The secret Jews of the Southwest

by Amy Klein
JTA

June 25, 2009

EL PASO — Three strange things happened to Rabbi Stephen Leon the first week he moved here in 1986 to lead Congregation B’nai Zion, the Conservative synagogue in this Texas border city.

“Rabino,” said a Catholic man calling from Jaurez, Mexico. “I need to talk to you.”

Every Friday night from the time he was little, the man’s grandmother took him into a room, lit candles, and said some prayers in a language he didn’t understand. She had just died, and he asked his mother if she would continue the tradition. She told him to go find a rabbi.

Three days later, a Catholic woman from El Paso came to the rabbi after visiting a relative in mourning, where she noticed that all the mirrors were covered.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked her relatives. They said it was a Jewish custom.

Then the cable guy came, and the rabbi told him, “Shalom, y’all.” The man had just found out about his Jewish roots.

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