Have you wondered if you have Jewish ancestry? Has your family ever said something about being Jewish but it was always hush-hush? Was your grandfather in the Holocaust but no one ever talked it?
Many people have Jewish ancestry but have no clue about it. The reason is, Jewish identity was often persecuted wherever Jews lived, whether in Spain, Lithuania, Germany, or Saudi Arabia. While many Jews proudly bore their identity, many also decided that it was better to Hide their Jewish identity. The Jewish religion in the Torah teaches these are the commands which you shall live by them.
Some Jews reckoned it better to hide their Jewish ancestry and blend into the dominant culture, and live, rather than to preserve their Jewish identity.
This has happened many times throughout history. In the eleventh century, Almohad Muslims from Morocco persecuted the Jews of Alhambra, Spain — Jews decided to pretend to live as Muslims and hide their Jewish heritage instead of facing death. Even the most famous medieval Jewish scholar of all time — Maimonides, or Rambam — chose to live as a Muslim and temporarily hide his Jewish ancestry until it was safe to do so, during which time he continued to write the most eminement commentaries on the Torah and Jewish code of law, the Mishnah, ever published.
This happened again in 1492 in Spain, as well as in the last century, during the Shoah, also called the Holocaust. Just think for a moment. If you were a Jew living in 1940s Berlin, and you realized you could survive if you, or your children, hid your Jewish ancestry and survive, would you do it? Many chose yes. The famous United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was a child during the holocaust, whose parents hid her in a Catholic convent. She grew up as a nice Catholic girl until a discovery rocked her world: she was a Jew, and her parents hid her as Jews so she could survive. The number of cases like this, during the catastrophe of the last century alone, is exponential.