Sephardic and Hidden Jews (Marranos) of Jamaica

Nadene Goldfoot                                                        

                                                                                 
Jews  were living on the island of Jamaica in 1577 and were free to live and work there.  

The English occupied this island of Jamaica in 1655.  It wasn't until the British  took the island in 1655 that Jews were permitted to practice their religion openly and establish a Jewish community, including synagogues and cemeteries. 
                                                                           

Columbus had sailed from Spain in 1492 and bumped into islands that were close to North America.  "He  visited Jamaica on his second trip to the New World and in 1503 claimed it for Spain. The island was granted to Columbus’ descendants as a personal possession."  

 Many believe that Columbus could have been a Marrano Jew of Italy.  He wrote to his son in the Hebrew script.  This was the time that Spain had the Spanish Inquisition starting and Jews had to either leave Spain or convert to Catholicism.  Thus, when a family couldn't afford to leave the country, they hid the fact that they were Jewish;  thus the term, and a negative one it is, of Marrano.  They were hidden Jews.  They went through the pretense of being Catholic.  
                                                                             

Secret Seder in Spain during Spanish Inquisition by Marranos (Anusim) 

By 1655, some Portuguese Marrano were probably already residents on the island.  Many Sephardim of Marrano origin established themselves shortly after 1655, and in the course of the 18th century, when the island's economy was doing very well, the Jewish settlement developed which benefited from the immigration of both the Portuguese Marranos and of the present Jews of that day.   Sephardi as well as Ashkenazi Jews who came from Europe, mainly from England had come here to settle.

"In 1577, Jews were free to live and work on the island, but it wasn't until the British conquered Jamaica in 1655 that Jews were permitted to practice their religion openly and establish a  Jewish community, including synagogues and cemeteries.

Even on this distant island, the Jews were subjected to many restrictions until 1831, and had played an important part in the life of Jamaica.  They filled every public office.

With the decline in the island's prosperity in the 19th century, the Jewish community diminished, and contributed some of the outstanding families in Jewish life in England, like the Henriques.

 The Henriques family that fled Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition in the 17th century are all descended or related to the patriarch of the family, Henriques Dias Milao-Caceres  (1528-1609).   He was a wealthy businessman from Lisbon, who was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition during the Iberian Union on charges of not having paid taxes, having dealings with the Jews, and for having attempted to flee the country before trial.  Most of his family and entourage who had not managed to leave the country on time, had also been arrested and interrogated by the Inquisition. At the age of 82, Henriques Dias Milao-Caceres was sentenced to death, along with his man servant who was believed to have converted to Judaism in secret, and a female member of the family. They were burned at the stake on the 5th of April, 1609. The rest of the family members, whom had had their lives spared, were forced to witness the execution. Those witnesses took on the surname Henriques, in memory of Henriques Dias Milao-Caceres, thus beginning of the Henriques family as we know it today. Those who adopted the surname include Henriques Dias Milao-Caceres' son, Paulo (Moses) de Milao, his daughter Beatriz (married to Alvaro Dinis Yachia Eanes), and his grandson, Reuben Eanes (son of Beatriz).
                                                                                   

There were formerly communities in Spanish Town, Falmouth, and Montego Bay, but the only one remaining is that of Kingston where the majority of the island's 300 Jews lived in 1990, and 200 today.  There is little choice for them but to intermarry today.  They have been one of the world's oldest Jewish community, so they will either leave or assimilate.  The island is about 90% Black.  If someone says they had a white great grandfather, he most likely was Jewish.
                                                             

Richard "Dick" Bogle

I was interested in Jamaica when a Black friend of mine from high school, Richard Bogle,  told me about his family's history.  His ggrandfather, Richard Bogle,  had been born on the island to a native woman and a sea captain.  I had started to be very interested in genealogy and soon found a sea captain by the surname of Bogle.  In doing searches, I found many Jewish names.  I believe his ancestor left the island at age 12 and by that time, Blacks were freed, which was way before this happened in the United States.  England at that time was progressive.  His ancestor stowed away on a ship and reached Missouri, hopped on a famous wagon train and got out to California, panned for gold and struck it rich, opened a bank and loaned money.  Dick, my friend, became a policeman, then detective, and wound up as a TV news personality in our town which led to becoming an important member of the city council.  His family genealogy.  was so interesting that I wanted to see it made into a movie.

