ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: About how many Jews were there in Spain and Portugal at the time of the Inquisition, and what happened to them?
(NOTE: This is the second program in a three-part series about Crypto-Jews.)
Genie Milgrom was born in Havana Cuba into a Roman Catholic family of Spanish ancestry, but from a very early age felt a deep tie to Judaism. After formally converting, and in an unparalleled work of genealogical research, she was able to fully document her unbroken maternal lineage going back as far as 1430 to pre-Inquisition Spain and Portugal, proving that she is a descendent of forced converts.
Since then, she has dedicated her life to researching and transmitting information about the Crypto-Jews, and helping others in their journey to trace their own heritage. This week, Genie is speaking with us about the history of the Crypto-Jews in Latin America, and their situation today.