ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What is “ancestral memory”?

Genie Milgrom was born in Havana, Cuba, into a Roman Catholic family of Spanish ancestry. From a young age, she felt unusually attracted to Judaism and, after going through a formal conversion, discovered that she is, in fact, one of the bnei anousim, descendents of forced converts. After a remarkable job of genealogical research, she was able to trace her maternal lineage back to Jews in 15th century Spain.

A few weeks ago we spoke with Genie about her personal journey to Judaism and how she found her “15 Grandmothers”.

As we mentioned on that program, Genie participated in the Inaugural Session of the Knesset Caucus for the Reconnection with the Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Communities and the Conference The Anousim Diaspora Today: Jewish Challenge and Hope, which was held in Israel last month. This week we are speaking with her about the Conference, and also about an exciting new project that she in working on.

Spanish Ancestry project:      spanishancestry@aol.com