Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Article Title
Landscape into Legend: Tracking Lost Tribes and Crypto-Jews across New Mexican Terrain
Abstract
The essay traces the “Lost Tribes of Israel” legend to the purported academic discovery of lost and hidden “crypto-Jews” in contemporary New Mexico. The essay explores perceptions and beliefs of Jewish diasporic survival and identity in folkloristic, religious, historical, and genomic contexts. Analysis exposes pseudo-ethnography and pseudoscience as the basis for New Mexican claims, influenced in part by habitual association of the regional landscape with lost, hidden, and/or “wandering” Jews.
Recommended Citation
Neulander, Judith S.
(2022)
"Landscape into Legend: Tracking Lost Tribes and Crypto-Jews across New Mexican Terrain,"
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology: Vol. 1:
Iss.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/jewishfolklore/vol1/iss1/7