Rabbi Whose Family Were Conversos Now Heads a Colombian Sephardic Congregation

By Donald H. Harrison

CARTAGENA, Colombia – On a recent visit to this port city, I was among a group of four Jews who were escorted by a guide to a Sephardic congregation (Sinagoga Sefardi) established by Rabbi Joachin Montoya, a medical doctor who had converted to Judaism after learning that he was descended from a family of Conversos.

Montoya said he had been active in his Christian church but realized 23 years ago that some of the customs that his grandparents kept signified that the family had been Jewish in the past. For example, he said, meat had to be washed of any blood before being consumed.  The house was vigorously cleaned every seven days.

He decided to study Judaism and sought a tutor who could teach him Hebrew. He found in Cartagena a woman who had lived in Israel for six years.  After three years, they moved on to an Israeli teacher who taught them more about Judaism.  Then, he, his wife, children, and a sister underwent the process of conversion facilitated both by visiting rabbis from Israel and local rabbis serving approximately 5,000 Jews in Colombia – about 200 of them in Cartagena.

Next, the Montoya family traveled to Israel, furthering their studies in Bnai Brak and Jerusalem.

Today, between 20 to 30 people regularly attend Shabbat services during which Montoya has the option of withdrawing one of three Torahs from the Aron Kodesh (Holy Ark).  One Torah is Sephardic, that stands within a cylindrical housing; another is Ashkenazi, and the third one, he identified as Farsi.  It looked like an Ashkenazi Torah as both were covered in mantles.

Six people are studying Torah with Montoya in the cramped synagogue which for the last five months has shared space with a gated residence. He said that he teaches his students that within the Torah is “all the information that we need to live.”

The larger share of Cartagena’s 200 identified Jews attend the longer established Chabad house, where they follow Ashkenazic rites. Montoya believes that many other families like his are descended from Conversos and might like to explore Judaism.

A Messianic congregation is also active in the city, telling people that they can become Jewish without giving up their Christianity, Montoya commented with a sad shake of his head.

Conversos are people who during the time of the Spanish Inquisition converted to Catholicism rather than suffer harsh consequences.  In the Old City, there is a Museum of the Inquisition that features instruments of torture utilized by the Church to force confessions from those who strayed from Catholicism, including those, like the Montoya family, who maintained some Jewish customs in secret.

A museum plaque said that 59 Jews had been tried and executed during the first half century since the Inquisition’s establishment in Cartagena in the 16^th century.  Jewish property and businesses, including those alleged to have engaged in the slave trade, were appropriated and conducted by the Cartagena authorities.

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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.