Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
ABSTRACTS
Jews of Portugal
and the
Spanish-Portuguese
Jewish Diaspora
87 CLAUDE STUCZYNSKI
Father Antonio Vieira S.J. and the Conversion of the Jews: A
Reassessment
88 ASHER SALAH
The Discovery of Crypto-Judaism in Portuguese Documentary
Cinema
92 REUVEN KIMELMAN
The Impact of Sephardic Culture on the Liturgy
93 LINA GORENSTEIN
Business, Family, Judaism, and Inquisition (Portugal and Brazil in
the Seventeenth Century(
94 FRANCISCO TOPA
The Sacred Poetry of João Mendes da Silva
97 AMOS FRISCH
R. Yosef Hayyun’s Exegetical Method (in Light of his Commentary
on Psalms 2)
MOISÉS ORFALI
2
Return to the Massacre:
Jews living in Lisbon at the Time of the 1506 Massacre
In the already distant year of 1976, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi wrote his now
famous study entitled “The Lisbon Massacre of 1506 and the Royal Image in
the Shebet Yehudah,” at precisely the same time that he had intended to make
a translation and edition of the work with the latter title written by Salomon
ibn Verga. The sources consulted by Yerushalmi – notably the work by Ibn
Verga, an anonymous contemporary German pamphlet, and also the Chronicle
of D. Manuel by Damião de Góis, and a few other extant documents – allowed
him to conclude that the fundamental objective of the perpetrators of
the “massacre”was to liquidate the New Christians.
The violence that permeates these narratives, and the harshness of the
royal attitude toward Lisbon’s magistrates, reveal an antisemitic hatred that
was fomented among the population – and not only among the German sailors
passing through Lisbon – against the new converts. The Christian population
strongly doubted the religious sincerity of these New Christians, and detested
their social “place”in Portuguese society.
In Lisbon, however, there was yet another reality not mentioned by
Yerushalmi, apart from the incitement of the Dominican friars, who perhaps
fuelled this massacre. The existence of these Jews, assuming their identity as
such, depended on royal authorization in 1506. They lived in the Big or Old
Jewish Quarter, and also in the Little or Coin Jewry, as neighbors of those who
had converted and become New Christians. It is from this unknown social
reality that we intend to give a new account of the massacre and its deadly
intensity, as well as its possible consequences.
3
Folk–Religious Literature among the Jews of the Iberian
Peninsula in the Late Middle Ages
YOEL MARCIANO
JORDI CASALS
Immediately after the 1391 persecutions against the Jews, following the
sermons of the archdeacon of Écija Fernando Martínez, in the great part of
the Hispanic kingdoms, many Jews were forced to go into exile to save their
lives and their customs. Among these Jews were many who had witnessed
the persecutions, who then established their lives in strange lands. Among
them were wise men who corresponded with their coreligionists in these new
lands as well as their native lands. Itzhaq bar Sheshet who fled from Valencia
and Simeon ben Zemah Duran from Mallorca are examples. With writings
that fit within the epistolary genre of the sheelot u-teshuvot, the responsa,
both give details of the situation in which their exiled coreligionists were
living. One hundred years later, in 1492, the Jews would be expelled from the
kingdoms of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, and later from
Portugal, going into exile also to North Africa and the Mediterranean, like
Itzhaq Abrabanel. The intention of this paper is to point out the similarities
and differences between the different witnesses of the two events, and to
describe how the idiosyncrasies of each case played a prominent role in
forging the collective identity of Sephardic Judaism.
5
“They Consoled me for the Loss of my Two Sons, who were
Forcibly Taken from Me and Converted to Christianity”:
The Life, Hardships, and Works of Rabbi Abraham Saba
HANANEL MACK
After being expelled from Spain in 1492, Rabbi Abraham Saba sought refuge in
Portugal. Five years later, he was forced to flee this illusory place of refuge as well.
A decree of the authorities brought him to Lisbon, and, fearing for his life, he took
the books he had written and brought with him, and buried them under a tree at the
outskirts of the city, never to see them again. Earlier, his two sons had been forcibly
taken from him and baptized, and, according to Rabbi Abraham, his books consoled
him for the loss of his two sons, until he was forced to part with the books as well.
