"Costumbres Familiares"

By Rabbi Manny Viñas

Throughout Latin America today there are entire communities that practice what seem to be "strange rituals" that maybe particular to their town, a small group of families or even individual families. Many call these rituals "Costumbres familiares." Many still will not admit to outsiders that their practices exist. A sense of protection has been handed down from generation to generation. Most do not even know that these customs identify them as Jews. Others may not practice any customs but have an oral history or a suspicion (that is handed down in the family) that they are of Jewish ancestry. Still other individuals may just "feel" Jewish — they have an affinity for Jewish life. They may experience a spiritual connection or kinship with Jewish ideas or individuals. They may discover they have Jewish ancestry or they may never know why.

Many customs are easily identified as Jewish — others are not. El Centro has been studying and recording the vast array of feelings, customs and practices and the regions or countries where they were found. The most common are the discussed below.

Burial customs
Families sit on the floor for a few days after burial, covering mirrors during mourning, trying to procure earth from the Holy Land to place into the burial plot with relatives. They prepare shrouds that are white cotton and place the bindings of the shrouds and the chest, waist and ankles of the deceased. Some place a stone at the gravesite. Others have a straw broom in the house so that its straw can be used in case of death to be placed under the deceased until burial preparations are undertaken.

Dietary customs
Anusim have an oral tradition of allergy to pork, never eating blood in the form of the ever-popular Spanish blood sausage. They do not eat leavened products during Holy Week as a sign of mourning for Jesus, and give all bread and cakes to the poor during holy week. They eat roasted lamb on the15th day of the Springtime moon, and fast on the tenth day of the first Fall moon.

Religious customs
Some Anusim never pray to the Saints or the Virgin Mary. They say "El Dio" rather than the "normal" Dios in Spanish. "El Dio" is Ladino for God. They use the Hebrew name "El" for God as if it were the Spanish phrase for "the" and leave the last "s" off as a way of expressing faith in one God. They avoid the plural which is expressed in Spanish by adding an "s" to the end of words.

Marriage customs
Anusim also tended to marry only certain individuals, marrying only with a few other families in town because the others "are not acceptable." It was passed down in families which families were acceptable for marriage and which ones were not accepted by the traditions of the family. Another interesting feature of marriage practices was the acceptability of marrying Africans rather than certain Spaniards. Many families have reported that they received an oral family history. Africans were accaptable for two reasons; (1)Many of the Africans that were brought to the Americas already believed in only One God and had similar hidden ritual practices and (2) marrying Africans was considered better than marrying certain Spaniards whose lifestyles or family lifestyles had been incompatible to the Anusim family beliefs. Others say that it was out of self-protection: Africans were not going to report the practices because they too were victims of persecution.

Oral tradition
There is also a strong Anusim propensity towards oral history. Many of these oral histories are governed and passed down by family matriarchs.

Shabbat
Some anusim do not work on Saturday.

Personal Vignettes

Santo Domingo
A man from Santo Domingo became of aware of his Jewish roots by identifying the reasons for his family's "strange customs." When he had completed the ritual of return and placed his tefillin on his head, he began to cry from the deepest place in his soul. It was a wailing sound that pierced through our hearts and was very reminiscent of the sound of the Shofar. When Rabbi Viñas asked him to identify his feelings that were causing this response, he expressed that he was crying out of joy and sorrow for his ancestors who had dreamed of this day for five hundred years.

Puerto Rico
A Puerto Rican Jew-by-choice converted because of religious belief in Judaism. He had never suspected that his family was harboring a secret that they had never shared with him. Five years after his conversion, he went back to Purto Rico to visit his grandmother who was on her deathbed. When she was near death, a neighbor summoned a local Catholic Priest to deliver the last rites of the Catholic Church. This woman threw the priest out of her room and refused to receive the rite. She then explained to her grandson that the family were originally Jews and had never accepted the last rites because she said, "at this point what can they do to us, I am going to die anyway." He returned to New York knowing that his attraction to Judaism was not just his own, but also one that reflects his grandmother's dying wish.

Dominican Republic
A large Dominican family from the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan became aware of the origin of their family rituals by observing the German Jews who lived along side the Dominican immigrants. They began to become aware of the Sabbath rituals of lighting candles, the pattern of the Holidays and Jewish dietary practices. They realized that the German Jews were observing similar customs to those they had seen their grandmother observing in Dominican Republic. They approached a synagogue and explained the situation to the rabbi. The rabbi discouraged them from attending the synagogue and told them plainly that he did not believe that they were of Jewish ancestry because they did not look like Jews. Shortly after this encounter, one of the family members met an outreach missionary from a Messianic Christian "synagogue." They attended this group for three years increasing their knowledge of Judaism. They met Rabbi Viñas through a member of the church and began attending El Centro classes and events. After two years, many of the members of this family have returned/converted to Judaism and now live fully observant lives. They have a primary identity as Sephardic Jews of Anusim ancestry. Last year, the family decided to fund one of the younger members of the family to move to Jerusalem to study for ordination as a rabbi.