Anusim

{{short description|Legal category of Jews}}

{{further|Converso|Marrano}}

{{italic title}}

Anusim ({{langx|he|אֲנוּסִים}}, {{IPA|he|ʔanuˈsim|pron}}; singular male, anús, {{langx|he|אָנוּס}} {{IPA|he|ʔaˈnus|pron}}; singular female, anusá, {{Script/Hebrew|אֲנוּסָה}} {{IPA|he|ʔanuˈsa|pron}}, meaning "coerced") is a legal category of Jews in halakha (Jewish law) who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another religion. The term "anusim" is most properly translated as the "coerced [ones]" or the "forced [ones]".

Etymology

The term anusim is derived from the Talmudic phrase averah b’ones ({{Script/Hebrew|עבירה באונס}}),Talmud, Abodá Zará 54a meaning "a forced transgression." The Hebrew ones ({{IPA|he|ˈones|pron}}) derives from the triconsonantal root {{Script/Hebrew|א-נ-ס}} (Aleph-Nun-Samekh), and originally referred to any case where a person has been forced into any act against his or her will. In Modern Hebrew, the word ones is mainly used to mean rape, thus "anusim" (or female "anusot") nowadays means rape victims, the older meaning used only in the historical context.

The term anús is used in contradistinction to meshumad ({{Script/Hebrew|מְשֻׁמָּד}}), (literally "self-destroyed") which means a person who has voluntarily abandoned the practice of Jewish law in whole or in part. The forced converts were also known as cristianos nuevos (Spanish) or cristãos-novos (Portuguese); converso or marrano, which had and still has today a pejorative connotation in Spanish.

Related terms

Besides the term anusim, halakha has various classifications for those Jews who have abandoned, or are no longer committed to, the rabbinic Jewish tradition, whether or not they have converted to another religion.

The two most common descriptions are:

  • "Min{{-"}} ({{Script/Hebrew|מין}}), or an apostate of Judaism, for a Jew who basically denies the existence of God; and
  • "Meshumad{{-"}} ({{Script/Hebrew|מְשֻׁמָּד}}), literally "self-destroyed" or a heretic to Judaism, for a Jew who deliberately rebels against the observance of Jewish law.

The main difference between a min, a meshumad, and the anusim is that the act of abandonment of Judaism is voluntary for a min and a meshumad, while for the anusim it is not.

In more recent times, the term "anusim" has also been used to describe "Reverse Marranos", that is, Haredi Jews who are religious on the outside, but are not necessarily practicing in private.{{cite web |first=Tamar |last=Rotem |date=February 27, 2010 |title=Where Rebellious Haredi Sons (and Daughters) Go |url=http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2010/02/where-rebellious-haredi-sons-and-daughters-go-789.html |publisher=FailedMessiah.com |agency=Haaretz}}

History of use

The term anusim became more frequently used after the forced conversion to Christianity of Ashkenazi Jews in Germany at the end of the 11th century. In his religious legal opinions, Rashi, a French rabbi who lived during this period, commented about the issue of anusim.{{cite book|last=Roth|first=Norman|title=Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzJ5340UZKMC&pg=PA26|date=2 September 2002|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|location=Madison, WI, USA|isbn=978-0-299-14233-9|page=26}}

Several centuries later, following the mass forced conversion of Sephardi Jews (those Jews with extended histories in Spain and Portugal, known jointly as Iberia, or Sepharad in Hebrew) of the 15th and 16th centuries, the term "anusim" became widely used by Spanish rabbis and their successors for the following 600 years,[http://jewishhistory.huji.ac.il/Internetresources/historyresources/medieval.htm Medieval Jewish History Resource Directory] henceforth becoming associated with Sephardic history.

The term may be properly applied to any Jew of any ethnic division. Since that time, it has also been applied to other forced or coerced converted Jews, such as the Mashhadi Jews of Persia (now Iran), who converted to Islam in the public eye, but secretly practised Judaism at home. They lived dual-religious lives, being fully practising Muslims in public life, and fully practising Jews at home.See Mashhadi Jewish Community History on MashadiRabbi.com

In non-rabbinic literature, the more widely known Sephardic anusim are also referred to as:

  • "Conversos", meaning "converts [to Christianity]" in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish).
  • "New Christians", or {{Lang|es|cristianos nuevos}} in Spanish, and {{Lang|pt|cristãos novos}} in Portuguese ({{Langx|ca|cristians novells}}), which also encompasses converts from Islam.
  • "Crypto-Jews", and
  • "Marranos", a term which refers to those conversos which practiced Judaism in secret and, as a result, were targeted by the Spanish inquisition.

In rabbinic literature

The subject of anusim has a special place in rabbinic literature. In normal circumstances, a person who abandons Jewish observance, or part of it, is classified as a meshumad. Such a person is still counted as a Jew for purposes of lineage, but is under a disability to claim any privilege pertaining to Jewish status: for example, he should not be counted in a minyan, that is, a quorum for religious services.

Anusim, by contrast, not only remain Jews by lineage but continue to count as fully qualified Jews for all purposes. Since the act of the original abandonment of the religion was done against the Jew's will, the Jew under force may remain a kosher Jew, as long as the anús keeps practising Jewish law to the best of his/her abilities under the coerced condition. In this sense, "kosher" is the rabbinic legal term applied to a Jew who adheres to rabbinic tradition and is accordingly not subject to any disqualification.

Current status

There is much controversy regarding the status of conversions today. While the chief rabbis are wary of converting large groups, there are some rabbis such as Haim Amsalem and Chuck Davidson who have done mass conversions of Bnei Anusim (descendants of original Anusim). In the United States Reform rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn is one of the leaders of the outreach movement to the descendants of those Crypto-Jews who wish to renew their ties with the Jewish people.{{Citation|last=Chicago Jewish Cafe|title=Are American Jews the New Secret Jews? Interview with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn.|date=2018-10-03|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvWLhuy7sdk|access-date=2018-10-08}}

See also

References

{{reflist|30em}}

Further reading

  • {{cite book |title=Crisis and Leadership: Epistles of Maimonides |translator-first=Abraham |translator-last=Halkin |others=notes by Abraham Halkin, discussions by David Hartman |location=Philadelphia |publisher=Jewish Publication Society of America |year=1985 |isbn=0-8276-0238-3}} (reissued by the publisher as: Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership in 1993).
  • {{cite book |title=The Jews and the Crusaders: the Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades |translator-first=Shlomo |translator-last=Eidelberg |editor-first=Shlomo |editor-last=Eidelberg |location=Hoboken, NJ |publisher=Ktav Publishing House |orig-year=1977, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press |year=1996 |isbn=0-88125-541-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/the-jews-and-the-crusaders-by-shlomo-eidelberg/}}
  • {{cite book |last=Faur |first=José |author-link=José Faur |title=In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity |location=Albany |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=1992 |isbn=0-7914-0801-9}}
  • {{cite book |last=Gitlitz |first=David |title=Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews |location=Albuquerque |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |year=2002}}
  • {{cite thesis |last=Halevy |first=Schulamith Chava |title=Descendants of the Anusim (Crypto-Jews) in Contemporary Mexico |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=Hebrew University of Jerusalem |year=2009 |url=http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachumd/sch/AnusimMexico.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151017090618/http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachumd/sch/AnusimMexico.pdf |archive-date=2015-10-17}}
  • {{cite book |first=Henry |last=Kamen |title=The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision |location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=1997 |isbn=0-297-81719-1}}