From Inquisition to Jerusalem: My 500-Year Journey Home

At age 13, I was attending Catholic school in my hometown of Pereira, Colombia in the Andean foothills, where we grow the world’s best coffee.

One morning, my friend Sandra came running over. “Beatriz! You were in my dream last night!”

“What happened?” I asked.

“We were in a dark, dirty dungeon with stone walls,” she said breathlessly. “We were held as prisoners in chains.”

My eyes widened as I imagined sounds of clanging doors and echoey footsteps.

“A big, terrifying man wearing a hood took us out of the dungeon,” she said. “He led us to a square with lots of people shouting. In the center was a huge pile of firewood. These were Inquisitors, preparing to burn us alive at the stake!”

Nine years old, around the time of my first communion.

I was stunned. Me? In the Inquisition? At school, we were told that the Inquisition was all about imprisoning, torturing, and executing bad people, like witches and violent criminals. What did this have to do with me?

I dismissed the dream as childish fantasy. Little did I know how it would come back to haunt me.

My Family

When I was five years old, my father left us and moved to Venezuela. My mother was left alone to raise me and my two older siblings. Yet we were happy, surrounded by a large extended family of grandparents and cousins.

My mother was a deeply spiritual woman. She read Psalms on her own and told me stories from the Bible. I felt a deep love for Israel, though I didn’t know much about it, only that it was the land that God gave His people.

My mother encouraged me to explore my interests. At first it was sports. One day, she took me to a music teacher. My eyes bulged at the beautiful piano. He evaluated my musical inclination and told my mother, “This girl has unique talent. You must encourage her to continue with music.”

My mother's parents in Colombia, circa 1990.

That began my lifelong passion for music and a career as a singer, composer, and producer. Eventually, I earned a master’s degree in music theory and taught at university.

At the Church

I never liked going to church. I wasn’t inspired and felt I didn’t fit in. Plus, the rituals seemed strange. I had my first communion at age nine, surrounded by candles and eerie silence. I approached the altar and the priest gave me a cracker (“host”) and wine, explaining, “This is the flesh and blood of Jesus.”

I stared at the cracker. The thought of eating human flesh made me nauseous.

“I don’t think I can chew it,” I said.

The priest smiled. “Don’t worry. Let it melt in your mouth.”

I thought that was even more disgusting.

My brother Carlos, who was 16 when our father left, became a father figure to me. When he joined the air force and became a pilot, I eagerly awaited his visits. He’d take me fishing and teach me lessons about life.

One day, when I was 18, Carlos asked me, “Do you want to be a friend of God?”

It was a strange question. In Catholic Colombia, we were taught not to talk directly to God, just to confess to the priest if you did something wrong. “Do what the Church leaders say,” we were told, “or be condemned to eternal wrath and hellfire.”

God was someone to fear, not to befriend.

Fortunately, my mother instilled in me a love for God, and my brother’s proposal to “be God’s friend” resonated with me. I began attending Evangelical Protestant Bible study groups where I felt love and fellowship. I became a church leader and directed the choir. In contrast to the strict Catholic liturgy I grew up with, I was encouraged to speak directly to God in my own words. Shortly afterward, I began writing songs dedicated to “My Friend, God.”

The Divorce Quandary

A few years later I got married, but it quickly fell apart. I found myself single, lonely, frightened – and pregnant. How would I support my baby?

I juggled work, music studies, and Christian study groups, while my mother stepped in to help raise my son. Her quiet faith and constant encouragement gave me the courage to continue my spiritual search.

Soon a major crisis arose. I was told by a pastor that based on the New Testament a divorced woman must either reconcile with her ex-husband or remain single forever.

I’d made a big mistake in getting married so young, but I wanted to marry again – and there was no way I was going back to my ex-husband.

I was curious what the Old Testament said about all this. I discovered in Deuteronomy 24 that when a woman becomes divorced, she leaves the house “and marries another man.” I presented this to my Christian teachers but they waved it off. “The Old Testament is no longer relevant,” they said.

That answer unsettled me. The Old Testament was given by God, and according to Numbers 23:19, "God does not change His mind."

The more I studied, the more questions emerged. Why is the Christian Sabbath observed on Sunday, when the Torah says Saturday? Even the Spanish word for Saturday is Sábado – Sabbath. Also, why does the Torah command observance of the Jewish festivals as “the law forever,” yet Christians observe none of them? Doesn’t Deuteronomy 13 say not to add or subtract anything from the Bible, and anyone who does so is a false prophet?!

When I sought answers from Christian clergy, they’d shrug and say, “It’s a mystery. Stop asking so many questions. Just have faith.”

With my son, Juan Camillo, while I was working and studying music at university.

Answers Online

I continued to look elsewhere for answers. I went online and typed in “Judaism in Spanish,” which brought me to AishLatino.com. The more I explored, the more I was surprised at how familiar some of the Jewish laws and customs were.

For example, my grandmother would always salt fresh meat before cooking it. And when my grandfather slaughtered a chicken, he’d cut the neck, then hang it upside down to let the blood drain to out. No one in my family knew why. Imagine my surprise to read that slaughtering at the neck and salting the meat to draw out the blood is mainstream Jewish practice.

There were other signs as well. The men in my family all wore a poncho that resembles a tallit katan. And we called a snack of bread and pastries “parva,” though nobody knew that’s the Hebrew term for “neither dairy nor meat.” Even the villagers in our region were mocked for their accent, which I later discovered was heavily influenced by Ladino, the ancient Judeo-Spanish language.

These discoveries left me confused. What was my heritage? Were these random family customs, or pieces of a hidden Jewish identity?

