A Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony was held in the Steri Palace Prison in Palermo in Italy, which served as a prison during the Spanish Inquisition. The candle lighting Wednesday was sponsored by the Shavei Israel organization and led by Rabbi Pinchas Punturello, the organization’s emissary to the Bnei Anousim, or Crypto-Jews, in southern Italy and Sicily….
Two Spanish towns are preparing a Judaica festival featuring a mock wedding to celebrate their lost Jewish heritage. The event, co-organized by non-Jews from San Juan and Rio Jerte in the province Extremadura in northwestern Spain, will also include a Judaica market and songs on Sept. 28-29, according festival coordinator Antonio Gil. “This is a…
For the first time in centuries, a Torah scroll will be installed in the northern Portuguese town of Trancoso, where many Jews lived before the 16th century. The Torah scroll was scheduled to be installed Sunday during the dedication of a new Jewish learning center, the Isaac Cardoso Center for Jewish Interpretation, the Portuguese news…
Until 2009, right-wing Portuguese politician Jose Ribeiro e Castro didn’t have much interest in the expulsion of his country’s Jewish community in the 16th century. That changed once Ribeiro e Castro opened a Facebook account. Online, the 60-year-old lawmaker and journalist connected to several Sephardic Jews, descendants of a once robust Jewish community numbering in…
Portuguese researchers have catalogued hundreds of secret markings that Jews left on structures in the northern Portuguese municipality of Seia in the 16th century, after their forced conversion to Christianity. The team’s three members – Alberto Martinho, Jose Levy Domingos and Luiza Metzker Lyra – say they found 500 markings in Seia, including coded Hebrew…
The parliament of Portugal is scheduled to vote on whether to naturalize descendants of 16th century Jews who fled the country because of religious persecution. The motion will be brought to a first reading on Thursday by Portugal’s Socialist Party and is expected to pass since it also is supported by the ruling Social Democratic…
A town in northern Spain is preparing to hold its first Passover seder since the areas Jews were forced to flee during the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. The festive dinner will take place in the old center of the town of Ribadavia on March 25 and is being organized by the municipality’s tourism department in…
Am I a Jew?: Lost Tribes, Lapsed Jews, and One Man’s Search For Himself By Theodore Ross Hudson Street Press, 280 pages, $25.95 There are hooks, and then there is the first sentence of Theodore Ross’s new book, “Am I a Jew?” which grabs you by the lapels and makes you instantly uncomfortable and intensely…
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
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