The Democrat party superstar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez never ceases to surprise and amaze the American people.
After being criticized for her anti-Israel stance she has decided to tell everyone that she is descendant from Sephardic Jews who fled to Puerto Rico to hide from the Spanish Inquisition.
Before everyone jumps one me – yes, culture isn’t DNA.
But to be Puerto Rican is to be the descendant of:
African Moors + slaves,
Taino Indians,
Spanish colonizers,
Jewish refugees,
and likely others.We are all of these things and something else all at once – we are Boricua. https://t.co/IFC4mwAjor
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 10, 2018
Just because one concrete identity may not be how we think of ourselves today, nor how we were raised, it doesn’t mean we cannot or should not honor the ancestors + stories that got us here.
I was raised Catholic, & that identity is an amalgam too – especially in Latin America.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 10, 2018
The Jerusalem Post has more on Ocasio-Cortez’s Jewish roots:
“A very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardi… Jews.”
Ocasio-Cortez told the audience of her family’s struggles as Sephardim, and how they were forced to flee into the mountains of Puerto Rico during the Spanish Inquisition and practice Catholicism as a front to escape antisemitic oppression.
“During the Spanish Inquisition… so many people were forced to convert on the exterior to Catholicism, but on the interior continued to practice their faith,” the newly elected New York congresswoman told the crowd.
“The culture in Puerto Rico [was] that people [would] open their closets, there would be this small menorah inside. And as they had children, and their children had children and their children had children, these cultures started to kind of mix in a way that many people in those subsequent generations didn’t understand: to practice Catholicism on the exterior, but when you’re at home, to practice Judaism.”
“One of the things a lot of people don’t know about Puerto Rico, and something we discovered ourselves, is that a long time ago, many generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews."https://t.co/lgczDI0paN
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) December 10, 2018