Essay/Term paper: Marranos: a lost people

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Social Issues

Marranos: A Lost People


Some people might call them New Jews, some New Christians, and others
call them Marranos. The majority of the world population has no idea who the
Marranos are. To begin to explain these secret people, one must first receive a
lesson in World History. We will begin in the 1492.
In school, we are brainwashed to connect the year 1492 with the year
that Columbus discovered the New World. Yet, if we look at the year 1492, there
are other occurrences which are noteworthy. For instance, in the year 1492,
Spain, the country which sent Columbus to America, decided to officially expel
the Jews from Spain. The Jews were forced to either leave Spain, convert to
Catholicism, or be put to death. This was not a surprise to the Jews of Spain.
Since 1931, there had been anti-Jewish riots throughout Spain. For years, the
Jews had been converting to Christianity to escape religious persecution. These
Jews were called conversos. The twist to this tale is that these conversos
actually were only putting on a front. They still considered themselves Jews.
They practiced in secret.1 The Spanish made every attempt to search out and
punish these conversos. Some Jews chose not to convert and they moved to
Portugal. . Unfortunately, Portugal, in 1497, expelled the Jews from its borders
as well. Anti-semitism was growing in Western Europe and the Jews needed to
escape. The prime choice seemed to be so obvious. The Jews went to the New World.

