Posted on 01/31/2005 1:17:14 PM PST by Bella_Bru
WHITTIER -- Seventy-two-year-old Carlos Salas owns one newspaper in Los Angeles, another paper in Baja California and a jewelry store in Pasadena.
He has a home in Spyglass Estates near Whittier and another in Tijuana.
Also in Tijuana, he founded a Jewish university and is the teacher at a Jewish congregation.
Now, the spry, dark-haired native of Zacatecas, Mexico, is taking on a new challenge.
In an effort that experts say is either rare or unprecedented, Salas is trying to attract Southern California Latinos with Jewish roots back to the faith.
He has officially joined Beth Shalom of Whittier, a conservative congregation near California High School.
He will work with the congregation's 100 mostly white Jews to bring Latino Jews back into the fold.
With plans to conduct classes and services in Spanish, Salas will spend three days a week at Beth Shalom before making the three-hour commute to the Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California.
The way Salas figures it, as many as 30 million of Mexico's 105 million residents have Jewish roots.
And about the same proportion of Los Angeles County's 5 million Latinos are of Jewish heritage, he estimates.
"We call them conversos,' he said. "They are people who survived the Spanish Inquisition by converting to Catholicism. To avoid persecution, many of them moved to Mexico. While they practiced Catholicism outwardly, they still lit candles on Friday night and did many of the Jewish rituals.'
Mexico had its own Inquisition from 1570 until the early 1800s, which drove Jews further into secrecy, according to publications from UC Berkeley.
Michael D. McGaha, a literature professor at Pomona College who has studied Jewish ancestry extensively, said it is very probable that many Mexicans and Latinos have Jewish ancestry.
But, until the last 20 years, most of them did not really care.
"I mean, usually the main reason somebody converted to Judaism was because they wanted to marry a Jew,' McGaha said. "But the last 20 years, you can hardly find a Jewish congregation without a few Latino families.'
Many people in Spain also have recently converted, too, he said.
Most Latinos who claim Jewish heritage say their families for generations quietly practiced ancient Jewish rituals such as lighting candles on Friday nights while outwardly practicing Catholicism. It is also common for them to claim they found Hebrew family heirlooms, such as candle holders or prayer shawls.
Salas, who was raised as a Catholic, says his family found two candleholders and a Star of David figurine that belonged to his great grandmother.
"I believe she was Jewish,' he said.
Haim Dov Beliak, Beth Shalom's other rabbi, said he is not aware of other congregations that have hired a Spanish- speaking teacher to reach out to Latinos. But dozens of congregations across Southern California are open to Latinos who want to explore the faith, he said.
Others are very suspicious of the influx of Latinos.
"Some think they are somehow trying to move up the social ladder,' Beliak said.
McGaha said many Jewish congregations could use new members. About half of Jews marry gentiles, he said.
Beth Shalom has about 100 members, but it had many more in the past.
"Most people moved to Orange County, West Los Angeles,' said Alita Sevin, Beth Shalom's administrator.
Although many Latinos may want to join the Jewish faith, it often takes a long time to do so.
"One person studied 14 years,' Salas said.
About seven years of studying is more common, however.
Male converts must then be circumcised, or, if they already are, they have to go through a ritual. They also must take a ritual bath and undergo questioning from rabbis. After that, they are usually treated just like any other member of a congregation.
Salas said he will have no problem finding Latinos to join Beth Shalom. His 37-year-old congregation in Tijuana has 72 families, and almost all of them were conversos, he said.
"I have already submitted the names of families who will be joining Beth Shalom,' Salas said. Ben Baeder can be reached at (562) 698-0955, Ext. 3024, or by e-mail at ben.baeder@sgvn.com .
ping
I know of an Island of Cuba that had Jewish settlers, the population is dwindling now though as the kids go off to college and then settle somewhere else.
Salas, who was raised as a Catholic, says his family found two candleholders and a Star of David figurine that belonged to his great grandmother.
The Star of David is a relatively new symbol.
Yeah, that happens everywhere.
Oy! I'm sure the Catholic Church is welcoming the idea of millions of its adherents suddenly investigating whether or not they are Jewish...
This is not surprising as it sounds. Who would be the most eager to leave Spain in the 1500s ?
That was very interesting, Thankyou very much!
How new? Less than two thousand years? I'm asking because of an old brass piece I have from the middle-east that has stars of David on it. But it may predate the use of the symbol by Jews.
This should be informative,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/star.html
Very much so. Thanks.
I have no problem with people converting to a religion out of faith but why would anyone convert based on DNA?
My ancestors worshiped animals and eventually settled on the Nordic pantheon but that fact never made me want to join up with the Asatru. There's got to be more to this.
Some people's relatives converted away from Judaism in order to stay alive. Their descendants are now discovering the beautiful faith they were forced to abandon.
I once heard about a Turkish consul who was posted to Chicago. His wife didn't speak any English. It turned out she got along fine--she was of Sephardic Jewish background and could go to shops in the Hispanic neighborhoods and communicate just fine.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
You're right. It's a G-d thing.
Here's a quote from "Spain and the Jews:
Jews who did not wish to be expelled could convert to Christianity and many did. These are known as "Conversos," "Marranos", or "Anusim." There were about 300,000 (or more) of them. Some of these "converts" attempted to maintain Jewish customs and beliefs. This was an offence against Catholicism. The Inquisition had been introduced into Spain in 1481. Jewish converts to Christianity tended to intermarry with remnants of the old Visigothic nobility. They were hated by the common people and by elements within the Church. The monarchy used the Inquisition as an additional tool in its relentless struggle to curb and control the aristocracy. It was often required to demonstrate a "purity of blood" meaning proof that one had no Jewish ancestors. Hundreds of thousands of people were questioned by the Inquisition that tortured and burned alive many of them. A great number of those executed were of Jewish descent. The activities of the Inquisition had ethnic as well as religious implications. The Conversos were often pro-English. Amongst the conversos were Christopher Columbus who discovered America as well as the three men who financed the voyage of Columbus, a good portion of the crew on the ship of Columbus, and the first known white man in that era to set foot on American soil.
B. Netanyahu (father of Benjamin Netanyahu, former Prime Minister of Israel) is one of the foremost world authorities on the history and study of the Conversos. Many Conversos later settled in the New World and it has been claimed that a good portion of the people of southern USA and Mexico bearing Spanish names may have Converso blood. There is history of Jews in New Mexico as far back as the early 1500's (closer to 1540's). These were the Marranos, Jews who fled Spain, Portugal and Mexico, during the Inquisition that began in Spain, under Tomas de Torquemada. Conversos also went to France where they intermarried with the Hugeonots or to Britain and Holland where they often returned to the Jewish fold. By the Statute of Limpieza in 1547 purity of ancestry from the "taint" of converso blood was required as well as freedom from any accusations of heresy by the Inquisition was made a condition of all future ecclesiastical appointments. In 1556 Philip II gave his royal approval to the statute on the grounds that "all the heresies in Germany, France and Spain have been sown by descendants of Jews." As far as Germany and France were concerned, this remark was sheer fantasy, and it is especially ironic that, just at this time, Pope Paul IV, at war with Spain, described Philip II himself quite correctly as a Marrano, or descendant of Jews [E.Brittanica].
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