cloudbursts.

But a new oak is growing nearby, nurtured from an acorn produced by the 144-year-old tree. That in turn came from a still older husk, protected by the little temple on the springy lawn, dating back more than 300 years. "It's the expression of our spirit," said Pedro Bilbao, the gardener who tends the park. "The tree has died but the new one is born."

Basques mourn the death of their sacred tree, but welcome the green shoots of hope that are sprouting in a region long riven with hatred and violence. The Madrid train bombings in March represented a watershed moment for Spain in many ways and the new optimism of the Basque country owes much to the sense of shock and revulsion at the appalling loss of human life. The Basque journalist Gorka Landaburu, who lost several fingers and his left eye three years ago when Eta separatists sent him a letter bomb, expresses a widely held determination to move on.

"A new life cycle is starting to replace the old. A new tree will grow to coincide with the new political cycle that is beginning. The tree has died, long live the tree," he says. After months of painful surgery, Mr Landaburu has undergone a personal renaissance. Not only has he recovered his writing skills, but six months ago he launched the region's first Basque- language weekly newspaper, Aldaketa, which means "Change".

Basques have long been portrayed in Spain and abroad as sullen pistol-toting whingers who don't appreciate the prosperity and freedom they enjoy. A small number of Eta terrorists have tainted a whole people with the stain of violence. Faced by a barrage of hostility and incomprehension - intensified by hardliners from Madrid - many Basques withdrew into the protective body-armor of grievance and victimism.

No foreign power dared mediate such a perilous and intractable conflict. Bill Clinton helped Northern Ireland on the path to peace, but no one risked burning their fingers for the Basques. But suddenly the Basques are breathing more freely and starting to feel good about themselves.

In a sign of the changing mood, Brussels last week gave the go-ahead for Euskera, the ancient language Basques have fiercely defended for centuries, to become an officially recognized European language. Their whirring, clacking tongue will be accepted as a "treaty language". The measure, initiated by the month-old socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, meets a long-held Basque demand spurned by the previous ruling conservatives.

EU documents will be translated into Euskera (and Catalan and Gallego - Spain's other minority languages). Correspondence between Brussels and Basque authorities will be conducted in Basque, marking the international acceptance of a language suppressed for decades by Franco's dictatorship.

Relief now gusts through the Basque country with a keenness as penetrating as the recent rainstorms. "A new political phase has opened of respect and institutional participation," said Spain's deputy prime minister, Maria Teresa Fernández de la Vega, when she confirmed the measure last Friday. As the siege mentality softens, Basques find themselves treated by Spain's new socialist ministers as people who can hold a sensible conversation and whose historic rights deserve respect. This moment, long awaited, marks a climate of dialogue that Basques believe could eventually overcome decades of separatist terror and restore their reputation as a civilized, industrious people.

"Good new winds are blowing from Madrid that could help solve the Basque conflict," the Basque regional prime minister, Juan José Ibarretxe, told an international peace conference in San Sebastian last weekend. "We see light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm convinced it's not the train coming the other way." Madrid's new approach, he said, "accepts that you can't fight terrorism with wars, but by examining and resolving the underlying causes."

This new political phase marks a continuity of the spirit of Gernika. Javier Zenikazelaya, a teacher, shepherds a troop of children around the old oak: "We Basques worship our trees, we share with the Celts and Germans the pre-Christian belief that trees are sacred. This tree is the symbol of our liberties that go back nearly a thousand years. The parliament of Gernika is among the oldest in Europe."

Basques boast of their passion to maintain their language and culture, of how they never left their frontiers to conquer others, and resisted outside domination ever since Caesar's legionaries left them alone in exchange for free passage between Gaul and Hispania. "Kings of Spain bent their knee to assemblies of Basque farmworkers at this spot," Mr Zenikazelaya says. "Gernika is the shrine to our freedoms. That's why it was bombarded."

On 26 April 1937, Hitler's Condor legion of Junkers and Heinkels flew over Gernika for three hours, dropping bombs on the market square and machine-gunning terrified townsfolk from the air. It was a sunny market day, and the town was packed with people from outlying villages.

Luis Iriondo, 78, was 11 when the waves of planes flew in. "I felt the hot air from the bombs and heard the deafening roar of the planes. Those three long hours seemed like eternity. When it was over the whole town was in flames, the sky covered with smoke. There were bodies everywhere."

Thousands died in the first civilian bombardment in European warfare, and the devastation inspired Picasso's Guernica, one of the 20th century's finest paintings. The Spanish spelling of the town's name is now used only for the painting.

