Site icon The Jewish Link

AFTER 500 YEARS, CENTRAL AMERICA’S BNEI ANOUSIM ARE GETTING A PERMANENT RABBI

jewish

Children of the Bnei Anousim community in San Salvador, El Salvador, during a Havdalah ceremony.Photo credits: Michael Freund / Shavei Israel.

Rabbi Elisha Salas is Shavei Israel’s new emissary to the crypto-Jews of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala

Rabbi Elisha Salas, Shavei Israel’s new emissary to the crypto-Jews of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Photo credits: Michael Freund / Shavei Israel

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, Aug. 16 – More than 500 years after their Iberian Jewish ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Inquisition, Bnei Anousim (whom historians refer to by the derogatory term Marranos, meaning ‘pig’) in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala will get a full-time rabbi to serve their spiritual and educational needs, thanks to the Jerusalem-based Shavei Israel organization.

Rabbi Elisha Salas, 61, who served as Shavei Israel’s emissary to Portugal for the past eight years, will take up his new post as the organization’s envoy to Central America next week. He will be based in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, where Shavei Israel has been working for many years with a thriving community of 300 Bnei Anousim, all of whom practice Orthodox Judaism, and will also work with crypto-Jews in neighboring Guatemala and Honduras.

“We are delighted to be sending Rabbi Elisha Salas to reach out to the Bnei Anousim of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala,” said Michael Freund, founder and chairman of Shavei Israel. “There are thousands of Bnei Anousim throughout those countries who are conscious of their historical connection to the Jewish people. We owe it to them and to their ancestors to reach out to them, embrace them and welcome them back home. Shavei Israel will continue to intensify its efforts to assist the Bnei Anousim wherever they may be.”

A native of Chile, Rabbi Salas made aliyah to Israel in 1999 and is married with four children. After graduating from Santiago University in Chile with two degrees in accounting and religious studies, he spent five years at the Beit Midrash Sepharadi in the Old City of Jerusalem. In addition to being an ordained rabbi, Salas is certified to practice as a shochet(ritual kosher slaughterer).

In his new role, Rabbi Salas will guide the communities and teach Torah, Jewish culture and tradition, while conducting a wide range of educational and social activities. He will also arrange community events and prayers for Shabbat and holidays, give lectures on Jewish law, teach young and old how to properly read from the Torah and conduct prayers, and much more.

About the Jews of El Salvador:
Jews have maintained a presence in El Salvador since the early 19th century, when Jewish immigrants, mainly Sephardim, began to settle there from around Latin America, Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia. A small wave of Ashkenazi Jews arrived in the middle of the 20th century as they fled Europe in the wake of Hitler’s rise to power. But many secret Jews also came to El Salvador a few centuries ago, when they escaped Spain. These crypto-Jews were forced to continue practicing Judaism in secret when the long arm of the Inquisition spread to central and South America.
About Shavei Israel:
Shavei Israel is a nonprofit organization founded by Michael Freund, who immigrated to Israel from the United States with the aim of strengthening the ties between the Jewish people, the State of Israel and the descendants of Jews around the world. The organization is currently active in more than a dozen countries and provides assistance to a variety of communities such as the Bnei Menashe of India, the Bnei Anousim (referred to by the derogatory term “Marranos” by historians) in Spain, Portugal and South America, the Subbotnik Jews of Russia, the Jewish community of Kaifeng in China, descendants of Jews living in Poland, and others. For more information visit: www.shavei.org.

 

Exit mobile version