After a long period of suffering and hardship, Rabbi Abraham arrived in Fez,
Morocco, where he was accorded great honor and where he rewrote, as best he
could, his commentary on the Torah, Tractate Avot, and the scrolls of Ruth and
Esther, also producing other works. Although frequently ill, Rabbi Abraham
continued to wander, both in Morocco and even further East, and may even have
reached the Ottoman Empire, where he formed a relationship with the rabbi of
Kushta, Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrahi (Re’em). In his old age, he apparently reached
Livorno, Italy, where he died and was laid to rest.
Rabbi Abraham’s exegetical works are essentially literal commentaries and
inquiries, but, unlike the famous French literalists who preceded him by several
hundred years, Rabbi Saba’s explications tend to be lengthy and incorporate aggadic
material as well. His commentaries also have a strong kabalistic affinity, and, in
addition, are embedded with considerable historical material that reflects the events
of that time. Thus, his commentaries are reminiscent of those of Nahmanides,
although they do not attain the stature of Nahmanides’ commentary to the
Torah. Rabbi Abraham Saba composed introductions to his commentaries that are
noteworthy in and of themselves, and call for separate scrutiny and discussion.
6
Was the Jewish Community of Toledo Really Persecuted in
1090? Recovering an Intricate Conjuncture with the Help of
Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Sources
INÊS LOURINHO
In late eleventh century, Isaac Alfasi, rabbi in the Jewish center of Lucena, al-
Andalus, had to deal with a dispute concerning a copy of the Torah book that
involved two Jews of Christian Toledo, a city that had been taken by Emperor
Alfonso VI from the Muslims in 1085. In his responsum, the rabbi refers to
conflicts in Toledo that we may deduce can be placed in 1090, and which have
been interpreted as persecutions of the local Jewish community. But, can we
accept this version based upon a meager passage with little context? Should we
not observe, as far as possible, the conjuncture of Toledo in 1090? Can we be
sure without diving into the events that occurred in that year – when the
Almoravids (the founders of Marrakesh) launched their campaign to take the
small Andalusian kingdoms known as taifas, thereby disrupting the instable
balance between a Christian North that asphyxiated the Muslim South with
tributes and forced gifts (parias) in the form of heavy taxes on the populations?
And was this arrival of the knights from the Sahara Desert really harmful to the
Jewish communities of Muslim Hispania? A journey through Christian, Jewish,
and Muslim sources permits us to redraw the conjuncture of 1090, when the
kingdom of Granada fell into the Almoravids’ hands, paving the way for the
conquests of the taifas of Seville, Almeria, and Badajoz, as well as the recovery
of Lisbon and Sintra. In a five-year period, the Almoravids became the new
lords of al-Andalus, and the three religious communities of the Iberian Peninsula
had to adjust to the new status quo.
7
Jews and New Christians in Macao and Nagasaki
(c. 1560 – c. 1617)
ELSA PENALVA
Between 1560 (and certainly before) and 1605, several clans in Macao and
Nagasaki with connections to Cochin, Goa, Malacca, Manila, and Nueva
España enjoyed a position of hegemony. Their leaders came from the city of
Porto and the Douro area. In addition, they also shared their affiliation with
individuals belonging to families of Jewish origin, such as the Aboab and Nasi
families. We focus on the Monteiro/Pinto, Rebêlo, Garcez and Araújo clans:
four multicultural social networks both mixed and composite – given their
association to the Companhia de Jesus clan – and led by merchants whose
cursus honorum in Macao included positions related to the main power elites.
Among these, we find Francisco Garcês de Miranda, António Garcês de
Miranda, and Luís Garcês de Figueiredo – all New Christians connected to the
Aboabs – and António Rebelo Bravo and Sebastião de Araújo. Strategic
marriages of the latter two associated them with Dona Gracia Nasi and Joseph
Nasi, giving them entry into a worldwide social network of Sephardic origin
that included Duarte da Paz – also from Porto – and his son Tomé Pegado da
Paz (José Alberto Tavim).
António Rebelo Bravo and Sebastião de Araújo were married to D.
Antónia Nasi and Catarina Nasi, respectively. Despite the fact that the
connection between the Monteiro/Pinto and Rebelo clans took place in Porto
through the Aboabs, specifically through a merchant known as Bentalhado –
who was probably a relative of Baruk Senyori/“Josua Senior” or Henrique
Garcês (António Borges Coelho) – we cannot safely assume the same
concerning the Rebelos and Araújos. The linking of these two clans might
have occurred in Macao in the early 1580s, when the power of their leadership
8
was consolidated. Dona Maria Rebelo (or Maria Nasi), eldest daughter of
António Rebelo Bravo lived in Goa in 1607. She was born in around 1586 in
the City of God’s Name and China’s People, and was still a young child when
her father, then a merchant with great political and social influence in the city,
passed away.
My goals are: to characterize the aforementioned clans from a social,
economic, and political point of view; to explain how their association gave
birth to a complex social network with great influence, both in Macao and in
the Nanban community; to question the importance of common origins for the
structure and cohesion of the self-reference group within Porto and the Douro
zone; given the coexistence of Old Christians, New Christians, and quite
possibly Crypto-Jews, to explore the relations between these mixed networks
and power groups, and their relation to the Company of Jesus.
9
Jewish Settlers and the Challenges of the Caribbean:
Correspondence Found among Prize Papers
(Seventeenth–Eighteenth Centuries)
ANA LEITÃO
11
A Portuguese Crypto-Jewish Diaspora in Seventeenth-
Century Cuba and the Circum-Caribbean Basin
Very little is known about a Portuguese presence in the Caribbean. Even less
is known about the other “Portuguese,” the Crypto-Jews or Conversos, who
had much less of a presence in that historiography. The question is why were
any Portuguese there, and how they managed to arrive in the area. If they were
indeed Conversos, we may also ask how and why they settled in this particular
area. These questions have only been made possible after reviewing many
cases of purported Judaizers in the Tribunals of the Inquisition, or in Mexico
and Cartagena de Indias during their jurisdiction over the area. The answers
can be found only by investigating recent documentation uncovered in
archives in Mexico and Spain. It is now possible to peer into the world of the
Portuguese Crypto-Jewish Diaspora and their familial and commercial ties in
the area.
The numbers of those referred to as Portuguese by the Spanish authorities
is the origin of the evaluation of those who entered into the sphere of influence
of the Inquisitorial authorities. It will constitute the basis of an exploration of a
history, hitherto unknown, of the Luso Jewish Converso diaspora in the less
populated and marginal areas of the Spanish empire, where the Inquisition
seems to have had a weaker presence. The retelling of this history will uncover
a network of people and places linking the accused with the larger Converso
and Crypto-Jewish centers of the period.
12
A Philosopher in the Stock Market:
Ethics and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
in Confusión de Confusiones by Josef Penso de la Vega
MEIR BNAYA
14
Sephardism in Modern and Contemporary Art:
Consistent Topics and Artists
15
“Guitarra – Liturgia”: A Musical Dialogue with my
Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Heritage
ARIEL LAZARUS
This presentation will touch upon the musical dialogue I have been conducting
with the legacy of my grandfather, the late Abraham Beniso, who was a
chazzan (cantor) at the Spanish & Portuguese Jewish community of
Gibraltar. We will begin with a short historical review of Gibraltar, unveiling
the rare geopolitical circumstances that allowed the establishing of a
flourishing Jewish community at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula, just two
centuries away from the traumatic expulsion. I will demonstrate with voice
and guitar the unique traditions of the liturgical singing and piyyut evident in
Gibraltar’s “Esnogha Falmenca”synagogue. At the heart of the presentation, I
will explain the ways in which Sephardic characteristics can be reborn in the
field of contemporary music making. I will conclude with a reflection on how
the “Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue experience” can be at the heart of one’s
childhood musical memory, a memory that inevitably resonates in one’s adult
life and will continue to be passed on to the next generations.
16
The Tree, the Snake, and the Eternal Return in
the Portuguese Crypto-Judaic Liturgy in the Twentieth
Century
SANDRA FONTINHA
NITAI SHINAN
18
Hebrew Studies in Portugal:
A Case Study of the Portuguese Contributions to the
International Congresses of Orientalists
CATARINA SEVERINO
19
Etymology’s Research – The Names of Marrano
Communities of Portuguese Descendants and the Social and
Legal Consequences for Today
MICHAEL CORINALDI
21
are prepared to allow anusim, even if today they are not part of the Jewish
faith, but in Porto they allow only Jews (as will soon be the case in the
community of Belmonte). It should be mentioned that the process in Portugal
is easier and thus most prefer to turn to Portugal and not Spain. In the
meantime, 1500 people have already received Portuguese citizenship,
including around 500 Turkish Jews.
22
Spanish Philo-Sephardic Movements in Europe:
Between Cultural Heritage and Economic Claims
(Nineteenth–Twentieth Centuries)
MARIA FRAGKOU
23
From Gibraltar to Jaffa – The Activity of the Amzalag
Family in the Jaffa Orchard Industry in the
Nineteenth Century
AVI SASSON
Chaim Amzalag was born in Gibraltar (1828) to a family that had arrived from
Spain at the time of the Spanish Expulsion. His father was a wealthy and
respected merchant. At the age of 6, he immigrated to Israel and settled with
his family in Jerusalem. His business of exporting Israeli wheat and importing
merchandise from England eventually brought him to settle in Jaffa, and he
was among the builders of the Neve Tzedek neighborhood outside the city
walls.
In 1873, he was appointed as British Deputy Consul in Jaffa, and, in
1884, he was appointed as Portuguese Consul in Jerusalem. In the Ottoman
Empire, the position of deputy consul on behalf of a foreign government
endowed the holder of the position with extraordinary status and power,
including special legal, monetary, economic, and other rights.
Chaim Amzalag’s position as British Deputy Consul included a variety of
tasks. He represented the interests of the British government and British
citizens, and reported on the commercial activity at the Jaffa Port. He also
worked to help Jews who wanted to immigrate to Israel. He became a
prominent figure in the Jewish community of Jaffa, and even helped to
purchase land for building the first moshavot (agricultural communities).
Parallel to his diplomatic activity, Amzalag and his wife Esther also
invested in purchasing land in Jaffa and developing modern orchards. The
family, with its six children, lived mainly in the city, but at the same time the
baiara (well house), which was built in the heart of the family orchard in Abu
Kabir, was a kind of summer home, as was customary among wealthy Jaffa
24
Arabs. According to historical evidence, Jewish dignitaries, including Sir
Moshe Montefiore, were among the guests at this home.
A recent study of the remains at the site (which is next to the Russian
church in Abu Kabir), indicates that it had unique architectural elements that
were found only in a limited number of such sites, and may reflect influences
from the family’s original homeland.
In the lecture, we will present the site, its history and its remains, and will
discuss its characteristics and try to examine the sources of inspiration and
influence, in terms of both architecture and agriculture, and their connection to
the country of origin.
25
The Sephardic Diaspora between Wahabi Pragmatism of
Mulei Slimane and the Double Portuguese Discourse at the
Beginning of the “Oitocentos”
JORGE AFONSO
26
Forgotten Portuguese Jewish Communities in the Balkans
YITZCHAK KEREM
28
The Bulgarian Jews during World War II
JOSEPH BENATOV
The year 2018 marks the 75th anniversary of two profoundly interconnected
events. In March 1943, Bulgaria deported nearly 11,400 Jews to their death
from occupied territories in Yugoslav Macedonia and northeastern Greece. At
the same time, Bulgaria was able to resist repeated German pressure, and did
not deport any of the nearly 50,000 Bulgarian Jews. During a meeting with
Ribbentrop on 1 April 1943, Bulgaria’s King Boris III even tried to convince
the German foreign minister that the Bulgarian Jews were Sephardic (he called
them shpanioli) and therefore different. Ribbentrop remained unconvinced.
