Third Annual Crypto-Jewish Symposium
April 8-9, 2010
hosted by the Texas A&M Hillel Foundation
800 George Bush Dr. • College Station, Texas

Be part of a new tradition, as Texas A&M hosts its annual Crypto-Jewish Symposium. This exciting event was first launched in April of 2008, and renewed again in March of 2009. This year, the Third Annual 2010 Crypto-Jewish Symposium at Texas A&M will be held April 8-9th, 2010, hosted by the Texas A&M Hillel Foundation building at 800 George Bush Dr, here in College Station, Texas.

At the symposium, I will be presenting a paper entitled, “New Archival Evidence on the Family Relations of Luis de Carvajal and his Mexican Inquisitors.”

There is news today that Professor Haim Beinart has died.

H-Judaic reports:

“We mourn the passing last week of Prof. Haim Beinart (1917-2010), a towering figure in the study of Iberian Jewry. Prof. Beinart spent his entire career at the Hebrew University, where he received his doctorate in 1955, rose to become full professor, and had been emeritus professor since 1988. During the course of a long and fruitful career, he published some 300 books and articles including his definitive THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM SPAIN. Many of the foremost scholars of Sephardic Jewry were Beinart's students and all students of Sephardic Jewry are indebted to Beinart's scholarship. We extend deepest condolences to his family.”



I first learned about Jewish culture and society in medieval Spain, specifically the Extremadura in his book, Trujillo: A Jewish Community in Extremadura on the Eve of the Expulsion from Spain (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1980). There I learned about the Carvajal family, of which I am a descendent, and its relationship to Extremaduran Jewish families. Curiously, from Beinart’s work I would continue my own family research in Spanish archives and learn that the Carvajals were also conversos, or Jewish converts to Christianity.