On the following Shabbat morning, our tale resumes at the Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California, the shul of Rabbi Carlos Salas. I was ferried across town by Benjamin Camacho-Mora, and his son Abraham, a member of Rabbi Salas' congregation. On the way, Benjamin's discussed his own roots in Judaism. Benjamin's family arrived in Mexico from Spain and Portugal, and settled in Chihuahua in Northern Mexico. He mentioned that his grandparents would light candles on Friday nights. He also said that his family would never eat pork, he noted, "They would cook pork for show and then feed it to the dogs."

The Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California is a compound marked with a large blue menorah, located in a residential neighborhood that is far from the border glitz that draws tourists to Tijuana. Presiding over the congregation is the enigmatic Rabbi Carlos Salas, a dapper gentleman with black hair slicked back, a pencil-thin mustache that graces his upper lip and a penchant for dark suits. Words like "charismatic" are often bandied about Rabbi Salas.

Born in Fresnillo in the northern Mexican state of Zacatecas to an outwardly practicing Roman Catholic family, Rabbi Salas noted that his great-grandmother, who came from Spain, left the family two candle holders made from brass and a Star of David fashioned from a bluish-green stone. He said that the matriarch would prepare Shabbat in secret, and left talit and tfillin hidden in their house. Yet, when he was a child, his mother wouldn't discuss the items, and discouraged his curiosities.

As a young man, Salas helped his family tend sheep- imagery still with Salas today as his office contains paintings of a young Salas tending his flock. As he got older, he learned about and became involved in the gold and silver industries that were prominent in Fresnillo, something that would prove advantageous in his later career. Salas moved to the U.S. to join his brother living in Buffalo, New York. After a stint in the U.S. military during the Korean War, Salas returned to Buffalo, where he began his path down a winding religious journey with his entrance to a Methodist seminary. Although he eventually became an ordained Methodist minister, Salas states that he attended the seminary because there was no yeshiva in Buffalo at that time, and had always planned to become a rabbi. "I was interested in studying Torah, the prophets, and scripture, but the Methodist seminary was the only thing available," Salas noted.

In 1960, Salas moved to Los Angeles, where he would launch a career investing in jewelry shops and other businesses. Meanwhile, in 1962, he began attending the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. Salas studied for five years at the University of Judaism, leaving the Methodist fold and fully converting to Judaism. Salas noted that he was converted by a board of five rabbis, who were extra keen to examine his commitment to the faith given his previous status as a Methodist minister, yet after hours of questioning the beit din was satisfied with his earnest commitment to Judaism.

In 1967, the same year as his conversion, Salas opened his congregation in Tijuana. With his own funds, Salas constructed the synagogue that now houses his congregation. Opened in 1970, the low-ceilinged sanctuary is complete with pink marble imported from Valencia, Spain. On the bimah¸ there resides an elaborate ark that is home to four Torah scrolls. The ark, designed with two intricate menorah motifs, was fashioned from Mexican cedar and carved in Queretaro, Mexico. Two columns flank the bimah, and the Mexican and Israeli flags stand on either end; on the right side of the bimah, an empty chair covered in a talit waits for Elijah. Various Magen Davids and carved wooden menorahs and other Judaic objects decorate the room.

Known to his followers as "Maestro," ("teacher" in Spanish), Salas has been conducting his spiritual outreach to Mexicans of Jewish ancestry, crypto-Jews still practicing in secret, as well as to Mexican Catholics interested in learning about Judaism. According to Salas, 90 percent of the congregation are descendents of conversos, while another 10 percent are Mexican Catholics interested in conversion. A gentleman named "Nir," who was in the process of studying for conversion, stated "Things I saw my family doing were actually Jewish traditions without knowing them to be so. Once you see what the traditions are, you gain momentum."

Despite the nontraditional background of the congregation, Salas was firm in grounding his followers in traditional Jewish ritual and customs, including eating kosher food, and circumcisions for male converts.

