MANY PEOPLE KNOW that the Galilean city of Safed in the 16th century was a focal point for the Jewish mystical tradition. Fewer people know it was the home of R. Jacob Berab (or Berav) (1474-1546). In his time, Safed was one of many Jewish communities inundated with Spanish and Portuguese converso emigres, individuals claiming Jewish lineage who wanted to be accepted back into the Jewish community. One of Berab’s most controversial acts was to suggest the reconstitution of an official Sanhedrin, a rabbinical court from ancient times, in order to decide the cases of large numbers of conversos who were flooding back into Jewish communities.

Ocasio Cortez Speech Today

Ocasio-Cortez reveals Jewish heritage for Hanukkah. Mobile COVID-19 rapid testing site comes to Corpus Christi Monday. Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed for the first time publicly on Sunday that she has Jewish ancestry while speaking during a Hanukkah event in her home borough of Queens. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a Jewish group in New York she is Jewish, too. The 29-year-old former bartender claimed for the first time publicly on Sunday that she has Jewish ancestry while speaking during a Hanukkah event in her home borough of Queens. When she went on to explain her new Jewish heritage, something went wrong and then the New Yorker got a nasty surprise. Don't miss this.

I was reminded of this history by last month’s pronouncement by democratic socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that she descends from Spanish Jews—a pronouncement made just a week before a new genetic study showed that over a quarter of Latin American individuals do indeed have conversoheritage. Perhaps unsurprisingly, instead of pondering the larger implications of the complex relationship of the left and Jewishness, many politically conservative American Jews were more interested in debunking her claim of Jewish heritage as if it was an attempt at affiliationwith Judaism. The difference is important.

Unlike many of the the conversosconcerning Berab, Ocasio-Cortez is not claiming to be Jewish, only to have descended from Jews. Traditionally, Jewishness is determined by maternal lineage (now, in the American Reform movement, also paternal lineage) that can be documented in some way, although many Jews who today identify as such have no documentary evidence beyond a few generations. But more importantly, claiming Jewish heritage, rather than Jewishness per se, only suggests that one has Jewish ancestry, and from a Jewish perspective such a claim needn’t be “proven,” simply because the claimant is not asking to be considered a Jew. Many who make such heritage claims do so on the basis of family lore, or perhaps some customs or artifacts. What matters is that these claims ascribe part of an identity rather than use that identity to affiliate with a community.

Ocasio-Cortez is far from the first to make such a claim. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright found out late in life that her parents were Polish Jews who had converted to Christianity. Responding to this revelation, Albright described herself as coming from “Jewish parents” (i.e. Jewish heritage) but said that she did not consider herself a Jew. In an essay on Albright, UC Berkeley historian David Hollinger made the important distinction above; Albright ascribed her Jewish heritage but did not affiliate as a Jew. And while Albright had proof of Jewish heritage (while Ocasio-Cortez does not), the claim is all that’s necessary to constitute an ascription, a sense of identity that does not meet the bar of affiliation. This is different, for instance, from the case of Julia Salazar, another young socialist and recently-inaugurated state senator from New York City, who publicly affiliated with Jewishness based not only on converso heritage, but also on a history of active Jewish participation in religious and social justice organizations. Salazar’s case throws the difference between ascription and affiliation into sharp relief.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Jewish Roots

Perhaps the more interesting question is why Jewish heritage matters to Ocasio-Cortez herself. Her ascription comes at a curious time, a moment when American Jews are concerned about antisemitism on the left, when some in the progressive community have dug into an anti-Israel position, and when figures such as Linda Sarsour have become lighting rods for anti-left animus among many American Jews. Unless we take a cynical view that her announcement is a political ploy by a leader in the progressive left who has also been quite vocal in her critique of Israel (a view held by some who do not share her views, and which I find somewhat offensive), then we have to assume it does indeed matter to her, as she said it publicly and proudly in a synagogue during a Hanukkah menorah-lighting ceremony.

Ocasio Cortez Religion

Given centuries when Jewish ancestry was, for non-Jews, a stigma, a stain, something one ought to hide rather than proclaim, it is curious to me at this tense moment of Jews and the progressive left, that one of its leaders proudly attests her Jewish heritage. And while Ocasio-Cortez may not have attempted to affiliate, her desire to proclaim her heritage may also mirror a larger phenomenon inside the Jewish community—the phenomenon of individuals whose Jewishness was little more than ascription who, today, explore new ways of affiliation, even if not in any religious context—an event called “disassimiliation” by sociologists.

While we’re far from establishing legal frameworks for converso claimants, as Jacob Berab did in the 16th century, we may share more with Berab’s time than might appear. As then, today it seems that more and more people want to reclaim some connection to Jewishness after generations of living comfortably outside any Jewish orbit. Berab’s conversos wanted to reaffiliate fully after generations. AOC’s situation is obviously different; she is very explicit that she does not want to be considered a Jew. But she is proud that she ostensibly descends from them, and that itself is noteworthy even as, or precisely because, it makes many American Jews oddly uncomfortable.

Shaul Magid is the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Professor of Jewish Studies at Indiana University/Bloomington, Visiting Brownstone Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, Kogod Senior Research Fellow at The Shalom Hartman Institute in New York City, and rabbi of the Fire Island Synagogue in Seaview, Fire Island.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly elected firebrand congresswoman, has revealed for the first time that she has Sephardic Jewish heritage.

The 28-year-old Democrat said her distant ancestors fled the Spanish Inquisition to emigrate to Puerto Rico, where her immediate family roots lived until they moved to New York.

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“Generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “So many people practiced Catholism on the exterior but on the interior they continued to practice (Judaism).”

At Hanukkah event with @JFREJNYC in an moving speech, @Ocasio2018 shares that her family were Sephardic Jews who fled to Puerto Rico. “So many of our destinies are tied beyond our understanding” pic.twitter.com/68bjuCFnDD— Taly Krupkin (@TalyKrupkin) December 10, 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-cortez Jewish Ancestry

It’s believed to be the first time Ocasio-Cortez has publicly mentioned her Sephardic roots. Haaretz first reported the revelation Sunday night.

She didn’t explain why she has apparently never mentioned the issue before. In recent months, she has burst onto the national political scene with a leftist critique of the Democratic establishment and its stands on a variety of issues including Israel and the Palestinians.

Ocasio-Cortez told Haaretz that she didn’t plan to talk about her family history on Sunday, either. “Sometimes I feel the space, I feel the moment,” she explained.

Ocasio-Cortez, who pulled off a stunning upset over Democratic powerhouse Joe Crowley in a primary last spring, suggested that her relatives and other Puerto Rican families hid menorahs and other artifacts of Jewish practice in their homes on the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic island.

She used her unusual family history to draw a parable about the polyglot history of Puerto Rico, where many trace their roots to a mix of Spanish colonizers, indigenous native Americans and black slaves.

Ocasio Cortez Jewish Ancestry

“So many of our destinies are tied beyond our understanding,” she said.

Ms Ocasio Cortez