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Book: My 15 Grandmothers by Genie Milgrom
Mar. 1st, 2020 08:10 pmI just finished reading My 15 Grandmothers. It's quite a short book; it only took me about an hour and a half to read. But when I got to the end, although the author ended on an optimistic note, I perceived something else.
Genie Milgrom was born in Cuba; she was 2 when Castro took power and 4 when her family left - some to Miami and some back to Spain, where her grandparents had come from. She was raised very strictly Catholic - Catholic grade school and high school, daily mass, all of it. She talks about her discovery of Judaism and her journey to conversion. It was not an easy road.
She wanted to know her family's history. Her maternal grandfather would have told her; her grandmother would stop him. She knew her grandparents were 2nd cousins, and that in fact her mother was the first who did not marry a cousin. Everyone came from the same tiny town on the Spanish-Portuguese border. The family had been there for centuries - at least 500 years.
My first thought was that everyone must be related to everyone else in some degree by now. My second was that if you were trying not to intermarry into a non-Jewish population, that would be an effective way to do it.
Meanwhile Genie's grandmothers taught her to cook and keep house, including practices that only make sense in a Jewish context. They taught her, for example, to sweep dirt into the center of a room and take it up with a dustpan rather than just sweep it out the door. The idea is not to sweep it past the mezuzah - but there was no mezuzah on her family's doors. She gives other examples as well.
And then Genie's maternal grandmother died, and left her a small jewelry box containing a tiny Star of David earring and a hamsa pendant. Two unequivocally Jewish symbols. No other word, no explanation, just those two things.
She went on a Quest. No other word really suits. She set out to document that her ancestors had been Crypto-Jews, people who converted to Catholicism publicly but continued to maintain their Jewish identity privately. And she did it - she found the family roots in that town, found that they had indeed been Jewish, and that her matrilineal line was unbroken for 15 generations.
Others had tried; historians and genealogists had gone there and asked, and had been told no, no Jews here, never have been. Even the town historian insisted there was nothing to find. Until Genie, her husband and their friend went in person, and she began prefacing her questions by telling the people she spoke to that this was her family, that they had had a nickname when they were there, and what it was. Then, and only then, were they shown the underground synagogue, the medieval mikveh (ritual bath), the inscriptions on buildings and doors. Only then was anyone will to say "yes, this street was the Jewish Quarter; this plaza was where Inquisition trials were held, these are the tunnels that were built under and between the homes." They knew. They knew, but they would not speak of it save to one of their own.
And that was what broke my heart. It has been five centuries since the Inquisition expelled them or forced them (in some cases literally) underground. Fifteen generations, in her family's case. And while the people who live in that village still know that there were synagogues, where they were and what was there now, they're still afraid to acknowledge that a Jewish community ever existed, that their families were ever Jewish. Even once they knew who Genie was, who her grandparents were, they spoke in whispers. They pointed the way and then disappeared out of sight.
Five hundred years. And they are still in hiding, and still afraid.
Genie Milgrom was born in Cuba; she was 2 when Castro took power and 4 when her family left - some to Miami and some back to Spain, where her grandparents had come from. She was raised very strictly Catholic - Catholic grade school and high school, daily mass, all of it. She talks about her discovery of Judaism and her journey to conversion. It was not an easy road.
She wanted to know her family's history. Her maternal grandfather would have told her; her grandmother would stop him. She knew her grandparents were 2nd cousins, and that in fact her mother was the first who did not marry a cousin. Everyone came from the same tiny town on the Spanish-Portuguese border. The family had been there for centuries - at least 500 years.
My first thought was that everyone must be related to everyone else in some degree by now. My second was that if you were trying not to intermarry into a non-Jewish population, that would be an effective way to do it.
Meanwhile Genie's grandmothers taught her to cook and keep house, including practices that only make sense in a Jewish context. They taught her, for example, to sweep dirt into the center of a room and take it up with a dustpan rather than just sweep it out the door. The idea is not to sweep it past the mezuzah - but there was no mezuzah on her family's doors. She gives other examples as well.
And then Genie's maternal grandmother died, and left her a small jewelry box containing a tiny Star of David earring and a hamsa pendant. Two unequivocally Jewish symbols. No other word, no explanation, just those two things.
She went on a Quest. No other word really suits. She set out to document that her ancestors had been Crypto-Jews, people who converted to Catholicism publicly but continued to maintain their Jewish identity privately. And she did it - she found the family roots in that town, found that they had indeed been Jewish, and that her matrilineal line was unbroken for 15 generations.
Others had tried; historians and genealogists had gone there and asked, and had been told no, no Jews here, never have been. Even the town historian insisted there was nothing to find. Until Genie, her husband and their friend went in person, and she began prefacing her questions by telling the people she spoke to that this was her family, that they had had a nickname when they were there, and what it was. Then, and only then, were they shown the underground synagogue, the medieval mikveh (ritual bath), the inscriptions on buildings and doors. Only then was anyone will to say "yes, this street was the Jewish Quarter; this plaza was where Inquisition trials were held, these are the tunnels that were built under and between the homes." They knew. They knew, but they would not speak of it save to one of their own.
And that was what broke my heart. It has been five centuries since the Inquisition expelled them or forced them (in some cases literally) underground. Fifteen generations, in her family's case. And while the people who live in that village still know that there were synagogues, where they were and what was there now, they're still afraid to acknowledge that a Jewish community ever existed, that their families were ever Jewish. Even once they knew who Genie was, who her grandparents were, they spoke in whispers. They pointed the way and then disappeared out of sight.
Five hundred years. And they are still in hiding, and still afraid.
