Beth HaDerech; Messianic Jewish Congregation, Toronto, Canada

Crypto / Sephardic Jews /Anusim

Some Sephardic Jews are part of a distinct cultural heritage different from the majority Ashkenazi population in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere. Sephardic Jews traditionally spoke Ladino, a Judeo-Spanish dialect not Yiddish. “Sepharad” is the Hebrew word for Spain, but Sephardic refers to the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who ended up all over the world. In 1492, when the Jews were expelled from Spain (and then, in 1496, from Portugal), Sephardic history was split into two separate narratives: the first, the well known story of those Sephardic Jews who went into exile and scattered across the world; and the other, the hidden history of those who remained under Spanish and Portuguese rule, ostensibly converting to Catholicism while secretly retaining Jewish identities and practices. The descendants of the latter group: the b’nei anusim (“children of those who were forced,” also known as “conversos,” “crypto-Jews,” and “marranos”), [...]