Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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In a speech at an event celebrating the eighth and final night of Hanukkah, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of 435 members of the incoming US House of Representative, shared that members of her family were Sephardic Jews who were forced to flee to Puerto Rico during the Spanish Inquisition.
Ocasio-Cortez shared her family’s past at a Hannukah celebration she held together with the Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JREJ) earlier this evening, and thanked the organization on her social media account for assembling the ‘festivities.’
“So many of our destinies are tied beyond our understanding.” Ocasio-Cortez said regarding her family lineage.
At Hanukkah event with @JFREJNYC in an moving speech, @Ocasio2018 shares that her family were Sephardic Jews who fled to Puerto Rico. “So many of our destinies are tied beyond our understanding” pic.twitter.com/68bjuCFnDD
— Taly Krupkin (@TalyKrupkin) December 10, 2018
The newly elected congresswoman of New York told a gasping crowd, “That a very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews.”
Ocasio-Cortez told the audience of her family’s past struggles as Sephardic Jews, how they were forced to flee into the mountains of Puerto Rico during the Spanish Inquisition and practice Catholicism as a front to escape antisemitic oppression.
“The story goes as, during the Spanish Inquisition, as so many people were forced to convert on the exterior to Catholicism, but on the interior continued to practice their faith.
“The culture [at this time] in Puerto Rico is that people who open their closets, there would be this small menorah inside, and as they had children, and their children had children, and their children had children. These cultures started to kind of mix in a way that many people in those subsequent generations didn’t understand. To practice Catholicism on the exterior, but when you’re at home to practice Judaism.”
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is from Queens, New York, and at the age 29, will be the youngest member ever to be a part of Congress.
What a beautiful and touching evening we shared tonight for our community Chanukah celebration.
Thank you Rabbi Mia for the opportunity of helping you light the shamash, and thank you @JFREJNYC for assembling the festivities!
May tonight’s light and hope spark many others ✨ pic.twitter.com/vBE2s3KH5S
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 9, 2018
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