Happy Hanukkahmas: The Crypto-Jews of New Mexico

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/to-the-end-of-the-earth/9780231129374

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:35

Welcome to the Enchantment Chronicles today in New Mexico history and Merry Christmas to you.

Speaker 3: 0:42

And Feliz Navidad.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Feliz Navidad. Thank you, johnny. Yeah, this day in New Mexico history in 2024 is an unusual day. It only happens about once every 19 or 20 years or so on average. But the first day of Hanukkah is following on Christmas Day, so I guess people sometimes call that Hanukkah-ness on Christmas Day. So I guess people sometimes call that Hanukkah-mas. But it's also a fitting day to remember a key population, and you told me about a book, johnny, that a former state historian, david Hordes, wrote, published in the early 2000s, after spending about 20 years collecting interviews and anecdotes right.

Speaker 3: 1:24

Yeah, the book that we were talking about is To the End of the Earth, A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico, written by Stanley Hordes in 2008.

Speaker 2: 1:34

And the crypto-Jews. They're also sometimes called Sephardic Jews or Sephardinos.

Speaker 3: 1:44

These folks. It's argued in this book that they came to northern New Mexico because this was after the Spanish Inquisition. This was the last, the farthest away place in the Spanish territory, and they came out here to be able to, in somewhat peace, practice their religion.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Right, but they were crypto because not because they were into strange currencies, because they were hidden. They were secret Jews and so they would show up for mass on Sunday, but on Friday night and Saturday they were lighting candles and singing some very different songs, right.

Speaker 3: 2:30

That's the argument I think in this book specifically and there are other articles that mention this there were quite a few families in northern New Mexico that practiced secret Judaism, quite a few families in northern New Mexico that practice secret Judaism. So everybody kind of knew it, but it was still practice in private.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Right, and those families might have traditions like not eating pork, which is kind of unusual out here, and keeping two Sabbaths, which maybe isn't that unusual, given that a lot of times Kiva ceremonies might be held in indigenous communities on Saturdays too. You know, after the and Pueblo Revolt it was kind of like, as long as you show up to mass on Sunday, what you do on Saturday is none of our business anymore. It was sort of the attitude of many of the Spanish imperial officials. Indicate some DNA testing. They would indicate that a lot of these families do have markers of being Eastern European Jews or of that descent dating back to 1492, when of course Columbus sails the ocean in blue, but also Ferdinand and Isabella order the expulsion of all Muslims and Jews from the newly united Iberian Peninsula, from the Kingdom of Spain, the United Kingdoms of Castile and Aragón, so that tradition is alive.

Speaker 2: 4:11

It was a little confusing because in the 1800s another group, the Seventh-day Adventists, came and they were reviving Jewish traditions as part of their practice of Protestantism, and so some of these families are sort of recognizing each other and some of these traditions that they're maintaining and there's a little bit of confusion. So some of the families that might practice. Some of those Jewish Sabbath traditions actually date back to the mid-18th or mid-19th century, to the coming of Seventh-day Adventists to Texas and New Mexico. But it's a long tradition of integrated religious faiths and a good day to celebrate. It is Hanukkahmas, hanukkahmas, Hanukkahmas, yep, all right, well, this has been this day in New Mexico history, although really it's every day in New Mexico history, but again, hanukkahmas is that good day to remember the crypto Jews of New Mexico who came to the end of the earth in pursuit of religious freedom.

Speaker 1: 5:21

I'm a new Mexican and a true Chican. I was born in a small town, very humble, poor and sincere. And now I'm going to sing Muy humilde, pobre y sincero. Y ahora les voy a cantar De mi pueblo natural. El pueblo en que yo nací Lleva por nombre La Goya, donde vivían mis parientes, mis amigos, los griegos romenos y los moyas, where my relatives, my friends lived, the Roman Greeks and the Moias. And now I want to sing Of my popular state Arriba Nuevo Mexico.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Arriba mi estado querido.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Arriba mi Albuquer. Arriba mi Albuquerque y arriba con toda su gente. Arriba Nuevo Mexico, arriba nuestra capital, arriba con Santa Fe y arriba mi Estado Popular.