Crypto-Judaism - Definition and Overview

Crypto-Judaism is secret practicing of Judaism while publicly pretending to be of another faith. Originally it referred to Sephardic Jews who pretended to convert to Catholicism before and during the Spanish Inquisition. The original practitioners of Crypto-Judaism and their decendents who may be Catholic but continue some jewish practices.

People were accused of practicing Crypto-Judaism during the Spanish Inquisition and subsequently tortured and executed, but most were likely sincere converts.

Small communities of crypto-Jews are still said to exist, allegedly still maintaining their hidden traditions, in Portugal, Amazonian Brazil and Spain.

In the once Spanish-held Southwestern United States many decendents of Catholics have stated a belief that they are decended from Crypto-Jews and have started practicing Judaism. They often cite as evidence memories of older relatives practicing Jewish traditions. While many are likely decendent from converted Jews and possibly Crypto-Jews, the rembered traditions tend to be those of Ashkenazi not Sephardic Jews and possibly constructed memories due to suggestion by proponents. It is believed that the Jewish traditions practiced by older relatives were introduced by groups of evangelical protestant christians that used purposely aquired Jewish traditions as part of their christian practice. See: Crypto-Jews of The Contemporary American Southwest

In addition to these communities, other now Catholic-professing communities descendants of crypto-Jews are also said to exist in Cuba, the State of Nuevo Leon (Nuevo León de Judea) in northern Mexico, the department of Antioquia in Colombia, and amidst the populations of various other Spanish-speaking countries of South America (Argentina, Venezuela, Chile and Ecuador). From these communities comes the proverb, "Catholic by faith, Jewish by blood".

All the above localities were former territories of either the Spanish or Portuguese Empires, where the Inquisition eventually followed and continued persecuting the Jews who had settled there, and where it endured for longer than it had in Spain herself.

Some of those in north-east Portugal have outed themselves as crypto-Jews and now formally adhere to Orthodox Judaism since having rejoined and being accepted by mainstream Judaism after more than five-hundred years of secrecy.

Crypto-Judaism - Definition and Overview

See also