Legend: Text in Blue = subjects connected with Judaism;
Orange = dual rites, in different
religions; Brown = bibliographical
reference
from: Feathers, angels, scales -
sacred matters,
chapters
1-6: Sociological research [1994-2000 & on]
on Marrano-descendants in Belmonte along with
personal impressions of the researcher
Sara Molho (2001)
1. Rainbows
2. Angels
3. “Ave de Pena”
4. Marrano Kippur and
Passover
6.
Guttman-Scale Analysis
6. Guttman-Scale analysis
Seven Theoretical-profiles presented by actual
Belmontese
Marrano-descendants – my brethren
Before
turning to dwell upon The Collective Aspect, it should be mentioned
right here that the Hebrew-site offers 7 vivid case-studies of real Belmonte Marrano-descendants.
These profiles - congruent to the 7 analytic-types mentioned in Table V
above - are based on my participant-observations among my Belmontese
brethren. Most of them manifest the above mentioned Personal Aspect. Few represent hesitations stemming from the
Collective Aspect.
These
enlightening real-stories are going to be translated later into English.
However, it is very important to recognize - even before reading them - the
importance of grasping simultaneously both the theoretical-scale-types with the
real life-stories parallel to them. By these anecdotes the phenomenon of
practicing double-religions at the same time
becomes not only plausible, or even logic in a way, but also pardonable.
The Personal Aspect
(to be translated soon into English)
The Collective Aspect
Translated from Hebrew by author,
partly edited by Mark Elliott Shapiro
As stressed
above, some fluctuations between religions
stem from rather collective aspects of life, not from personal ones.
Outside Community-Functionaries
A continuous
service of appointed Rabinos (rabbis, male
religious leaders) never occurred in Belmonte till now (2008)! Before
World War II, a qualified Salonician rabbi
considered settling in Belmonte, and even visited there, but never realized
this plan[1].
On the 90’s each of the two Jewish Agency appointed rabbis left after resisting either 2 or 3 years
(1990-1996). They started the conversions while the Community was being created;
however a considerable temporal-gap stretched between both their terms of
office. In 2004, another Rabino (an Amishav
appointment) stayed only several months. To sum up, since 1997 appointments
were temporary, and mostly not of rabbis but
rather of ritual-slaughterers (always budgeted
by the same donor). Sometimes it was not clear
whether anyone would arrive at all for the next feasts, not a temporary-slaughterer, nor even a young
Actually,
instruction of halakhic rites by rabbis was partial in the past and needed at present
(2008!).[2]
For
example: on 2000 the majority still could not conduct at home prayers as Kiddush or Havdalah,
nor a real Sedder
(Passover-ritual-banquet), as they should. They did not know which specific parashah
should be read each Shabbat. For the benefit of
everybody, functionaries/Jewish-visitors sometimes used to conduct these rites
in common within the synagogue, since they were
not practiced at home. In seven years of observation (1994-2000), those who
somehow managed to conduct the newly acquired normative Passover-rites at home were only 2 !! However, in 2007 they
doubled to 4 merely!! Also, in 2007 I
have noticed that internet-connections might have party improved perception
(how to get halakhic-knowledge),
but not behaviour itself (how to apply it).
As to sending
youngsters for religious studies, it had been found unsuccessful on the 20’s-30’s, when up to 5 Belmontese students went to study in the
Oporto Yeshiva. None of them returned to their
remote birth-place; they preferred to emigrate, sometimes renouncing their
Judaism/Marranism. My meeting in 1999 with a Christian-offspring of one of them
proves it: crossing oceans on her way to
On the early
90’s, the Belmonte Rabinos tried,
unsuccessfully again, to send 1-2 young members to an Israeli Yeshiva. But Belmonte teenagers are much attached to
their parents, so that leaving them for studies abroad - even in
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The Rabino S. S. |
Leadership
in mainstream Judaism is always male and communal, whereas in Belmonte
Communal Institutions are being formed only now, despite enduring
individualistic tendencies. Regrettably, ignorance of Hebrew
and halakhic-knowledge, do not encourage
the formation of local male leadership. This, combined with the lack of
reliability on a continuous service of outside-functionaries, bring about
conflicts, a considerable turnover and dismissals of Presidents of the
Community: Till 2000 only one president ended his full-term without being
dismissed earlier!