Young Luis, his mother and two small sisters fled to Bilbao, then to Santander, and were taken aboard an English cargo ship, the Kenwick Pool, one of many British vessels that rescued dispossessed Basques from Franco's advancing troops. Thousands of refugees spent the civil war in Britain, but the Kenwick Pool docked at Bordeaux. Months later Luis and his family rejoined his father and elder brother in Bilbao, and eventually they returned to Gernika.

But the tree was unharmed. "Yes, the tree is a survivor too," he chuckles. "It may die but the symbol doesn't die. They plant another tree and it continues. We strike our deals under a tree. That's what 'Basque honor' means: shaking hands under the tree."

Mr Iriondo attended the commemoration in Dresden last year of the Allied bombardment of the German city during the Second World War. The gesture of reconciliation included opposition to the war in Iraq. "I am convinced all wars could be solved, even our conflict with Eta, if we sat down and talked," he says.

An hour's drive from Gernika is the elegant resort of San Sebastián, a different world. Lounging along one of the finest beaches in Spain, this city is so chic that the French come here to eat. Its restaurants account for 10 Michelin stars, its newspapers devote sections to gastronomía.

San Sebastián has been a byword for style since moneyed Basques made it a summer pleasure-ground for royalty in the 19th century. Belle epoque villas still line the seafront of some of the most sought-after real estate in Spain. But the old portside with its grid of narrow lanes used to be the heartland of separatist militancy. Taverns draped in the ikurriña flag had photos of imprisoned Eta gunmen on the walls, and collection jars on the bars to support their families. All that is gone. The pro-Eta Batasuna party was banned last year, and the taverns shut. Walls are free of threatening slogans, and of the sinister symbol of the cross-hatched bullseye. In La Cepa bar, where the regional conservative leader Gregorio Ordóñez was gunned down 10 years ago, drinkers concentrate on having a good time.

Even San Sebastián's film festival, whose organizers unveiled this September's programme last Friday, reflects the freer mood. It will celebrate anti-establishment film-makers from the Marx brothers and Luis Buñuel to Michael Moore. The poster shows a naked man with his fist clenched, a scandalized bishop in the background. Such provocation was unthinkable a year ago, when conservative politicians tried to ban Julio Medem's film, The Basque Ball, from the festival. In Medem's documentary, Basques of different opinions talk about the conflict and how it might be solved. The film caused a furore and prompted the former culture minister, Pilar de Castillo, to accuse the director of helping the terrorist cause.

Then came the Madrid train bombings, initially blamed on Eta, that killed 192 on 11 March. "I woke that morning with a sense of despair, I was ready to leave the country ," Julio Medem said. "Fury gushed from two groups: old Francoists and victims of Eta, and I was a liability."

Medem's film shows all angles of Basque opinion from armed terrorists to conservative hardliners, from Eta supporters to victims of attacks. "I tried to respect the opinions of all I spoke to.

What happened on 11 March changed everything. The Islamist attacks made every Spaniard revolt against terrorism, and pushed Eta deeper into isolation, says Gorka Landaburu. "Even Eta sympathisers now urge the organisation to abandon arms," he says. "They just need some face-saving formula." Eta is reckoned to be at its weakest, crushed by a security clampdown, shunned by a nation traumatised by the slaughter of 11 March.

"Eta has not killed anyone for a year. So we have a sort of undeclared truce," Mr Landaburu says. "But that's not enough. I still have bodyguards, and so do thousands who have received Eta death threats. Eta has done terrible damage to the Basques. We're news only when they commit some outrage. But when they disappear, we'll recover our good name and our sense of self-worth. We must talk together. This is our great opportunity." He holds out the stumps of his truncated fingers, fixes me with his good eye. "If we have to help Eta find a way out of the cold, I'll be the first to lend a hand."

In the park of Gernika the gardener, Pedro Bilbao, trims the lawn. Sunshine bursts from behind the clouds and blazes on the leaves of the young tree, near the skeleton of the old. "Outsiders think we walk around with pistols at the ready, but the truth is completely the opposite. I hope we can show that we are a peaceful people."

The lost tribe of Gad – Found!

Decoding the Gospels may provide us with a map to one of the lost tribes of Israel.

The Gospels record a stormy sea journey to a mysterious place called “The Land of the Gadarenes” (Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5: 1-20, Luke 8: 26-39). As the story goes, all the disciples are with Jesus on a boat, when they are caught in a terrible storm. Jesus ignores the storm, sleeping right through it. When he’s awakened, he calms his disciples and proceeds to calm the storm.

