Success To My Neighbor

As the JPost reports:-

First ex-Marrano Israeli rabbi returns to Spain as emissary

Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham, a resident of Shiloh and father of 12 [and grandfather of three], has been appointed a new emissary to the Bnei Anusim community.

For the first time since the expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492, a descendant of Marrano Jewry who immigrated to Israel and received rabbinic ordination will return to Spain to serve as a rabbi...Born in Palma in 1957 to a religious Catholic family, his given name at birth was Nicolau Aguilo.

“Religion was a very important matter for my family. We went to church every week and fulfilled all the religious duties of Catholicism,” he recalls.

But one day, while driving with his mother down Jafuda (Yehuda) Cresques Street, named after a well-known Jewish cartographer who lived in Palma centuries ago, Nicolau pointed at the street sign and giggled, telling his mother, “He was a Xueta!” – a derogatory word in Catalan, pronounced “shweta,” used to refer to the descendants of Mallorcan Jews forced to convert to Catholicism over five centuries ago. Nicolau’s mother then turned to him and said, “Why are you laughing? You, too, are a Xueta.”

...After realizing that his best option for returning to Judaism lay in Israel, he decided to make aliya. Once here, Ben-Avraham made his way to a religious kibbutz, where he began studying Judaism and Hebrew more intensively. Finally, in the spring of 1978, he underwent formal conversion to Judaism by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, assuming the Hebrew name of Nissan, after the Hebrew month in which he underwent his own, very personal, spiritual revolution.

The newly named Nissan continued his quest for Jewish knowledge at Jerusalem yeshivas Mercaz Harav and Ateret Cohanim, and then the yeshiva in Shiloh, where he eventually chose to settle and build a family.

In 1991, he received his rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate, marking the first time in centuries that a Marrano had succeeded in achieving the status of rabbi. Now, more than two decades after having immigrated to Israel, Ben-Avraham is returning to the land where he rediscovered his lost Jewish roots.

As an emissary of Shavei Israel, Ben-Avraham will commute on a monthly basis to the Marrano communities of Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Alicante and Seville, where he will assist those seeking to learn more about their Jewish roots. He will teach the communities Torah, Jewish culture and tradition, and conduct a range of social and educational activities...