JPost: The Casa Shalom Institute, Israel’s foremost center for Marrano- Anusim Studies, and the Netanya Academic College will join forces in the coming weeks to create the world’s largest research institution for these “secret Jews,” it was announced Monday.
The center, which will be located in a new section of the Netanya Academic College’s library, will become the new address for Casa Shalom’s more than 2,000 books, 5,000 documents and hundreds of testimonies, artifacts and photographs, all telling the stories of Jews who either converted to Christianity or fled from Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition more than 500 years ago.
Known by a variety of names, including Anusim, Conversos, Islanders, Chuetas and Cryptos, as well as Marranos, many of the communities stayed in the Mediterranean region, while others settled as far afield as Newfoundland, Cuba, Jamaica and even the Philippines.
Some of them have kept their Jewish identity so well hidden throughout the centuries that even today it is a struggle for them to be open about who they really are.