The Common View of Jesus in the Boat

This story is very important for Christian theology because it argues that Jesus had mastery over nature. When they get to where they were heading, Jesus meets one or two (depending on the Gospel) “demonics” i.e., possessed men. These were living in tombs, in a necropolis by the sea. Here, Jesus performs another one of his famous miracles, namely, he makes the demons leave the possessed men and proceeds to zap them into a herd of 2,000 domesticated pigs. The possessed pigs now take a swine-dive to their death, off a cliff into the sea below. The neighbouring Gadareans come out, hear the story from the demonics, and immediately tell Jesus to get back on the boat and leave. After all this, Jesus comes back to great fanfare –thousands are waiting for him on the beach.

The traditional view is that all this happened on Israel’s Lake Kinneret, known in English as the “Sea of Galilee”. According to the traditional Christian view, Jesus crossed the tiny Galilean lake to the other side, landed in what is today Kursi and then proceeded to perform his miracles with the demonics and the swine. There’s a byzantine monastery commemorating the event at Kursi, and a nearby cave has been designated as the “cave of the demonics”.

Fishermen’s Boat Dated to the Time of Jesus Found Off the Shores of the Sea of Galilee

Lately I’ve been reading Porphyry’s “Against the Christians”. Porphyry of Tyre, in modern Lebanon, was a pagan philosopher who lived between 232 CE and 305 CE. In 448 CE, Porphyry’s polemic against Christianity was condemned to be burned by the church. Recently, bits and pieces of the text have been gathered together in an attempt to recreate the now lost critique. Writing on the Jesus episode with the demonics, Porphyry casts doubt on the whole story: “There is no ‘Sea’ in the locality [i.e., the Galilee],” he says, “but only a tiny lake which springs from a river that flows through the hills of Galilee near Tiberius. Small boats can get across it in two hours and the lake is too small to have seen whitecaps caused by a storm.”

In other words, more than 1,800 years ago, people understood that Jesus’ voyage to the land of the Gadareans could not have taken place on the Sea of Galilee. It’s something that makes no sense. How could you fall asleep in a tiny fishing boat during a storm? There is nowhere to sleep, and no way to sleep. If you lay across some rope, you would constantly be splashed in the face from the stormy spray.

Furthermore, as Porphyry points out and as others, like the French philosopher Voltaire later remarked; what are pigs doing in the Jewish state? There are also no cemeteries on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, nor any tombs you could live in. There are no cliffs and there’s no “Land of the Gadareans”. There was a Gedara further inland, but it had no access to the lake. Put differently, there are no tombs, there’s no necropolis, no swine, no cliffs, no nothing. Either the story didn’t happen or the “sea” that Jesus was sailing was not the tiny Galilean lake.

Some people say that since there was a confederation of non-Jewish cities on the east side of Jordan called the Decapolis, Jesus must’ve been sailing there. This is a way of justifying the swine. But the whole story doesn’t fit. You can jog from Capernaum (Jesus’ HQ in the 1st century) to Kursi in a matter of minutes, at most hours. Nothing – I repeat – nothing fits –not the geology, and not the archeology.

But there is a sea that fits the body of water in this story. It’s the Mediterranean Sea. In this story, Jesus is clearly emulating the prophet Jonah, who sailed from Jaffa on his way to Tarshish i.e., ancient Tartessos in Spain, before being notoriously swallowed by a large fish. Jonah also fell asleep on the boat and calmed the sea by having the sailors toss him into the raging waters. In other words, if Jesus was following in Jonah’s footsteps, he would’ve left Jaffa and sailed towards Spain, across the Mediterranean. Once you realize that this is in fact where Jesus was sailing, a long lost voyage comes clearly into focus.

Jesus’ Footsteps Venerated in Majorca

Everything fits. The boats plying the waters are big enough for someone to fall asleep in the hold. Off the Spanish peninsula, there are constant storms near the Balearic Islands. There are ancient cemeteries right on the shore made up of tombs big enough for living men to live in. There are cliffs e.g., Gibraltar, and to this day there’s plenty of swine – the famous black pork of southern Spain. Everything fits and there’s a tradition on the island of Majorca that Jesus made landfall there.

So what gives, why has Spain been covered up and substituted with the Sea of Galilee? Because Jesus failed in his mission. The Gadareans did not follow him. They chased him out of town. So the story had to shift from the arena of failure to the arena of success. In any event, whatever the theological reason for the Gospels’ slight of hand, the fact is: Jesus sailed to Spain.

