Sephardic Jews
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News Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Sephardic Claim Unleashes Fierce Debate About Jewish Identity
Crypto-Jews. Secret Jews. Conversos. Marranos. B’nai Anusim. These are the terms used for Jews, mainly of Spanish descent, who were forced to convert to Catholicism or die during the period of Spain’s Inquisition. While many Sephardic Jews did convert, some continued to practice their Judaism in secret. Now, this 500-year history of hidden Jewish lineage…
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Opinion Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, My Latinx And Jewish Histories Intersect
At a Hanukkah party on Sunday night, Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared that “generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews.” In doing so, she publicly joined a vast community of people, including my family, in embracing the space where Jewish and Latinx identities intersect. It is a story that, sadly, has long sat…
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Opinion Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Sephardic Story Is One Forgotten By White Jews
It happens at least once every semester: a student learns that I teach courses in Jewish studies at my university here in southeast Texas and comes to visit me during my office hours. In most cases, I have never met this student before, and at first, the conversation is hesitant, as if the student lacks…
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Fast Forward WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez Sings In Ladino After Acknowledging Jewish Roots
At a Hanukkah party Sunday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sang a festive song in Ladino, a language associated with the Sephardic Jewish community, derived from Spanish. Ocasio-Cortez gave an impassioned speech at the menorah lighting, hosted by the Jews For Racial and Economic Justice in New York, sharing that her family has Jewish heritage. She…
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Fast Forward Ocasio-Cortez Tweets About Jewish Roots ‘Before Everyone Jumps On Me’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fired off a few tweets Monday morning about her statements at a Hanukkah party that her family has Jewish heritage. She noted that many in Puerto Rico are descended from a mix of different ethnicities, including Spanish colonizers, African slaves and indigenous peoples. “We are all of these things and something else…
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Fast Forward Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Claims Sephardic Jewish Roots
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly elected firebrand congresswoman, has revealed for the first time that she has Sephardic Jewish heritage. The 28-year-old Democrat said her distant ancestors fled the Spanish Inquisition to emigrate to Puerto Rico, where her immediate family roots lived until they moved to New York. “Generations and generations ago, my family consisted of…
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Opinion Think Julia Salazar Isn’t ‘Jewish Enough’? You’re Writing Off All Latin American Jews.
The Jewish world is in an uproar over Julia Salazar, a candidate for state senate. Salazar portrayed herself in multiple interviews as a Jew of Color, claims that a recent exposé called into doubt. The article split the Jewish community in two. Salazar’s detractors called her a Jewish Rachel Dolezal, a reference to the woman…
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News Ashkenazi Jews Have A Nickname. Or Is It A Slur?
In 2018, brevity is the soul not of wit, but of identity politics. Feminine is “femme.” Masculine is “masc.” And Ashkenazi is “Ashki.” The term, sometimes a dig and sometimes a diminutive, is popping up more frequently on social media. Like other internet-era terms for Jewish sub-groups — “ortho” for Orthdoox, “OTD” for those who…
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