In December 1984, the congregation held its first major conversion, with a group of three American rabbis interviewing 24 of Salas' students. When the beit din was sufficiently convinced of the group's Judaic convictions, the group then went off to Rosarito Beach and the converts waded into the chilly Pacific waters that was serving as the mikvah. Seven years later, another group of Salas' flock held a conversion, but this time they traveled to the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, and were examined by the Conservative movement's beit din there, as well as using their mikvah rather than the frigid Pacific. Since then, half a dozen groups of converts made the trek to Los Angeles to meet with the beit din and carry out conversions. On the issue of conversion, Rabbi Salas states, "we hold classes for teaching about torah, that lasts 3 to 4 years. Only after we are convinced that they are ready. Some people have continued their studies for as long as 14 years before they converted. We have brought hundreds back to the fold. We stopped counting after 200."

Nearly 100 people were on hand that Sabbath morning to take part in the services. Although there is no mehitzah, men clad in kippot and talits sat on one side of the synagogue, while women sat on the other. The service weaved along a Conservative style. The congregants followed a Conservative Spanish-Hebrew prayer book, going methodically prayer by prayer. Many prayers were recited aloud in Hebrew, while others were read or sung in Spanish, with Rafael "Gamaliel" Hernandez serving as the cantor and leading along in a rich baritone voice.

When the Torah was taken from the ark, Rabbi Salas carried the holy scrolls on a slow procession through synagogue. The procession descended down the male side of the congregation, with congregants wrapping their fingers in their talits and touching the shawls to the Torah, while bowing their heads and closing their eyes for quiet contemplation before the scrolls. The procession passed up through the female section, with the women congregants carrying out similar prayers before the scrolls.

After the procession, the weekly Torah portion was read by alternating congregants from a chumash in Spanish translation, who followed the text with a shared yad. The congregation would rise as men were called up for the various aliyot. Eight men were called up to read from the week's portion, and began and ended their portion by reading the blessings over the Torah in Hebrew. As the service progressed, the children were excused for their own lesson, only to return at the end of the service to offer a children's choir rendition of the final prayers. The three-hour service concluded with a woman named Alejandra singing "haTikvah" and the congregants filtered out into the afternoon, dutifully touching the mezuzah on their exit.

The service felt like a traditional Conservative affair, although there were a few non-traditional elements that were present. Throughout the service, children would bring donations up to the bimah, pray over the offerings, and leave envelopes in a brass bowl on the ground. Rabbi Salas noted there are no monthly dues for congregants, and that the donations were used for members in the community that were struggling, and were used to help provide families with food staples in the form of food stamps from the congregation to families that had unmet needs.

Another more nontraditional aspect is the role of the Masonic movement in the synagogue's affairs. Rabbi Salas was proud of his high level role in the Masons, and noted that a Masonic lodge is connected to the synagogue, and many of the male congregants are members of the order. According to Salas, during the period of the Inquisition in Mexico, the Masons were the only institution that would offer protection to Jews. There are some estimates that that calculate the number of people living in Mexico that have Jewish roots to be upwards of a seemingly astounding 40 million. These are descendents from marranos and had their heritage hidden by fears of the Inquisition-which officially lasted in Mexico until 1820. Rabbi Salas was quick to point out the numerous plans for outreach to Mexicans of Jewish ancestry and plans that has for his community. He noted that there is a rabbinical school under construction in Rosarito beach, which he plans to use to educate future rabbis of the community. He also plans to open synagogues throughout Mexico, with the goal to host synagogues aimed at conversos in every Mexican state for the many Mexicans with Jewish ancestry. Salas mentioned that the congregation has already opened another synagogue in Durango, which is host to some 40 families. Salas also mentioned various plans such as plans for a Jewish old-age home, and to create a Jewish cemetery in Tijuana, which currently does not have one.

On the security situation, Salas was more circumspect, noting that a house just three doors down from the synagogue had been sprayed by bullets just a few days prior. "I'm not pretending it's sunny and safe, it can be dangerous here. There are executions that take place and we don't want to expose people to danger," he noted. Salas stated that when a family comes down from the U.S. for a tourist visit to his synagogue, the congregation ferries visitors from the border to the synagogue.

The two communities reside in an uneasy cordiality. Relations had previously been strained, but today remain calm and cordial, if somewhat distant. But the Rabbis have a dialogue and remain civil; while I was there, Rabbi Polichenco invited Rabbi Salas to come address his congregation the following week. Part of the strain comes down to the fundamental quandary of what it means to be a Jew and the religious minefield of defining what constitutes Judaism. To put the chasm between the two communities in perspective, you must first look at the divisions in Judaism. If you accept that Reform and Conservative Judaism are full-fledged, legitimate strands of Judaism, then Rabbi Salas is simply the leader of a more exotic strand. If you have a more orthodox perspective that questions the legality of non-Orthodox conversions, then misgivings arise simply from the notion of more mainstream Conservative conversions, and from the existence of a community like Salas' even more so.