Since many people believe that Jesus occupied some kind of mythical time and space, the idea of his voyage to Spain sounds impossible. Most people have a quaint perception that Jesus spent his entire “ministry” – prior to going to Jerusalem where he was crucified – in northern Israel, walking along the shores of the “Sea of Galilee”. But is this historical reality or theological fantasy? Did Jesus really spend his entire life in Israel? Or did he travel elsewhere, namely, Spain? I’m sure this theory sounds farfetched, especially if you believe that the ancients couldn’t travel. But is this gut feeling historically accurate?

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

The fact is that Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia in northwestern Spain, is one of the three most important pilgrimage sites for Christians (the other two being Rome and Jerusalem). Traditionally, it’s the place where James, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, is buried. If James could make it to Spain, why not Jesus? The apostle Paul also declares his intention of traveling to Spain (Romans 15:24), and some Christian traditions say that he made it there. Put differently, if Paul and James could travel to Spain, why not Jesus?

So why would Jesus travel to Spain? Because it was part of the job description of the Messiah to ingather the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” i.e., the so-called lost tribes of Israel, and bring them home. If he thought of himself as Messiah, Jesus would’ve wanted to – at least symbolically – ingather the lost tribes. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, during his lifetime in the 1st century, the whereabouts of the exiled tribes was known. One of the lost tribes i.e., one of the tribes exiled from Israel by the Assyrians in the 8th century BCE, was the tribe of Gad.

Ancient Cadiz was called “Gadir” – the land of the Gadareans. In Hebrew, “Gadir” means the city of Gad and, to this day, the citizens of Cadiz do not call themselves Cadizians, but “Gaditanos” i.e., Gadites. The long lost Gadites have been found.

The Basques and Catalans are the true Hebrews (Celtic kings) of the bible?

Basque/Catalan had land lordship of Biscay, the so called right of universal nobility, under which all Basques were born nobles. Basques are of a holy bloodline,one of the world's best kept secrets.

Definitely the chosen ones. That's why Castilians call them Jews.

< La Catalogne peut se passer de l'univers entier, et ses voisins ne peuvent se passer d'elle. > Voltaire

Has the Tree of Guernica an Israelite Origin?

Basques worship trees, like the Celts and Germans, because of the pre-Christian belief that trees are sacred. Their most cherished tree is the Tree of Gernika, which is an oak tree. The tree that was generally regarded as sacred in Palestine was the oak too. Coincidence or reminiscence from their Israelite ancestors?

The Tree of Gernika is the symbol of the Biscayans' liberties that go back close to a millenium. By extension it's a symbol of all the Basques' liberties.

The modern Lehendakari of the Basque Country swears his charge there.

The tree

In the Middle Ages, representatives of the villages of Biscay would hold assemblies under local big trees. As time passed, the role of separate assemblies was superseded by the Guernica Assembly in 1512, and its oak would acquire a symbolic meaning, with actual assemblies being held in a purpose-built hermitage-house (the current building is from 1833). It was the Spanish regent Maria Christina accompanied by her infant daughter Queen Isabella II the last Spanish monarch to swear an oath to the charters under the iconic oak in 1839.

Arms of Biscay

The known specimens form a dynasty: "The father", planted in the 14th century, lasted 450 years. The "old tree" (1742–1892), re-planted in 1811. The trunk now is held in a templet in the surrounding garden. The third (1858–2004), re-planted in 1860, survived the Bombing of Guernica in 1937 but had to be replaced because of a fungus. The gardeners of the Biscayan government keep several spare trees grown from the tree's acorns. The fourth (1986-2015) was replanted on the site of its father on 25 February 2005. It died of a humidity related disease on 15 January 2015. The fifth was planted in March 2015, aged 14.

The logo of the University of the Basque Country with Chillida's interpretation of the oak.

The tree's significance is illustrated by an event which occurred shortly after the Guernica bombings. When the Francoist troops took the town, the Tercio of Begoña, formed by Carlist volunteers from Biscay, put an armed guard around the tree to protect it against the Falangists, who had wanted to fell this symbol of Basque nationalism.

The oak leaves and acorns around the coat of arms of the Basque Country are another reference to the tree.

An oak tree is depicted on the heraldic arms of Biscay and subsequently on the arms of many of the towns of Biscay. An oak leaf logo is being used by the local government of Biscay. The logo of the Basque nationalist party Eusko Alkartasuna has one half red and the other green, the colors of the Basque flag. An old version of the logo of the nationalist youth organisation Jarrai also display oak leaves.

