Lift High the Banner: Secrets of a Sephardic Messianic Jewish Family Revealed

Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

GLOSSARY

SOURCES

FOR THE BOOK

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my wonderful Mother, Jennie Cordova, and to the loving memory of my Father, Joseph D. Cordova, for their love, encouragement and, especially, for their example of godly living that inspired all of us children to seek our own personal relationship with our Lord and Savior, Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah).

"The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.

Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice." (Proverbs 23: 24-25) KJV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, my deepest gratitude goes to my Lord and Savior for giving me the dream of writing a non-fiction book about my family’s religious history and legacy. Without the inspiration and help from Him, obtained from reading and studying the Family Bible, this book may never have been written.

I want to give a special thanks to my dear mother, Jennie Cordova, who helped me get started by going to the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to research our family genealogy. It was not an easy job for her to sit at a microfilm machine for hours at a time. I am grateful for her love of family that encouraged me to step out with this project. She means so much to me.

My sincere gratitude to my dear husband, Arthur D. Marlow, for believing in me, for his patience, his words of encouragement and sound advice. I appreciate him standing beside me and giving generously of his time and support. He was an integral part of my vision and dream.

Also, I want to give my sincere appreciation to my daughter, Catherine (Marlow) Garrett, and my granddaughter, Meghan Elizabeth Garrett, for their contributions in editing this work. Their advice and helpful suggestions were greatly appreciated and their contributions made this book possible.

I would like to express special thanks to my assistant, Carole J. Branum, for her help in typing and modifying, as well as for her insight into my vision, which helped bring this book to life.

Additionally my thanks go to Teresa (Zutaut) Marlow, my daughter-in-law for her advice and helpful suggestions. I appreciate and thank my son, Arthur Dixon Marlow, II, for his knowledge and technical support, my son-in-law, Jerry Michael Garrett, and my grandson, Ethan Michael Garrett. It was your help that kept me going.

My appreciation also to my brothers, Joseph Del, Richard and Daniel Cordova, for their help looking up information at libraries in states and countries that I could not personally visit.

To my helpful sisters, Marian Jordan, Sarah Yoder, Edna Hemsoth, Evelyn Archuleta. My friends, Guy Dean Benson, Vicki Butcher, Fran Henry, Inez and Leslie Lucas, a big thank you for your contributions of newspaper clippings, books, and other favors.

In addition, finally, my deepest appreciation to all those who prayed for this project and who will now see the results of their support.

INTRODUCTION

This book has been written from the heart, for the stories that my parents and grandparents shared with the older children in the family were told with great emotion. Some of my family members were reluctant to share secrets that had been kept for five hundred years. They remembered that their ancestors had wanted no written records kept, for fear their families would be discriminated against and persecuted.

My original purpose in writing this non-fiction book was to share only with my family, the results of the genealogical findings and research that I had been doing. Unlike me, the younger children in the family did not get to hear my parents and grandparents talk about their early lives. I want all of them to know what I learned from the oral history passed down from one generation to another, so that they can appreciate their rich heritage.

It was only recently that family members finally agreed with me that perhaps the time had come when God would allow them to safely reveal our history and our religious beliefs, including why our ancestors had felt it necessary to use coded surnames for many years.

This book is long overdue. After thinking about it for some time I decided this book should be shared with the public. I believe that anyone who reads this story will be amazed to learn that, even today, there are people living in this country who remember all too well the nightmare of being persecuted and discriminated against because of their loyalty to their ancient religious beliefs. I also realize that future generations of my family need to know this history. If it is not revealed now, the truth and the mysteries surrounding it could be lost forever.

Hopefully, my book will not offend nor hurt anyone feelings. History is what it is and should not be changed. As you read my book, I hope you will appreciate the source of my family’s concerns.

The idea of this book began in 1970’s, when God placed a desire in my heart to get serious about researching my family history and writing about it. Little did I know where this would lead me. What I discovered was far more than my parents or grandparents had told us. I am sure they were afraid to say too much, but they tried to share with the older children the history as far back as they could remember. It soon became apparent that many facts could not be recalled and the events of some years were completely missing. That made the history difficult to piece together.

