LOOKING BACK • A gravestone in Northeast New Mexico in 1991 that was believed to possibly belong to a descendent of a “crypto-Jew,” since the first name on the grave is the Spanish equivalent of Isadore.  Since the Inquisition in 1492, there has been speculation that the Spanish who had converted to Catholicism found their way to Mexico and then parts of New Mexico and Arizona.  Even though these Catholics, or “conversos,” were full citizens of Spain, some of them continued to practice Judaism in secret. In the 1990s, it began to come to light that there are many families in New Mexico that are direct descendants of these conversos, and that many of their ancestors have continued the secret observation of Jewish customs handed down from generation to generation.