In Doreen Carvajal's memoir, The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity and the Inquisition (Riverhead), Carvajal discusses her ancestral journey from Costa Rica, her birthplace, to Segovia, Spain to discover her Catholic family’s hidden Jewish roots. In 2019, a documentary directed by Joseph...
Elisha and Esther Chaya Anaya celebrated their wedding in a beautiful and joyous ceremony in Beersheba, recently. It was quite a long, but rewarding, process that led them there. The Anayas, originally from Colombia, chose Judaism; despite their Catholic upbringing, and despite the fact that they...
Shavei Israel has a new Emissary in a most likely of places: Cuba. And we are all very excited about providing this community with much-desired Jewish support! Rabbi David Córdoba, himself born in Cuba, emigrated to Israel in 2018 after his own personal quest where he...
While most newly married couples are likely to take off for a honeymoon immediately after their wedding, in Jewish tradition a bride and groom continues to celebrate with the community for a week following the wedding. Each day, the bride and groom are treated to...
Everyone at Shavei Israel rejoiced as longtime Shavei employee, Chaya, married our most recent addition, Eliav, earlier this week. But the celebration was more than just that of a wedding, and more than just that of the joy shared by coworkers. This love story has been...
[caption id="attachment_149114" align="alignleft" width="141"] Ronit Treatman[/caption] Author Ronit Treatman grew up in Venezuela, only to discover, decades later, that many of the Catholic families she grew up with are actually descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities forced to convert during the Inquisition. Ronit, who lives in...
The Bissato family, Yehoshua, 45, Chana, 36, and their daughter Leah, 7, came to Israel from Caxias do Sul, Brazil, but their journey was much more than a trip on a plane. As former pastors, their bible studies actually led them away from the teachings...
Where I Truly Belong Many people ask me why I emigrated to Israel...
My name is Eliav and I come from Cuba. Exactly a year ago, I was celebrating Chanukah on the island I came from. Since I began my studies of Judaism, and my search for the truth, the celebration of Chanukah has had a special meaning...
Little Moshe Muñoz, a three-year-old in Ecuador, just got his first haircut and he is very excited. It wasn't just a haircut, though. There is a special custom that many Jews have of waiting until a boy is three to cut his hair for the...
