Bnei Anousim

Newscaster: A special Yom Kippur Mahzor has been released for the Brazilian Jews of the Amazon. Some 3,500 Sefardi Jews living in northern Brazil's Amazonian region will now be able to for the first time use a prayer book translated into Portuguese. The Mahzor uses the traditional Hebrew text of the Yom Kippur prayer services, which now has a translation and transliteration into Portuguese. It was made possible by "Shavei Israel", which provides assistance to different Jewish communities around the world. They're presently working in 9 far-flung Jewish communities. We spoke to Shavei Israel's founder, Michael Freund. Michael Freund: This was a process over a couple of years. The Mahzor, of course is a very comprehensive volume, and it required a great deal of effort in terms of translation. But we're very happy now that it's come to fruition, because there was a great need for it among the Jewish communities of the Amazon in Brazil.

הרב אלישע סלס (53), יליד צ'ילה, הוא השליח החדש של ארגון "שבי ישראל" לקהילות צאצאי האנוסים בצפון פורטוגל. הוא ייכנס לתפקידו באופן רשמי השבוע. הרב סלס עלה לישראל בשנת 1999. הוא מתגורר בירושלים, נשוי + 4 ילדים. הוא בוגר לימודי ראיית חשבון, ניהול ולימודי דתות...

[caption id="attachment_2828" align="alignright" width="75"] Rabbi Elisha Salas[/caption] Rabbi Salas, 53, was born in Chile and made aliyah to Israel in 1999. Salas now lives in Jerusalem and is married with four children. After graduating from Santiago University in Chile with two degrees in accounting and religious...

As Shavei Israel's delegate, Rabbi Elisha Salas to teach Torah, Jewish culture and Jewish tradition to Bnei Anousim Beginning this week, Rabbi Elisha Salas will be Shavei Israel’s new emissary to the Bnei Anousim, or crypto-Jews of North Portugal. Rabbi Salas, 53, was born in Chile and made aliyah to Israel in 1999. Salas now lives in Jerusalem and is married with four children. After graduating from Santiago University in Chile with two degrees in accounting and religious studies, Salas spent five years at the Beit Midrash Sepharadi in the Old City of Jerusalem. In addition to being an ordained rabbi, Salas is certified to practice as a "shochet" (kosher slaughterer). As Shavei Israel's emissary in Portugal, Rabbi Salas will teach Torah, Jewish culture and Jewish tradition to Bnei Anousim (whom historians refer to by the derogatory term "Marranos"), conducting a wide range of social and educational activities in the process. The rabbi’s work will focus mainly in the Belmonte community, where a number of Bnei Anousim returned to Judaism in recent decades and now live as a traditional, thriving Jewish community. Salas will also work with Bnei Anousim in other areas and towns throughout Portugal, primarily in the north.

Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham, a resident of Shiloh and father of 12, has been appointed a new emissary to the Bnei Anusim community. For the first time since the expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492, a descendant of Marrano Jewry who immigrated to Israel and received...

More than 20 years ago, as an undergraduate at Princeton University, I found myself rooming with a bright, young religious Lutheran from Iowa. It was, to be sure, a somewhat unusual mix, and he never could quite comprehend why I was rushing off to prayer services every day or checking the ingredients on various food packages. But he was a cosmopolitan and studious sort, one whose desk was constantly piled high with books, and his curiosity about the world and impressive intelligence often made for some intriguing conversations.So when I asked him once how many Jews he thought lived in America, I was more than a little stunned when he insisted, in all seriousness, that "there must be at least 50 million Jews in this country." Asked to explain the basis for his calculation, my friend shrugged and told me, "Well, I grew up in a town in middle America, and our family doctor was Jewish, my dad's lawyer was Jewish and so was his accountant. And," he added," there are so many prominent Jews in various fields, that there simply must be 50 million or more of you guys out there." Only after I showed him a reference book which listed the world Jewish population at approximately 13 million, was he satisfied that his estimate had been wide of the mark. Hace más de 20 años, cuando era estudiante de la Universidad de Princeton, me encontré viviendo con un inteligente joven religioso luterano de Iowa. Esta, fue de seguro una mezcla un tanto inusual, y él nunca pudo comprender por qué corría todos los días a la plegaria o chequeaba los ingredientes de cada uno de los paquetes de comida. Pero era un hombre estudioso y cosmopolita, de esos que sus escritorios siempre se encuentran llenos de libros, y su curiosidad sobre el mundo y su inteligencia siempre llevaban a interesantes conversaciones.
For Miquel Segura of Palma de Mallorca, Spain, the journey home took more than 500 years. Last month, at a moving ceremony in Manhattan, the 65-year-old journalist and political commentator completed his return to the Jewish people, closing a circle dating back to the 14th century. Segura is from the Chueta community, as descendants of Mallorcan Jews forcibly converted to Christianity more than five centuries ago are known.  

In October, tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Manhattan, as they do each year, to celebrate the legacy of Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the New World. With pomp and ceremony, marchers crowded Fifth Avenue, filling it with an array of vivid...

A bearded man in a red velvet skullcap, chain-smoking on Shabbat at a garden cafe while preaching to friends about the Torah, would be an odd sight anywhere. And he would particularly stand out in Lisbon, with its small Jewish community. The man, Joao Santos,...

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