I agree about the genealogical DNA testing (I had it done myself, through
http://www.familytreedna.com )
My background is that my father was a Jew of Russian ancestry, and my mother was raised an Italian Catholic. She converted to Torah Judaism in 1944, then met/married my father a few years later. Then they had my older sisters, and I was their "accident" baby
born in the late 1950s when my mom was in her late 30s.
I always thought of my Mom as a ger, and so did she...even though her parents were rather weird for Italian Catholics. My grandmother used to be mortally afraid of crucifixes and refused to allow any in her home. She used to say to me, "When you see one of those (crucifixes), it means someone is going to die". She had nothing Catholic in her home except a Catholic Bible, which no one seemed to read (lol.)
On Friday nights she would light two candles before dinner; she explained it to me as 'an old family custom'. She would also insist on closing the kitchen curtains first. My Mom did this too, so I figured it was normal.
Grandmom did lots of other things that I thought were just typical for Italians (I was very sheltered and Mom's family were the only Italians I knew as a child.)
Grandmom also told me, "You must never eat pork; its dirty and has worms..it can kill you". I was amazed at how much like Jews Italians were!
What a SHOCK I got later in life when I found out that most Italians wear crucifixes and eat pork!
Anyway, in the 1980s I got into genealogy, and met a distant cousin from my mom's side online. The first thing he said to me was, "Did you know your mom's family is Jewish?" I said, "Well, I know SHE is Jewish and so am I, but her family is not".
That was when my cousin Joe sent me a huge file with documentation fro Italy, showing my Mom's family was Ebrei (Hebrews) from way back. They had originally come from Spain, left in 1492 rather than convert to Catholicism, went to Sicily and southern Italy, and later when Spain took those areas over too, they finally decided to convert externally rather than run again, but stayed Jewish in secret (conversos, "marranos").
Naturally over 500 or so years much of that got lost, but they did evidently keep some Jewish customs, which is why my grandmom felt as she did on pork, crucifixes, etc. Grandmom also used to tie a red string around doorknobs of a new home or car; I always thought that was "an Italian thing"; I later learned its from Kabbalah, something many Sephardic Jews were heavily into.
No one in my mom's family ever ate blatant traif like shellfish or pork; in fact when my uncle went into a nursing home, he lied and told them he was allergic to pork/shellfish so they would not feed it to him.
I have to admit when I first learned my family's true history, I developed a very deep hate for the Catholic church, something that I am only recently learning to moderate. I just HATE the way their monarchs STOLE my family's way of life from them!
This was a hard thing for me because I've been active in the pro-life mvmt for years, which is heavily Catholic, and I began seeing Catholics as my enemy, but I was told by members of a converso genealogy list I belong to that that is a very normal first reaction to finding out about my heritage...they said you mellow out over time, and I have....a bit.
Topic: Do you guys think this is true or a waste of money? (Read 1288 times)