Identity Theft Read Online Free PDF

decision as a family. The authorities told us that if we didn’t convert to Catholicism and join the Church, we would have to leave Spain.
    “We were Jews, but Spain was home. Many of my father’s friends had already joined the Church and been baptized. For a while they secretly continued to be our friends, but then, one by one, we ceased to see them.
    “Their children were not allowed to play with us anymore. It wasn’t their fault. Now that they had left Judaism, the Church forbade them to intermix with
non-converted Jews
—we were poison. The punishment, should they be caught, might well be death!
    “For many, many months my father wrestled with this decision. While many of his friends had already joined the Church and been baptized, many others had chosen to pack their bags and leave for other countries, such as Morocco to the south. However, they had to leave almost everything behind. Property was sold for a fraction of its worth. Jewelry was traded for food. We heard reports that some of our friends had been robbed and even killed on the way to their new life. My father did not want this for our family.
    “One evening, he sat us all down and explained that if we wanted to survive and maintain our current quality of life, we would have to play their game. He told us that we would be baptized as Catholics, but remain Jewish in our hearts. This is what many Jewish families had done.
    “We knew, and our tormentors knew as well, that this had nothing to do with religion; it was about politics. Spain was seeking to unify the country under Roman Catholicism. In fact, virtually all
non-Catholics
were suffering the same fate as we were.
    “When the day came, not only were we baptized, but my father had to read a public confession denouncing Judaism as a demonic religion. He promised never to celebrate any Jewish holiday or even associate with non-baptized Jews. We were told that if we ever returned to Judaism,
in any form
, we would face severe retribution from the Church. They could confiscate our property and expel us from Spain. Even death was on the table. This was one of the worst days of my life. I felt so sick and dirty. How could we have compromised to this extent, trading in our faith for acceptance?”
    This was how I felt. Although no one in twenty-first century America was threatening me with expulsion, I knew, like Christophe, that to become a Christian was to deny who I was. He continued.
    “We were called
Conversos
, new Christians, or the more derogatory title,
Marranos
—meaning ‘pigs’! Despite giving an appearance of welcoming us into the Church, they did all they could to humiliate us. It was clear that we would never be permitted to be one of them and yet we couldn’t be who we were. We were stuck somewhere in the middle of no-man’s land.
    “My father reminded us many times that we were still Jews and would always be Jews, but that we must be very careful. Everything had to be done in secret. Just a refusal to eat pork was considered sufficient reason to have a person arrested. We could trust no one, as the Church had its spies. Imagine that, a religious institution hiring people to spy on their subjects to ensure truly Catholic behavior. How could such a system claim to represent God? And how did they expect such coercion to spawn true devotion? Well, of course, they didn’t. This was all about Spain, not about religious devotion.
    “Outside the home we maintained the facade of being good Christians while inside the home we remained God-fearing Jews. We lived this way for many years and while I carried with me a permanent feeling of uneasy guilt, we were able to remain in Spain. All that came to a very abrupt end, however, when my father was finally arrested.
    “A
friend
came by to greet us on the Sabbath. Candles had been lit to welcome in the day of rest. We thought this friend could be trusted. In fact, he was a spy. In the beginning we had been much more careful—
especially
on