Two Definitions of Bnei Anusim
The term ‘bnei anusim’ blurs two groups:
(a) Those families who lived as Christians at least from the 1490s but who later reverted to the ancestral religion of Judaism during the 17th and 18th Centuries, and
(b) 20th/21st Century claims that some or many Latin Americans or Latinos inherit a secret Jewish tradition.
Let’s discuss the second group. I worry that some people outside the Sephardic and genealogical communities are presenting fringe ideas as though they are established fact. A Latin American or Latino researching their family history may be inclined to accept this at face value. I encourage these researchers to, as with any other part of their research, not to take claims at face value.
There is now a small industry telling you that you have Sephardic ancestry. The gateway drug is often a surname. Contrary to myth, Western Sephardim use the same surnames as everyone else. 99 of the 100 most common Spanish surnames and all of the 100 most common surnames in Portugal are being claimed to be ‘Jewish’. The claim of Sephardic surnames is nonsense. It was invented, or at least popularised, by the former sephardim.com website in 1998. The website owner published this nonsense across the early Internet, and there it remains.
Researching Jewish ancestry in Latin American or Latino communities, including in the United States, is part of mainstream genealogy. Sephardic genealogy is no different from any other genealogy. The moment people start telling you about secret signs and clues, I suggest you smile and – retaining eye contact – gently back up towards the door until you can escape.
To make unevidenced claims of Sephardic ancestry or to claim to know the unrecorded beliefs of those long dead is not genealogy. It is fantasy. It causes confusion and gets in the way of proper genealogy. In the angry language of the early 21st Century, it is cultural appropriation. It is also disrespectful to the memory of the ancestors who may have lived and died as committed Roman Catholics. It may waste years of your time.
Genealogical Standards
Genealogical claims must be supported by evidence. We have the Genealogical Proof Standard, the IAJGS Code of Conduct/Ethics and the Sephardic Genealogical Society’s proposed Code of Conduct. This is the fault line between claims made by Sephardic genealogy and the crypto-Judaism movement.
Crypto Judaism in the Spanish Inquisition?
Anusim means ‘forced ones’ in Hebrew. Bnei Anusim means ‘descendants of forced ones’. The implication is that Jews were compelled to adopt Roman Catholicism. In many, probably most, cases it is true that Jews who remained in the Iberian peninsula were forced to convert. Of course, some Jews willingly embraced Christianity. Unfortunately few genealogies trace back to the 15th Century, so we rarely know the circumstances under which someone converted.
Some descendants of converts later left the Iberian peninsula, joined a Jewish community and reverted to the religion of their ancestors. This may have been for a number of reasons: belief, economic advantage, or a realisation that – as ‘New Christians’ in the Iberian peninsula – they would always be disadvantaged and face persecution. Often Inquisition records are unclear on whether their New Christian prisoners adhered to Judaism or even knew anything about it.
None of us know where our research will lead. Setting out to find a specific ancestry is a strange way to work, and this is one of the criticism of the crypto-Judaism movement. Perhaps at the greatest number there only ever were 50,000 Western Sephardim, and the large majority of those lived in Europe or around the Mediterranean. By 1580 – when Spain annexed Portugal – Inquisition records that Judaism had been almost totally extinguished in Spain. Claims that descendants of 1492 converts emigrating as secret Jews to the New World are highly suspect. New Christians were formally banned from emigration to the New World, but presumably some managed. We know that people who wanted to engage in Judaism migrated to communities in Italy, North Africa and northeast Europe. The idea that people wanting to engage with Judaism chose to travel in the opposite direction, away from normative Jewish communities, is eccentric. There may have been some, but perhaps these are the exceptions that prove the rule.
The Crypto Judaism Movement
Currently there is what I would describe as an identitarian movement, largely led by Ashkenazi Jews, encouraging Latin American and Latinos whose families have traditionally been Catholic to believe that these families were bnei anusim. To be clear, they are not simply saying that people might have Jewish ancestry (they might) but that there is a whole sub-Da Vinci Code history that somehow escaped the attention of Sephardic communities and the Inquisition, both obsessive record-keepers, and continues to escape the attention of historians and genealogists.
From the perspective of this Sephardic Jew, the crypto-Judaism movement seems to be presenting the Ashkenazi folk tradition about us. Lots of “fleeing the Inquisition” and secret signs. What is going on? I think these fantasies start from a belief that there is something special about us which, sadly, there isn’t.
Clearly some advocates of the crypto-Judaism movement do not feel the need for evidence. Maybe for some of there there is a psychological explanation. For some Ashkenazi groups, especially some of those in the United States who seem obsessed with skin pigmentation, patronising people who are not white may fill a need or tick a box. The irony is that the ancestors of the community that most attracts the attention of the crypto-Judaism movement, in New Mexico, were possibly the former Spanish/Mexican slave-owning colonial elite.
The claims of the crypto-Judaism movement appears to me to be inconsistent with what we know about Sephardic history, what is in the archives, and common sense. Some crypto-Jewish groups may encourage people to make major changes in their lives or to pay money.
Does it matter? I think so. As a genealogist I think we should be guided by the evidence. As a Sephardic Jew I feel that my heritage and history is being manipulated and misrepresented by others more powerful than ourselves. We are already an endangered tradition within Judaism. If other Jews wish to represent our history and religious tradition, I think they should do it truthfully. As a human, I worry that people from Latin American and Latino communities who are honestly seeking answers to questions are at risk of psychological manipulation by those who may imply they are speaking on our behalf.
How to define people in Sephardic Genealogy?
As a genealogist I prefer terms other that Anusim and Bnei Anusim. For those nominal and/or practicing Catholics of Jewish ancestry in Spain, Portugal and their empires, I prefer the official term of New Christian. The Spanish word, converso, could also be used. If we know individuals were forcibly converted we could called them Anusim. The terms Bnei Anusim, the descendants of Anusim, is concocted and ridiculous.
‘Sephardic’ is a diaspora identity referencing the three Jewish communities of Iberian descent, the Megorashim (Morocco/Algeria), Eastern/Ottoman Sephardim (Turkey/Greece/etc) and Western/Portuguese Sephardim (Amsterdam/London/etc). I don’t think any Sephardic Jew cares about the term ‘Marrano’ (swine) which was used by academics in the 1950s but has since fallen out of favour. Some members of the crypto-Judaism movement go nuts over the word.
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