Many Hispanics discovering their Jewish roots from colonial Spain

Published: 2004-08-11

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- History taught Father William Sanchez and Rabbi Yosef Garcia a lesson that spanned centuries, generations and the Atlantic Ocean. Both grew up as Catholics in the Americas only to discover as adults that their ancestors were Jewish, part of the hundreds of thousands who left Spain at the end of the 15th century when the choice was to convert to Catholicism or be expelled. As the expulsion decree took effect shortly before the explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing for the Spanish crown, opened up the Western Hemisphere to Spanish colonization, many Jews who converted, at least nominally, to Catholicism crossed the Atlantic to seek their future in the New World where they also hoped for a greater tolerance toward their Jewish past. The legacy today is that numerous inhabitants of Latin America and many Hispanics in the United States are descendents of "crypto-Jews," colonists who secretly practiced their Judaism at home while publicly professing Catholicism to avoid persecution. Father Sanchez, 51, was already a priest in Albuquerque, N.M., when he learned he was Jewish through DNA testing in 2002. He told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview that he decided on the testing after a long period of sensing the truth about his ancestry. The priest said the discovery strengthened his Catholicism, which he described as a continuation of his Judaic roots.

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