I tripped across an article about Penn State hosting an exhibit entitled Scattered Among The Nations by photographers Bryan Schwartz, Jay Sand, and Sandy Carter. The photographs depict Jews in the most unlikely places: India, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Peru and Uzbekistan.

Check out the website scatteredamongthenations.org to see many photographs and descriptions of the Jewish communities in Africa, Asia, former USSR, and South America. Also in the works is a book: Jews of Color: In Color!

It's fascinating to read about these often tiny Jewish communities. Some of them are ancient such as in Tunisia where the first Jews arrived 2600 years ago during the Babylonian Exile. Others are brand new such as the the Inca Jews of Peru who started practicing Judaism just 10 years ago. The small communities are recognizably Jewish with many of them observing Shabbat and kosher laws in the familiar ways one would find everywhere. However, each have customs reflecting their own "flavor" of Judaism. For example, in the tiny Jewish communities of Uganda and Zimbabwe songs written in Hebrew are set to African melodies; in India the Benei Menashe still practice ritual sacrifice of animals while the Bene Israel have their "Malida" ceremony which offers prayers, songs and bowls of fruits and flowers to the Prophet Elijah.

Scattered Among Nations is also a non-profit organization who assists isolated Jewish communities through projects such as helping the Inca Jews become officially converted and building a community center for the Benei Menashe Jews in India.

All Jews, at some point in their lives, dream of wagging their fingers at an audience and saying, "Jew you down? I'd like to throw you down!" But few members of the tribe can do it with such instinctive brio as spoken word artist Vanessa Hidary, a.k.a. the Hebrew Mamita. Hidary, a 30-something Syrian Jewish girl, who has appeared three times on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam, and has performed on the Comedy Central Stage in Los Angeles, was raised in a mixed neighborhood on the Upper West Side and is now making a career out of telling us about it.

Though her act is spoken word, Hidary's shows go through all the usual motions of a song and dance number. She keeps a low center of gravity, her hips circulating her body and her arms cutting through the air, fingertips-first. She constantly alternates grace with sauce, as if she is a ballerina acting out a breakup scene, with all the attitude left in. In her aptly-titled piece Hebrew Mamita, a man on a bar stool tells her she doesn't look Jewish to which Hidary fires back, "What does Jewish look like to you? Should I fiddle on a fuckin' roof for you?" Clearly, this is not the kind of poetry that can be left on a page, unperformed. Hidary wants her poetry to be heard, to reach high notes, to stop dead in dramatic pauses, to sink quickly into ear canals. And sink quickly they do, bungling almost every Jewish stereotype along the way. After a Hidary performance, the members of the audience will be praying that they never be left alone in a dark alley with someone who has two x-chromosomes and, heaven forbid, a decipherable ration of Jewish blood.

For the past few weeks, Hidary and I have been volleying emails back and forth, talking about identity politics, haters and the man who "fucked like Brooklyn."

RA: I like your name Hebrew Mamita.

VH: Thanks. People usually assume it's a name coined from being part Latina and part Jewish. But I'm a Syrian/Ashkenazi Jew. I'm a Jewish girl who grew up around many Latinos and feel a connection to that community. And "Mamita" is a term of endearment, that I have heard my whole life. It made sense to put it with the "Hebrew." I like putting unique titles together, and more importantly, bringing people together. Something that gets people thinking and asking. In fact, right now, I'm about to be on a weekly radio show on UrbanLatino.com. My girl La Bruja heads a show called "Late Night Bru." I'm one of the sidekicks. My Hebrew Mamita segment will include a Shalom Alechim/Reggaton remix. If I can get one Jew a week to call in that would be an achievement! Here's the plug: we launch November 16th at 8pm on Urbanlatino.com

RA: When did you become a spoken word artist?

VH: It was in 2000. I had been writing my own monologues for awhile and then I saw a Def Poetry Jam performance at The Brooklyn Museum and I knew this genre was for me.

RA: You were a Sephardic Jewish girl who grew up in a black and Hispanic neighborhood. Wonderful! Now you have material! What would you write about had your upbringing been "normal"?

