Post by kriss on Mar 29, 2018 12:00:49 GMT -5
Gov't report claims there are close to 100 million 'lost Jews' or 'crypto-Jews' around the world. Will Israel reach out to them?
As many as 95 million people worldwide may be descended from Jews, a new government report claims.
The report, which was produced by a special committee formed by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry in 2016, suggests that in addition to the roughly 14 million people who identify as Jews around the globe, there are some 95 million more people who are likely descended from Jews who assimilated or were forced to convert – groups sometimes referred to as “lost Jews”.
The notion of far-flung communities reclaiming their ancestors’ Jewish heritage is hardly new.
Perhaps most famous are the “Anusim” (Hebrew for “Coerced Ones”), sometimes referred to as Marranos – Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who were forced to convert to Catholicism. Despite having nominally converted, many clandestinely practiced Judaism.
As Spain and Portugal settled South and Central America, some Anusim settled in the New World, in some cases covertly maintaining their Jewish faith.
Other examples of lost Jewish communities can be found in Africa and Asia.
Tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel since the early 1980s, including members of the Beta Israel community known as the Falash Mura – descendants of Jews compelled to convert to Christianity.
Beyond the roughly six and a half million Jews now living in Israel and close to eight million Jews in the Diaspora, the report claims there are another five million Jews who converted to other religions or are the immediate descendants of individual Jews who converted worldwide.
more: www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/243824
As many as 95 million people worldwide may be descended from Jews, a new government report claims.
The report, which was produced by a special committee formed by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry in 2016, suggests that in addition to the roughly 14 million people who identify as Jews around the globe, there are some 95 million more people who are likely descended from Jews who assimilated or were forced to convert – groups sometimes referred to as “lost Jews”.
The notion of far-flung communities reclaiming their ancestors’ Jewish heritage is hardly new.
Perhaps most famous are the “Anusim” (Hebrew for “Coerced Ones”), sometimes referred to as Marranos – Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who were forced to convert to Catholicism. Despite having nominally converted, many clandestinely practiced Judaism.
As Spain and Portugal settled South and Central America, some Anusim settled in the New World, in some cases covertly maintaining their Jewish faith.
Other examples of lost Jewish communities can be found in Africa and Asia.
Tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel since the early 1980s, including members of the Beta Israel community known as the Falash Mura – descendants of Jews compelled to convert to Christianity.
Beyond the roughly six and a half million Jews now living in Israel and close to eight million Jews in the Diaspora, the report claims there are another five million Jews who converted to other religions or are the immediate descendants of individual Jews who converted worldwide.
more: www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/243824
