How Many Jews were Lost?

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, the famous author of Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory and From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac … More

Returning to Egypt: Conversos who Returned to Spain and Portugal

While it is easy to focus on the Conversos who escaped Spain or Portugal and successfully reintegrated in Jewish life, … More

Who is a Jew?

The question, Who is a Jew?, is directly related to the over arching theme of this website. The plight of … More

Song From a Withered Limb: Las Posadas and the Converso Crisis of the 16th Century

The following article was originally presented  at the national conference of the Society for Crypto Jewish Studies in Dallas, Texas … More

The Maharal of Prague and Conversos

While I have focused on developing CryptoJudaism.com, readers continue to find this site and so I will continue to post … More

Samuel Usque’s Approach to Wavering Conversos

Once Conversos fled Spain and Portugal, returning to Judaism openly was not always an attractive option. Many Conversos wavered in … More

The Concept of Taqiyya and its Impact on Iberian Jewry

The Islam conquest of Spain began in 711 CE and would extend over parts of the Iberian Peninsula through the … More

The Sabbatean Prophets

B”H Traveling on business can be difficult but one benefit is that it gives me the opportunity to read. I … More

Conversos and Samaritans: Unlikely Comparisons

In 2014, I had the opportunity to present a brief lecture on comparisons between Conversos and Samaritans in rabbinic literature. … More

George Washington’s Letter to the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island

Visiting the Touro Synagogue this week was an amazing experience. I knew about its history but actually walking into the … More