Recife's Old-New Jews

The first Jews in the New York were Sepharadis fleeing from the Inquisition in Recife, Brazil. The Jews had enjoyed a hundred years of tranquility in Northeast Brazil under the Dutch, they founded the sugarcane industry and prospered. When the Dutch transferred the territory to the Portuguese, most Jews left for Amsterdam … and New Amsterdam, that is, New York. There they became well established and assimilated.  But what happened to those Jews that did not leave Brazil?

They became crypto-Jews, underground Jews, living under a Catholic cover identity. Three hundred years later many in Pernambuco and Recife are aware of their roots, and are "returning" to the old faith. Led by charismatic leaders, they form "anusim" communities and adopt what they believe to be Judaism. I compare them to the small evangelical communities appearing all over Latin America. They don't mix with the old wealthy Ashkenazi communities, and they are not accepted as Jews by the Israeli rabbinate. Some individuals and families, eventually, will make Aliyah and melt with the people, others will wander off to local Messianic cults.

Pic.:  Many in Brazil have converted to Judaism under the supervision of Gilberto Venturas, an Orthodox rabbi, shown here with his wife, Jacqueline. (Courtesy of Sinagoga sem Froteiras)