> Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek kryptos – κρυπτός, 'hidden').
> The term is especially applied historically to Spanish Jews who outwardly professed Catholicism, also known as Anusim or Marranos. The phenomenon is especially associated with renaissance Spain, following the 6 June, 1391, Anti-Jewish pogroms and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492.
The case of the "Kakure Kirishitan" (lit: hidden Christians) in Japan is an interesting case. Essentially adherents to the Catholic faith during a period of persecution by the Buddhist/Shinto/etc in the 1600s.
They went so far as representing icons such as the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus with statues of what appeared to be Buddhas and Boddhisatvas in the same poses.
This variant ended up (as you might expect) slowly becoming something very distinct from traditional Catholicism. In general they merged back into the mainline Catholic faith when it was eventually permitted, but some remained separated, creating some really fascinating religious syncretisms.
That also reminds me of not hidden Lithuanian Tatars. Basically Tatars living in Lithuania for centuries. While mostly cut off from the rest of the Muslim world never adopted Catholicism.
There were many jews that, more or less sincerely, converted to stay. We that have a family name that references an animal, like Lobo, León or Aguilar, are probably descendents of jews.
Crypto-judaism was a damning suspicion for a long time. A prime minister from my hometown changed his name from Méndez to Mendizábal. Former sounds jew, while the later sounds basque. Also he didn't mention where he was from. Actually, almost nobody in my hometown knows he was a local, though it also might be because he confiscated most properties of Catholic Church:
>There were many jews that, more or less sincerely, converted to stay. We that have a family name that references an animal, like Lobo, León or Aguilar, are probably descendents of jews.
That's Jewish propaganda. Lobo (López) is one of the most common surnames in Spain. León is the name of one of the biggest kingdoms of Spain, and currently a province. If we took that at face value, most Spaniards would be descendants of Jews, which is ludicrous. Not sure about Aguilar though.
Edit: I forgot to say that true jew names would have been impossible to keep. They had to change names when they converted, choosing sometimes an "old christian" name to blend in, or maybe something with some cultural meaning for them.
There are lists with names compiled from Santo Oficio trial records, that include those names indeed, but also other very common, just for the reasons I mentioned. I still believe the animal hint is true because most of these names are unusual.
[1] His name is Aguilar, but he's a communist with very little sympathy for anything Israel, so I doubt he was trying to spread "jewish propaganda" like other commenter said.
In Portugal they were called New Christians. Things were so crappy for these people. They trace their history both in Portugal and Spain for centuries. Frictions existed but things were mostly settled with whole villages professing Jewish creed. Hell even the kings were fine with this and took a very profitable tax from their difference for as long as there was portuguese kingdom(do not know about the Muslim occupation). Then something, which I still do not understand where it came from, all the Jewish people started to be prosecuted and were forced to convert. A shame and a disgrace that can still be studied in places like Belmonte or Reguengos de Monsaraz. As a heads up, you can get automatic portuguese nationality if you can prove that your ancestors were Jewish people exiled during the inquisition. This is special because portuguese nationality is only inheritable up to grandparent level and is not automatic outside portuguese territory. Remarkably there have been Israel citizens applying for in non significant numbers.
Footnote: Marrano in spanish is a colloquial term for "pig", (one covered in mud from head to toes) and by extension means a "very dirty people". Is another example of a word that is fair to use to denote a temporal trait but awful to use as a permanent trait. For example: "You were playing in the mud and acting like a pig, so wash you before dinner" is acceptable. "You are a pig" (always, therefore: cattle, subhuman, etc...) it isn't.
Is a derogatory word from a long time ago, happily surpassed. Would be very rude to use it in a spanish speaking context to describe a jew nowadays (except maybe as an historical reference or cite).
Oh man, as a non native English speaker, this title was the hardest to ever read! I had trouble figuring out what is was about. Caching? Caching of cryptocurrency? Some Jewish cryptocurrency? Recipies? Jewish recipies stored in cryptocurrency? Dating? Dating for Jews? A recipe for dating, stored in cryptocurrency targeted at Jews? Jews dating during the inquisision?