Resource: http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Jews-of-Jamaica.html?s=mm
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jamaican-jews-see-intermarriage-conversion-as-their-future/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henriques_family
http://www.heymannfamily.com/Heyman%20Family/Ancestors%20Web%20Pages/The%20Family%20de%20Milao.htm  on Henrique.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/02/dick_bogle_pioneering_african.html

Jews of Dominican Republic

     Nadene Goldfoot                                                              

A beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic in the Caribbean

The Alcázar of Colón, located in Santo Domingo, is the oldest Viceregal residence in all of the Americas.

Is anyone adverse to taking a vacation on a Caribbean island these days?  How about the Dominican Republic?
                                                                               

Some Jews from Western India who were Sephardim were the first to venture here to live in the city of Santo Domingo.  Santo Domingo, is the oldest continuously inhabited city and the first seat of the Spanish colonial rule in the New World. The Jews  were probably escaping the Spanish Inquisition around 1492.  It was much later that Ashkenazin arrived on this beautiful island from Europe in the latter 19th century.

" In the 19th century Jews from Curaçao settled in Hispaniola, although they did not form a strong community. Most of them hid their Jewish identities Marranos, now called (Anusim),  or were unaffiliated with Jewish tradition by that time. Among their descendants were Dominican President Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal and his issue Pedro Henríquez Ureña,  Max Henríquez Ureña, and Camila Henríquez Ureña. "Hazim and Majluta” which are Sefardi names, are representative of the large number of such Jews who settled the island throughout the 1800s."
                                                                     

The Dominican Republic is a Caribbean nation that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti to the west. Though known for its pristine beaches, all-inclusive resorts and golfing, it has a varied terrain comprising rainforest, savannah and highlands, including Pico Duarte, the Caribbean’s tallest mountain. It has Spanish colonial history going back 500 years, and passionate merengue is its official music and dance.

Christopher Columbus landed on the island on December 5, 1492, which the Taíno people had inhabited since the 7th century.

WWII brought on the Evian Conference. "In March 1938, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt convened a 32-nation conference at Evian-les-Bains, France, to discuss the resettlement of German and Austrian Jewish refugees to other lands. At that time, the Nazi regime was still agreeing to let Jews emigrate if they transferred their assets to the German government. As a result of it, a colony of over 1,000 European Jewish refugees was established here in Sosua, but most emigrated after WWII, and a few remain. "The Dominican Republic  helped settle Jews in Sosúa, on the northern coast.   About 700 European Jews of Ashkenazi Jewish descent reached the settlement where each family received 33 hectares (82 acres) of land, 10 cows (plus 2 additional cows per children), a mule and a horse, and a US$10,000 loan (about 161,000 at 2016 prices) at 1% interest.   Other refugees settled in the capital, Santo Domingo   One of the descendants  turns out to be my 4th cousin, found through DNA tests through 23&Me that we both took.  We've also sent our results to GedMatch.com so will have another view of our DNA there as well.  

The Dominican Republic in 1938 proclaimed their willingness to admit 50,000 to 100,000 Jewish refugees, but the project made little progress.  It was 1939 that my uncle in Germany boarded the last ship and arrived in the USA, something that was very difficult to carry out. 

Dictator Rafael Trujillo had taken over the Dominican Republic by military force in 1930 and lost power in 1952 after his assassination.  He feared takeover by Haiti – the French, black, and poor country that shares the island.  He was the only one  willing to take in the Jews, probably to cover up his reputation, having massacred 25,000 Haitians in 1937.  He also had in mind to "whiten" the people on the island, expecting the European men to marry Dominican women and have light-skinned children.They were expected to become agricultural workers rather than "commission agents," though.  

"The Joint Distribution Committee created a special organization, the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA) and funded it to purchase 26,000 acres in the Dominican town of Sosua, which had previously been developed as a banana plantation but then abandoned by the United Fruit Company." They gave a guarantee to the Jews.  "The Republic ... hereby guarantees to the settlers and their descendants full opportunity to continue their lives and occupations free from molestation, discrimination or persecution, with full freedom of religion ... civil, legal and economic rights, as well as other rights inherent to human beings."

None of this worked out.  At the time, people on the island were living in dirt floor huts.  Most refugees wanted to go to the USA if at all possible.  They had no idea of what was in store for them.  Only 50 people were able to make it to the island.  "Submarine warfare in the Atlantic and the need to use Allied ships for troops and supplies made it incredibly hard to relocate refugees.

