In Portuguese Jews, New Christians and ‘New Jews’ Claude B. Stuczynski and Bruno Feitler gather some of the leading scholars of the history of the Portuguese Jews and conversos in a tribute to their common friend and a renowned figure in Luso-Judaica, Roberto Bachmann, on the occasion of his 85th birthday. The texts are divided into five sections dealing with medieval Portuguese Jewish culture, the impact of the inquisitorial persecution, the wide range of converso identities on one side, and of the Sephardi Western Portuguese Jewish communities on the other, and the role of Portugal and Brazil as lands of refuge for Jews during the Second World War. This book is introduced by a comprehensive survey on the historiography on Portuguese Jews, New Christians and 'New Jews' and offers a contribution to Luso-Judaica studies
First published in Portuguese in 1969, this is the only work by Antonio Jose Saraiva available in English and the only single-volume history devoted primarily to the working of the Portuguese Inquisition, a most lucid and compact survey. "The Marrano Factory" argues that the Portuguese Inquisition s stated intention of extirpating heresies and purifying Portuguese Catholicism was a monumental hoax; the true purpose of the Holy Office was the fabrication rather than the destruction of "Judaizers."
International Bestseller: “A moody, tightly constructed historical thriller . . . a good mystery story and an effective evocation of a faraway time and place.” —The New York Times After Jews living in sixteenth-century Portugal are dragged to the baptismal font and forced to convert to Christianity, many of these New Christians persevere in their Jewish prayers and rituals in secret and at great risk; the hidden, arcane practices of the kabbalists, a mystical sect of Jews, continue as well. One such secret Jew is Berekiah Zarco, an intelligent young manuscript illuminator. Inflamed by love and revenge, he searches, in the crucible of the raging pogrom, for the killer of his beloved uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist, discovered murdered in a hidden synagogue along with a young girl in dishabille. Risking his life in streets seething with mayhem, Berekiah tracks down answers among Christians, New Christians, Jews, and the fellow kabbalists of his uncle, whose secret language and codes by turns light and obscure the way to the truth he seeks. A marvelous story, a challenging mystery, and a telling tale of the evils of intolerance, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon both compels and entertains. “The story moves quickly . . . a literary and historical treat.” —Library Journal ''Remarkable . . . The fever pitch of intensity Zimler maintains is at times overwhelming but never less than appropriate to the Hieronymous Bosch-like landscape he describes. Simultaneously, though, he is able to capture, within the bedlam, quiet moments of tenderness and love.” —Booklist (starred review)
This work revisits the millennia-old Jewish-Christian encounter by providing a nuanced understanding of its challenges as well as presenting new perspectives on hitherto neglected areas of cultural, religious, and social interchange and influence.
"This book adds an important new dimension to the worldwide history of the Jewish refugees during the Holocaust."—Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University "Lesser's book explains the Latin American Jewish experience more than any other book I know."—Robert M. Levine, University of Miami
Jews and Judaism played a significant role in the history of the expansion of Europe to the west as well as in the history of the economic, social, and religious development of the New World. They played an important role in the discovery, colonization, and eventually exploitation of the resources of the New World. Alone among the European peoples who came to the Americas in the colonial period, Jews were dispersed throughout the hemisphere; indeed, they were the only cohesive European ethnic or religious group that lived under both Catholic and Protestant regimes, which makes their study particularly fruitful from a comparative perspective. As distinguished from other religious or ethnic minorities, the Jewish struggle was not only against an overpowering and fierce nature but also against the political regimes that ruled over the various colonies of the Americas and often looked unfavorably upon the establishment and tleration of Jewish communities in their own territory. Jews managed to survive and occasionally to flourish against all odds, and their history in the Americas is one of the more fascinating chapters in the early modern history of European expansion.
From the sixteenth century on, hundreds of Portuguese New Christians began to flow to Venice and Livorno in Italy, and to Amsterdam and Hamburg in northwest Europe. In those cities and later in London, Bordeaux, and Bayonne as well, Iberian conversos established their own Jewish communities, openly adhering to Judaism. Despite the features these communities shared with other confessional groups in exile, what set them apart was very significant. In contrast to other European confessional communities, whose religious affiliation was uninterrupted, the Western Sephardic Jews came to Judaism after a separation of generations from the religion of their ancestors. In this edited volume, several experts in the field detail the religious and cultural changes that occurred in the Early Modern Western Sephardic communities. "Highly recommended for all academic and Jewish libraries." - David B Levy, Touro College, NYC, in: Association of Jewish Libraries News and Reviews 1.2 (2019)
"An engaging introduction to the tortuous plight faced by exiled conversos in Amsterdam and their methods of response. Choicet; In this skillful and well-argued book Miriam Bodian explores the communal history of the Portuguese Jews . . . who settled in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century." —Sixteenth Century Journa Drawing on family and communal records, diaries, memoirs, and literary works, among other sources, Miriam Bodian tells the moving story of how Portuguese "new Christian" immigrants in 17th-century Amsterdam fashioned a close and cohesive community that recreated a Jewish religious identity while retaining its Iberian heritage.
