Section V · Sephardic Facts and Lore
Sephardic facts and lore
Lighting candles on Friday evening. Sweeping toward the centre of the room. A mirror covered after a death. These are the signs families pass down — and they are the single largest source of mistaken Sephardic identity.
Why this page is labelled rather than listed
Almost every custom cited as crypto-Jewish survival has at least one other explanation: ordinary Iberian Catholic practice, regional folk custom, Morisco survival, or a practice that spread through the twentieth century precisely because it was published as a sign of hidden Jewish descent. Some are genuinely documented in Inquisition testimony. Telling those apart is the whole value of this section.
A family custom is a reason to open an archive. It is not a finding. If a practice sends you to a parish register and you find a named ancestor in a dated record, the custom did its job — and the record, not the custom, is what you cite.