This study of contemporary crypto-Jews—descendants of European Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition—traces the group's history of clandestinely conducting their faith and their present-day efforts to reclaim their past. Janet Liebman Jacobs masterfully combines historical and social scientific theory to fashion a brilliant analysis of hidden ancestry and the transformation of religious and ethnic identity.
Janet Liebman Jacobs is Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the author of Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting from New Religions (1989) and Victimized Daughters: Incest and the Development of the Female Self (1994), and editor of Religion, Society, and Psychoanalysis: Readings in Contemporary Theory (1997).
"Janet Jacobs enters fearlessly into the house of mirrors that is Jewish-Hispanic identity, where nothing is what it appears to be. Her ethnography is about the uses of silence and the excuses of memory."—Ilan Stavans, author of On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language
"Janet Jacobs's book is a beautifully written, compelling account of the experiences of contemporary crypto-Jews who are struggling to locate the meanings of their various identities. I know of no other works that cover this material, and Jacobs does so in a rich finely nuanced way in which she deals with issues of family, memory, community, and belonging. I love the way she draws on such a wide variety of materials to explore this topic in a wide-ranging and impressive way."—Lynn Davidman, author of Tradition in a Rootless World
210 pp.6 x 9
9780520235175$31.95|£27.00Paper
Sep 2002