The capital city of the Spanish island of Majorca was once home to a thriving Jewish community, many of whose members converted to Catholicism in 1492 when Spain officially expelled its Jews. In recent decades their descendants have been returning to Judaism, and now the island boasts a community of some 200 souls and a synagogue, as Ayelet Mamo Shay writes:
In 1435, Palma de Mallorca’s Jewish community included some 4,000 people. Over the years it thrived and prospered, until [1492]. The Jews who did not flee . . . converted to Christianity [but] continued to observe their religion secretly, as [did other] anusim [forced converts] in Spain. In Palma de Mallorca, they were called chuetas (from the Catalan word for pigs).
One the one hand, they couldn’t live as Jews, but on the other hand, the Christians refused to accept them and treated them with much disrespect. They were humiliated and considered members of the lowest class. They were only allowed to marry among themselves, so since 1691 to this very day they have only married other descendants of anusim. . . .
Ironically, the derogatory term chuetas has become a source of pride for the descendants of anusim who are discovering their roots and seeking to return to their forefathers’ religion. Today, there are 20 to 30 [such people] on the island who are studying Jewish religious laws on a monthly basis with Rabbi Nissan Ben Avraham, an emissary of the Shavei Israel organization, who returned to the Jewish religion himself after finding out that his own family had kept the secret for many years.
Read more on Ynet: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4705046,00.html