VH: I would rather describe it as a very mixed neighborhood. Jews, Blacks, Latinos; this was in the 70's, when the Upper West Side was not considered the upscale area it is now. My parents were public school-teaching, channel 13 tote bag-carrying liberal Jews, who took a chance investing property in what was then considered somewhat of a risky neighborhood. I always thought, growing up, that everyone lived like this. With Puerto Ricans knowing what lox was, and Jews drinking Malta. There are many of us from this area who know what I'm talking about and had similar experiences. I just felt a mission to write about it, and represent this very New York City experience. So I guess what I'm saying is that it is a "normal" experience. You just gotta be an old School New Yorker to get it.

RA: Can an artist still be an artist without experiencing an extreme, or at least, unique hardship?

VH: Yes, aren't they called musical theatre performers? Kidding! Kinda. Am I gonna get hate mail for that? Sorry, they just seem pretty chipper to me.

RA: Does being a Syrian Jew give you more ethnic cred in the hip hop world than, let's say, us unexotic ol' Ashkenazi?

VH: Nope. I don't think most people in this country even know what a Sephardic Jew is. But that's another article. And I'm half Ashkenazi so let me represent my Russian side too!

RA: Is there a history of spoken word in the Jewish tradition?

VH: I know we have always been great storytellers.

RA: In your piece, The Hebrew Mamita, you speak about Holocaust memory. Do you ever feel that as a Jewish artist you carry the "burden" or responsibility of talking about our rich, chronically tragic past?

VH: Not a burden. But a responsibility, yes. A vessel to carry along our story and our culture.

RA: You wrote about a man who fucked you like Brooklyn. Ever had a man fuck you like Manhattan? Queens?

VH: Err, when someone else quotes my pieces it always sounds dirtier to me! Let's just say nothing sounds better linguistically than Brooklyn. Do you think people would feel the power of something like, "He Fucked me Like Tribeca?" Okay, this subject is closed.

RA: Was anyone ever upset about the way they were represented in one of your pieces? Is it difficult to find the balance between being honest about the people in your life without throwing them to the lions?

VA: No. I disguise people very well. Or I just take them off my show mailing list. :)

RA: You're performances are very rhythmic. How much does music influence your work? Which musicians?

VH: Hip- Hop , comedy, and theatre. A combo of the three are my recipe. I love Lauren Hill, Big Daddy Kane, The Beatles, Led Zepplin, Saturday Night Live, etc....

RA: Would you write your poetry differently if you were not going to perform it?

VH: Yes. Less wordy pieces for performances.

RA: Do you write better when you are calm or when you're in a fit of passion?

VH: I don't know this word "calm" you speak of.

RA: I've never experienced it either. Where do you write?

VH: Starbucks. I know, I know, it's kinda capitalist and not unique and "artsy," but its close and when they see me coming they begin to make my drink. Big shout out to Josh, Luis, and Scarlet on 86th street! I can't write at home. I'm too distracted.

RA: Tell me about your haters!

VH: Wow, am I popular enough to have haters? Well, I guess Hebrew Mamita haters would be those who think we should all live within cultural or racial boundaries. People who are like, 'why is she calling herself Mamita when she's not Latina?' Or people who try to reduce my poems to "man bashing," or criticize me as a woman using "dirty" words, because it makes them uncomfortable. But in general I feel very blessed to get a lot of love from every race, gender and religion. I also think when you have any success, people quickly forget how much hard work one puts in. I've been producing, promoting, hosting and performing my own shows for years. Any success I've had had lots of sweat behind it. It kills me when I see someone in the game for a year and they're whining about not getting paid.

RA: I've heard that it's difficult for spoken word artists to understand what their audience is thinking. Musicians get applause. Comedians get laughs. But poets get more of a "Mmmmm." Is this difficult for you? Do you constantly have your audience on your mind when you're performing?

VH: Hmmm, I don't really see it that way. I feel I can feel and hear the response of my audience. I try not to think of them too much though. Every audience has its own personality.

RA: Do you think urban poetry could ever hit the mainstream?

VH: Well, Def Poetry Jam was the closest we ever got. I think if people are creative more things could develop. a reality show perhaps? Another "Slam" movie? But sometimes I think the art form is best when experienced live. Please come check out my show, The Culture Bandit Soul II, this Wednesday night at 8:00 pm at The Zipper Factory with another artist that breaks race boundaries, the amazing soul singer, Maya Azucena!

