Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews

Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews

This study of contemporary crypto-Jews―descendants of European Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition―traces the group's history of clandestinely conducting their faith and their present-day efforts to reclaim their past. Janet Liebman Jacobs masterfully combines historical and social scientific theory to fashion a brilliant analysis of hidden ancestry and the transformation of religious and ethnic identity. "Janet Jacobs enters fearlessly into the house of mirrors that is Jewish-Hispanic identity, where nothing is what it appears to be. Her ethnography is about the uses of silence and the excuses of memory." Ilan Stavans, author of On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language "Janet Jacobs's book is a beautifully written, compelling account of the experiences of contemporary crypto-Jews who are struggling to locate the meanings of their various identities. I know of no other works that cover this material, and Jacobs does so in a rich finely nuanced way in which she deals with issues of family, memory, community, and belonging. I love the way she draws on such a wide variety of materials to explore this topic in a wide-ranging and impressive way." Lynn Davidman, author of Tradition in a Rootless World "Janet Jacobs enters fearlessly into the house of mirrors that is Jewish-Hispanic identity, where nothing is what it appears to be. Her ethnography is about the uses of silence and the excuses of memory."―Ilan Stavans, author of On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language "Janet Jacobs's book is a beautifully written, compelling account of the experiences of contemporary crypto-Jews who are struggling to locate the meanings of their various identities. I know of no other works that cover this material, and Jacobs does so in a rich finely nuanced way in which she deals with issues of family, memory, community, and belonging. I love the way she draws on such a wide variety of materials to explore this topic in a wide-ranging and impressive way."―Lynn Davidman, author of Tradition in a Rootless World Janet Liebman Jacobs is Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the author of Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting from New Religions (1989) and Victimized Daughters: Incest and the Development of the Female Self (1994), and editor of Religion, Society, and Psychoanalysis: Readings in Contemporary Theory (1997).