Gaon Books Authors Isabelle Medina Sandoval and Sandra K. Toro talk about their latest books

Gaon Books Authors at Collected Works Bookstore

 Last night, June 18, at Collected Works Bookstore Isabelle Medina Sandoval (shown here) and Sandra Toro (below) talked about their more recent books, both on crypto-Jewish life in New Mexico. Several dozen people attended the event and were active discussants wanting to know more about the crypto-Jewish experience.

Dr. Medina Sandoval's most recent book is: Hidden Shabbat: The Secret Lives of Crypto-Jews. She is from a family in Mora, New Mexico, which was an area of crypto-Jewish life during the Spanish colonial period. Her family maintained their identity as Jewish up to the contemporary period, and the author tells the stories of her grandmothers back several generations. Based on historical research and information from her own family, Medina Sandoval weaves a story of how people lived their lives. Keeping identity with her tradition, she wore a New Mexican colcha (traditionally woven shawl) for her talk. See the previous blog for more information.

Sandra K. Toro's most recent book is Secrets Behind Adobe Walls, and it is about crypto-Jewish life during the eighteenth century in New Mexico. The central figure is a medical doctor,  Benjamin Mendez who is newly arrived to the Santa Fe territory, and he brought the knowledge of Europe with him. Her story covers the infamous "Witch Trials" of Abiquiu, and the experience of the epidemics of European diseases that attacked so many Indians, far more than the U.S. Cavalry ever did. Then, there is a love story with twists and turns in the plot that will keep you intrigued. See the previous blog for more information.

After the talks and the question and answer period, the authors signed books and talked with the audience and book buyers until the store closed.

Collected Works is an independent bookstore that has an active program of talks by local and national authors. It had a major role in the cultural life of Santa Fe.

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For more information go to www.gaonbooks.com

 Gaon Books authors (Isabelle Medina Sandoval and Sandra K. Toro) will read and discuss their recent books on crypto-Jewish life in New Mexico at Collected Works in Santa Fe on June 18 at 6 pm.

Both of these books are sequels to previous titles written by these authors on Spanish Jews who had to flee the Inquisition and hide their Judaism at times to stay alive.

Isabelle Medina Sandoval is from a family in Mora in the mountains of northern New Mexico where crypto-Jewish families lived in isolation and distance from the long arm of the Inquisition. Medina Sandoval writes about her family and has done extensive historical research and bases her writing on that research. She is a widely published poet.

Hidden Shabbat is an beautiful piece of literature and important in preserving our New Mexico history and culture.  I recommend it for both youth and adults who want to understand New Mexico.

Dr. John B. Mondragón, Professor Emeritus Univ. of New Mexico

This book is a masterpiece of scholarship and literature.  Isabelle Medina Sandoval skillfully threads the untold cabalistic histories of several generations with the artistry of storytelling to reveal the secret Jewish-Hispanic tapestry that is rightfully part of New Mexico history.  Her passionate writing captures the past and present-day Crypto-Jewish struggle with anguish, pride, and secrecy.  In the end, Sandoval shares the vulnerability as well as courage of the present, and the optimism that the cabalistic light will shine brighter in the future.

Daniel Díaz-Huerta, Executive Director

New Mexico Center for Crypto Judaic Studies & Culture

Sandra K. Toro is an award-winning, best-selling author who teaches creative writing at the University of New Mexico, and previously she worked in Washington D.C. as a reporter and producer of public affairs programs for ABC and PBS. Toro is an active speaker on writing and the representation of writers.

Through her exquisite prose, Sandra K. Toro recreates the lives of New Mexico’s crypto-Jews. She pays homage to the centrality of family and faith in the lives of early modern crypto-Jews, projected onto a backdrop of Spanish interaction with Native American beliefs and peoples. Secrets behind Adobe Walls rekindles our memory of that dramatic era.

-- Prof. Roger L. Martinez, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Sandra Toro brings to life the turbulent history and clash of cultures, religion and politics of colonial New Mexico.  Set against the story of New Mexico’s hidden Jews, those who outwardly practiced Catholicism and secretly practiced Judaism, Toro’s meticulously researched novel is a fast paced and fascinating look into the fears and fires that ignited prejudice in the 18th century.

-- Susan Seligman, New Mexico Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League

Sandra Toro has crafted a spell binding story that is part medical mystery, part high adventure and part love story that revolves around crypto-Jews  in colonial New  Mexico.  Once you start it, you won’t want to put it down.

-- Paula Paul, author of Sins of the Empress

See also Collected Works

June 6 -- Anniversary of the Riots of Seville and the Turning Point in the History of Sephardic Jews

On June 6, 1391 Ferrand Martinez led an attack on the Jewish quarter of Seville, destroying most of the twenty-three synagogues, burning Jewish houses and killing many people. The Jewish community had been protected by the King and the Archbishop of Seville, but both had died shortly before. Ferrand Martinez had been advocating attacks on the Jews for some time, and he took advantage of the power vacuum to lead the mobs against the Jews.
In the face of so much death and destruction, many Jews chose to convert to Christianity rather than be killed.
Vicente Ferrer led the attacks on Jews to the north, and in July and August of that year the riots spread to Valencia, Toledo and eventually to Barcelona. The image to the left shows Jews forced to listen to a sermon denouncing them, which went on for the next decades.
The Jewish community in Barcelona had been one of the largest on the Iberian Peninsula, and it was completely destroyed. Those who were not killed, fled, and that was the end of the Jewish community in that city.
Of the estimated 200,000 Jews in Spain in 1391, it is thought that one-third of them converted to Christianity over the next 25 years under the unrelenting pressures on them. This created the large population of Conversos, or New Christians, still discriminated against. They lived under the suspicion of practicing Judaism secretly, and in 1480 the Spanish Inquisition began to examine New Christians for Judaizing and many thousands were arrested, tortured, and burned at the stake.
In 1492, a century after the events of 1391, the remaining Jews were expelled from Spain, and Sephardic Jews spread around the Mediterranean basin from Morocco to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Judaism was eliminated in Spain. The Spanish Inquisition continued until it finally was abolished by royal decree in 1834.
In November, 2012, 520 years after 1492, with Spain tottering economically, the Spanish government officially invited Sephardic Jews to return to Spain with an offer of a fast track to Spanish citizenship.