Professor Abraham Gross is with Ben Gurion University and the Institute for Sefardi and Anousim Studies at Netanya Academoic College.

“Converso Genealogy Project: Tracking the Diaspora of the Iberian Forced Converts” (Tues-167), 7:30-9:30 P.M.

The objective of The “Converso Genealogy Project” (a multi-tiered project) is to consolidate the work that has been done on large segments of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish populations who were converted to Catholicism during the 15th century. Some people fled and joined Jewish communities in the East and others established communities in Western Europe and in the New World.  Many were lost to recorded history.

The project will  garner information on the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Diaspora as well as genealogical information matching  contemporary descendants to their forced-convert ancestors.

The project intends to compile in one place, information that has been scattered in multiple sources, languages, repositories and countries throughout the world for centuries. It will find a home for all the work that historians, researchers and serious genealogists have done. Aside from the obvious contribution to Jewish genealogy, this will equip historians with data enabling them to rewrite entire chapters of Jewish history.

[Presented with Genie Milgrom, Sallyann Sack-Pikus, and Brooke Ganz]