James William Nelson Novoa's new book Being the Nação in the Eternal City explores, in a set of case studies focusing on seven carefully chosen figures, the presence of Portuguese individuals of Jewish origin in Rome after the initial creation of a tribunal of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1531. The book delves into the varied ways in which the protagonists, representing a cross-section of Portuguese society, went about grappling with the complexities of a New Christian identity, and tracks them through their interactions with Roman society and its institutions. Some chose to flaunt Jewish origins. They espoused a sense of being part of a distinctive group, the Portuguese New Christian nação, that set them apart from other Portuguese. Others chose to blend as much as possible into the broader Iberian world represented at Rome, and avoided calling attention to their family past. All, however, had in their own way to work out the multiple shades of what was involved in being a Portuguese with Jewish roots needing to navigate the social and cultural pathways through Rome, the urban center of the Catholic Church. The book draws on archival research conducted in the Vatican, elsewhere in Italy, in Spain, and in Portugal. It brings a variety of sources to bear on the complex phenomenon of emergent group identities. It also proposes a critical reflexion on diasporas, the formation of sub-national communities, and on the structuring of collective memory in Early Modern Europe. The work will be useful to scholars and general readers interested in the Portuguese New Christian diaspora, in sixteenth century Rome, and in the dynamics of community consciousness in Early Modern Europe. In stock. Purchase direct from Baywolf Press / Éditions Baywolf & Portuguese Studies Review. Le nouvel ouvrage de James William Nelson Novoa, Being the Nação in the Eternal City, se penche sur la présence des Portugais d’origine juive à Rome après l’installation d’un tribunal de l’Inquisition au Portugal en 1531. Le livre présente, dans un cadre analytique, sept vignettes de personnages historiques. Il documente en particulier les façons dont ces agents, qui représentaient une coupe de la société portugaise contemporaine, choisirent d'affronter les exigences de leur nouvelle identité chrétienne, tout en jouant des interactions avec la société romaine et ses institutions. Certains affichaient leur racines juives. Ils épousaient un sens d'appartenir à un groupe particulier, la nação des Chrétiens Nouveaux d'origine portugaise. D’autres choisirent de s’intégrer le plus étroitement possible au petit monde des expatriés ibériques de toutes sortes à Rome, évitant d'afficher le passé.Tous durent affronter les multiples incertitudes pénombreuses d'être Portugais d’origine juive navigant entre les écueils culturels et sociaux de Rome, le siège urbain de l’Église catholique. L’ouvrage est un fruit de recherches menées en Italie, au Vatican, en Espagne, et au Portugal. Il invoque des sources diversifiées pour illuminer le phénomène complexe d'identités collectives émergentes. Il propose également des réflexions critiques au sujet de diasporas, de communautés sub-étatiques en créche, et de la mémoire collective au sein de l’Europe moderne naissante. Le livre s'adresse surtout à tous ceux, spécialistes ou non, qui s'intéressent à la diaspora des Nouveaux Chrétiens portugais, la ville de Rome au seizième siècle, et la dynamique formative communautaire au début de la période moderne.
This ground-breaking volume explores the relatively new academic field of Bnei Anousim studies (also referred to as descendants of New Christians, Conversos, or Marranos), whose Jewish ancestors in Iberia were forcibly converted to Catholicism from 1391 through to the fifteenth century. Chronologically, this book focuses on the eighteenth century, a later period of Inquisition activity marked by the Portuguese Inquisition?ÇÖs relentless attacks against the Jewish ?Ç£heresy?Ç¥ and the resultant mass exodus of New Christians from Portugal to Brazil. Several chapters concern the contemporary phenomenon of descendants of these New Christians seeking their Jewish roots. However, among a population that has retained almost no memory of their origins, how authentic are their Jewish roots? After the passage of hundreds of years, how much of what they perceive as ?Ç£Jewish?Ç¥ is truly a lost Sefardi heritage? This volume addresses these questions from the perspectives of history, demography, genealogy, anthropology, and genetics."