I am the product of thirteen years of Jewish day schools. I speak Hebrew, and can read and translate a page of Tanach with no problem. I can give you a pretty detailed history of Zionism and the State of Israel, I can tell you everything you could ever want to know about the Holocaust, and I can speak at great length about the importance of being shomer negiah (thought I won’t). But even with such a solid Jewish educational background, there’s a lot that I now realize I never learned. To some extent this is my fault in not asking the right questions, and requesting the right classes. But sadly, in the world of day schools there are still lots of important issues not being discussed—usually because the curriculum is stuck on a few core issues, and rarely ventures to new or more dynamic subjects.

In an informal survey held in my kitchen a week and a half ago, four girls told me they wished they'd learned more about davening, about Israeli politics, about the theologies of all the Jewish movements, and, to quote my little sister, "I wish someone would have told me that not all good Jewish boys are good boys."
These Girls: don't know Jack about Christianity. Oy!
Later that day I sent out mass e-mails to old friends and dayschool alumni, asking what people wished they’d been taught now that they’d had some time to reflect on their education. Though my friends went to a variety of day schools, ranging from Orthodox to Jewish community schools, their answers generally fell into four categories:
1) Things we weren’t taught about Jews/Jewish history
2) Things we weren’t taught about the rest of the world (Christianity specifically, but the secular world in general)
3) Jewcy pieces of our own tradition that were conveniently skipped over because they involved sex, and
4) Sex/sexuality

In the next few weeks I’ll be attacking these issues, showing you some of the things my friends wrote, and giving some tips on how you can make sure that kids in your community, regardless of whether they go to day schools, don’t go to college without knowing the history or culture of non-Ashkenazi Jews, or how to explain sukkot to a Methodist roommate. If you’re a day school grad out there, feel free to leave more ideas in the comments section, or e-mail me directly at tamar@jewcy.com.

In the meantime, I leave you with some highlights from my friends’ responses:

I managed, but i was not provided the tools to convey and articulate to an "outsider" (even Jews sometimes) about Judaism. [Orthodox high school] assumes that everyone is going to live in the Upper West Side of NYC or Skokie Illinois their whole life, and that’s not the case. I needed to know how to talk to my Irish Catholic friend about separating milk and meat. I can not say because it says in the bible "thou shalt not cook thy calf in the thy mother's milk." That is the reason, but that’s not what i'm going to say. I need answers that everyone can understand and not from the Gemorah. We are all going to deal with non-Jews and we will all need to explain why we can't come to work on Simchat Torah.

* the theologies of Jewish movements, yes, but frankly a sense of the flow of Jewish history between the ninth and twentieth centuries outside of ". . .and then there were a lot of pogroms, Goldinah Medina, Holocaust, Israel" would have been nice. A lot of the history we got was in isolation: Now We Shall Study Chasidut. Ok, but what's the context, again?
* along the same lines, Jewish intellectual history between the ninth and twentieth centuries--though this is probably more of a college curriculum. The intellectual history of recent Jewish movements would also be useful. I really have no idea where Orthodoxy, as currently practised, comes from, besides, obviously, Moshe m'Sinai by direct transmission of black velvet kippot.
* Speaking of history: anything at all about the Eidot Mizrah or European Sephardic Jews. After the Christian reconquista non-Ashkenazic Jewry vanished off the educational radar. I assume some things happened between Saadiah Gaon and Shallah Shabbati (and that can be taken in more ways than one, now that I think about it) (though not that way. Hee.), but I don't know what they are.

healthy sex and spirituality. this could include anything from safe sex to safe emotional sex and spirituality anything from ecstatic hassidish stuff to what does sprituality have to do with ritual.

Of course, there are lots of jewcy bits in the Torah (the Nephilim; Judah and
Tamar; Moses's uncircumcized son; seeing God and the saphire brickwork beneath
his feet) that I would have liked to have heard about - for one thing, it might
have made those classes more interesting.