In October 1941, the Nazis cut off Jewish emigration from the territories they occupied in Europe. Sosua’s Jewish population peaked at about 500. By this point, DORSA had invested about $1 million in the project.

 " In 1943 the number of known Jews in the Dominican Republic peaked at 1,000.  The Sosúa’s Jewish community experienced a deep decline in the 1980s due to emigration during the touristic boom of Sosúa when most Jews sold their land to developers at exorbitant prices. The oldest Jewish grave is dated to 1826. Finally,  about 25 Jewish families remained in Sosua. Their dairy business supplies most of the butter and cheese consumed in the Dominican Republic. Next to the town’s synagogue is a museum. The final caption on its exhibit reads: "Sosua, a community born of pain and nurtured in love must, in the final analysis, represent the ultimate triumph of life."
                                                                                        

Jewish family of Dominican Republic

In 1990, the Jewish population was 150 people in Santo Domingo, Sosua and a few others lived elsewhere on the island.  The Parroquia Iseraelita is the central Jewish body.  They probably speak Ladino and Spanish.  You know the population was larger at one time because they have 2 synagogues on the island, one in Santo Domingo and one in Sosua. Chabad has established an outreach center in Santo Domingo.  The Chabad outreach center focuses on assisting the local Jewish population reconnect with their Jewish roots and (because Chabad is of the Chassidic Jewish tradition) it is a source for traditional Judaism in the Dominican Republic. In Sosua, there is a small Jewish Museum next to the synagogue. On the High Holidays, the Sosua community hires a cantor from abroad who comes to lead services. Most of the people are Roman Catholics, but the population does have "Islam: 0.02%,  and Judaism: 0.01%. The population of Santo Domingo in the last census was  2,908,607.  There are 10 large cities there.  The current population of known Jews in the Dominican Republic is close to 3,000."
                                                                       

Nadene Goldfoot, I found a  4th cousin on Dominican Republic.

 My cousin wrote that her entire family (Maternal and Paternal) came from the northern part of the Dominican Republic, which has the most concentration of European heritage, including Spaniards, Germans, Italians, and there was even the  small town that served as a Jewish haven (Sosua, Puerto Plata).   She has a mixed heritage which might mean that her ancestors could include some Sephardim from 1492, but she thinks our connection is the European one through her father.  My surname started in Germany, and my grandfather lived in Telsiai, Lithuania before traveling to England and then Ireland to reach the USA just before 1900.
People who did settle here other than Jews were "English and French buccaneers who settled in northwestern Hispaniola coast and, after years of struggles with the French, Spain ceded the western coast of the island to France with the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, whilst the Central Plateau remained under Spanish domain.  France created a wealthy colony of Saint-Domingue there, while the Spanish colony suffered an economic decline.

The colony of Santo Domingo saw a spectacular population increase during the 17th century, as it rose from some 6,000 in 1637 to about 91,272 in 1750. Of this number approximately 38,272 were white landowners, 38,000 were free mixed people of color, and some 15,000 were slaves. This contrasted sharply with the population of the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti) – which had a population that was 90% enslaved and overall seven times as numerous as the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo

Today the population is 73% of racially mixed origin, 16% White, and 11% Black.  Ethnic immigrant groups in the country include West Asians—mostly Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians.  "The amount of known Jews (or those with genetic proof of Jewish ancestry and/or practiced Jewish customs/religion throughout generations) are close to 3,000; the exact number of Dominicans with Jewish lineages aren't known, however, because of intermarriage between the Jews and Dominicans over a period of more than five centuries. "

"Some spouses have formalized their Judaism through conversions and participate in Jewish communal life while other Sephardic Jews converted to Catholicism, still maintaining their Sephardic culture. Some Dominican Jews have also made aliyah to Israel.

More recently, the publication of the paperback book "Once Jews" has made easily available information on many early Jewish Sephardim settlers in the Dominican Republic."

Resource:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST2YXypv634  VIDEO
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Dominican_Republic
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/sosua.html
http://patentlyjewish.com/why-arent-there-100000-jews-in-the-dominican-republic/

Marranos Living in Canary Islands- Where Cruz's Grandfather Was From

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                         

Canary Islands of Spain off of Atlantic side of Africa: a  chain of active volcanic islandsThese rugged islands are known for their black- and white-sand beaches, varied resorts and balmy climate. Tenerife, the largest island, is dominated by the sometimes-snowy peaks of volcanic Mt. Teide, part of a national park with its own astronomical observatory.

