Hidden Heritage
The Jerusalem Post
Barcelona-born Eduard Perez was researching his family’s roots and discovered that his ancestors were “anusim” (Spanish Jews forced to convert to Christianity some 500 years ago during the Inquisition.) Lorenzo Ujmin is a descendent of a group of Moroccan Jews who ventured into the Amazon more than 100 years ago in hope of making a fortune in rubber and were left stranded there. Orlando Maman from Peru has dreamed for more than 60 years of meeting his Jewish step-siblings in Eretz Israel.
Juan Carlos’s mother secretly whispered to him when he was a young boy that she was Jewish. And as a child in Venezuela, Ariel Vanesh was intrigued by books written in a strange alphabet that he found in his grandfather’s library.
Perez, Ujmin, Maman, Carlos, and Vanesh are five of the more than 85 students currently enrolled at Shavei Israel’s Machon Miriam Institute for Jewish Studies, a Jerusalem-based conversion program for Spanish speakers, certified by the Rabbinical Courts Administration.
“Here is an unending story of return,” states Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel.
According to Freund, most of the students at Machon Miriam have historical connections to the Jewish people. “In recent years, we are seeing a real awakening among descendents of Jews who were lost to assimilation or conversion. I believe that we have an historical, moral and religious responsibility to help bring them home.”
Established three years ago in memory of Dr. Miriam Freund-Rosenthal, Machon Miriam provides Spanish speakers with a place in Israel where they can find their way back to Judaism. Most of the students arrived in Israel with little or no money and live in the Beit Canada Absorption Center in East Talpiot. Entire families have come together; one family includes 13 children.
Says Freund, “At a time when Jewish communities in North America and Europe are hemorrhaging due to assimilation and intermarriage, it is very moving to see people who want to be Jewish so badly that they are willing to overcome obstacles in order to do so.”
Their stories are different, yet each of the new immigrants speaks of an uncanny, inner awareness of their Judaism.
Nine years ago, when Eduard Perez was 20, his research into the roots of his family names revealed that Perez is a name associated with anusim, as is Gomez, his mother’s maiden name.
Perez began to study the history of the Jews in Spain and the Inquisition. “I didn’t feel any special connection to Judaism. “As I learned more, I began to feel a connection to Judaism. I felt this was my true identity.”
Perez has been in Israel since 2004. He is working on a doctorate at the Hebrew University on medieval Hebrew manuscripts connected with the Jews of Majorca and Malaga.
Itzjak Jayute, 25, grew up in Cartegena, Columbia. His father was Jewish but his mother was not. “We didn’t live as Jews,” he recalls. “Nevertheless, all my life I felt I was Jewish.”
Jayute began to take private lessons in Hebrew, Bible and Jewish history. He decided he wanted to become an observant Jew. Unable to convert in Cartegena, he came to Israel. He is now studying for a master’s degree at the Hebrew University and thinks his three sisters may follow in his footsteps.
In the 1880s, a group of Moroccan Jews was lured into the Peruvian Amazon with tales of fabulous wealth that could be made from rubber. The venture fell through and instead of returning to Morocco as wealthy men, the group remained stranded in the jungle. The Jews married local Indian women and assimilated.
Lorenzo Ujmin from Iquitos, Peru is a descendent of these Moroccan Jews. He is one of a number of descendents who have found their way back to Judaism. Until recently, there was even a special class in Judaism in Iquitos, and in recent weeks alone, six of Ujmin’s “landsmen” (fellows from Iquitos) have completed conversion in Israel.
Not eligible under the Law of Return to make aliyah, Ujmin underwent a non-Orthodox conversion in Peru and came to Israel a year ago with his wife and four children. Now in Israel, he and his wife have become observant, are studying in an Orthodox conversion course, and have enrolled their children in religious schools in Jerusalem.
When Juan Carlos, 36, was a boy in Madrid, his mother confided her secret to him: she told him she was Jewish. Then, when he was nine, she sent him to study Hebrew for a few years. But it was only after his mother died in 1997, that he decided to make every effort to return to his mother’s religion. Since he had no documentation attesting to his mother’s Jewishness, he decided to formally convert.
Ariel Vanesh, 29, was born into a Catholic family in Venezuela, but remembers that he had always been intrigued by the strange books in his grandfather’s library. Later, he learned the books were written in Hebrew.
“My mother raised us with a lot of Jewish customs,” he recalls. “At night, when she tucked us in, she would say ‘Shema Israel’ (traditional prayer.) She also told us stories from the Tanach, not the New Testament.”
At age 14, Vanesh started to study Judaism. “For many years, I was searching for a framework to convert. I finally converted three years ago.”
Juan Sierra’s father was Jewish. The family lived on an isolated farm in Venezuela near the Columbian border. Although married to a non-Jewish woman, Sierra’s father made kippot for every son he had and taught the children the laws of Jewish burial so he could be buried halachically. His father’s wish was that his children would make aliyah and return to their Jewish roots.
“I am fulfilling my father’s legacy,” says the 60-year-old Sierra, father of 15 children, who is converting along with his wife and 13 of his children. “I feel I have the soul of a Jew.”
While Shavei Israel does receive some support from the Ministries of Education and Absorption, the bulk of its funds are derived from private donations from the United States, Europe and Israel. To help the men as they embark on their lives as Jews, Emunah recently donated 15 sets of tefillin, courtesy of Rabbi Dale Polakof and the Great Neck Congregation in Great Neck, NY.