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Jews in Places You Never Thought of

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This book is a collection of essays describing Jewish communities in unlikely corners of the world, written by laypeople and rabbis who have sought these communities out to help them (re)-establish connections to the rest of the Jewish people. Kulanu (Hebrew for "all of us"), the organization that Karen Primack works with, is dedicated to finding and supporting communities that are rediscovering their Jewish roots or are establishing themselves as Jews by choice.

The stories that I found the most inspiring are those about Jews descended from Spanish and Portuguese forced converts who were Christianized against their will in the time of the Inquisition. Many of these families secretly kept key Jewish traditions alive for almost four hundred years, such as lighting Sabbath candles in a windowless closet every Friday night. Some of their descendants are now beginning to recover their heritage. Similarly, there are Chinese people of Jewish descent who are recovering their Jewish heritage after nearly becoming extinct as Jews in the early 20th century because of their isolation and small numbers.

Many of the Jewish communities described are not (yet) halakhically Jewish, and some of the people need to undergo conversion in order to be accepted as Jews, because of historical intermarriage and loss of family continuity. But their determination to recover their heritage despite all the historical and current adversities they have been through, is truly inspiring.

The essays themselves are not great literature, but their content is priceless.