People with Affinity to Jewish People Report, Israel 2017

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs in Israel in 2017 released a comprehensive report titled “Report of the Public Advisory Committee for Examing Israel’s Approach Regarding Worldwide Communities with Affinity to the Jewish People”.

The report is interesting first because it uses new language to describe people of Jewish descent who may not be regarded as legal Jews - communities or People with Affinity. It recognised that Israel needs to formulates some proactive policy responses to people who are the legacies of the Inquisition and forced conversions more generally.

There has been a tide towards people wanting to explore their Jewish backgrounds and identities. The report’s authors describe this desire as an “ unprecedented surge... in individuals and groups seeking to establish affinity with the Jewish people”.There could be at least 5 million people globally of Jewish descent! it’s worth having a read of this report, in very user friendly language : http://www.mda.gov.il/antisemitism/documents/eng200818.pdf

Update on Leopold Emmanuel Jacob Van Dort

I have now accumulated lots of information from a variety of source in Hebrew and Dutch and will now be making a separate chapter on this amazing man. I am holding the information back for publication, however I will mention that contrary to certain views he had both a wife and a daughter. People need to be careful about asserting that just because family research shows individuals to be baptised in the Dutch Reform Church that they were 100% Christian. People were baptised for all sorts of reasons aside from faith issues. Baptism into Christianity gave people access to legal marriage, property rights and in some cases citizenship, so there were incentives.Research has shown that many people lived with so called double identities and really struggled, many also used multiple names.

I am not a genealogy search agency, Jewish Identity research is important no matter how incomplete!

I regularly get emails asking me whether their family is of Jewish origin or could I look up a relative. I am unable to assist you with this search. I am not a resident in Sri Lanka and also do not have links to current day activities. If you want information Chabad Sri Lanka should be able to assist you with kosher food issues etc. However, if you find any interesting information that you are prepared to share - maybe ending up in a book - I will check permissions with you - please email me!

This project has been a long one and I have had to stop work during changes to employment, country and general life sagas. I have gone back and added more details to the chapters, to be more precise, especially in sections where some of the argument is more conjecture.  There are people in many quarters who don't like this kind of research - some burghers don't want to admit that there are Jewish/Jewish identified burghers. Whilst some Jewish scholars because of the whole ongoing issues of 'who' is Jewish according to orthodox Jewish law, believe that there are not enough proofs.

It is clear from doing this research for over a debate that certainly during the colonials periods (Portuguese, Dutch, English) there was not a formally organised community in the way we would understand communal activities today. There is a strong likelihood that there was some kind of meeting house.Jews did network and hold gatherings. What becomes clear that for many Jewish folk in the 1600s  and 1700s who were forced the convert, or 'chose' to (ie. conversion was required for admission to university study in 1700s Holland) - that they carried a deep ambivalence about their status- some individuals going to great lengths to hide their previous heritage; others meeting up with other exiled folk to engage in underground political and religious activism. They carried with them a Jewish identity - even if it was fractured - not being fully accepted by Christians and being viewed suspiciously by Jewish communities. Policies designed to convert or kill Jews were aimed at breaking up the transmission of religious belief, religious practices; resulting in intermarriage and lost memories. This was a conscious policy by the Spanish and Portuguese of wanting to rid the world of Jews. Whilst this has not succeeded, nonetheless whole communities and lineages have been lost. So in my project I would rather speak of Jewish IDENTITY rather than Jews as such. A Jewish identity might involve a recognition of one's heritage or even more, a positive identification with Jewish ethics, and practices. These people would likely to have to go through a formal conversion process as there are too many broken links and not enough paperwork. It is time for certain sections of the Jewish community to engage in dialogue with individuals whose backgrounds have been affected by the operation of anti-antisemitism during the times of the European empires. The first step is writing up a 'history', . It maybe patchy, with some primary documentation sparse - but we do have access to secondary literature and accounts (even if distorted). Storying this is better than doing nothing - we maybe able to salvage some remnants!

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