Uncovering a Hidden Heritage

How could Madeleine Albright not know until she was 60 years old of her Jewish heritage? To ask about her life requires asking about the thousands of other Jews who have lived a similar experience.

Many, including Albright’s parents, denied their heritage during the Nazi era in Europe. Others made the same choice as far back as the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century or even earlier.

For protective covering in the face of near certain death under Adolf Hitler, untold thousands of European Jews converted to Christianity. Many never returned to Judaism, although some continued to practice in secret. Some--still--keep the faith under cover.

“The scope is quite vast,” says Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “The experience of Madeleine Albright is not unique.”

Secretary of State Albright discussed her personal story this week after Washington Post researchers uncovered information concerning her family’s experiences in her native Czechoslovakia. In 1939, when she was 2, her father, Josef Korbel, whisked the family out of the country. The family converted to Catholicism and Albright’s parents never told her about her Jewish roots. Relatives who stayed behind died in concentration camps.

More typically, Hier says, the Nazis rounded up any Jewish men and women they could find. Often, the children were left behind. Some parents placed their babies on the steps of a church or convent, hoping for asylum. “Those children were taken in and raised Christian,” Hier says. “Many did not know their real identity. Some adoptive parents later told them, others never did.”

Trudi Alexy, a psychotherapist who lives in Tarzana, lived an experience similar to Albright’s. She was born a Jew in Romania but at age 11 her family converted out of fear to Christianity. She was raised a Roman Catholic in Barcelona, Spain.

At 60, having married, moved to California, raised two children and started a late-blooming career, Alexy went back to Spain to search for a deeper understanding about her past. She wrote a book, “The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot,” (Simon & Shuster, 1993); the title refers to a practice by Jews who embraced Christianity in Spain and kept a statue of the Virgin Mary in the house but hid inside it a mezuzah, a Jewish ritual container.

Her book proved to be a beginning, not an end. Since it was published, Alexy has lectured regularly and continues to meet people with similar stories. Many still live as hidden Jews in the U.S., Spain, Portugal and South America, particularly Brazil.

From the Middle Ages, they have been called Marranos, “swine” in Spanish. Some Jews cannot understand why they continue to live a double life, but Alexy is sympathetic. “If your family went through what went on in Europe in the late 1930s and 1940s, you could understand. It was a question of survival.”

Of Marranos she has met, one case made a particularly strong impression. “I know a Catholic priest who keeps a Kosher Jewish house,” she says. His family embraced Christianity centuries ago but continued to practice Judaism in secret. Now about 50 years old, he still preserves Jewish traditions. “To him, being a Catholic priest is a job,” Alexy says. “He sees it as a mitzvah, a good deed.”

Alexy has seen a number of mature adults who only recently discovered their Jewish heritage. She can accept them, but many faithful Jews cannot.

“Some of my friends who lived through the Holocaust were shocked that Madeleine Albright did not come out and volunteer her story,” Alexy says. “How could she when she didn’t know? I feel a tremendous compassion for her.”

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Hier knows other families who made the same choice as Albright’s parents. “I don’t criticize her parents,” he says. “They thought it was a matter of life and death. And I cannot fault Madeleine Albright. She knew nothing about this, it was not her decision.”

He does draw a distinction. “Many other Jews stayed faithful and faced the dangers. And it was the Jews who came out of the Holocaust as proud Jews who made sure Hitler’s legacy did not continue.”

In many cases, Alexy says, hidden Jews are proud of their choice. In researching her book, she found a prayer that helped explain why. It was created by Jews who had been forced to convert. “In essence it says, ‘God forgive me for lying, I didn’t mean it.’ That prayer helps Marranos do what they do and still feel connected to God. They feel God has given them permission to take cover.”

Some of her own family members are not troubled by their past, but she has struggled with it. “I felt guilty,” Alexy says of her high school years. “I felt, if we were Jews we should be open about it. I felt we were cowards. The guilt had to do with knowing that thousands of people were being killed and we survived by fraud.”

By the time she was college age, she and her family were living in New York. “I wanted to be a Jew, but I felt I could not return to Judaism because of my apostasy,” she says. At 19, she left the Catholic church and became a Unitarian.

The long struggle back to Judaism included years of psychotherapy, a number of courses in Judaism and occasional, then more frequent, attendance at religious services. Finally, two years ago, she joined a synagogue.

Along the way Alexy discovered the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies. It was formed six years ago as a network for people reclaiming their hidden Jewish heritage and now has more than 200 members. The society seeks out Marranos, circulates a newsletter and holds an annual conference. Many people have found the society through the Internet, particularly the Sephardic Home Page.

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The society’s president, Arthur Benveniste, a retired social studies teacher who lives in Venice, Calif., says most members have roots in Spain or Portugal. Many of their families converted during the Inquisition. Instead of referring to such Jews as Marranos, he uses a more sympathetic term, “anusim,” Hebrew for, “the forced ones.”

Often, people contact him out of curiosity about family rituals no one ever explained to them. “They remember as children how their parents or grandparents did things they did not understand. They would light candles at home on Friday night or eat flat crackers the week before Passover.”

Some are devastated to learn the truth. “They cry when they find out about their past,” Benveniste says. In some communities, they know they will face anti-Semitism.

In the 1590s, when the Spanish Inquisition penetrated Mexico, conversos or hidden Jews escaped north. Many settled in New Mexico and are still there. Benveniste tells the story of a Latino artist he recently met who lived in a small town near Albuquerque. The man noticed that his family’s gravestones were decorated with a menorah, a traditional Jewish candelabrum. Eventually he discovered that his ancestors were Jews who embraced Christianity and even built a church on their sprawling ranch.

“When he told people that Jews built their church, someone fired a shotgun blast through his door,” Benveniste says. He has since moved to Albuquerque.

As more Jews born since the war reclaim their heritage, younger generations are introducing older members of the family to the customs. In Alexy’s own family, her 92-year-old mother recently attended her first Seder at the home of her great-grandchildren.

“After the Seder, my mother said to me, ‘I guess you can’t pass on something if you never had it,’ ” Alexy says.