Mortman Weaves
Jewish Themes

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Doris Mortman and Rissa Winkelman at Bookpeople.

A

uthor Doris Mortman
was at Bookpeople last
week in West Bloomfield
to promote her new book
True Colors, published by Crown.
Rusty Rosman, president of
the Sisterhood of Shaarey Zedek,
was excited to meet the author.
"I read The Wild Rose two years
ago, and I reread it because we
were going to Budapest. It added
a richness to our trip because of
the historical detail," said
Mrs. Rosman.
Historical details are one
aspect of Mrs. Mortman's in-
triguing books. Another is her
use of Jewish themes in the
subplots.
"If I can use my books as a
forum for educating the au-
dience about what it means
to be Jewish, I feel an oblig-
ation to do so. If I can show
non-Jewish people a side of
Judaism they didn't know,
that's good. If I can show
Jews a side of themselves
they didn't know, that's even
better," said Mrs. Mortman.
In True Colors, Mrs. Mort-
man manages to weave the
story of Conversos in New
Mexico into the plot of a na-
tional gossip columnist search-
ing for the truth to her past.
Conversos are Jews who hid their
Judaism, many since the Inqui-
sition of 1492, even converting to
Catholicism. For hundreds of
years they practiced Judaism in
secret and passed the traditions
to their children. Often, families
would not eat pork. They lit can-
dles on Friday night and went to
church on Saturdays without

knowing why.
Mrs. Mortman does her own
research. She believes it was
beshert (Yiddish for fate) that she
came to write about the Conver-
sos. Her late father pointed out
a story in the New York Times
about Conversos.
From that story she called
some of the sources and found out
about a conference being held in
Santa Fe. It happened that she

was planning a trip to Santa Fe
that same weekend for research.
She attended the conference and
met Dr. Stanley Hordes of the
New Mexico Jewish Historical
Society who provided her with in-
valuable research for True Col-
ors.
Mrs. Mori lean is gathering re-
search for her new book, which
will include a subplot about Hid-
den Jews. (Hidden Jews are chil-

,