On Festival days, processions were led by the clergy, who paraded into the city square. Behind the clergy marches the penitents who were dressed in Sanbenitos (yellow sacks painted with devils and flames), wearing pointed hats of shame and walking barefoot. The condemned Marranos followed. Some were carried in cages, for the injuries from the torture chambers left them deformed and immobile. Those who could walk held lit green candles. The sentences were read, and the condemned were marched out beyond the city gates to the quemadero, the place where the stakes were prepared for the auto de fe. The actual death by fire was carried out by secular law, for after the judgement was passed by the church, the condemned were turned over to the secular law enforcers. The justification of death by fire came from John 15:6. Armed with this Biblical passage, the collective population turned the act of faith into a macabre spectacle.

Hundreds of people came to watch and window seats around the square could be bought for a high price.  Hordes of people threw rotten tomatoes and eggs  at the victims, spat at them and shouted obscenities as they passed.  Priests beseeched them to recant, crying, “Receive the sign of the cross which ye have denied and lost.” If the condemned Marranos recanted and embraced Christianity, they were granted death by strangulation before being consigned to the flames. Few recanted. Most of the men, women, and children bravely walked to the stakes and were tied there. It was considered an honor for an esteemed member of the nobility to light one of the pyres. But often, as the flames roared up, the Marranos would lift their faces to the darkening sky and recite, “Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheenu, Adonai Ehad” then die as marytrs.        -Jane Francis Amler

In order to understand the Sephardic Jews and the LDS Connection you must first understand the History of the Sephardim. If you read no more of this post, please take from this one tidbit of knowledge: The Sephardic Jews are a Diaspora people who originated in the Iberia/Spain. A handsome proud people, the Sephardic Jews are often, but not always, tall in height, have piercing blue eyes, dark or light in complexion, with dark brown or dark red hair.  In a nutshell the Sephardic Jews are not your “Fiddler on the Roof” Jews.  Please see here for Part I

Read the rest of this entry »