The Sephardi Perspective: Reappraising Jewish-Hispanic relations

In a recent Jerusalem Post column entitled Give it a rest, Professor Samuel Freedman  laments the American Jewish community's 'obsession' with building relations with the African-American community.

In listing the reasons why the African-American community is not as interested in formenting the relationship, Freedman claims that it has other greater concerns; one of which is the fact that "Hispanics (are) surpassing them as America's largest racial minority."

The Jewish community has been slow to realize this modification in America's ethnic reality today and has achieved far less community building with the Hispanic American community than with others.

However, the Hispanic American community should be a natural ally of the Jewish community, especially in political terms, for a number of reasons.

Dr. Steven Windmueller, Director of the Irwin Daniels School of Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, asserts that Jews and Hispanics in America have much in common.

These two cultures have developed both a similar pattern of community building, with a special focus on family, establishing mutual aid societies, and transnational linkages to their 'motherlands.' The idea of Diaspora, of course, holds different meaning to various nationalities. Yet, this notion of a cultural, philanthropic, and political connection may provide a shared agenda for Hispanics and Jews."

The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding compiled a landmark survey in 2003 which found that 75% of Hispanic and Jewish Americans consider it "very important" to work together to fight discrimination. Interestingly, 65% of Hispanics polled felt that the Holocaust is not taught enough in schools. However, when asked to "describe the relationship" between Hispanics and Jews in the United States, 40-45% believed that the relationship was "Fair." This result demonstrates the room for growth and the need for dialogue between the two communities.

One area which I have rarely seen addressed is a sense of shared history and roots. Few in or outside of the Jewish community are aware of a high number of 'Hispanic' or 'Spanish' Jews.

Although today only a few hundred Jews in the US speak Ladino or Judeo-Spanish, there are thousands of Jews whose culture is still rooted in a Spanish tradition.

Sephardi music is imbued with a very familiar sound to Latino dance music and more than one music historian has found Jewish roots in the familiar salsa, samba or meringue dance beat. There is even a Jewish/Latino/Ladino rap group, the 'Hip Hop Hoodios', who pepper their rhymes with both Spanish and Ladino.

Perhaps even more than the Jews who have Spanish and Latino roots are the Hispanics who have Jewish roots. It has been suggested that almost half of all the Spanish and Portuguese alive today have Jewish ancestry so its stands to reason that many of those who left the Iberian Peninsular for South and then Central America must also have had Jewish roots.

In fact, many Jews fled Spain and Portugal for the 'New World' because of the Spanish Inquisition only to find that it followed them there a short while thereafter. Hence, a disproportionate amount of Jews were found making their way across the Atlantic Ocean.

It is estimated that Mexico City alone has over 20,000 Anusim or Conversos. In 2003, a genetic test conducted by Family Tree DNA of men living in New Mexico, south Texas or northern Mexico found that 10-15% of those sampled had some typical Jewish DNA. In Brazil it has been estimated that 10-25% of the population are descended from forcibly converted Jews. The names Alvarez, Rivera, Lopez and Mendez and even Perez all could indicate Jewish ancestry.

Dr. Dell Sanchez, since finding out that he had Jewish roots has been on an investigative quest to find out how many Hispanics have Sephardi ancestry and he claims "Jewish genealogists have recently established a good, conservative estimate on the number of Sephardic Jews in the Americas. Experts are saying that at least 10% of all Hispanics have Sephardic Jewish roots."

Many Hispanics like Dr. Sanchez are finding Jewish roots through unusual unexplainable traditions handed down through their family, death bed confessions by parents or good old fashioned genealogy.

There are now enough Hispanic Jews who can build bridges between the communities and find areas of cooperation. In Chicago, the Sephardic Model Seder, a special Passover celebration, is held every year by the Alliance for Jews and Latinos, a group that aims to return to the common denominator of their distant pasts. 

Last year in Texas, the American Jewish Committee co-sponsored a three-day workshop with Mexico's Institute for Mexicans Abroad to highlight the discrimination some immigrants feel in the US.

In this election year, Jews should reach out to other groups to build coalitions on issues of shared importance. The shared values on life and family and a liberal approach to immigration mean that the largest ethnic group in the US should be reached out to by the Jewish community.

To do this, our shared history and traditions must be utilized. Sephardim, Anusim and Hispanics of Jewish roots should be thrust into the foreground of this endeavor and become a conduit for relations between the two communities.