The Basque Country's own police, ertzaintza, has an oak leaf attached to its uniform.

Ikurriña, a Christian Flag in the Basque Country, Northern Spain

The Basque authorities present descendants of the tree as a symbol of friendship to Basque diaspora groups and related cities.

The Ikurriña, the Basque flag, is a deeply Christian flag, just as the Union Jack. It's indeed considered to be based on it. It has a white cross of Saint George. Same color & same saint of the English flag. The other cross is Saint Andrew's like Scotland's, but in green color. The Basque language has mostly nothing to do with the languages of the British Islands, be it Germanic (English) or Celtic (Gaelic, Cornish...). They share genes though. Yes, western peoples like the French, Spanish (including Basques, Galicians...), British or Irish have the same genes. This is not the only thing they share though. Spanish regions like Galicia or Asturias still claim a Celtic heritage, even though their regional languages are Romance languages with a Celtic substratum. The Empanada Gallega, typical of Galicia (now spread throughout Spain), resembles the famous Cornish Pastry.

Basques like to say they have a pure race & a pure language with no foreign influence. Far from the truth, the Celtic influence is considerable, for example in place names (& surnames): Ega, Landa (Landazuri), Carranza... Even the whole area of the Encartaciones (Biscay) is an area of Celtic heritage, although the rest of the Basque Country has Celtic influence, even in their genes. Apparently the Celts from the said Encarnaciones were related to the Belgae Celts (from northern France, Belgium, Germany, Holland & Britain).

A part of the tribe of Gad in Spain and Portugal

A part of the Israelite tribe of Gad is found in the Spanish and Portuguese nations, which have their origin in the Goths, which were of the tribe of Gad.

Israelites in the Iberian Peninsula BC

It is generally acknowledged by students of the tribes of Israel that the Iberian Peninsula possibly has its name from the Hebrews. The patriarch Eber (Gen. 10:21, 24; 11:14-16) gave name to the Hebrews and thus possibly also to the Iberian Peninsula.

When the tribes of Israel lived in Egypt, groups of Israelites, in particular Danites, migrated from Egypt to the Iberian Peninsula and from there to Ireland, whose Latin name Hibernia is believed to mean the Hebrews’ Island.

The Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters writes of the tribe the Danaans which came to Ireland from Greece in the 12th century BC. The Danaans, or Tuatha de Danaan, were of the tribe of Dan.[i]

The American historian E. Raymond Capt writes:

“According to the ‘Harmsworth Encyclopaedia’, Cecrops (‘Calcol’ of I Chron. 2:6 and ‘Chalcol’ of I Kings 4:31 – and brother of Darda) was the mythical founder of Athens and its first king. He was thought to have been the leader of a band of Hebrew colonists from Egypt. Historical records tell of the westward migration of the descendants of Calcol along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, establishing ‘Iberian’ (Hebrew) trading settlements. One settlement now called ‘Saragossa,’ in Ebro Valley in Spain, was originally known as ‘Zarah-gassa,’ meaning, ‘The stronghold of Zarah.’ From Spain they continued westward as far as Ireland.” (E. Raymond Capt: Missing Links Discovered in Assyrian Tablets (1985), p. 65)

King Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre sent out large number of “ships of Tharshish” (1 Kings 10:22) which sailed to many places, including southern Spain, which was the largest Phoenician colony along with Carthage.[ii] One theory is that Tharshish is identical to Tartessos in south-western Spain. The city of Cadiz in south-western Spain was founded by the Phoenicians under the name Gadir, or in Punic Gdr, meaning “wall” or “fortified citadel”.[iii] Robert Alan Balaicius suggests that the city was founded by Israelites of the tribe of Gad.[iv]

The Goths of the tribe of Gad

More than 1500 years later, the Goths conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula. The Goths were a group of Germanic tribes which were of the tribe of Gad.

The Goths were divided into two main groups, the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths. In 376 AD the Visigoths, seeking refuge from the Huns, settled on Roman territory on the Balkans. When a famine broke out, the Visigoths elected Alarik as king and fought several wars with Rome. In 410 AD the Visigoths sacked Rome, and in 418 the Romans let them settle in Gallia Aquitania (south-west Gaul) as “confederates”. In 475 the Visigoths formed an independent kingdom and gradually expanded into the Iberian Peninsula.