Off the Atlantic coast of Africa is an island group that belongs to Spain.  It is the Canary Islands, where Ted Cruz's grandfather, Rafael Cruz,  was born and raised.  This island group had become a haven for Jews that had to hide their religion and who were referred to as the Marranos, today called by a Hebrew word; Anusim.

It was back in Spain in the years from 1499 to 1564 that Spain had established a branch of the Inquisition that had started in 1492, when Columbus had sailed the ocean blue-looking for India.  Spain expected Jews to either convert to Christianity or leave their country.  Many left and went to Portugal, but those who could not leave due to many reasons decided to hide who they were as far as religion went.  Thus, the nasty term, Marranos.  "The first Jewish immigrants to the Canary Islands were *Conversos (another word meaning Hidden Jews or Marranos) from Spain and Portugal seeking refuge from the Inquisition and persecution."  The Inquisition followed them and some Marranos were burned at the stake.  

These Marranos disappeared in the first half of the 17th century.  Some may have intermarried with the rest of the Spaniards living in the Canary Islands.
                                                                       

However, a number of the founders of the Jewish London community at this period had originated from the Canary Islands.  "Antonio Rodriguee was one.

Evidently, Jews had moved to the Canary Islands before 1492 as the information from London in 1910 shows.  "Robles, whose sensational denunciation as a Spaniard on the 
outbreak of the Spanish war in 1656 first revealed the existence 
of the London Marrano community, and successfully established 
its rights of residence, had been his Deputy-Treasurer. There 
was also reason to believe that CarvajaFs brother-in-law, Simon 
de Souza, and other relatives and co-religionists of his who 
had joined him in England, notably Domingo de la Cerda 
and Antonio de Porto, were Canariote immigrants." 

In Israel is a lady with Marrano ancestors from the Canary Islands.  "As for my own family, we migrated from Mayorca, Canary Islands and some went to Holland. One of my ancestors migrated from Holland to Curacao where the first synagogue was built in the Americas. He was a merchant surnamed Levy and he sold his wares in a port village in Puerto Rico called Cabo Rojo. He moved to Puerto Rico with his wife,  a Marrano surnamed Quinones de la Torre,  to a town in the jungle covered mountains called Lares. Lares is so remote, often it cannot even be found on the map. This little village was a refuge for Marrano families for Puerto Rico had a Office of the Inquisition up into the 1850's.

Our families only married other Marrano Jewish families. We never intermarried. Marriages were normally arranged by parents and often we married cousins. I have 8 generations of my Jewish mothers documents. All of our names are on the Inquisition List, which is really just a list of the census of the Church of Spain which names all their Jews. "

The inquisition was born of ridding the peninsula of the invading Arabs and Moors and then extended to Jews as well due to religious reasons. These Jews living in this Iberian paradise known to them as Sepharad had been in Spain arriving with the Greek merchants in pre-Roman times. They were joined  later by various waves as the prosperous Roman province became a peaceful haven. They attained even greater freedom after the Moorish conquest in 711. By the 1200's Iberia was truly on its  way back to being a conglomeration of Christian kingdoms.

                                                                           

"History shows, the Canary Islands were Spain's only colony prior to the 1492/Americas and become a principal place for persecuted Spanish/Sephardic Jews to flee in exile, from their centuries old homes in Spain. All Spaniards in the "pre-1492-Canary Islands" were not truly natives of the Islands, but 1492-invaders from Spain, to the Canary Islands. The "Guanchos"(the native peoples of the Islands) were soon wiped out or sold in slavery by the Spanish Conqueors. It is estimated that a good number of former Sephardic Jews quietly populated the new territory in exile, in fear for their lives. Then a century later, they quietly resettled in the new "Spanish Louisiana."  So the state of Louisiana had its own Canary Islands with Marranos living there from Spain's Canary Islands.  Ted Cruz's father moved to Cuba.  

"Toward the middle of the 17th century a considerable number of Marrano merchants settled in London and formed there a secret congregation, at the head of which was Antonio Fernandez Carvajal. They conducted a large business with the Levant, East and West Indies, Canary Islands, and Brazil, and above all with the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal.

