Avner Diniz – A hidden tradition ignites a passion for Judaism and Israel
Avner Diniz at the Western Wall
Avner Diniz is sitting in his living room in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, reflecting on the unusual path that took him from just a few faint hints of a Jewish past growing up in a Portuguese family in Mozambique, to a new life as a committed Jew studying Hebrew and Judaism in Israel.
His journey began when he was a child playing marbles with the local kids. ”I remember I won a match and the losing boy was furious. He called me a “Marrano” (a derogatory term for crypto-Jews in Portuguese), Diniz recalls. “I didn’t know what that was. But my great-grandmother saw everything from the window. She told me, ‘the next time someone calls you that word, punch him in the nose. It is a very grave insult for our people.’”
“Our people?” the six-year-old Diniz wondered, having no idea what his great-grandmother was talking about. But he later realized that his family kept certain traditions that were different from those of other families. They abstained from eating pork or shellfish, kept milk and meat separate, and lit candles at home on Friday nights. Most intriguing to Diniz was the fact that once a year in the fall, the family would fast for 24 hours on what they called “the Great Day” while whispering strange prayers “we didn’t understand.”
Diniz, a curious child, began to question these practices until, one day, his great-grandmother and mother came to him and told him “you are a Jew, that’s all! But they never explained to me what a Jew is, only that these were family traditions and they had to be kept; that’s what we had to do.”
Diniz continues: “There was a certain fear. Every time the subject was mentioned, people used to look around before talking, or they closed the windows before saying something.”
Over the years, further clues trickled out. The family didn’t cook or drive on Saturdays. Some members of his extended family were circumcised. His grandmother prepared several special dishes during the Passover season including “holy bread” (matzah) and a pudding, which Diniz says resembles the charoset that is placed on the Passover Seder plate.
One time, Diniz’s mother gave him a book in French and Hebrew. “I already knew French at that time,” Diniz says. “But then my great-grandmother entered my room, grabbed the book and told me I must dig a hole in the soil and hide the book. All these books were burned, she cried,” perhaps recalling long-buried memories of the Spanish Inquisition. “She began to tremble and embraced me. ‘Do you want to be burned alive too?’ she said,” Diniz recalls.
Five years ago, then living in Portugal, he met a member of the Bnei Anousim (people whose Jewish ancestors were compelled to convert to Catholicism more than five centuries ago) almost by chance. “I was sitting in a coffee shop and there was a man reading a book with Hebrew letters,” Diniz says. “I approached him and asked him ‘why did you pick that book?’” The two spoke and then the man, who turned out to be a Jew from Brazil, introduced Diniz to Rabbi Boaz Pash, who was serving as Shavei Israel’s emissary to Portugal at the time (Rabbi Pash is now Shavei’s representative in Poland).
Diniz began attending services at the synagogue in Lisbon and became increasingly involved in Jewish activities. He helped organize one of Shavei Israel’s seminars for Bnei Anousim in Portugal. He also became close to a teacher at the Israeli Embassy and started studying Hebrew with her. “She was surprised how fast I could learn,” he recalls with a smile. “I even had the right accent.”
Diniz ultimately decided to formally return to Judaism and, with Shavei Israel’s help, came to Israel to study at both the Machon Meir yeshiva in Jerusalem for two years, and at Shavei’s Machon Miriam Spanish- and Portuguese-language conversion and return institute. Because Diniz was such an advanced student, he was sent to the rabbinical court after only six months of study.
Today Diniz attends synagogue every morning and puts on tefillin (phylacteries). He credits Shavei Israel with changing his life. “Before Shavei, I kept kosher and observed Shabbat as best as I could, in the way I knew. Suddenly I was studying in a yeshiva. It was a dream,” he reminisces, “like jumping into paradise.”
Diniz worked as a gardener in Portugal where he had studied agriculture in university. Now 48, Diniz is retraining to work in computers and is looking for a job while continuing to study Hebrew in Netanya. He enjoys living by the sea, he says, and has no desire to go back to Portugal. “No way,” he insists. “I feel very comfortable here.”
His family was not so keen on his coming to Israel. But he promised his great-grandmother he would come to the Holy Land, “find a wife and raise a family.” His great-grandmother has since passed away, leaving Diniz to carry on the family tradition. “I feel like I’m the last dinosaur,” he quips.
To his fellow Bnei Anousim, he offers one key bit of advice: “They should teach their sons about Judaism. They should never stop.” It’s a mission that Avner Diniz looks forward to fulfilling.