Landscape into Legend: Tracking Lost Tribes and Crypto-Jews across New Mexican Terrain

Authors

Judith S. Neulander, Case Western Reserve UniversityFollow

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