ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What are some of the practices of Jewish origin that the researchers found, and how do they know that they came from a Jewish source?
Daniel Goldberg Lerner is a film director and producer based in Israel. He studied Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University and received his MA from the University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts. His films include A Kiss to this Earth (1995), Steps to Eternity (2010), and In the Footsteps of Abraham (2010). His most recent film, The Secret Sabbath, deals with the history of B’nei Anusim, descendents of forced converts, in what is now Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Many of these people identify as Jewish and their families have secretly passed down Jewish practices from generation to generation; others, aware of their Jewish roots, have decided to return to normative Judaism and now practice it openly. The history of these Crypto-Jews begins in the 16th century with the settlement by conversos of Nuevo León, a Spanish colony in northern Mexico, and is reflected in the Diary of Luis de Carvajal the Younger (1566-1596).