The Gothic heritage of Spain and Portugal

By 500 AD the Visigothic kingdom comprised all of Aquitania, Gallia Narbonensis (south Gaul), and most of the Iberian Peninsula, but after the battle of Vouillé in 507 against the Franks, the Visigothic kingdom was reduced to the Iberian Peninsula.[v]

The Visigoths made up app. one tenth of the population of their kingdom. They were Arian Christians in contrast to their Romance subjects which were Catholics. Around 600 AD King Rakared of the Visigoths converted to Catholicism and forced the Visigoths to do so as well. At the same time, the ban against mixed marriages between Goths and the Romance peoples was lifted.[vi]

The Visigothic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula continued until 713 when King Roderic (Rodrigo) was killed in battle against the Muslims, which had invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711. In 718 the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius is credited for beginning the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula when he defeated the Muslims in a battle and founded the Kingdom of the Asturians in north Spain.[vii]

This was a fulfillment of Israel’s words of Gad:

”Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.” (Genesis 49:19)

Besides the Visigoths, two other Germanic tribes, the Vandals and the Suebi, also settled on the Iberian Peninsula. They were also Israelite tribes.

A DNA analysis of the Spaniards and Portuguese gives a good idea how large part of them descends from the Goths and through them the Israelite tribe of Gad. The Swiss DNA analysis institute iGENEA specializes in comparing the DNA of modern European peoples with the DNA of antique peoples. The iGENEA statistics shows that the indigenous Spaniards are 15% Germanic[viii], 7% Viking, 40% Celtic, 30% Iberian, and 8% Arab and Berber, and that the indigenous Portuguese are 5% Viking, 70% Celtic, and 25% Iberian.[ix]

In medieval and modern Spain, the nobility were thought to be descended from the Goths. The following anecdote is found in the wikipedia article Goths:

”Somebody acting with arrogance would be said to be ’haciéndose los godos’ (‘making himself to act like the Goths’). Because of this, in Chile, Argentina and the Canary Islands, godo was used as an ethnic slur against European Spaniards…”[x]

Richard Kelly Hoskins, E.Raymond Capt, and Robert Alan Balaicius all write that hidalgo, the Spanish word signifying “nobleman”, actually means “son of a Goth”.[xi]

Gad in Latin America

Following Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492, the tribe of Gad enlarged its territory from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas.

Prior to the coming of the Spanish, the Aztecs ruled over 371 other Indian tribes in Central Mexico. Each year the Aztecs sacrificed 15,000 people alive to their pagan gods and goddesses of war and fertility. Their culture also included ritual cannibalism. When Hernando Cortez landed in Mexico in 1519, he learned that the Aztecs were feared and hated by their neighbouring Indian tribes. Cortez made an alliance with some of the Indian tribes, and in 1521 he conquered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, razed it to the ground, and founded a new Christian culture on the ruins.[xii]

The Danish historian Knud Helles writes:

“The many cruelties of the Spaniards and their almost complete annihilation of the Aztec culture was in particular caused by the fact that they were extremely offended by the human sacrifices and the cannibalism which accompanied them.” (Knud Helles, Bente Thomsen & Torben P. Andersen: Store linjer I verdenshistorien (1996), p. 101)

The nature of the Spanish conquests in the Americas was a fulfillment of Moses’ words of Gad:

”And of Gad he said, Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad: he dwelleth as a lion, and teareth the arm with the crown of the head. And he provided the first part for himself, because there, in a portion of the lawgiver, was he seated; and he came with the heads of the people, he executed the justice of the LORD, and his judgments with Israel.” (Deuteronomy 33:20-21)

Today, from Mexico and Cuba in the north to Argentina and Chile in the south, there are an estimated 190 mio. White Latin Americans (or app. 33% of Latin America’s population). They are mainly of Spanish and Portuguese descent, but there are also very large numbers of descendants of immigrants from other European countries, especially from Italy.

Spanish & Portuguese would come from Reuben like the French

In this link you posted the flags of the countries related to every Israelite tribe: http://www.nccg.org/joseph.html

What was surprising is when I saw the Mexican, Liberian & Puerto Rican flag as part of Manasseh. I think I can see your point in including Liberia because if it was established by American blacks, those like other black Americans have some white American (Manassehite) blood. In regard to Puerto Rico if it's been so long attached to the USA maybe they were Ephraimites from Spain that colonized it. But what about the Mexican flag? Most native Amerindians & mestizos & Polynesians have Manassehite & Ephraimite origins according to Mormons. Do you believe the same?, or, what do you think about the Mexicans?