My overall research encompassed a period that began in Old Testament days and ended 500 years later in approximately 2010. While I may not have included all pertinent historical facts for all those years, the history is as complete as possible in the way that I describe the beliefs, language and other interesting facts that I learned about my ancestors and the places where God scattered them.

I recall with amazement how much my parents and grandparents knew about the Jewish people of the Bible and their prayers always referred to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. My goal in researching was to confirm the information I had been given orally. Some of the stories sounded strange and unbelievable, but later it all began to make sense.

They told us that our ancestors had been expelled from Spain and Portugal between 1492 and 1500 because they were non-Catholics. At that time, those Jews were called New Christians, Conversos, and Marranos (pigs).

Can you imagine how they must have felt when Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain suddenly announced in 1492 that all Jews must leave the country immediately or be turned over to the feared Spanish Inquisition to be tortured or killed. They were not allowed to take anything of value with them. It was clear that the royal couple wanted an all-Catholic country. Can you imagine if this had happened to you, where would you have gone? What would you have done? How could you have survived without money or goods?

Upon hearing the royal decree, the Jewish people immediately began planning to leave the country. They scattered to other parts of the world where they thought they would be safe. They went to Portugal, Turkey, Holland, Morocco, Greece, France, Italy, England and other parts of the world. Some chose to go even further away to an unknown land, so they headed for the New World, along with Christopher Columbus. Once they reached the New World, they scattered again throughout North and South America.

It may surprise my readers to learn that in the year 1842 the earliest settlers of the Territory of Colorado were Sephardic Jews, those who had migrated from Spain and Portugal. Sephardim is the Hebrew word for Spain. Many of them were Crypto (secret) Messianic Jews as well. Those were Jews who believed in Yeshua (Jesus) and His teachings.

Thinking about this, I began to wonder was it possible that our family could be the descendants of the early disciples of Jesus Christ that formed the first century church? They were Jews, as well as the later followers who also preached the gospel. Jesus (Yeshua) was a Jew. As a Messianic Jew myself, I had often wondered what happened to all those descendents of the original followers of Jesus. Had all of their descendants died? Did they become what we today call the Christian church? Where would I find the answer to that question?

I began studying the New Testament (New Covenant) scriptures, with the Old Testament (Old Covenant) for background information. Especially promising was my study of the ancient prophets. Many of their prophecies had already been fulfilled and others are still being fulfilled today. I remembered the great promise in Jeremiah:

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. (Jeremiah 33: 3) NIV

What a promise! God himself would tell me the great and unsearchable things I did not know.

I had even turned to the research others had already done. I concluded that I still didn’t know for sure whether we were, indeed, the offspring of those early followers of Yeshua (Jesus) and the early congregations. I know many generations have past but it is still possible.

I remember reading that through the years, there has always been a remnant of those early followers of Yeshua (Jesus); my ancestors could have possibly been among them. For so many years they had to worship secretly in their homes.

In writing about my family, I decided that I would include only the names of the five generations that have lived during my lifetime. I will do a more extensive genealogical search at a later time and, perhaps, share it in another book.

Any genealogical study should include documentation of the family’s DNA, which our study did. It included both my mother’s and father’s families. It proved the country of origin and eliminated any doubt. Such a study can reveal fascinating facts.

Besides interviews that older family members and friends gave me, I found other valuable sources of information in libraries, courthouses, and government archives, books, newspaper clippings, and magazines. Later, I was able to find sources on the internet. All these sources seemed to support and confirm the earlier information my parents had shared with me.

As my story begins, I hope those who are able to hear God’s voice throughout this book will be blessed and come to realize that the Lord God has a purpose and destiny for each and every person. It is also my hope that once this book is released, my family will no longer need to live under a cloud of secrecy. At that time, we will be free to openly shout and sing praises to God for His unwavering faithfulness and protection.

I will sing of the LORD’S great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. (Psalm 89: 1) NIV

As a believer, I will Lift High the Banner, to exalt His wonderful name forever.

Shalom (peace)!