Jack S Cohen

The Reawakening Jack S Cohen

Astonishingly, there are millions of people in the world today who retain remnants of Jewish traditions after as long as 500 years, but are often completely unaware of their Jewish origins. They are descendants of those Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity mostly during the period 1391-1492 in Spain and during the mass forced-conversion during 1497 in Portugal. They were known as conversos or New Christians or pejoratively as "marranos." In Hebrew they are known as Anousim (coerced) and their contemporary descendants are known as Bnei Anousim. Now that democracy and enlightenment have finally come to the Hispanic Catholic world, and with the access to information on the internet and with universal education, many of these Bnei Anousim are coming forward to reclaim their ancestral heritage. They are motivated by curiosity about their origins and unusual customs passed down through the generations and by a desire to right the wrongs of history when they discover that their ancestors were tortured and died for their beliefs. Out of the millions (some estimate as many as 20 million) persons of Jewish origin throughout the Hispanic world, this then is the story of some of those who are returning to the Jewish people and/or to Judaism.