And that was not even considering the Miami Kitchen.
I did not read the article or comments yet and still do not know what this is about so it will be a surprise.
My guess: someone found, in a cache made in a kitchen in Miami, a book with Jewish recipes (food) written in an "encypted" way so that they stay secret. The recipes date back to 13th century.
The part about dishes being too eggy when done with today's eggs is a sign of times.
I also read a bit recently about kushrut after listening on a Jewish radio in France a discussion about whether a Jew can have a coffee in a in a bar (in France). The dissecting of the various components of the act (coffee, water, milk, the kind of cup,...) was fascinating.
Swede who has only been in London once here and the only thing that I don't understand is "Crypto-Jewish". A cache of items is a quite common word or phrase to use. Like cache of weapons, something you'd learn just by playhing modern video games. Or reading scifi.
I assume crypto-jewish has something to do with mythical, as in cryptozoology.
Aka as “marrano” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano) I’ve been told a telltale sign you might have such ancestry is having a surname named from a city.
Crypto-Jews were Jews that could not identify as such because they would be persecuted. I think there is a very interesting museum of Crypto-Jews in Córdoba, Spain.
"Crypto-" means "hidden" - the name "cryptozoology" was coined by people who think all of those mythical creatures actually exist and are just hiding/hidden from the rest of us.
Native speaker here, I had no idea what the title meant at all until I looked at the article. It just would not fit into my head. Kind of like a crash blossom or something.
I'm not a native speaker, but I found it easy to understand. (I haven't even opened the article yet, but I am fairly sure it's about people who are Jewish in secret.)
It helps, if you are vaguely familiar with the history in question.
I found the title easy to read, but then, I am familiar with non-technological uses of the word “cache,” what “crypto-Jewish” is, and how that directly ties into the inquisition.
This is less a bad headline and more a mismatch between the audience’s knowledge level of Jewish history and the editor’s expectations.
Then again, an Israeli readership’s average level of Jewish history knowledge is likely not the same as HN’s level of knowledge.
Even more interesting is that the article claims this person managed to trace back her maternal lineage for 22 generations (!), and found out that it was an unbroken Jewish maternal lineage. What a curious combination for someone who previously "felt drawn to Judaism and converted to Modern Orthodox Judaism".
Of course, 22 generations means thousands of ancestors, who moreover, according to the article, have been living as Catholics for more than three hundred years. It's dumbfounding what kind of ethno-sectarian reasoning must be behind the claim that she's Crypto-Jewish.
> and found out that it was an unbroken Jewish maternal lineage.
But I think any female who has a female ancestor who is Jewish would also have an “unbroken Jewish maternal lineage”, right? Or am I misunderstanding that?
No, if the female ancestor is, for example, your grandmother on your father's side, the maternal lineage is broken. Basically Jewishness is in the mitochondrial DNA.
Sorry, I was unclear. What I meant is: if a female has a Jewish female ancestor as part of the female only lineage from which they get their mitochondria, then they definitionally have an “unbroken Jewish maternal lineage”, because it could be no other way. But it’s not really an interesting observation, since it’s true of most Jewish women that this line reaches extremely far back in time (since Jews generally don’t seek converts and, so, being Jewish is mostly a genetic matter, in practice).
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
People creates random moral rule just to pose as "saints" and tag themselves as "the good ones", or maybe for convenient reasons like the presence of viruses, genetics or diseases, or to hide who they are in an hostile environment.
For the next thousand years, much after the healthy problems are long solved by new knowledge and buried for good, their descendants try hard to find a way to circunvent the random rule to "break it" but without breaking it.
Wouldn't be much better for they to grow, use their long forgotten freedom and get ride of the random rule? If you don't like pork is fine, but why you would want your food looking as a pork piece?
58 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] thread> Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek kryptos – κρυπτός, 'hidden').
