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March 7, 2003/Adar2 3 5763, Vol. 55, No. 28
Spaniards find way back to Judaism
JEROME SOCOLOVSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
MADRID - As a child growing up in a village near Barcelona, Nuria Guasch had wondered about her family's unusual habits, like putting bread and salt on the table every Friday night.
Since most everybody else in Spain was Roman Catholic, she just assumed they were bizarre customs from the Spanish island of Mallorca, where her family came from.
After her grandfather died, she found out that her grandparents were from among the "Chuetas," or Mallorcans of Jewish origin accused of being Crypto-Jews - or Hidden Jews - for centuries after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492.
Today, the 49-year-old school principal from Barcelona is ready to reclaim the faith of her forebears. In a few weeks, she says, she will finalize her conversion to Judaism before a Beit Din, or Jewish court, in Israel.
During the more than 100 years of pogroms that started in the late 14th century, more than 100,000 Jews are believed to have converted to Christianity.
But many continued prac-ticing Jewish rituals in secret.
In Spanish, the converted Jews were known as Conver-sos, or "those who converted."
However, the secret Jews were known as Marranos, or "accursed."
Although there is some debate about whether the label Marranos should be considered derogatory, some today prefer Anousim, the Hebrew term for "forced converts."
Their descendants are found not only on the Iberian Peninsula, but also in former Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South and Central America and even in the South-western United States.
Spaniards in general are becoming increasingly interested in their Jewish history, despite a long tradition of anti-Semitism and official discrimination that lasted through the 1939-1975 church-backed dictatorship of Gen. Fran-cisco Franco.
And an increasing number of Spaniards - though still a very small group - consider themselves Jewish, or partly Jewish by virtue of their Jewish ancestry.
Several years ago, Pere Bonnin, a Barcelona writer of Chueta origin, wrote "Sangre Judia," or "Jewish Blood," a book in which he compiled a list of 3,500 surnames of Jewish origin, using documents found in old Jewish neighborhoods and Inquisition archives.
The book's first printing sold out within 15 days.
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