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Old
Marrano residences |
Such a
prolonged situation gives rise to fluctuations and
gliding back and forth between Judaism (emphasis on community life) and
Marranism (individualistic, privatized and feminized life within the family),
and even, Heaven forbid, a collective passage from Jewish-oriented
scale-profiles to Marrano-oriented ones. Once people worried that maybe no
religious-functionary would come to conduct the Passover
rites; therefore several individuals publicly suggested turning back to
the abandoned Marrano-rites, so as to celebrate at least the
Marrano traditional-Passover! Such a retreat might change, in the
Marrano-column of Table IV, each partly-mode ( = ) into a
full-mode ( + ), while in the Jewish-column the full-mode ( + )
would be transformed either to partly ( = ) or even worse, to none (
- ). In short, crises in the Community and/or in religious-services it
manages to provide, could result in passages from Types 5. or 3.,
to Types 6. or 7., thus reducing the frequency in
the two first ones, while increasing it in the two last ones. What else could be
expected from Marrano descendants in these circumstances?
It so
happened in autumn 2005 that the Portuguese-speaking appointee (a
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a. The Castelo from the Inside, |
b. and from the Outside, |
Attitude Towards Education
As to
educational aspects, examples were given above of two Marrano-kids in different
generations, which demonstrate explicitly how Marrano-education was intended to
accustom youngsters to duality in religious
behaviour, though conducting it in distinct arenas, indoors/outside: -
In
the past (before 1994):
a. at home: (Jewish)
Marrano /
b. outside home: Christian
That is to say that in the past they
used a Christian-mask, whereas the content, hidden from the Christian-vicinity,
was Marrano. However nowadays dualism
still exists, but the contents, as well as the degree of secrecy differ:
1994
and on:
1) those who returned
to Judaism:
a. at home: Jewish-halakhic + a Marrano flavour /
b. outside: only
Jewish[5]
2) those who did not
convert (remained Marranos)
a. at home: Marrano
+ a halakhic flavour[6] /
b. outside: Christian+Marrano
The main
difference is that people do not hide any more from Christians. In
mourning services at home, the male Minyan
(at least ten men) might recite Jewish prayers even on the balcony, in
front of all the “Goios” (Gentile), either neighbours or passers by, whereas
that same mourning family’s double
Marrano-rites and prayers for the same deceased - are always
clandestinely kept by women. Also, they do not close any more the
shutters of the new synagogue before taking out
the Torah-scrolls, as done in the provisory-synagogue between their conversion (1992) and December
1996 (the inauguration of the new one); there are no shutters in the new
one!
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Entrance to the New Synagogue |
Nevertheless they
still use masks in front of Jewish visitors or even their Rabinos, if they assume (sometimes mistakenly) that
previous Marrano-practices they still wish to observe, might contradict Halakhah (see Type f.:
Alda Lopes’ case-study). Other behavioural
changes could also occur.
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Women's traditional attire in
Belmonte |
Formal-education is another aspect
contributing to fluctuations and hesitation.
Nowhere in Portugal is there any Jewish school, therefore Belmonte’s Community
pupils - though they openly manifest their Jewish identity now - are enlisted
to general schools still providing some Christian education too. Since 1994
exemptions from school in order to participate in Jewish-feasts are common,
provided a certification by the Rabino is
shown. But sometimes parents of incompetent secondary-school
pupils, prefer not to endanger their scholar achievements by attending feasts
like Rosh-Hashannah/Passover. Only once did it
occur on a Kippur (Day
of Atonement) that a pupil (aged about 6 !) was sent to her
primary-school, while all the rest of her family attended the synagogue.
However gossip, a mechanism of social-control within every community,
vehemently denounced this parental decision.
Summing up
In these two
sub-chapters (5&6): we acquainted some real people who hesitate and fluctuate between practices of 2-3
different religions. We met most of them either in Table V and/or in
their following case-studies, like Type d.2 - Antonio Manuel Vaz (a
reminder: all names mentioned here are fictitious), and his spouse, who
manifest staggering religious
behaviour on the very same day of Rosh-Hashannah. So do the undecided rest: Type d.1, Mercedes Caetano
Rodrigues; or Type e., Ana Caetano Morão; and certainly Eduardo
Raphael Vaz, fluctuating between both Types g.
& h.. At the beginning of this chapter, Feathers etc., we
also came across Ricardo Vaz Nunes celebrating double
rites in Passover: on one hand according
to Halakhah at the Sedder-table,
with the Rabino and the whole Community; but on
the other hand - on the very same feast - the Rabino
spotted him “crossing the Red-Sea” in his heavily irrigated front-garden, according
to a (“modernized”? public?) version of the hidden Marrano-tradition. So did
the above mourners, practicing in parallel double
rites on the same seven days of mourning, hosting a public male Minyan, apart from the clandestine female
prayer-gatherings, meant to appease their Marrano past.
Appendix:
Correspondence (in
Hebrew) with Mr. Avraham Burg, The Jewish Agency (1995-6)
A
letter to Mr. Burg
Answer
from Mr. Burg
© All rights reserved to Sara Molho, 2001
Publication
of this article is permitted, but without changes, and with the stipulation
that full mention is made of the source: