Santa Fe's Crypto-Jews, Illustrated

Quick, name 3 centers of Jewish culture. New York, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv? Why not include Santa Fe, New Mexico?

A new graphic novel, El Iluminado, depicts present-day Santa Fe as the center of a thriving, yet hidden Jewish world: the land of the crypto-Jews, who emigrated from Spain after the expulsion in 1492. These Jews, known as conversos, practiced Judaism in secret after public conversions to Christianity.

Written by Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans and illustrated by Steve Sheinkin, El Iluminado starts with a mysterious death in the desert outside Santa Fe. An academic expert on conversos – a character named Ilan Stavans – is drawn into the mystery and New Mexico's unseen Jewish world by a woman who believes the death is connected with the secret papers of Luis de Carvajal the Younger, a crypto-Jew burned at the stake in 1596.

El Iluminado is a thriller reminiscent of both the Indiana Jones movies and The DaVinci Code, with its hidden religious symbols and breakneck pace. It abounds with obscure literary and historical references, including a 400-year-old Santa Fe church, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, which plays a major role in unraveling the mystery.

Jewish Teen Giving Up By 52 Percent

Jewish teens in the United States who take part in the Jewish Teen Funders Network are making more charitable contributions, and they are giving mostly to Jewish causes.

Those are among the findings of the Jewish Teen Funders Network’s fourth annual “Where did the Money Go?” survey, which were released last week. The Jewish Teen Funders Network is an arm of the Jewish Funders Network, a non-profit service organization for philanthropists.

According to the survey, some 1,700 teens participated in Jewish teen foundations in 2011-12, the year the study covered.

Sixty percent of the teen foundation grants went to Jewish organizations, the survey found; top funding areas included youth/children, poverty, education and Jewish identity.

Collectively, these 50 teen foundations awarded 296 grants totaling $759,626 in 2011-12, a 52 per cent over the $499,445 awarded by 20 foundations in 2008-09.

“Our focus has always been on the educational value of Jewish teen philanthropy and the unique opportunity these programs give teens to explore Jewish values in the context of real-life issues,” said Ricky Shechtel, a JTFH co-founder. “They are learning through giving, and making a significant philanthropic impact as well.”

New App for Jewish Teens

Torah and tech have always gone together, as Chabad.org can attest. Now the third T - teens - is being thrown into the mix, thanks to a groundbreaking new app being launched next week at the annual CTeen (Chabad Teen Network) International Teen Shabbaton in New York.

The application - to be available for Apple iOs as well as Android - is the brainchild of California teenager David Z, who like most Gen Z (yes that's what they're called) is passionate about tech and the teen programs he has grown to love at his local Chabad chapter of CTeen, overseen by Rabbi Eli Baitelman, co-director of Chabad of Pacific Palisades, Cal.

The app features a variety of Jewish themed content directed at teens, combined with social features that are vital to the wired-in generation of teens who frequent programs at the more than 100 chapters of CTeens around the country. Photo galleries, video content and live chat sit side by side with Jewish themed content about holidays and heritage, all available at the mere tap - or slide - of a finger.

A Punk Fiddler

"In our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is crazy."

In most productions of Fiddler on the Roof Tevye delivers these opening lines ponderously, reflectively—a bit, you could say, maudlinly. But the teenage cast members of a recent New Jersey production took a slightly different tack. Under the auspices of Black Box Studios, a Teaneck theater company, the students presented an in-your-face, punk rendition that somehow manages to retain the spirit and charm of the original. Riffing on a theme suggested by director Matt Okin, the actors, starting with the very first lines, donned ripped jeans, snarled into microphones, and jumped around the suburban stage.

Theirs wasn't the first punk adaptation of Fiddler. In 2005, the Australian band YidCore released an album that paved the way for these Tri-state, mohawked Anatevkans. But the Jersey kids do something special: In their take on "Matchmaker," a charming song which in its original incarnation, always sounded more than a little desperate, Hodel is anything but. She demands that Yenta (and the audience) pick out a boy who's good enough for her. And in "Tradition," the villagers don't sound remotely belabored by their inheritance. On the contrary, they sound pretty darn enthusiastic.