Southwest Latinos Discovering Long-Forgotten Jewish Roots

Until three years ago, Paul Marez considered himself a Catholic.

While growing up in a small town two hours from here, his family regularly attended church and observed all the usual rituals. But one day during a car ride, an older cousin, a priest from Washington, blurted out a few words that changed Marez’s life.

“He turned to me and said, ‘You know, we’re really Jews,’ ” recalled the elementary school teacher, who still lives in his hometown of Santa Rosa, a community of about 3,000 people.

Marez, now 26, began a head-spinning search for his identity and was astonished by what he learned. Despite their Catholic upbringing, his family members practiced several customs they did not realize were Jewish: No one ate pork; mirrors were covered during mourning; a top, similar to a dreidel, was popular every Christmas; and his grandmother would light a candle on Friday nights.

Today, Marez considers himself Jewish. And like many Catholic and Protestant Latinos throughout the Southwest, especially in New Mexico, a growing number are combing through family records and questioning elderly relatives for clues to their heritage. They are spurred on by academic research into the subject that began in the past decade in New Mexico and reached a level of local awareness only recently.

What they often find is a tortured history. They trace their roots back 500 years to the Spanish Inquisition, when Jews were expelled from Spain after a century of persecution and forced conversion to Catholicism. Some of the Jews who remained continued to practice Judaism secretly. The perils were great: Jews faced prison, exile or being burned at the stake.

Some of these people settled in New Spain, now Mexico. But the Inquisition followed, forcing many to seek safety in the northernmost reaches of Spanish territory. That movement may have expanded outward to the Caribbean and, eventually, as far north as the New York area, historians say.

The first group leaving Mexico arrived in the area that became New Mexico in 1598. Others followed over several decades. Scholars researching church records and ship manifests say that family names such as Gomez, Duran, Rael, Medina, Rivera, Salas, Coca, Flores and Leyba may indicate Jewish ancestors who were a part of this migration.

But a century of fear, along with the arrival of Catholic settlers, forced these secret Jews, or crypto-Jews, to remain in hiding. Still, some Jewish rituals survived, despite intermarriage with Indians and Latino Catholics. But rituals took unusual forms that were left unexplained or never discussed outside the home.

Like Marez, many Latinos recall mysterious family behavior: a grandfather prayed in a shawl; relatives preferred the Old Testament; cousins married to maintain heritage; a candelabrum was used each winter; tombstones had unusual markings, but no cross; everyone rested on Saturday; and old relatives spoke Ladino, a mix of Hebrew and Spanish.

“When I was 10 years old, I saw my grandmother lighting candles on Friday night. When I asked why, she got huffy and said it was the death of Christ,” said Felipe Ortega, 41, an Apache of Jewish ancestry who does not practice Judaism. “At Easter time, she insisted on baking this heavy bread called pan de semita. “

Stanley Hordes, a former state historian and a visiting scholar at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque who spearheaded research into this topic, believes that about 2,500 crypto-Jews live in the region.

Some observers caution against assuming assume that thousands of other local residents have Jewish roots. “There’s a great deal we don’t know which we need to investigate,” said Dr. Richard Santos, who has reclaimed his heritage but refuses to convert to Judaism. “We have been lost for 400 years. Our religion was already watered down by the time we came to New Spain.”

Nonetheless, the newfound openness is causing upheaval. Ramon Salas, a 28-year-old engineer from Albuquerque who has traced his genealogy to the 1640s, did not invite his parents to his bar mitzvah in April, fearing they would be uncomfortable. His younger sister attended but left in tears. Some relatives still do not know of his decision.

Marina Vaca, 54, now observes Jewish holidays but still worships Christ. “I live in a state of flux, because I’m a messianic Jew,” she said. “Let’s face it, we’ve been in the Catholic Church for hundreds of years--it’s been a part of us for too long. I don’t know where any of this is headed.”