Choice Review

The growing scholarship on crypto-Jews covers individuals of Spanish and Portuguese descent who clandestinely preserved Judaism in response to forced conversion since the 14th century. After the discovery of a crypto-Jewish community in Portugal in the 1920s, scholars suggested a greater extent of modern crypto-Jewish practices, as evidence mounted in the US Southwest and Latin America. Skeptics have questioned the legitimacy of crypto-Jewish remnants of folk practices. Jacobs (women's studies, Univ. of Colorado) contributes to this scholarly controversy with a thoughtful inquiry into the feminist social psychology of modern-day descendants identified as crypto-Jews. She explores psychological factors that could explain the remarkable persistence of Jewish practices in the face of intense persecution. Using oral histories and archival records, she argues for a theory of cultural persistence that addresses the critical role of women in the preservation of endangered ethnic and religious traditions and examines the function of secrecy in retaining ethnic bonds in historical context and the significance of Latina/o Jewish ethnicity in the present day. Jacobs finds that the crypto-Jewish tradition has aspects of both historical continuity and modern ethnic revival. She offers insights into the Sephardic Jewish experience and gives an interpretative framework for students and scholars of community and belief. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty. S. J. Bronner Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg Campus