Xueta
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Xueta, or Xuieta/Xuyeta (obsolete), plural Xuetes, is a diminutive and derogative term Majorcans use to refer to descendants of Jews who converted to Catholicism in the 14th century and 15th century.
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[edit] Definition
The word comes from the Catalan word for bacon, xulla or xuia (in Central Catalonia and Balearic Islands, the word is pronounced xuia or xua), based on the common practice of converted Jews, who felt obliged to demonstrate their attachment to the Catholic Church, to cook pork or bacon near a window or in the street. In English, the word is Shueta (pl. Shuetes), and corresponds to the Spanish Chueta (pl. Chuetas). The diminutive xuetó was applied to the Shuetes' children, and from there, to the Shuetes in general. There is no connection between the word jueu (Catalan for Jew) and xueta.
The term appeared in the second half of the 18th century, approximately sixty years after 1691, the date of the last mass conversion, when family names were included in the last list set up by the Catholic Church in Majorca after the series of autos-da-fe performed that year. The first registered form is xuyeta.
[edit] History
The Xuetes do not differ outwardly from other Majorcans. Like the rest of the Catalan-speaking people, they shared common Jewish ancestors in one way or another, because a large portion of the population were Jewish and converted to Christianity in the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation before 1492 and (the Catalan-speaking subjects of the Kings of Spain) were forbidden to emigrate to the Americas, thereby causing them to mix with rest of the population.
Nevertheless, they do constitute a partial exception to that rule. Several families of alleged Jewish descent in Majorca were forced to settle to the street "del Segell" ("of the Seal") and the nearby neighborhood c.1610 in order for the Catholic authorities ot hold better control over them. After a Jew who had converted to Christianity tried to flee to Algiers (in order to return to his previous faith) was captured and burnt alive at the stake in the city, the remaining residents of del Segell attempted to flee to Leghorn (Livorno, Catalan: Liorna), Italy, embarking on an English vessel. Captured in 1787, they were put on trial and declared guilty of heresy. After the incident, the Church put the fifteen family names (Aguiló, Bonnín, Cortès, Fortesa, Fuster, Martí, Miró, Picó, Pinya, Pomar, Segura, Tarongí, Valentí, Valleriola, and Valls) in a public list in the church of St. Domenge, in order to avoid further cases of conversion to Judaism within the entire population of Majorca. Probably other names were added on that list at first, and some historians speak about a complicated set of them. For instance, it is the case of the family name Serra, which appears on Inquisition records in Continental Catalonia, but it seems that the Majorcan families holding this name managed in order to erase it from the list (becoming very close to the Catholic Church, as in the case of Fra Junipero Serra). It is said that perhaps some ancestors of the Pomar and Fuster families were kohanim, but there is no proof of it. It is said as well, on the same grounds, that the Aguiló family constituted a family of Levites. Note that Joan Miró is from Continental Catalonia and thus is unrelated with these Majorcan families holding his same name: he was not a Shueta. The name Tarongí corresponds to the important Catalan Jewish name Gerondí (which means "from Gerona"); that family was obligated to misspell its name after a rabbi named Gerondí was murdered in the riots of 1391.
Today there are in Majorca near 26,000 Shuetes with at least one of their parents holding a Shueta family name. Until the 1960's, no Shueta priest was allowed to celebrate Mass in the Palma cathedral.
Accordingly to the Halakhah, the Shuetes are not Jewish. In fact, it is known in Majorca that most Shuetes are stridently Catholic people. They have been watched by the Church and the State until recent times, and therefore they don't hold Jewish traditions at all. This constitutes a difference with the rest of Majorcans, who often perform Jewish rituals without knowing them to be such or have Jewish traditions or Jewish Catalan family names.
During World War II, Nazi Germany is known to have pressured Majorcan religious authorities into surrendering the Majorcan people with Jewish descent; religious authorities (and among them the bishop Miralles) are reported to have ignored or declined these demands.
In the Spanish Parliament, the politician Antonio Maura was shouted "Let the Chueta (in Spanish) shut up" just for being Majorcan. This is a proof that the Shuetes are indistinguishable from the rest of the Majorcan population: The family name Maura is not a Shueta family name.
Several Shuetes are reported to have converted to Judaism, and one of them is known to work as Rabbi in Israel.
[edit] See also
- History of the Jews in Latin America
- History of the Jews in the Netherlands
- Anusim
- Persian Jews
- Jewish ethnic divisions
- Sephardic Jews
- Crypto-Jews
- Christian conversions
- Marrano
[edit] References
- (English) Angela Selke The Conversos of Majorca: Life and death in a crypto-Jewish community in XVII century Spain. Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1986). ISBN 965-223-621-7.
- (Spanish) Baltasar Porcel Los chuetas mallorquines Ed. Península- Atalaya.
- ↑ Los judíos en España, Joseph Pérez. Marcial Pons. Madrid (2005).
[edit] External link
- Arca Llegat Jueu (in Catalan), an association investigating the Jewish heritage of the Balearic Islands.en:Shueta