Jews had been expulsed from England in 1290 and were not allowed back until 1655, which was 163 years after Jews were forced to flee for their lives from Spain.  "Petitions favoring readmission had been presented to the army as early as 1649 by two Baptists of Amsterdam, Johanna Cartwright and her son Ebenezer ("The Petition of the Jews for the Repealing of the Act of Parliament for Their Banishment out of England"); and suggestions looking to that end were made by men of the type of Roger Williams, Hugh Peters, and by Independents generally."  

Others had read their bibles a little more carefully and had read that the Messiah would not come until Jews were in all parts of the world.  "Many were moved in the same direction by mystical Messianic reasons; and their views attracted the enthusiasm of Menasseh Ben Israel, who in 1650 published his Hope of Israel, in which he advocated the return as a preliminary to the appearance of the Messiah. The Messiah could not appear till Jews existed in all the lands of the earth. According to Antonio de Montezinos, the Ten Tribes had been discovered in the American Indians of Ecuador, and England was the only country from which Jews were excluded. If England admitted them, the Messianic age might be expected. 

Today we know this is not true, and some descendants have already been found and are living in Israel today.  One group not there are the Pashtos of Pakistan and Afghanistan, with an excellent claim to be from the 10 lost tribes.  

                                                                                

 What is interesting, though,  is that my father's DNA haplogroup is Q1b1a-with ancestors from Lithuania, but the Q line, which started thousands of years ago, started in Siberia, Mongolia and parts of Turkey and includes many Indian tribes in North and South America. So in a way we are related, coming from the same original branch, but went off on a different twig.   

The Canary Islands have  very high mountains.  "Roque de los Muchachos sits on the island of La Palma which is 2,400 m or 7,874 ft high.  This mountain is the home to one of the largest collections of astronomical telescopes in the world including the world's largest telescope, the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias.  It's a high volcanic mountains which sit above the clouds which makes it similar to the observing conditions you can find in Mona Kea in Hawaii.  

                                                                             

 Mr.Rafael  Bienvenido  Cruz, Ted's father,was born March 22, 1939 in Matanzas, Cuba.  It's also an island.  In 1936, the Spanish Civil War had started here.  San Antonio, Texas was started by people from the Canary Islands, and strangely, that's where Ted Cruz moved to; Texas.  Rafael Cruz has been a Christian minister and public speaker. Cruz left the Roman Catholic Church in 1975 and became an Evangelical Christian after attending a Bible study with a colleague and having a born again experience ".  Following his conversion, his son and wife also became born-again Christians. In the Cruz home, talk at dinner time was frequently about the Bible.  

His father, who would be Ted's grandfather,  was also named Rafael Cruz, and he was a salesman for RCA, originally from the Canary Islands, Spain. His mother, Emilia Laudelina Díaz, was a teacher.  Rafael,  a Cuban émigré, knew little or no English  when he arrived in Austin, Texas to study at the University of Texas.  

"Cruz's father, Rafael, was born in Cuba, emigrated and married an American , Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh, born November 23, 1934 in Wilmington, New Castle, Delaware, USA .  Her parents were Edward J. Darragh and Elizabeth CE Kine.  While Rafael Cruz is today known for his religious beliefs and sometimes controversial statements, back then he was a successful oilman. The two were steeped in the Canadian oil industry of the early 1970s when she gave birth to a son, Rafael Edward (Ted) Cruz."

I doubt that Ted Cruz has Marrano ancestors, but it's possible.  A DNA test for his Y haplogroup would probably tell if he has this history.  Many a Catholic has found out this fact, and they were in fact Catholics from Spain long ago.  Then again, perhaps not, because it was not common for Marranos to intermarry with others.  

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.archive.org/stream/cryptojewsincana00wolfiala/cryptojewsincana00wolfiala_djvu.txt
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2008/08/descendants-of-marranos-anusim-iii.html
http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=1019&p=localities.weurope.spain.spain-regions.lasislascanarias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Marranos_in_England
booklet:  facts about Israel, published by the division of information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem.
http://everything-everywhere.com/2011/07/16/8-things-you-might-not-have-known-about-the-canary-islands/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Bienvenido_Cruz
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/30/politics/ted-cruz-canada-rafael-eleanor-calgary/
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/08/ted-cruz-mother-birth-certificate/
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/canary-islands.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_03895.html
http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com/2009/12/canary-islands-crypto-jewish-history.html
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091215123920AAzcaWA
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/02/ted-cruz-and-his-israel-position.html