A large portion of Hispanics believed to have Jewish ancestors

Jerusalem Post:
Throughout the years, many tried to place a number on the descendants of these Jews, the progeny of a couple of hundred thousand who were forced to the baptismal font to regain kidnapped children held hostage or as a result of repressive legislation and oppression.

Now, unprecedented genetic research undertaken by dozens of professors from around the world has provided evidence that almost a quarter of Latinos and Hispanics have significant Jewish DNA. The study, published in Nature Communications in December 2018, revealed that the number of descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities is far higher than even the largest estimates previously suggested.

The last official approximation of the number of people in Latin America, conducted by the United Nations in 2016, resulted in a figure of over 650 million. Add to that assessment the 60 million or so Latinos and Hispanics in the U.S., as well as the data from earlier genetic research showing that around 20% of the current population of 60 million people in the Iberian Peninsula have Jewish ancestry and the statistic becomes staggering. There could be as many as 200 million descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities around the world today.

To what extent is this population aware of or interested in an affinity to the Jewish people? Reconectar, an organization facilitating the reconnection of the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities to the Jewish world has conducted a number of studies exploring the attitudes of tens of thousands of these descendants towards their ancestry. It has found that in some places as many as 30% are aware of some Jewish ancestry, either through DNA tests, genealogical discoveries, or simple Google searches regarding family origins and traditions, and that as many as 14% would like to identify in some way with the Jewish people.
...
There is more.

Mexican Jews are credited with the development of flour tortillas because they believed corn tortillas were not Kosher.  So it is not surproising that were was a Jewish influnce on the Hispanic community.  What is startling is the size of that community.

It could also be a potential source of support for Israel in Latin America.

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