The immigration of the Marranos to the new world might have begun with
none other than Christopher Columbus. This, of course, is not definite, but
there has been research which has shown that Columbus was indeed a Marrano.
Apparently his parents were Marranos.2 Even though there are some disagreements
about this fact, there is strong evidence to support the claim that Columbus was
Jewish.
As the Marranos arrived in the New World, they were not able to reveal
their secret identities and practice as Jews. This was because the Spanish
government established inquisition offices in the New World. These office's sole
responsibility was to hunt down Marranos and bring them to justice. The
inquisitors had to visit every town once a year and gather evidence of "non-
believers" of the church. They would reward anyone who came forth with
information. The information could be days old or forty years old, it made no
difference to the Inquisitors. The punishments for being caught were varied,
never merciful. The mildest form of punishment was Scourging. This was when the
victim was forced to strip to the waist in public and receive hundreds of lashes.
The victims could also just be sent to the galleys. Women often had to go work
in hospitals or correction facilities without pay. The worst and most common
punishment was being burned at the stake. This was the punishment which the
Crown decreed appl ied to all who swayed from the church.3 For example, in 1649,
109 Marranos were rounded up in Mexico's capital and killed.4 The Marranos were
forced to live in hiding and in fear. One can compare this to the Jews in hiding
during the Holocaust. They had to always be careful of what they said and what
they did.
The fact that the Marranos kept their religion hidden meant that their
entire process of religious practice had to be transformed. This encompassed
prayers, holidays, scriptures and customs. The Marranos could not keep Jewish
books or religious materials and therefore everything had to be memorized and
passed down orally. This, of course, lead to a decline in religious knowledge
through each generation. Another obstacle was that the Marranos had to profess
their loyalty to the Catholic church. They often became involved in the church,
as to help conceal their true identities. There is a story of a Rabbi who
converted to Catholicism and he eventually became a bishop in the church. This
is just an example of the extremes that the conversos would go to in order to
conceal their religion.
Holidays took new forms during the Spanish Inquisition. The holiest
holiday of the Jews is Yom Kippur. During this holiday, Jews beg G-d for
forgiveness and they fast for 24 hours. Instead of praying all day, the Marranos
would only pray for a few hours. They did fast, but if they went outside they
would place a toothpick in their mouths in order to fool the Christians. The
Jewish holiday of Passover was also observed in an abnormal way. Normally the
holiday consists of two seders (meals) during which the story of the Jews
escaping slavery and leaving Egypt is told. The Marranos could strongly relate
to this story as they felt that they were being enslaved by the Inquisitors. The
Seders are followed by a week of observance during which no leavened bread is
consumed. The Marrano Passover began without the reading of the Passover story.
During the week of observance, many Marranos decided to fast because they had
become accustomed to fasting during Jewish holidays. As for the unleavened bread,
Jewis h doctors would prescribe it to Christians with stomach aches. Therefore,
during Passover, the Jews would contend that they had stomach aches and had to
eat the matzah (unleavened bread).5
The Marranos kept their beliefs alive with a specific saying, which
said,"...salvation was possible through the Law of Moses, and not through the
Laws of Christ." Marrano children were raised as devout Catholics. The Jewish
tradition of a Bar Mitzvah was replaced to keep their identities hidden. At the
age of thirteen, the child was taken aside and told the truth about his religion
and the Laws of Moses. The interesting aspect of Marrano life was the role of
the women. The women became the "Spiritual Leaders." Throughout history, it has
been shown that the women are the ones who refuse to assimilate. The Marrano
women were the, "vast majority of the few who maintained their Judaism." The
women were also known to have a familiarity with the Jewish Prayers. But as for
the Hebrew language, this became practically extinct.6
Marranos could not take the chance of being overheard speaking Hebrew.
They also refused to write in the language. Because of this fear, Hebrew
disappeared from the later generations of Marranos. The removal of Hebrew lead
to the removal of all Jewish texts. The only remaining text which the Marranos
could use was the Bible. This was learned literally. As for prayers, the
majority of them were original. Unfortunately the prayers had been lost in the
silence and the Marranos were forced to create their own prayers.
Marriage was another difficult aspect of the Marrano transformation. The
primary concern was that the spouse had to be Jewish.. Intermarriage was never
an option. Yet, even more, the spouse had to be a "learned" Jew who was neither
ignorant of the religion nor non-practicing. The couples could not be married by
a rabbi, so they were married in the church and then blessed by a rabbi at a
later date. The marriage process was indispensable to the Jews, as it was their
only guarantee of the continuation of their religion.7
Food was another issue with the Marranos. The Marranos tried their
hardest to keep the laws of Kosher. They refused to eat pork and they would even
tell their children that," those who ate pork would be turned into pigs." They
attempted to not cook food between Friday night and Saturday night, because this
would be breaking the Sabbath. The Marranos also tried to keep the Sabbath.
They would light a candle for the Sabbath and not extinguish it. In regards to
the Jewish tradition of charity, the Marranos would give charity, paying special
attention to the poor marranos.8
Marrano communities have been discovered worldwide. A group called the
Karaites has shown up all over Europe and now even in Israel. This tribe is a
good example of how the Jewish traditions changed as generations passed on their
heritage. For instance, at the entrance to the synagogues of the Karaites, there
