eSefarad Noticias del Mundo Sefaradi
Certificate of Sephardic Ancestry validates identity, while an online ancestral database of 45,000 Sephardic family names makes searching for roots easier
By RENEE GHERT-ZAND
Two new related initiatives are making it easier for descendants of Jews who were persecuted, forced to convert to Christianity or expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 14th and 15th centuries’ Inquisition to reconnect with their roots.
The first is a Certificate of Sephardic Ancestry, for which descendants of the Sephardic communities of Spain and Portugal who are not part of the organized Jewish community and not recognized by halacha (Jewish law), can apply. The certificate recognizes a person’s genetic or historical connection to Sephardic Jewry but is not official for religious purposes (such as conversion) or application for Spanish or Portuguese citizenship.
The certification is a joint effort of the American Sephardi Federation’s Institute of Jewish Experience; Reconectar, an organization dedicated to helping the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities reconnect with the Jewish people; and Genie Milgrom, an author, researcher, and genealogist who fully documented her unbroken maternal lineage 22 generations as far back as 1405 in pre-Inquisition Spain and Portugal.
“Many people have said that they wanted some level of recognition of their Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Having a certificate like this would be a point of pride for them,” said Ashley Perry, founder of Reconectar, which has a total of 20,000 followers on its English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan Facebook pages.
“Recent academic and genetic research has demonstrated that there are as many as 200 million people, largely in Latin and North America and Europe, who have ‘significant Jewish ancestry,’ meaning at least five percent Sephardic DNA,” Perry said.
Fuente: timesofisrael.com