Why do Spanish & Portuguese would come from Reuben? Don't Franks (French) come from Reuben? Are Visigoths, Suevians & Spanish & Portuguese Celts of the Tribe of Reuben as well?

The tribes are mixed (due to various invasions such as the Vandals and various Gothic tribes, Celts, etc.) though certain tribes obviously predominate - yes, the French are the predominant Reubenites but they are linked by kinship to the Italians, Spanish and Portuguese.

Spain & Portugal partially Gad? Apparently some Gadites came to Spain too & founded Gadir/Gades which is current Cádiz.

About 20 percent of the current population of the Iberian Peninsula has Sephardic Jewish ancestry, and 11 percent bear Moorish DNA signatures, a team of geneticists reports. The genetic signatures reflect the forced conversions to Christianity in the 14th and 15th centuries after Christian armies wrested Spain back from Muslim control. The biologists developed a Y chromosome signature for Sephardic men by studying Sephardic Jewish communities in places where Jews migrated after being expelled from Spain in the years from 1492 to 1496. They also characterized the Y chromosomes of the Arab and Berber army that invaded Spain in 711 A.D. from data on people now living in Morocco and Western Sahara... The genetic study, reported online Thursday in the American Journal of Human Genetics, indicates there was a high level of conversion among Jews... The issue is one that has confronted Calafell, an author of the study. His own Y chromosome is probably of Sephardic ancestry - the test is not definitive for individuals - and his surname is from a town in Catalonia; Jews undergoing conversion often took surnames from place names. Some affirm the Jewish origin of the Spaniards saying they have Phoenician ancestry in reality but the Carthagenean & Phoenician colonies were in great part Israelite.

Israelite extraction of the Cherokees and Reubenite Iberians

There is no doubt that Hebrew sailors did visit the New World. You must also appreciate that tribal identity is in part racial and in part based on the location of the Prince of each tribe. Those of Spanish and Portuguese descent are almost certainly of Reubenite origin, like the French. Fortunately we don't have to figure it all out because what matters is whether you have accepted Yah'shua and are obeying the New Covenant Torah or not. Yahweh will take care of the divisions into the 12 tribes at the right time.

The Yemenite and Iranian Jewish communities do not descend from Iberian exiles, and the Syrian and Iraqi Jewish communities descend only in part from Iberian refugees. Yet “all but the Yemenites adhere to Sephardic customs, and even the Yemenites follow some Sephardic sages”, according to an article in Haaretz. As a result, Jewish communities from Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and Syria are sometimes placed in third category as “Middle Eastern” or “Oriental” Jews. Nearly all present-day Jews are likely to have at least one (if not many more) ancestors expelled from Spain in 1492.

Whether true or false in actuality, is that anusim are an endogamous community. General opinion held that an Anusi was a Jew even if the Anusi in question is NOT seeking t'shuba.

Today the Iberian peninsula is home to only some 20,000 Jews, he said. There are approximately 500,000 Jews in Latin America. Ironically, the Inquisition aided transfering the Jews to the New World by sentencing them to serve in galleys. The survivors jumped off the ships to the land of the New World. Michoacan is a Mexican state that was colonized by Jews to escape the Inquisition.

Latin-Jewish (Bnei Anousim) in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Vatican, San Marino, Andorra, Monaco, France, Romania, Philippines, Timor Leste, Latin American States, the United States & Australia & Calabria, Sicily & San Nicandro in Italy.

Jewish Community of Gibraltar

The Rock of Gibraltar

Gibraltar (often referred to affectionately as the Rock or Gib) is an overseas territory of the UK, occupying a narrow peninsula protruding from Spain's southern Mediterranean coast. It was captured from Spain in 1704 and formally ceded to the Kingdom of Great Britain (later the United Kingdom), in perpetuity, under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

Gibraltar became a British Crown Colony in 1830. In 1981, its status was changed to that of a "British Dependent Territory", which term was replaced by "British Overseas Territory" in 2002. Gibraltar is part of the European Union and Gibraltarians have full British citizenship.

The Gibraltar Jewish Community

It is believed that there were Jews in Gibraltar prior to its capture in 1462 by Spanish (Castilian) forces, which ended 700 years of Moorish rule. In 1474, Gibraltar was sold to a group of Jewish conversos (Spanish and Portuguese Jews who, generally under force, had converted to Catholicism). However, two years later, the conversos (estimated to number some 4,350) were expelled as part of the Spanish Inquisition.

