Lecture: History of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula

If you're interested in the history of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula (i.e. Spain and Portugal), join us for a lively lecture that will review this intriguing aspect of Jewish history.

Rabbi Juan Bejarano-Gutierrez, a Doctoral Candidate at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago and the rabbi of Chavurah Zohar Yisrael will be providing an overview of this fascinating topic.

His doctoral dissertation is titled “Conflicted Jewish Identities: Key Issues Regarding the Converso Experience.”

Rabbi Bejarano-Gutierrez served as the assistant editor for HaLapid the quarterly publication for the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies from 2011-2012. He also served as a board member and treasurer for the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies from 2011-2013. He is a member of the Union of Traditional Judaism.

Rabbi Bejarano-Gutierrez has published various articles in HaLapid, The Journal for Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Crypto-Jews, and Puntes-Theological Reflections from a Hispanic-Latino Context published by Southern Methodist University.

He spoke at the Third Annual Crypto-Jewish Symposium in 2010 at Texas A&M, the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies Conference in 2010 in San Antonio, and at Southern Methodist University’s “Crypto-Judaism in the American Southwest: Hidden Religious Roots of Hispanic Peoples” in Dallas in 2010. He is also spoke at the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies conference in Dallas, Texas in 2014.

He has also taught an introductory course titled “The History of the Middle East Conflict” at Mountain View College in 2011.