Justin Samuels
Justin Samuels was born in New York City. His family home is in Alabama. He graduated with a BA in History from Cornell University, and with a MA in English Education from Columbia University. His film Wine Tasting was released on VOD last year. Wine Tasting won best tourism film at the Finisterra Arrabida Film Festival in Portugal last year. Justin has worked as a freelance writer and a teacher. He is currently in Barcelona, Spain.
Considerable Shared DNA Between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Populations
Many Eastern Europeans refer to their families as part Sephardic. Alexander Beider dismisses their claim in a Forward article without any citation or input from historians or geneticists. It’s also a bit insulting to...
![By Menesteo [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons](https://jewishwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/800px-Juderia-segovia-324x235.jpg "Network of Jewish Quarters in Portugal and Spain")
Network of Jewish Quarters in Portugal and Spain
Spain and Portugal have a rich Jewish history. Jews were in the Iberian Peninsula since the days of the Roman empire. Jewish culture flourished under Moorish rules, where Christians, Muslims and Jews coexisted. Even...
Recognition of Sephardim Crypto-Jews Changes World Judaism
Spain and Portugal had large Jewish populations until various pogroms and forced conversions, culminating in the 1492 and 1497 edicts forced all Jews to either leave the Iberian peninsula, become Catholic, or be executed. Those horrible...