There Are no "Hidden Jews" in New Mexico UPDATED

Check out this article located here if you want to see the argument that there are "Crypto Jews" in New Mexico. Sort of funny how anyone would go about making a determination that they were Jewish folks in New Mexico prior to 1820 or so. There are Jews in New Mexico, New Mexican Jews, but their history DOES NOT predate 1820. No information of any kind is available that substantiates this allegation. In short there is no proof.

A star of David on headstone is not proof! A menorah you remember on grandma's mantle is not proof! Your grandmother with prayers "en la dispensa" is not proof! suffice it to say there is no proof.

A lot of if's, maybe's and what if's etc..... But not a single shred of hard evidence. Read the evidence presented and look carefully. I imagine if you want to believe, nothing anyone can do about that. But credibility is lost when folks make this assumption and try and apply it to New Mexican genealogy.

The article referenced is a good article on the why and how come of the subject.

DNA cannot prove you are a Jew anymore than it can prove you are a Mormon or a Jehovahs Witness. These are religions and DNA cannot identify what religion a person belongs to. Jews are a religious group, not a racial group.

Keep in mind that most Jews, here and in Israel, are Semites, the same racial group as Arabs. And remember that Arabs were in, ruled Spain for over 600 years. The odds are if there is Semite blood in our veins it is most probably Arab.

Converso/Crypto Sephardic Jews in New Mexico prior to 1810 cannot be proven, at least not yet. But folks, mainly Hispanic women, seem to want to be Jewish. Don't ask me why, I have no idea why. Some have gone to the extent of joining the Jewish faith.

UPDATE BELOW

Here is another pearl of wisdom: "When Lineage is traced back to 1492, each person has (depending on whether a generation is counted as thirty years or twenty five) as many as 131,072 to 1,048,576 direct ancestors. Given these numbers, every southwestern Latino, Hispano, Mexican, Mestizo, Chicano or whatever we call ourselvs is practically guaranteed Iberian Jewish ancestry -- whether we like it or not."

But even that does not make one a Jew.

No nos conosimos, pero somos parientes

Click on the image to make it larger.

We may not know it but Hispanic folks whose roots extend into New Mexico are all related to each other. It may be two or three generations back or it may be nine or ten generations back. But we are all related, make no mistake about it.

When you consider the numbers of people who came with don Juan de Onate in 1598 and whose descendants survived the Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1680 to return with don Diego de Vargas in the 1690's. The number of people/families involved are really quite small. Even when you consider the additional colonists that don Diego de Vargas brought with him

Over the years, until the coming of the Americans and their annexing the New Mexican province in 1846, the folks here were very isolated. Very isolated. Isolated to the point that they intermarried with each other under the watchful eyes of the Catholic Church to insure that the relationships were not too close. As a result over the years we all became cousins. We may not know each other personally, but we need to know that we are related. Hense the title of the post "No nos conosimos, pero somos Parientes" (we may not know each other it, but we are related).

Looking back over the generations showes this without any doubt.