In 1705, shortly following the capture of Gibraltar by Anglo-Dutch forces, a number of Jewish merchants (primarily from London, Lisbon, Livorno and Tetuan, Morocco) settled in the town and established a community, only to be expelled in 1717, at Spain's insistence, pursuant to the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. Within a year or two, Jews again resettled in Gibraltar, principally from Tetuan, and by 1754, formed one third of the total population.

The present Jewish population, almost exclusively Sephardic, numbering some 600 persons, maintains a vibrant community, with four active synagogues, Jewish schools and kosher restaurants.

Was Columbus a Kabbalist Jew?

What about the Americas? It is now well known that Columbus was a Kabbalist Jew (Columbus’ real name was Cristobal Colon) and all of the men who went with him on his voyages to the Americas were Jewish. The Dominican Republic was set up as a Jewish colony who accepted Jews that were cast out of Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela on the 9th of Av, 1492.

Detail of the Cathedral of León, Spain with Solomon's Seal shape.

Swedish synagogue with the same flower symbol Seal of Solomon

Is it not amazing that it was this same date, the Seventh-day Sabbath, on the 9th of Av, 1492, that Columbus, after worshipping the Jewish Sabbath, “Sailed the Ocean Blue in 1492.” Yet we also know that the Conquistadors from Spain that went to the New Americas in Mexico and South American were also of Jewish descent and they loved gold. Today, many of their descendants are called Jacob, Israel, Aaron or their last names are Peres and numerous other names similar to Jewish people today.

We must deny victory to the Inquisition

Today we are witnessing what may be a great awakening. Trying to escape the Inquisition, the anousim went to places like Brazil, the Azores, Central America, and Mexico. The former Mexican province of Nuevo Leon -- which included the present states of California, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, was founded by anousim. Their leader died in an Inquisition jail for failing to denounce his relatives, one of whom was later burned at the stake for practicing Judaism. In these and other places, people are beginning to realize that there may be a deeper meaning to those family sayings and practices that have been carefully and secretly handed down from generation to generation.

The Jews of the Brazilian Amazon

What no one can say, not even Claudio Hamani, is how long Judaism will continue to be there in the heart of the Amazon, with assimilation, dissipation and above all, isolation, painting Jewish practice into an obscure corner of life.

When the first Jewish pioneers came from Morocco to Obidos, they spent days journeying by boat into the jungle interior from Belem, approximately 700 miles away, at the mouth of the Amazon River. In the early years, between 1810 and 1910, 1000 Jewish families explored the jungle hoping to strike it rich on hardwoods, animal hides, plants for medicines, colognes, spices and aphrodisiacs, and above all, "black gold" - rubber. The towns they settled have names which were as foreign to the arriving North African Jewish immigrants as everything else about Amazonia: places like Itacoatiara, Itaituba, Manacapuru and Obidos, where Mary Hamani's father opened a store in 1930.

The Hamani family poses in their store in Obidos, on the Amazon River waterfront, where they have served passing navigators and "caboclo" jungle natives for decades. Mary (at far left) and Claudio (at far right) are first cousins. Marrying cousins was common among the Jewish communities of the Brazilian Amazon – where there were few other potential Jewish mates available. The Hamanis’ daughters, Ester and Carolina, do not wish to marry their cousins – so they must leave the jungle interior or assimilate, marrying non-Jews. Claudio believes this factor will eventually doom the Jewish community in the Amazon interior. “It is a great shame that the Amazon Jewish communities are disappearing,” Claudio says, “but our daughters don’t want to marry their cousins, and there is virtually no one else.”

Today, Mary's nephew, 37 year-old Moises el-Mescany, is one of two rabbis serving nearly 600 remaining Jewish families in the Brazilian Amazon. The vast majority of these families have emerged from the interior to live in the region's two capital cities, Belem and Manaus, where their children have better opportunities to meet Jewish mates other than their cousins. Isaac Dahan, the Manaus community president, who still leads more than 125 active Jewish families, observes matter-of-factly, "It is a shame that the Jewish community in the interior is dying. But it finished so that we in the cities might survive."

Claudio Hamani is not so quick to eulogize his community. "Our house still has mezuzot, we still observe the High Holidays and perform Jewish burials. Traditions die hard!" he exclaims. "Judaism will be alive in Obidos as long as we are here."

The Sixteen Petal Flower / Sixteen Spoke Wheel symbol of Israel

domingo, 10 de abril de 2016

Iberian Israelites: Gadites, Judahites, Reubenites & Anusim (including Cajuns & Melungeons) 2

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