> The term is especially applied historically to Spanish Jews who outwardly professed Catholicism, also known as Anusim or Marranos. The phenomenon is especially associated with renaissance Spain, following the 6 June, 1391, Anti-Jewish pogroms and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-Judaism
They went so far as representing icons such as the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus with statues of what appeared to be Buddhas and Boddhisatvas in the same poses.
This variant ended up (as you might expect) slowly becoming something very distinct from traditional Catholicism. In general they merged back into the mainline Catholic faith when it was eventually permitted, but some remained separated, creating some really fascinating religious syncretisms.
Crypto-judaism was a damning suspicion for a long time. A prime minister from my hometown changed his name from Méndez to Mendizábal. Former sounds jew, while the later sounds basque. Also he didn't mention where he was from. Actually, almost nobody in my hometown knows he was a local, though it also might be because he confiscated most properties of Catholic Church:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_%C3%81lvarez_Mendiz%C3%A1...
That's Jewish propaganda. Lobo (López) is one of the most common surnames in Spain. León is the name of one of the biggest kingdoms of Spain, and currently a province. If we took that at face value, most Spaniards would be descendants of Jews, which is ludicrous. Not sure about Aguilar though.
If I remember correctly, that is an popular myth. Why should it be the case?
https://bloodandfrogs.com/2011/05/animals-and-name-pairs-in-...
Edit: I forgot to say that true jew names would have been impossible to keep. They had to change names when they converted, choosing sometimes an "old christian" name to blend in, or maybe something with some cultural meaning for them.
There are lists with names compiled from Santo Oficio trial records, that include those names indeed, but also other very common, just for the reasons I mentioned. I still believe the animal hint is true because most of these names are unusual.
[1] His name is Aguilar, but he's a communist with very little sympathy for anything Israel, so I doubt he was trying to spread "jewish propaganda" like other commenter said.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano
Is a derogatory word from a long time ago, happily surpassed. Would be very rude to use it in a spanish speaking context to describe a jew nowadays (except maybe as an historical reference or cite).
And that was not even considering the Miami Kitchen.
I'm going to go build this!
https://whooo.dating/
I did not read the article or comments yet and still do not know what this is about so it will be a surprise.
My guess: someone found, in a cache made in a kitchen in Miami, a book with Jewish recipes (food) written in an "encypted" way so that they stay secret. The recipes date back to 13th century.
It sounds like the title of a Cluedo game.
The part about dishes being too eggy when done with today's eggs is a sign of times.
I also read a bit recently about kushrut after listening on a Jewish radio in France a discussion about whether a Jew can have a coffee in a in a bar (in France). The dissecting of the various components of the act (coffee, water, milk, the kind of cup,...) was fascinating.
People coming here expect to read stuff involving caching, cryptocurrency and dating and that's what they'll think of first :-)
I assume crypto-jewish has something to do with mythical, as in cryptozoology.
The definition was already mentioned elsewhere in the comments -- crypto-Jews are (in the Inquisition context) Jews claiming to be Christians.
A couple of commas, after recipes and inquisition, would easily solve the ambiguity
It helps, if you are vaguely familiar with the history in question.
This is less a bad headline and more a mismatch between the audience’s knowledge level of Jewish history and the editor’s expectations.
Then again, an Israeli readership’s average level of Jewish history knowledge is likely not the same as HN’s level of knowledge.
Of course, 22 generations means thousands of ancestors, who moreover, according to the article, have been living as Catholics for more than three hundred years. It's dumbfounding what kind of ethno-sectarian reasoning must be behind the claim that she's Crypto-Jewish.
But I think any female who has a female ancestor who is Jewish would also have an “unbroken Jewish maternal lineage”, right? Or am I misunderstanding that?
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
For the next thousand years, much after the healthy problems are long solved by new knowledge and buried for good, their descendants try hard to find a way to circunvent the random rule to "break it" but without breaking it.
Wouldn't be much better for they to grow, use their long forgotten freedom and get ride of the random rule? If you don't like pork is fine, but why you would want your food looking as a pork piece?