Sephardic Bnei Anusim

Sephardic Bnei Anusim (Hebrew: בני אנוסים ספרדיים‎, pronounced ['bnei anu'sim sfara'dim], lit. "Children [of the] coerced [converted] Spanish [Jews]) is a modern term used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardic Jewish which were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th century in Spain. The vast majority of Conversos remained in Spain and Portugal, their descendants in both these countries numbering in the millions. The small minority of Conversos who did emigrate normally chose destinations where Sephardic communities already existed, particularly in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, but also more tolerant cities in Europe, immediately reverting to Judaism. Although a few did their travel to Spanish America, doing so was particularly difficult since only those Spaniards who could certify no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry were allowed to travel to the New World. Nevertheless, the constant flow of Spanish emigration to Latin America up until well into the 20th century has resulted to many Latin Americans having Converso ancestry, in the same way as modern Spaniards do.

The Bnei Anusim concept has gained some popularity among the Hispanic Community in the American South West and in countries in Latin America, whereby hundreds of Hispanics have expressed a belief that they are descendants of such Conversos and a desire to return to the fold of Judaism. Such desire may perhaps be understood within the complex identity politics of both Latin and Anglo-America and their interplay with social mobility. Belief in Converso identity is normally based on memories of family practices which may resemble their perceptions of Jewish customs and religion and internet genealogical research and public availability of population genetics and atDNA analysis. Genetic testing cannot ascertain Jewish heritage in an individual, but can find genetic markers originating in the Near East, something quite common among Spanish, Portuguese and other Mediterranean populations.

In the last 5 to 10 years a growing number "of [Sephardic] Benei Anusim have been established in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and in Sefarad [Iberia] itself" as "organized groups." Some members of these communities have formally reverted to Judaism, operating as functional communities of public Judaizers. For more information on these groups, please see Neo-Western Sephardim.

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Wikipedia