The road to conversion

Can you name a Spanish-speaking country with a growing Jewish population? I don’t generally think of “Spanish-speaking” and “Jewish” in the same context, because, after all, way back in 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain and all Spanish territories and possessions (with a deadline of July 31, three days before Columbus set sail to find Asia by going west).

I don’t know if the Edict of Expulsion did not include territories to be added in the future, or if it was just easier for Jews to manage under Spanish rule in the New World, so far away from the reigning monarchs’ stronghold of power. But apparently a fair number of Jews accompanied Columbus on his voyages of exploration (including his translator, Luis de Torres), and settled in Spanish colonies in the Americas.

In the 20th century, one country particularly open to Jewish immigration was Cuba, where anti-Semitism never had the influence it did in other western countries (including the U.S., which enforced strict entry quotas even when Jews were trying to escape death in Hitler’s Germany). By the 1950’s, Cuba had a Jewish population of over fifteen thousand.

Reading: The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism

I rarely finish a book in a single day. But I had the time (waiting while my son was at graduation parties, since it didn’t seem worth driving home each time and waiting for his call to pick him up), and I was fascinated by the ideas expressed in this book.

Since I’ve been studying about Moses, and he is often seen as the founder of Judaism, I thought it would be interesting to read a book on Judaism in general, not specifically about Moses. As my own ancestors on my mother’s side were Jewish, I’ve always been particularly interested in this subject.

I’ve read other books by Joseph Telushkin (Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History; Biblical Literacy: The Most Important People, Events, and Ideas of the Hebrew Bible; and Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews) and found them well-written and informative. I hadn’t heard of Dennis Prager before, but I saw from the preface that he and Telushkin had a long-time close personal friendship.