Crypto-Judaic Studies

El Paso and Ruidoso: Centers of Learning for Anousim

January 1, 2007

written by Leonard Martinez, 2007

As I was called to an aliyah at El Paso's B'nai Zion synagogue, Rabbi Stephen Leon stepped back from the bimah. His place was taken by a New Mexican grandmother, Lupe Ramos. She proceeded to chant the parashah with skill and confidence. Lupe Ramos is one of a group in America's Southwest known as Anousim, Hebrew for “the forced ones.” She is a descendant of Spanish and Portuguese Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th and 16th centuries. After more than five centuries, she and others like her have returned to Judaism.

In the 17th century, Anousim or Crypto-Jews hoped to secretly practice their religion away from Spain and Portugal. They sailed to Mexico as colonizers, eventually settling in the remote mountains of New Mexico, far from the grasp of Spanish authorities and the Inquisition. It was a practice followed in Spanish and Portuguese colonies world-wide, wherever Crypto-Jews sought to escape the prying eyes of Church and Crown. Over the centuries, knowledge of their heritage faded. But a few still clung to some forms of Judaism through symbols and rites, vaguely conscious they were Jews. In the last two decades, however, many Anousim have stepped forward, publicly acknowledging their roots but not necessarily converting. They sift through centuries of family histories, curious about Judaism and their relationship to the Jews around them.