are shoe horns so that people can remove their shoes before prayer. This is a
practice of Moslems, but not Jews. The Karaites also do not separate milk from
meat. Instead they interpret the saying "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in it's
mother's milk," to mean that they literally do not cook a kid in it's mother's
milk. These people also do not blow the shofar (ram's horn) on the Jewish new
year of Rosh Hashanah. Their calendar is different from the Jewish calendar.
Another interesting difference is that the Orthodox Rabbis determine the
religion of a child by his/her mother's religion. Yet the Karaites determine the
religion by the father's religion. One can see from the Karaites, how the
religion changes when the Marranos were forced into hiding.9
Now with an understanding of the Marrano's situation, we can begin to
discuss their immigration to America. Before this immigration is detailed, there
must first be an understanding that the secrecy of the Marranos does lead to
some varying interpretations of their immigration. The Marranos , by the 1600's,
had been keeping their religious beliefs secret for over 100 years. At this
point, many of their customs had become transformed, and were no longer as
fortified as before. Many kept only a few customs, and those customs were a
combination of Jewish and Catholic customs. Therefore, tracing the immigration
of the Marranos has proven to be a difficult task. The only way of assurance
that one was a Marrano was a detailed history of one's family. This was even
more difficult to determine since later generations rarely spoke of their
Marrano families or they just plain forgot about their past. We must therefore
rely on scattered pieces of historical information and assumptions to trace the
progression of immigration of Marranos into America.
It is certain that the first Marranos to enter America, arrived in New
Mexico and Texas. This is of course because these were the territories that the
Spanish began to colonize. The Marranos saw New Mexico as a type of safe haven,
away from the inquisitors of Mexico.10 Many believe that the Marrano's ability
to hide their identity definitely out-weighed the power of the inquisitors to
investigate each person entering the new territory.
There are two main types of evidence of Marrano existence in New Mexico.
These are genealogical and speculative. The genealogical evidence stems from
present day Jews who have traced back their ancestry to Mexicans in the 1600's.
But this type of evidence is wary because most of the Marrano beliefs has been
lost through the generations.
The speculative evidence is what has convinced researchers that Marranos
did indeed settle in America and still exist today. This speculative evidence
stems from random occurrences of practices foreign to a specific religion. This
evidence began to arise during the late 1800's. It was during this time that
missionaries in New Mexico were speaking to some young Hispanics. The
missionaries noticed that the only stories the youths knew from the bible were
stories of the Old Testament. A more recent occurrence was in New Mexico in 1979.
A woman was at a Doctor's appointment and the doctor noticed that she wore a
Jewish Star of David around her neck. When he asked her about it, she responded
that her mother had given it to her on her deathbed, asking her to "return to
the old religion." There is recorded history that a family in New Mexico today
still believes in their Jewish religion and they still light candles for Moses
as a saint. This is an excellent example of how Jewish beliefs were combined
with Christian beliefs. Moses is from the Jewish bible, yet the act of lighting
candles for a saint bares evidence of Christian customs. Even present day
Catholics in New Mexico have memories of playing with "dreidels" when they were
young. This reveals a memory of celebrating the Jewish holiday of Chanukah.11
Temple Albert in Albuquerque claims to have approximately 15 Marrano
members. The only problem is that these members have no traceable past. Along
the Rio Grande in Texas other evidence of Marrano existence has surfaced. Some
families eat unleavened bread during Lent, which is close the time of Passover.
A Russian Orthodox Priest, Rev. Symeon Carmona, knew about his Jewish heritage
since he was twelve years old. He remembers in detail his family's secret
observance of Jewish law. His mother's way of preparing food and the act of
lighting candles on the Sabbath are just a few of his vivid memories of his
Marrano past. He estimates that there are at least 1500 families in New Mexico
who are still keeping their Jewish past hidden.12
The story of the Marranos is a tale of tragedy and a tale of triumph.
One could never imagine having their identity stripped from them at the threat
of death. One can never imagine having to be someone who you really were not,
only to be hiding the truth. The Marranos had to live with the daily threat of
annihilation. They were forced to stray away from their G-d, who was the only
one left to turn to. The Jews ran from anti-Semitism, from Europe to Mexico and
then to America. By the grace of G-d, they were able to come out alive and still
holding on to their precious religion. The Marranos are the example of how
religion intermingles into American culture. They reveal the dangers of
assimilation and triumph to hold on to your past. The Marranos never forgot.
They made every attempt to be the Jews that generations before had been . And as
long as there is one child in America who knows of their Marrano past and is
proud to be Jewish, the Marranos did indeed win their battle.

References

1 Roth, Cecil. A History of the Marranos. New York: Schocken Books, 1974. pp.
30-45

2 ibid., pp. 271

3 Liebman, Seymour B. The Jews in New Spain. Miami: University of Miami Press,
1970. pp. 106-112

4 Roth, Cecil. A History of the Marranos. New York: Schocken Books, 1974. pp.
282

5 Liebman, Seymour B. The Jews in New Spain. Miami: University of Miami Press,
1970. pp. 64-68

6 Roth, Cecil. A History of the Marranos. New York: Schocken Books, 1974. pp.
170-180

7 Liebman, Seymour B. The Jews in New Spain. Miami: University of Miami Press,
1970. pp. 75-76

8 ibid., pp. 73-75

9 Ross, Dan. Acts of Faith. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. pp. 120-140

10 Tobias, Henry J. A History of the Jews in New Mexico. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1990. pp. 10

11 ibid., pp. 18-19

12 ibid., pp. 20