Inquisition Fallout

I did a deep dive into Colombian history and discovered that the Inquisition had little to do with witches. The real story is that when Spain decreed to expel all Jews in 1492, many decided to “convert” to Catholicism, yet continue to practice Judaism in secret. These pseudo-converts were called “conversos,” or in Hebrew, bnei anusim – forced ones.

In response, Spain launched a brutal Inquisition to root out and persecute these hidden Jews. Thousands of conversos were tortured and burned alive at the stake

Many conversos, seeking to escape the murderous Inquisition, set their sights on North and South America. My region of Colombia, I discovered, was first settled by Spanish conversos. (DNA tests show that Columbus had Jewish roots.)

Tragically, the forces of hatred followed these conversos to the New World. By 1610, the Inquisition had established a headquarters on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Once again, the conversos fled, this time to the remote mountainous region of Antioquia, where 15 generations later, I grew up.

I conducted genealogical research and traced my lineage back 20 generations to Yehuda Hazay, a Jewish man who lived in 15^th century Spain. While many of his descendants converted to Catholicism, I was thrilled to find proof of my Jewish roots. My DNA test even shows a trace of Ashkenazi Jewish.

Ancestral Connection

As I continued studying, questioning, and clarifying my religious beliefs, I came to understand that the Christian concept of messiah was formulated to accommodate first century pagans, and that a “human God” is a contradiction in terms.

With this information, I wasn’t sure what to do next. There were very few opportunities to connect with Jews in Colombia. In my city of Pereira, the last remaining synagogue had closed its doors 40 years earlier. In addition, Colombia’s Jewish community discouraged inquiries, fearing they’d be overwhelmed by the estimated 12 million descendants of conversos.

Fortunately, I had a friend who was on a similar path of questioning Christianity. She contacted rabbis in Costa Rica and Miami, who came a few times to teach us. I began observing the day of rest on Saturday and made an effort to celebrate the Jewish holidays.

Alba Ruth and I renounced Christianity together. Visiting her in Colombia.

That’s when we renounced our Christian identity. We were free to observe Jewish biblical tradition without the constant supervision and questioning of the Christian community.

The Big Move

Then I made a life-altering decision. Like Abraham and Sarah, I left my country, my birthplace, and my family, and embarked on a journey to the land of the Jews: Miami! My niece in south Florida kindly invited me to live with her until I got settled.

In Miami, I attended the synagogue of the rabbi who’d been teaching us in Pereira. Yet I was confused by how they spoke of Jesus as a “Jewish prophet and messiah.”

It turns out the rabbi was not Jewish at all, but a Messianic Christian.

I needed to search elsewhere. But where?

Since the Messianic “rabbi” always spoke harshly against Orthodox Judaism, I figured that was the best place to look.

A few weeks later, I attended a Shabbat program at an Orthodox synagogue in Aventura, Florida. I felt a spiritual connection like I’d never experienced before. I was also drawn to the rabbi’s authenticity and sincerity. We spoke and I shared my story. “If you want to keep coming,” he said, “you’ll need to convert to Judaism.”

I knew very little about what that meant but I wanted to become part of the Jewish people and observe the commandments. So I enrolled in a conversion course, moved into the rabbi’s neighborhood, and immersed in studying and practicing every aspect of Jewish life.

After two years, the big day finally arrived. I emerged from the mikveh and the Beit Din declared in unison: "Kosher, kosher, kosher." It was exhilarating beyond words. I felt that my soul had come home, closing the circle on a 500-year journey.

Being Jewish

I embraced my new life, working at a Jewish school during the day and teaching music at night. I was busy and had little time for dating. Besides, I wanted to live in Israel and had already filed paperwork to make aliyah.

One day, a friend said, “You’re so serious about Torah. I think you need a rabbi as a husband.”

What are the odds of marrying a rabbi in Israel? It seemed impossible. I prayed for it anyway.

In January 2021, I contracted Covid and was isolated at home. That was a good time to post my profile on an online dating site, with a prayer that God send my ideal partner.

A few days later, I received a message from someone who had worked with converts and wanted to wish me success in finding my match. This man sounded intriguing. I read his profile and discovered he was a rabbi in Israel. I couldn’t believe it.

But we lived on different continents and didn’t share the same mother tongue. Plus, with the pandemic, the chances of anything developing between us were near zero.

But my curiosity was piqued and we began communicating by phone and messages. After a few months, he came to Miami for Passover to meet me in person.

With a baby goat in Yavne'el, Israel.

That Passover was transformational. My previous Seder experiences were communal, with everything happening so fast that I missed a lot. This time, we were a small group and my future husband led the Seder, explaining everything in detail.

When we arrived at the final song, Chad Gadya, I followed the story about the little goat, the cat, the dog… Something seemed familiar. “The stick, the fire, the water, the ox, the butcher…”

“Wait!” I shouted. “I know this song! As a child in Colombia, we sang it in Spanish!”

Could it be? Here at this momentous occasion, one of my first Passovers as a Jew, meeting my future husband, I’d discovered another clue left by my converso ancestors, pointing to my Jewish heritage.

We continued dating in America, and two months later were married in a small ceremony at the local synagogue. We waited a few months for the airports to reopen, then flew “home” to Israel.

Our outdoor Covid wedding in Aventura, Florida.

Today we live in Jerusalem. Every day, I pinch myself. I am busy writing and producing a musical adaptation and film of my family's converso journey. I hope this will inspire other descendants of conversos to explore their Jewish roots.

Sometimes I think back to Sandra's dream all those years ago. We couldn’t imagine why two frightened girls stood at the fires of the Inquisition. It would take decades for me to understand that the dream foretold a wonderful new beginning.

Like the little goat in the Haggadah, after centuries of wandering, I’d finally come home.