Author who posed as Catholic to escape Holocaust will discuss her experiences





Trudi Alexy, whose Jewish family fled Austria and hid in Fascist Spain as baptized Catholics to escape the Holocaust, will be the guest speaker at 7:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 22 at Temple Beth Haverim, 29900 Ladyface Court, Agoura Hills. She’s the author of "The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot: Marranos and Other Secret Jews" and "The Marrano Legacy: A Contemporary Crypto-Jewish Priest Reveals Secrets of his Double Life."


Alexy’s family arrived in Barcelona after fleeing Austria in 1938. Her family lived as converts before emigrating to the U.S. in 1941. Now a Los Angeles family therapist, Alexy spent several years "reconnecting with her Jewish roots" and interviewing many Sephardic Jews who still practice today as Marranos or converts, maintaining a dual religious status in places from New Mexico to the Netherlands.


"The Marrano Legacy" chronicles the correspondence between two strangers who shared the experience of discovering in their teens that they were Jews: Simon, a descendant of Spain’s medieval Marranos who submitted to baptism to escape the Inquisition, and Alexy.


This guest lecture is sponsored by the Sisterhood Book Club and is open to the public free of charge. For more information, please call the temple office at (818) 991-7111.



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