Accidental Blogger

Readers may remember this book review about the Crypto Jews of Spain and Portugal. Their stories were a complicated maze of religious faith, persecution and conversion under duress. Above all, their history was also about tenaciously and secretly holding on to a personal identity despite considerable external threats. Christian persecution of Jews is now mostly a matter of the past and the Crypto Jews, several generations removed from their ancestors, have mostly assimilated into the larger Christian population. Puzzled by some odd family traditions, some Hispanic Catholics in the southwestern states of the US (mostly immigrants from Mexico) are eagerly investigating possible Judaic roots, including genetic testing, to establish Sephardic Jewish descent. Their clues come from certain seemingly non-Christian practices amidst their Christian lives which they believe hark back to a Jewish past. One such story of a Catholic woman from Houston who believes she has found her way back to the faith of her Sephardic ancestors.

At an East Galveston beach, Mari Barkhausen is waist-deep in the cool, brown water. After repeating Hebrew blessings, she is immersed once, twice. When she emerges from the water a third time, she is a Jew.

She hugs her rabbi, looking to the shoreline at her husband and two sons who are waiting for their mikveh, the ritual immersion for Jewish converts.

“Mazel tov, everyone,” declares Rabbi Stuart Federow. “This day begins the rest of your education. Jewish learning never stops.”

Barkhausen’s journey began decades ago as she watched her maternal grandmother’s peculiar ways. Her Mexican-American abuela would light candles on Fridays and draw the curtains before sundown, cover mirrors at home when a relative died and examine eggs for blood spots.

No one questioned her ways, and no explanation was ever offered to little Mari or her siblings.

Years later, Barkhausen would realize those customs were not one woman’s idiosyncrasies. They were Jewish customs.

Lighting of candles marked the beginning of the Sabbath. Many cover mirrors when someone dies to avoid concentrating on their grief-stricken appearances. And the Old Testament teaches that life is in the blood.

Grandma did all these things, Barkhausen remembered. But Grandma wasn’t Jewish. She was Catholic.

Crypto Jews: a history

Like an increasing number of Latinos, Barkhausen believes her ancestors were Crypto Jews — people who outwardly professed another religion but kept Jewish tradition in secrecy.

Scholars have paid attention to the phenomenon for decades, but the public interest has skyrocketed more recently.

Houston’s Family Tree DNA now answers about 20 queries weekly from Hispanics about Jewish ancestry, founder Bennett Greenspan said. And Jewishgen.com, the leading Web site for Jewish genealogy, has seen the number of people searching online databases surge from 1 million to 9 million over the past 10 years.

Crypto-Judaism has a 500-year history. In 1492, Jews in Spain were ordered to convert to Catholicism. Some immigrated to Europe and the Arab world. They were called Sephardic Jews; Sefarad is the Hebrew word for Spain.

Others stayed in Spain — Jews in Portugal were affected as well — and converted. But some used Catholicism as a cover and kept Jewish tradition, said Stanley Hordes, author of To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto Jews of New Mexico. As the Spanish Inquisition became determined to root out Judaism, Crypto Jews were tortured or burned at the stake.

Other Jews fled to Mexico. The Garcias (Barkhausen’s maiden name) emigrated to Mexico from Spain in the early 1500s, for instance. Mexico later established its own tribunal to persecute Jews.

According to Hordes, Crypto Jews and their descendants also settled throughout the American Southwest, including Texas, New Mexico and southern Arizona. No one is sure how many descendants exist today.

The secret practices and daily traditions continued in homes for generations until many families no longer knew their origin. Eventually, many families’ religious history was lost.

“Even though Grandma didn’t know it was kosher, that was what she was doing,” Barkhausen said….

A deeper conflict

The Barkhausens’ relatives struggled with the family’s new ways.

News that they would no longer celebrate Christmas and Easter caused hard feelings. Mason got into an argument with an aunt about not eating shellfish. Suggestions that Grandma’s curious ways might be long-forgotten Jewish practices were met with cynicism.

“My family thought I was going nuts,” Barkhausen said.

Meanwhile, Barkhausen e-mailed Federow. She planned to use her growing knowledge about Jewish culture to be a more effective Christian witness. The two went back and forth for six years.

And then, for about six months, Barkhausen began wrestling with God about Jesus and salvation.

David, who was raised Catholic, was content with Jews for Jesus. Mainstream Judaism was out of the question, he said.

Barkhausen kept her intensifying struggle to herself. She busied herself with research about Crypto Jews. The pieces came together when she saw her maiden name, Garcia, on a Web site of Sephardic names.

She started to confide in Mason. One day, the two of them told each other they no longer believed Jesus was the son of God.

It was time to convert to mainstream Judaism, Barkhausen and her son agreed. The next step was to tell Dad.

“I thought she and my son were going through a phase — maybe they’re both crazy,” recalled David Barkhausen, 43.

He didn’t attend the conversion classes at Shaar Hashalom for the first three weeks. His wife went with Mason and her younger son, Alex.

But after a month, David Barkhausen realized his family was serious and began attending, too.

Truth or myth?''

Though there is growing interest among Hispanics in Jewish ancestry, the number of conversions remains small.

About 70 percent of Hispanics are Catholic. By changing religions, they risk alienation from their families and disruption of their cultural identity.

The subject has also attracted criticism.

Folklorist Judith Neulander takes issue with the idea of a modern-day Crypto-Jewish presence. (She doesn’t doubt that Crypto-Jews existed in the 15th and 16th centuries).

In a series of journal articles, she has contended that rituals such as covering mirrors were common throughout Europe and were culled from Protestant denominations that observed biblical customs.

Neulander is also skeptical of people’s motivations for claiming Jewish ancestry. She argues it is a way to emphasize Caucasian ancestry and downplay black or Indian heritage.

Hordes disagrees.

“Until very recently, Jews were regarded in many Christian quarters as the killers of Christ,” he said. “That is hardly the vehicle for upward mobility.”

Motivation aside, the story is a testament to the power of culture, notes anthropologist Seth Cunin, author of the forthcoming book Juggling Identities: Identity and Authenticity Among the Crypto-Jews.

Much of culture is passed down through oral tradition and written texts, Cunin said. Many of the texts were lost after Jews were forcibly converted, but Jewish identity persisted because of its emphasis on action, ritual and memory.

“The fact that it is preserved suggests that identity and culture do have a perseverance that is much stronger than we might expect,” he said. “It is strong against all odds.”

A return

The day of their conversion ceremony, the Barkhausens arrived a half-hour early. They had all gotten fresh haircuts. Per the rabbi’s instructions, Barkhausen’s olive skin was makeup-free, her fingernails without polish. She wore no rings.

Mason squinted slightly; he had taken off his glasses. And Alex wore a baseball cap. David’s regular jokes were replaced by somberness.

On the 35-minute drive to Galveston island, she and her husband talked about their families. Her sisters know. Her parents don’t. As they neared the beach, Barkhausen reflected on the journey that took her from singing Jesus Loves Me to stumbling through Hebrew prayers.

The Baptist Church. Jews for Jesus. All were pathways leading to this day, a 360-degree return to a forgotten past.

“We are redeeming the choices of our ancestors,” Mason Barkhausen said. “They couldn’t be Jewish. Now, we can.”