 

Something that I am becoming more and more aware of, and wish that I had some prior knowledge of, is the difference between Ashkenazi and Sepharadi Jewish communities and histories. There are obvious and basic differences, like foods and traditions, but I think something more important is the history. Growing up and going to day school, I was surrounded by others that were exactly like me- eastern european with some connection to the Holocaust. My identity as a Jew and my ties with the Jewish community had to do with the Holocaust and my family's experiences during the war. However, it is important to know that the Holocaust is not a good connector as not all Jews were touched by the Holocaust. Jewish communities in Tunisia, Algeria, Iran, etc, all had different horrible experiences that were never talked about. Part of our education should have been a more modern Jewish history which should have included the history of Jewish communities in different parts of the world. There are really interesting stories of Jews in China, India, Burma, the Middle East, Africa, and so many other places.

 

I agree with the God and theology part too. I think that it was very unfortunate that my school chose to focus more on Jewish Law and ritual and very little on actual religious philosophy. Even if it was going to be heavily biased, I would have preferred a bigger focus on the "why?" instead of the "how to."

 

im gonna have to agree with the God part. it was as if they avoided the topic as a whole. Also the way we prayed really sucked. it was as if the whole point was to race through the service as fast as you could without understanding what you were saying.

 

That nice Jewish girls and boys are not born with blinders that make them only meet and fall for other nice Jewish girls and boys.
-That there are Reconstructionist, Renewal, Humanist and other denominations of Jews, not just the "big three." And while we're at it, that Reform Jews aren't just "Jews who don't want to do anything."
-That Jews can meditate and commune with nature through Judaism, not just Buddhism.
-That there are loads of amazing Israeli movies out there that can be watched and analyzed, and not just be a babysitter when the teacher is out sick.

 

The last Marranos: No, really!Not too long ago I met my first converso.  This guy was not just descended from conversos on one side of his family... he had recently discovered that BOTH parents came from converso families.  How crazy is that?  What are the chances?

I mean, these families had 500 years to lose all remnants of their Judaism, but didn't.  Their candlesticks and challah (or whatever) had survived FIVE centuries of assimilation, intermarriage, political pressure (which is more than a lot of us can say).  I met this gentleman at a synagogue where he was undergoing the formal conversion process, learning the background of his families.

I came home from the visit very touched by his story, but when I went online to learn more about conversos, I discovered there's very little.  But if you look up the alternate term, Marranos, you find a little more, despite the fact that it translates into "Pigs."  Which is upsetting, that word we use most often is also the most offensive.  But in case you want to know more...

The Marranos and their descendants may be divided into four categories.

The first of these were those that legitimately converted to Christianity, whether for expedience or faith, we will never know, but who since their conversion considered themselves Christian, and raised their families as such. These were called "New Christians" or "Conversos."

The second category is composed of those who, most likely devoid of any real affection for Judaism and indifferent to every form of religion, embraced the opportunity of exchanging their oppressed condition as Jews for the careers opened to them by acceptance of Christianity. They simulated the Christian faith when it was to their advantage, and often mocked Jews and Judaism.

A number of Spanish poets belong to this category, such as Pero Ferrus, Juan de Valladolid, Rodrigo Cota, and Juan de España of Toledo, called also "El Viejo" (the old one), who was considered a sound Talmudist, and who, like the monk Diego de Valencia, himself a baptized Jew, introduced in his pasquinades Hebrew and Talmudic words to mock the Jews. There were also many who, for the sake of displaying their new zeal, persecuted their former coreligionists, writing books against them, and denouncing to the authorities those who wished to return to the faith of their fathers, as happened frequently at Valencia, Barcelona, and many other cities (Isaac b. Sheshet, Responsa, No. 11).

The third category consists of those who held to the Jewish faith in which they had been reared. These were known as "Judíos Escondidos" - hidden Jews. They preserved the traditions of their fathers; and, in spite of the high positions which some held, they secretly attended synagogue, and fought and suffered for their religion. Many of the wealthiest Marranos of Aragon belonged to this category, including the Zaportas of Monzón, who were related by marriage to the royal house of Aragon; the Sanchez; the sons of Alazar Yusuf of Saragossa, who intermarried with the Cavalleria and the Santangel; the very wealthy Espes; the Paternoy, who came from the vicinity of Verdun to settle in Aragon; the Clemente; the sons of Moses Chamoro; the Villanova of Calatayud; the Coscon; and others.

Disclaimer:  the numbers here are pretty different from other numbers I found online, and Wiki is Wiki, so you might want to check other resouces if you're interested.  Maybe even hit the library. Or see this flick, about the last Marranos, which sounds fascinating!