I first heard the word Xueta (pronounced cheweta) in April 2022 at a brief Zoom presentation sponsored by Kulanu, an organization that supports isolated, emerging, and returning Jewish communities around the globe.
I wondered how it happened that 600 years after Judaism was crushed and vanished from Majorca, a Spanish Island in the Mediterranean, a Jewish boy originally from Englewood New Jersey discovered its tragic history of persecution and genocide and became committed to resurrecting Judaism.
I posed that question to Dani Rotstein after watching Xueta Island, the remarkable documentary film that he produced and co-directed.
Rotstein told me that his journey began in 2014, when he accepted a video production job in Majorca, Spain. He was looking forward to a career-building opportunity in an exotic setting. He had fallen in love with Spanish culture during a glorious year in Madrid in 2000-2001 on an exchange program when he was a student at Wesleyan University in Middletown Connecticut.
Judaism initially played no part in this new adventure in Majorca. In fact, he thought he would be the only Jew on the island. Little did he suspect that his experience would make Judaism the centerpiece of his life.
Soon after arriving, he wandered through the winding streets of the ancient quarters of Palma, the capital of Majorca. He was pleased and surprised to stumble on a synagogue, where he was able to join a prayer service with a scant number of Jews. Some present who called themselves Jews could not be counted for a minyan, the ten Jews required for some prayers. That's when he first heard the word "Xueta," which is the name given to descendants of Jews murdered during the notorious Spanish Inquisition. Eager to learn more, he began to research the tragic history of the brutal persecution of Majorcan Jews centuries earlier.
Rotstein learned that in 1435, after the earlier massacre of 300 Jews, the entire Jewish community on Majorca submitted to conversion to Catholicism rather than face public trials and execution. Many of these so-called conversos continued to practice Judaism secretly. The Inquisitors subjected any Jew suspected of being a pretend Christian (called crypto-Jews) to imprisonment, torture, and even execution. Spies, informants, and other anti-Semites often turned in these conversos, sometimes on the thinnest and often false "evidence."
In 1688 (CE), the Spanish Inquisition on Majorca conducted sweeping accusations and arrests of crypto-Jews. Forty attempted to escape on a British ship, but a raging storm prevented the vessel from leaving port. They returned to the walled ghetto where they were arrested. Along with other crypto-Jews they were imprisoned and tortured for three years. In 1691, eighty-eight were convicted and thirty-seven were sentenced to death. Three who refused to renounce Judaism, including prominent Rabbi Rafael Valls, were burned alive to the cheers of thirty thousand spectators.
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