Homecoming

By Paul Haist

A Portland man, his wife, their two children, his four siblings and his mother and father have discovered they are crypto Jews.

They have taken it to heart. They all are coming home to Judaism and they all are moving to Israel.

Crypto Jews—Moshe David Vasquez uses the Hebrew anusim instead—are people whose ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Inquisition in Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

Those who converted, usually under pain of death if they did not do so, may have secretly preserved their Jewish identity and passed it on to their heirs, or those heirs may have discovered their heritage on their own.

For Vasquez, both avenues led him home to Judaism.

Vasquez, a 42-year-old Portland-area builder who grew up in California in a home where he said "Judeo-Christian" values prevailed and where his mother and father "instilled in us a deep belief in God."

But they weren't exactly Christian, by Vasquez's description, or much of anything else, although the family dabbled at alternative services.

In 1972, Vasquez's mother gave her husband an anniversary gift that might be seen as the first step in the last phase of a long journey of return to Judaism for Vasquez and his family. She gave her husband a trip to Israel, by himself, because they could not afford a trip for two.

Vasquez was only about 7 years old then.

When he was 19, he followed his father's example and traveled to Israel.

"I'd still be there, if I hadn't gotten sick," he said.

He lived and worked for nearly a year as a volunteer at Kibbutz Gavarm near Ashkelon.

"Ashkelon was my first introduction to Spanish and Mexican Jews," said Vasquez. "I got along well there in Spanish."

And that was a clue to his ancestry.

Back in California, when he was growing up, his father had taught him Spanish with alternate pronunciations for some words.

"When I used those words with some Spanish speakers (in California), I was told not to use that 'dirty language'," said Vasquez.

He would discover later that the "dirty language" was Ladino, a blend of Hebrew and Spanish in use in the past among Sephardic Jews and undergoing a small revival today.

Among Spanish-speaking Jews around Ashkelon, it was no dirty language.

When, some years later, Vasquez shared a Ladino dictionary with his father, his father said he had thought using those words had made him "cool;" he had no idea.

While his initial Israel experience held the kernel of a clue to his roots, Vasquez did not begin to think he might be Jewish until after his return to America.

Some people here told him he was of Jewish background. He did not elaborate.

"That planted the seed," he said. "I wasn't ready to accept it."

After Israel, Vasquez traveled in Spain where he got by working as a private English tutor.

"I was told by people and rabbis that I was Jewish," he said.

What did they know that Vasquez did not know?

He consulted genealogical texts and discovered that his family name may be Jewish.

Later, he learned that some who feared they might become victims of the Inquisition altered their names to hide their identity. Ez and es, he explained, often were attached under these circumstances to the end of names in Spanish.

"EZ stands for son of or eretz Yisrael," said Vasquez, citing genealogical sources.

That was another clue to his heritage. There would be more.

Vasquez married when he was 25. He told his wife that he might be Jewish and that he wanted to do Hanukkah and put a mezuzah on the door.

"She said, jokingly, 'It's not bad enough that you're one minority. You have to be two.'"

Further family research revealed that Vasquez had distant uncles who had fled Portugal for Mexico at the time of the Inquisition.

In his personal files he has lists of individuals with various of his family names over the years, persons who were executed or enslaved or subject to other punishments in the Inquisition.

"There is not a name associated with my (mother's) family that does not appear on the victim lists in the Spanish, Portuguese and Mexican Inquisition(s)," said Vasquez.

Oral history in his family tells of uncles who arrived in Mexico at the time of the Inquisition.

"They were exposed," said Vasquez. "The Spaniards chased them to (what is now) Nebraska, trying to kill them. They altered their names to avoid being captured."

This, he said, affirms the practice of changing names to avoid becoming a victim, while also embedding a clue from which future generations may ascertain their heritage.

"I believe Hashem will flick the switch in each individual when they are ready to accept their heritage," said Vasquez.

In Vasquez's family the lights have been coming on all over the place.

Last year, to confirm his research, Vasquez had a DNA test.

In recent years, millions of Jews have taken this test, he said. The cumulative results from Jews who know or can document their heritage provide an extensive data base which others can use to analyze their own DNA test results for Jewish markers.

The results of Vasquez's DNA test showed the levitical marker for both his parents; that is, the test results indicated that Vasquez is a descendant of the tribe of Levi.

When he decided to have the test, he said to his wife, "I'm going to have mine tested. Let's do yours."

His wife, whose given name is Jodene and is of Italian descent, agreed to the test, and another light came on.

Her test results showed the marker for Cohen. Her new Hebrew name is Michela.

"It answers many questions for our children, who are very spiritual," said Vasquez.

Vasquez and his wife were welcomed back to the worldwide Jewish family at a ceremony of return held Nov. 26, 2006, in Portland under the supervision of Rabbi Joshua Stampfer, Rabbi Daniel Isaak and Rabbi Brad Greenstein. Stampfer is the co-founder of the Society for Crypto Judaic Studies here and rabbi emeritus at the Conservative Congregation Neveh Shalom. Isaak is senior rabbi at Neveh Shalom. Greenstein is the assistant rabbi there.

On a recent trip to Israel in preparation for making Aliyah, Vasquez met with a representative of the Jewish Agency for Israel. He shared with that person the documentation for him and his wife provided at the ceremony of return.

"JAFI verbally accepted the documents as evidence of Jewish heritage," said Vasquez.

Not everyone is so inclined, a fact which Vasquez acknowledges, albeit not happily.

There are some in the Jewish community who feel that returning Jews such as Vasquez should go through a formal conversion process.

"We were forced to convert to Catholicism," he said. Among his friends who are like him he has heard it said, "Why would our brothers force us to convert again."

Further describing the circumstances in which he and others like him find themselves, he said, "Your authenticity as a Jew is questioned, and that hurts because they don't even know me."

He likened the feeling to what Joseph might have felt when confronted by his brothers in Egypt: Are they going to accept me? Do I tell them? Do I wait?

"If you asked me to convert, I would be willing," he said, "but welcome me."

The couple and their children, plan to leave for Israel at the end of next year. The rest of their family plans to follow shortly later.

Vasquez, his father and his brother are contractors, homebuilders. That's what they plan to do in Israel, build homes in the Negev.

Vasquez has a design for a packaged home built around a standard shipping container. Inside the shipping container are the studs, stringers, sheetrock and everything one needs to build a house to U.S. standards, everything right down to the kitchen sink.

The roof and walls of the shipping container become the roof of the house, to be covered in concrete.

The basic cost of the house is about $63,000. It will be even less when they can be created entirely in Israel, which will obviate shipping costs.

The house goes up in about three months, according to Vasquez, versus 12 months for a new home built by current methods in the Negev.

This is not just a way to make a living, not for Vasquez.

"The prophet Obadiah prophesied that the exiles of Jerusalem, the tribe of Judah that dwell in Iberia, will return to the cities of the Negev," said Vasquez.

Citing research done in Israel, he estimates there are as many as 60 million anusim or crypto Jews throughout the Americas.

And the lights are coming on.

Vasquez made two trips to Israel in 2006 to purchase land.

"There has to be cities for us to return," he said.