in Chamusca, Ribatejo

She was born Cristina de Fátima dos Santos Jesus in Chamusca, Ribatejo. At school everybody knew her as Cristina Jesus. Her mother was a high school teacher in Azambuja, Ribatejo, with a degree in Modern Languages and Literature and her father had a farm where he raised horses and bulls north of Cartaxo, Ribatejo.

When she became a teenager she noticed that all her friends at school claimed to be of Jewish heritage. They were now young adults starting their careers as doctors, lawyers and accountants very proud of their Jewish family names which made them look smart, like Oliveira, Amendoeira, Silveira, Moreira and Castanheira. Cristina liked those names as all of them inspired in her the ideas of plants, fruits and trees. One day, when she was sixteen, her friend Danny, a left-wing activist since the age of seven, told her tersely:

"Cristina, you must do something about your name. As Cristina Jesus you go nowhere in life and forever people will look at you as a monga."

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To Cristina's surprise, Danny Oliveira explained to her:

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"Let's see: Cristina is the female equivalent of Christ. As for Jesus it leaves no doubt about whom it refers to. Now, in addition, your parents had the crazy idea of putting on you the middle names of Fátima and Santos. Nobody will ever doubt that you belong to the dumbest culture of Western civilization, that of Christian Catholics."

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Danny then suggested:

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"You should get a Jewish name, Cristina. Everybody around is of Jewish origin except yourself. Jews have the reputation of being intelligent and rich people whereas Catholics are stupid, intolerant and poor. And if you want to be left-wing in politics you must look and speak like a Jew. Remember our founding father, Karl Marx".

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He added:

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"There are several other benefits of being a Jew: you can always blame other people for things you have done; you can also victimize yourself in all instances; and you can extract money virtually from every government around the World accusing its people of being or having been anti-semitic, at present or fifteen generations ago. If you could get a German Jewish name that would be ideal. Germany is a rich country, you know that, don't you?".