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Janet Liebman Jacobs

Hidden Heritage

The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews

An S. Mark Taper Foundation Book in Jewish Studies
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$50.00, £29.95 hardcover
978-0-520-23346-1
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$23.95, £13.95 paperback
978-0-520-23517-5
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207 pages, 6 x 9 inches,
September 2002, Available worldwide
Categories: Religion; Latin American Studies; Cultural Anthropology; Jewish Studies; Sociology; Judaism

Downloadable eBook version available:
Adobe E-Reader at ebooks.com, $15.95
"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
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.
Acknowledgements

Introduction. Crypto-Jewish Descent: An Ethnographic Study in Historical Perspective

1. Secrecy, Antisemitism, and the Dangers of Jewishness
2. Women and the Persistence of Culture: Ritual, Custom, and the Recovery of Sephardic Ancestry
3. The Self-in-Relation and the Transformation of Religious Consciousness
4. Syncretism and Faith Blending in Modern Crypto-Judaism
5. Conversion and the Rekindling of the Jewish Soul
6. Jewish Ancestry and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity

Conclusion. Ethnic Loss and the Future of Crypto-Jewish Culture
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).
Distinguished Book Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion