In November, 1995 my wife and I visited the Galapagos Islands and decided to visit mainland Ecuador while we were only six hundred miles off the coast. It would be unlikely that we would ever return. While in Ecuador, one morning Rae and I sat with Eduardo our guide while waiting for a train. I asked him what he knew of the presence of Marranos or Conversos in Ecuador. I explained that I had read in a History of Marranos by Cecil Roth that 3 ship loads of Conversos had arrived off the coast of Ecuador in 1535. Eduardo replied that he knew nothing of Marranos or Conversos but he had an interesting story to tell me.
When he grew up in the small town of San Fernando in the Andes south of Cuenca, into his village would come traders to do business with the town's people. After completing their business they returned to their village. These traders lived in a neighboring community of Pucara. They only married among themselves. They dressed as the indigenous of the area but there was one major difference. These people were white skinned and obviously Caucasian. They spoke Spanish but did not speak the Indian dialect of Quechua. Many of these people were as light skinned as I. Some had green eyes and in a few cases light colored hair. Eduardo commented,"these people didn't belong in those parts. They came from somewhere else and know one knew where they came from. When asked, they said they had always lived in that area."
When Eduardo told me the story of the white skinned people living as the indigenous in the rural mountains of Ecuador I reached a conclusion in seconds.
"Eduardo, can you take me there?", I asked.
"Yes", he replied, but we have to go by horseback. There are no roads. And the altitude is about 13 -14000. ft. A difficult trip".
"I want to go. Let's do it."
That decision was made in November, 1995. I left for Ecuador on July 11,1997 with four other men from San Diego that I recruited including a conservative rabbi- Arthur Zuckerman; a pediatric dentist- Barry Reder; an attorney- Andy Loeb; a computer specialist- David Wollner.
In preparation for the trip I began to review the available literature of the Conversos. I found substantial literature describing communities in Mexico, Brazil, New Mexico, Argentina but I never found reference to Converso communities in Ecuador. The histories do reference that Conversos from Quito and Cuenca were found guilty by the Inquisitions of Mexico City but that was the only written reference in English I discovered. At this point all I had was the anecdotal story of my guide. There was no written documentation to support any investigation. That was to come later.
I like broad-brush strokes. I have little patience for fine detail. Nevertheless, my preparations for this trip were uncharacteristically thorough. I had been communicating with my guide, Eduardo Quito, a graduate of the University of Toronto, ever since my last trip, to detail the itinerary and costs. As time went by and I acquired additional information, I changed the itinerary. Also, it took a little juggling to ensure that the rabbi, Arthur Zuckerman, known as "Zucky," would be able to observe the Sabbath in Ecuador properly.
In addition to Eduardo, I had email correspondence with Robert Kunstaetter in Quito and Dr. Aguirre Guevara in Quito, Dr. Rosenbloom in St.Petersburg, Fla. Friends in San Diego put me in touch with their friends or relatives in Quito. Jerry Gumpel made contact with Henry Horwath who provided me with introductions to a number of the members of the Jewish Community in Ecuador. Arthur Stromberg in La Jolla put me in contact with his daughter and son in law who were living in Quito at that time. One of the valuable contacts turned out to be Robert Kunstaetter, who arranged for me to talk by telephone with Ricardo Aaron Ordonez. Ricardo claimed to have documented evidence of his family tree going back to Spain. He spoke little English and I interviewed him on the phone for about an hour in Spanish. It was hard work. I had prepared my questions in Spanish carefully and, surprisingly, after the previous 9-10 months of Spanish lessons, I was able to communicate with him in a reasonable manner during that first phone call. I think we were able to understand 70 to 80% of each other's comments so that we both understood the overall communication. Ricardo later became an invaluable link for me.
Early in 1996, I attempted to pick up additional background material by searching Internet for leads to literature that I did not find at the local university libraries. Using the word Marrano as my key word in the Internet search was disappointing. Also, the search for Ecuador and Ecuadorian History produced little. The words Jewish History produced a lot of materials including a reference to an organization called Kulanu. When I searched the web site of Kulanu I was delighted to find an organization that specialized in researching and in many cases visiting and supporting groups of Jews around the world that are separated from the mainstream of world Jewry. For an interesting experience visit Internet using "Kulanu" as your key word.
I corresponded with Bob Landes of Kulanu and because I had a bat mitzvah celebration in Baltimore where the Kulanu organization is headquartered, I made plans to visit with Bob during my stay. Bob and his wife graciously invited me to Shabbat dinner at his home and at this dinner he invited several other interested people from Kulanu. One of the parties was a youngish doctor by the name of ............ who presented me with a copy of an article published in 1994 in the Journal of the American Society of Endocrinology. This article written by Dr. Aguirre-Guevara of Quito, Ecuador and Dr. Rosenbloom of St. Petersburg, Fla. described their activities in and around Loja, Ecuador treating a group of light skinned dwarfed individuals who had a rare defective gene that was responsible for their stature, Larone Syndrome. The doctors postulated that this dwarfism was the result of hundreds of years of close family intermarriage.
This defective gene was ultimately correlated with the only other known case, which was that of a man in Israel whose family had migrated from Morocco. To these doctors this was a positive method of identifying the background of their patients. The doctors referred to these patients as "sephardistas." This unique physical disorder provided documented proof that there were in Ecuador living descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews and Conversos who had migrated to Ecuador. Not only did I have anecdotal information of the white skinned Indians living in the remote mountains, I now had documented and scientific evidence. But, there was more to surface later.
OFF TO ECUADOR
I decided to go to Ecuador a few days before the rest of the men. It would give me time to confirm appointments, attend services Saturday morning in the Quito Synagogue and meet with members of the Jewish Community and especially with Ricardo Aaron Ordonez. Also, from previous experiences at high altitudes I knew I could use a few extra days to get acclimated.
On Friday, July 11, my wife Rae and I went to the airport early in the morning so that she could catch her 6:30 a.m. plane to Boston to visit with family and I waited for my 8:30 a.m. flight to Houston, Panama City, Panama and finally onto Quito. Rae could appreciate the efforts I put into preparing for the trip but there was no way that she would accompany me. It was a great decision on her part.
Do you believe in omens? I once had a gentleman, raised in Egypt of Armenian extraction, who worked for me in a store who insisted that we could not give a refund as the first transaction of the day. It was a bad omen and that business day would be ruined. When we reached the outskirts of Quito about 9:30 p.m. (Ecuador is the same time zone as the U.S. East Coast) the pilot announced that winds were gusting too heavily to land in Quito. Instead, we were going to Guayaquil, on the coast, where we would be put up in a hotel and brought to Quito in the morning. I never argue with pilots. If he felt the winds were too strong then I agreed. But, it was the first part of the trip and I planned to go to the synagogue in Quito for a Shabbat service at 9:00 a.m. the next morning.
Saturday, July 12
Saturday morning, I awoke at 5:15 to clean up, have some breakfast and bus to the airport for an 8:00 a.m. flight to Quito. I landed at the Quito airport at 8:45, taxied to my hotel, had the taxi wait for me while I sent my bags to the room. Then the driver took me to the synagogue, which was only a few blocks away. In my previous trip I had tried to locate the synagogue by looking up in the phone book S for synagoga, T for Templo and J for anything that resembled Judeo. Instead, it turned out that the name is listed under A for Associacion de Judeos. The synagogue was part of a small community center which included the chapel and some rooms for small social and educational activities. As in many of the foreign countries I had visited, there was an armed guard in uniform outside a secured door on the sidewalk. He called into the center and a young man responded, looked at me and gave the o.k. to the guard to let me enter. If I remember correctly, I left my passport with the guard.
The chapel was small and attractive with comfortable theater style seating for perhaps 50 people. The conservative service was led by lay people because their Chazan was away on vacation. The melodies were either identical or very similar to melodies in traditional American services. I was given the honor of an alia. After the service there was a kiddish in an adjoining room and I met the 15 or 20 people attending. The group included two young women from New York who were travelling through Ecuador.
For the most part, the participants were older and presumably Ashkenazi. In a number of cases they were holocaust survivors. One of the elderly men walked me back to my hotel and with his limited English, better Spanish and fluent Yiddish we communicated. In general, the Jewish population in Quito of about 1000 persons is financially successful. Their children are raised with excellent educations either in Ecuador or the U.S. and the children continue to add onto the success of their parents. There are no obvious signs of Anti-Semitism, which I assumed is because there aren't very many Jews who identify as such. In a major community like Cuenca, I was told there are only two families that identified themselves as Jewish.
One of the members at the service advised me that the Israeli Ambassador to Ecuador, Yakov Param, was also interested in investigating conversos and was doing independent research. I tried to call the embassy but it was Saturday and there was no answer.
At my hotel there was a sign that read, Alberto Einstein Collegia, Graduacion. I thought that some kid by the name of Alberto Einstein was graduating from college and there would be a reception that night. Instead, the sign really stated that what we would consider a private high school was having a major graduation party for the entire class, family and friends. It was a Jewish sponsored day school which had a student population that was only about 20% Jewish. Later I learned that the party consisted of 700 people with the girls in very formal(and expensive) gowns and all of their families and friends as well dressed as any U.S. social function. Parents bragged to me that graduates of this school gained admission to the best colleges in the U.S.
The gentleman who walked me back to my hotel was 77 years old, retired from a textile store business (perhaps piece goods). In Europe he was sent to Siberia by the Russians. He had not slept in a bed for 5 years, but he survived. He came to Ecuador after the war because he had a "landsman" in Ecuador. I also met Herbert Wellish at the synagogue who had prospered in Ecuador since the war in a rope exporting and importing business.
After lunch, an aspirin and a snooze (the altitude was beginning to affect me) I began to make my phone calls. I left word at the home of the mother of Ricardo Ordonez, the man I had spoken with by phone from the states. I wanted to visit with him because he had told me that he had other contacts.
I called and connected with Dr. Aguirre-Guevara, the Ecuadorian Endocrinologist who co-authored the article about the dwarfs I mentioned earlier. He invited me to visit with him at his clinic and laboratory that was about 10 minutes by taxi from my hotel. I met the doctor at 5:30 p.m. and we talked for over two hours. We got along very well after I assured him that I had no secret agenda. That is, I was retired from business; I was not an academic looking to publish; I was interested solely in completing a piece of history that was missing in the history of those fleeing the Inquisition. He said he "liked my looks. That I looked like a good man". His major concern was that his patients would not be abused or held to ridicule as they had a few years previously when a scandal rag in Ecuador labeled them as "freaks and monsters".
The doctor provided me with interesting information about Loja and its residents. He suspects that he, personally, comes from Converso stock. To this day, families from his area of the country largely intermarry within their own families. For example, he had married a distant cousin. Dr. Aguire referred to the "chazos" These are the white people of Southern Ecuador. He considers himself a "chazo", his mother was born in the area with the same light skin and blue eyes.
He spoke of the unique Jewish genetic disorder that produced these people of shortened stature. He called it a genetic disease. The common custom of people in this area marrying within the family was something unexplainable. We discussed his desire for maintaining the integrity of his work and the need to develop a scientific approach to investigation if we were to trace these people back to Spain
He asked if I would like to meet one of his patients. A little lady that he refers to sensitively as a "person of shortened stature"( hombre de estatura corto) would be visiting shortly to pick up medication that he provides his patients.
I met this little lady after assuring Doctor Aguirre that I would not pursue her with questions about the "sephardistas". My questions would relate to practices and customs that are unique to this part of Ecuador. This was one of his favorite patients, a lady of 31 who was about the size of my nine year old granddaughter. As far as I could tell she was mostly proportioned normally . The defective gene produces some rounding of the forehead and very little bridge at the top of the nose.
In some cases it affects mental ability, in others it does not. This lady was a pretty little gal like a large oversized doll with a high pitched little girl's voice. Without the doctor translating I would not have been able to understand her Spanish. We had a pleasant and interesting conversation about the City of Loja and its customs. She seemed to me to be perfectly charming with normal intelligence and pleasant personality.
He expressed his concern for his patients and his reluctance to open them to investigators. In part they were insulted by journalists referring to them as "monstrosities". And there was a necessity for not destroying the integrity of this scientific group. For hundreds of years they have been isolated and now they are being exposed to outsiders and they have more mobility. With their mobility is the danger of losing them as a source of scientific study.
The doctor told me the story of a 60-year-old man of short stature who married a 17-year-old very pretty girl of normal height. There were several stories of these people of short stature marrying normal sized persons because of their attractive personalities and character.
To produce a person of shortened stature, both the father and mother must have the defective gene. In some families with the same parents, some of the children are normal height and others are short. Today, the doctor is able to take blood samples and determine whether there will be children of shortened stature. To win their confidence and respect he shows great sensitivity for their feelings. He always gets written permission to take blood. He also provides hormone treatments which provide some help. Doctor Guevara showed me remarkable photographs of families over fifty years old showing younger brothers and sisters who are physically larger than their older siblings.
He provided me with the name and address of his cousin, Dr. Patricio Aguirre-Aguirre in Loja who also was interested in this subject. Dr. Guevara provided me with the names and telephone numbers for two of his patients, sisters, Lucille and Alvah Valez Sanchez in Loja that he indicated would make great interviewees. He commented that Sanchez and Martinez were originally popular Spanish Jewish family names.
We discussed the possibility of joint activities in which he would perform his medical research and provide treatments while I would pursue my historical and anthropological interests. Dr. Guevara agreed to return with me to Loja during my next trip when I would be able to photograph 30-40 people and families. Finally, we agreed to stay in touch after I returned to the states.
This was still my first day in Ecuador and I was exhausted. Dr. Guevara drove me back to my hotel where I headed for the restaurant for dinner. About half way through my dinner the waitress approached to ask if I were Senor Samiljan. She brought to my table a man of about 40 who appeared to be blind along with another man who acted as his guide. For the first time, I was about to meet face to face with Ricardo Aaron Ordonez.
I mentioned that I had spoken with Ricardo by telephone a few months before through the assistance of Robert Kunstaetter. Now, we had an opportunity to talk one on one. Mostly, we spoke in Spanish with a very little English offered by Ricardo or his good friend and guide Eduardo Ramon who is a professor of mathematics at a local public high school. He and Ricardo are close friends. Eduardo said he is a practicing Catholic and he is fascinated by the subject of the Conversos.
I estimated that Ricardo is about 75-80% blind and despite this handicap he is a practicing attorney in Quito. He is capable of reading when he holds a manuscript about 4-5 inches from his face. When walking in the side streets he walks unattended but when in a main thoroughfare he needs some help which in both of my meetings was supplied by his friend Eduardo. He was married but is now divorced and his former wife and a young son live elsewhere in Quito. Ricardo is heavy set with a little beard and skin coloring and facial features that are Caucasian.
Ricardo told me that he documents his family's origin through his mother's family back to Spain. Later, he will show me a book that detailed his family's tree from Spain to the current generation. His mother married a Catholic man and she is a practicing Catholic. Ricardo, after finding out about his background, and despite having being raised as a Catholic, he was reconverted to Judaism by an Orthodox Rabbi and now attends services at the Synagogue in Quito. He told me that he is accepted in the synagogue and his relationship with the other members is good.
While his mother is a practicing Catholic she show some signs of being proud of her heritage. His father attends the Catholic Church "as necessary". Basically, his father is a "non-believer".
With my poor Spanish I believe I heard Ricardo tell me that he has friends in Loja who also acknowledge their Converso background. Based on the conversation I believe these people are of normal stature and represent another group not associated with Dr. Aguirre-Guevara to whom I made specific promises not to question closely about their sephardic backgrounds.
I questioned Ricardo, "Why do you think that these people are descendants of Conversos"? His responded that...
1) They continue to bury their dead like Jews by washing the body and placing the body in a shroud.
2) They sit in mourning for dead family members for 8 days
3) Some light candles and put out fresh tablecloths on Friday night.
In the past I had questioned David Gitlitz, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and author of "Secrecy and Deceit, The story of the Secret Jews", who had visited Ecuador a few years earlier. I wanted to know about his experiences and investigations. He stated that in his opinion these customs are the by-product of the immigration of European, "Ashkenazi," Jews into Ecuador in the 1900's. He found no evidence to support a trail back to Spain or Portugal. I determined that I was going to try to find out for myself. Now, I had two separate opportunities in Loja: the persons of shortened stature and the acquaintances of Ricardo. In addition, Ricardo showed me a soft covered blue book that discussed some activities in Zaruma but I did not have the time and energy left to carefully read and translate the Spanish. I thanked him and made plans with him to return to visit me the next day at 10:00 a.m.
This day, Saturday, July 12, was a day that never ended. In my hotel room about 10:00p.m. I received a phone call from Pedro Katz. I had tried to call Pedro much earlier in the day. Pedro was a friend of Henry Horwath who was a friend of Jerry Gumpel in San Diego. Pedro is in the camera store and film developing business which is also my background. He and his wife were in the hotel taking photographs of the graduation party for the Alberto Einstein school. Pedro had graduated from the University of Delaware and speaks idiomatic English with little trace of accent.
Pedro and I had ample common areas of interest. We swapped stories about the photography business for some time. Pedro recommended that I make contact with Kurt Dorfzaun who lives in Cuenca. He believed Kurt could put me together with people who know about these things. I had been trying to reach Kurt's son Alberto in Quito but despite much "telephone tag' we never made contact.
Pedro was interested in my story of going by mule into the mountains later in the week. He told me an interesting story. When he was a kid, he used to work in his father's retail shop in Cuenca. During the Israeli war of 1967, Ecuadorians would cautiously enter the store to tell him and his father how proud they were of the Israeli army's victories because of their own Converso background. To me, the trail was warm and getting warmer.
I made it to bed at midnight. For my first day in Ecuador I had a very full day of activity. The altitude was bothering me and I was physically exhausted. I had been exposed to more fascinating information and had met more interesting people in one day then I ever expected.