Israel Has Abandoned Latin America’s Crypto-Jews

Israel has created a discriminatory administrative policy, blocking the immigration of a large group of historically persecuted Jews. These are the Bnei Anousim, also known as Crypto-Jews, descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism. During the ensuing three hundred years of Inquisitions, they were persecuted. However, a sizable percentage of Bnei Anousim retained Jewish practices in secret. Many preserved Jewish traditions through the entire Inquisition period, which lasted into the 19th century and beyond. In many respects, their historical plight parallels that of the Jews of the former Soviet Union, who were forcibly assimilated and persecuted for their Jewishness during the Soviet period. In recent decades, tens of thousands of Bnei Anousim in Europe, the Americas and elsewhere have converted or returned to openly practicing Judaism.

Bnei Anousim in many countries are barred from immigration despite Israel’s Law of Return, a law allowing the world’s Jews Israeli residency and a rapid path to Israeli citizenship. This barrier comes from a confluence of two decisions. First, in order to be approved for immigration, a convert needs to be accepted by the local Jewish community in which they reside. This restriction comes from an administrative decision made several years ago by Israel’s Ministry of the Interior. Second, in Latin America, Jewish communities decided that they would not accept converts or even Bnei Anousim returnees as members. With the fear of Christian persecution still lingering, the community ruling, originally made in Argentina in 1927, gradually became the general practice in the majority of Latin American countries.

The Ministry of the Interior’s policy prevents Latin American converts from emigrating to Israel—even if they are recognized as Jews by the most reputable rabbis from the U.S., Israel, or elsewhere.

Together with the Jewish community’s ruling, the Ministry of the Interior’s policy prevents Latin American converts from emigrating to Israel—even if they are recognized as Jews by the most reputable rabbis from the U.S., Israel or elsewhere. Returnees can be approved to enter Israel because of non-Latin American rabbis. Converts are typically Orthodox and practice a range of professions, often skilled and white-collar. They tend to be in their own “emerging communities,” a Ministry of Diaspora Affairs classification dating from 2017. These emerging communities are not recognized by the Ministry of the Interior. Because this is the only region where the nearby Jewish communities would not accept converts as members, the Ministry of the Interior’s policy de facto discriminates against Latin American converts. It also prevents the full implementation of the Law of Return.

Ending this discrimination is not only important to the Bnei Anousim, but also to Israel and to the Jewish people as a whole. Historically, much of Israel’s growth has come from its absorption of Jewish Diaspora immigrants, especially when these immigrants faced crises in their home countries. For the past twenty years, however, the pools of immigrants from which Israel historically drew have dried up. Rates of immigration to Israel under the Law of Return have fallen precipitously. Between 1990 and 2000, over 50,000 people made aliyah each year. However, immigration fell below 25,000 people for each consecutive year from 2003 to 2014 and has been less than 50,000 people per year since 2001. By 2006, fewer than half of the new Law of Return immigrants were Jewish by rabbinical standards.

For new sources of immigrants, Israel has begun to consider Latin America. A study from the Technion Institute identified Brazil as the number one country for aliyah potential, because Brazil’s nearly 100,000 Jews are a young and highly educated demographic concerned about their future in the country. A high percentage of these are Bnei Anousim. The same study estimated 30,000 of Brazil’s Bnei Anousim have so far converted or returned to openly practicing Judaism, of a total estimated population of 4 million Bnei Anousim in that country alone.

The Bnei Anousim are a large, barely tapped pool of productive Jewish immigrants who may come even without a crisis in their countries. Today, through local and Internet initiatives of a growing number of organizations, their awareness of Judaism is increasing. In Latin America, these organizations are becoming the next wave of Jewish international aid, now that the Jews from the former Soviet Union, the Arab countries and other parts of the world have mostly been helped. Encouraged by these initiatives, descendants of Crypto-Jews may become a demographically significant group of potential immigrants to Israel.

With a stroke of the pen, Israel’s Ministry of the Interior can end the discrimination and allow the Bnei Anousim to emigrate to Israel under the Law of Return. It has the authority to overturn the current administrative policy and to allow Jewish rabbis and Jewish communities from elsewhere to verify Latin American converts’ Jewishness under Jewish law. “What happened to Zionism?” asks Yaffah DaCosta, CEO of Ezra L’Anousim, a Bnei Anousim aid organization based in Israel. “So this present policy, of the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, is anti-Zionist. Israel is not the Jewish homeland, open to all Jews, if this policy is permitted to remain in its present form.”

Yet change may be on the horizon. Israel has narrowly voted in a new government, replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Naftali Bennett and Minister of the Interior Aryeh Deri with Ayelet Shaked. To cement its hold on power, Israel’s new government, which calls itself the “government of change,” may want to recruit this group of potential immigrants.

If the Ministry of the Interior knows people are aware of this issue, and feels public pressure to modify its immigration policy, change is much more likely. Zionists from all over the world can use their influence to maintain Israel as a Jewish homeland that is welcoming to all Jews. They can request that the current Minister of the Interior devise an immigration policy that will embrace halakhic Jews from “emerging communities” who have faced so much oppression.

Rabbanit Yaffah Batya daCosta (formally returned from Bnei Anousim in 2000) is Founder and CEO of Ezra L’Anousim—an all-volunteer global non-profit established in Israel in 2005. She has over 50 years of business experience and a concurrent 30 years of involvement with Bnei Anousim, as well as helping pro-Israel Christians explore a root cause of Christian antisemitism in 2nd century C.E. “replacement theology.” yaffbatya@yahoo.com

Rebecca Sealfon is a Reconstructionist Jewish writer and social media consultant living in New York City. She started and maintains a popular Israel-Palestine peace forum called Unity is Strength, which receives more than 1,000,000 views per year and attracts writers from Israel, Palestine, and all over the world. Rebecca has published in the New York Daily News, Smithsonian magazine and the Daily Beast. rebecca.sealfon@gmail.com