The presentation will provide a detailed overview of these historical
events and will focus on the most significant factors for the ultimate survival
of the Bulgarian Jewish community. These included prominent Bulgarian
politicians, high-ranking East Orthodox clergy, and the nation’s monarch. We
will also discuss conflicting current historical and political opinions regarding
the above events, and the most adequate way in which they should be
interpreted and commemorated.
29
Arzila: Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Converts on the
Route between Portugal and Fez (1471–1535)
GILA HADAR
In the Jewish History written after the expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula
(1492) and the forced conversions in Portugal (1497), Morocco is depicted as
a land that “will not contain a book.” Yet this was the place where the Jews
were accepted, and the city of Fez became the center for their return to
Judaism. Many of the Jews and converts passed through Arzila, a small
seaport conquered by the Portuguese in 1471.
Rabbi Isaac Abravanel wrote in his letter (1471) on the situation of the
captive Jews of Arzila. Rabbi Abraham Saba in his book Zeror ha-Mor
mentioned Arzila as a horrific place for Jews: “After six months, the king
ordered that we be given a broken ship to take us to Arzilya....” And
Abraham Ardotiel wrote that the ruler of Arzila, the Conde de Borba, is like
evil itself (Nimrod).
Bernardo Rodrigues, a resident of Arzila does not write the history of
Arzila solely according to the chronological model. He takes us, rather, on a
journey through the city, introducing us to its important residents and to the
simple folk as well, and to the hardship of life in a border town under
repeated attacks by Muslim tribes and kings, pirates (French and Turks), and
the forces of nature – drought, famine, and epidemics. He mentions the Jews
and Muslims wandering between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the
many souls who embodied more than one religious and cultural identity.
Contrary to other chronicles, contemporary and otherwise, Bernardo
Rodrigues also refers to gender differences, wealthy women and poor
women, Muslims and converted slaves, widows and fighters, love, envy, and
murder.
30
“The Truth of the Law of Moses,”
According to Saul L. Mortera, in 1660
JOSE RAMOS
This communication will present the long treatise of Saul Levi Mortera,
entitled Treatise on the Truth of the Law of Moses (1,266 pages). This great
rabbi of the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam left this
manuscript, written in Portuguese, in the same year as his death – 1660. HP
Salomon at the University of Coimbra published it in 1988.
The objective is to establish and frame historically the parameters by
which this great concept is defined in a time and by a thinker who already
had had the opportunity of personal and institutional confrontation with the
hermeneutic coordinates of his time, especially with those of his
contemporary and celebrated co-religionist, Baruch Spinoza.
31
The Forgotten Portuguese Diaspora: The Ma’aminim
(The Dönme of Salonika and the Ottoman Balkans)
MICHAEL WAAS
Discussions of the Portuguese Jewish Nation often are centered on the New
Christian experience in Iberia and the Colonies, their return to Judaism in
Europe, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire, and the vibrant communities
they established in places such as Amsterdam, Hamburg, Livorno, London,
and the New World. What is rarely discussed, however, is the profound mark
the Portuguese Jewish Nation left on the Ma’aminim, the followers of
Shabbetai Zvi. This paper reveals never-before-discussed research about the
Ma’aminim, discussing oral and genealogical histories showing that the
Ma’aminim are not only largely the descendants of Portuguese Jews, but also
that they replicated practices that were within living memory, of how their
families survived and passed down a hidden Jewish identity whilst maintaining
a public Catholic façade. The Ma’aminim, twice anusim, have yet to be
formally recognized as part of the Portuguese Jewish Nation and have existed
in a veritable liminal space between worlds. By employing interdisciplinary
approaches, including anthropology, history, and genetics, and working with
members of the Ma’aminim community, this paper seeks to rectify this lacuna
in the scholarly and popular discourse.
32
Galipapa’s Relationship to the Conversos
According to his Sermon on Psalms
AMICHAI NACHSHON
33
Poverty and Crime in Eighteenth-Century London and the
Spanish–Portuguese Jewish Community
JULIA LIEBERMAN
34
The Individual, the Family, and the Mahamad –
A Study on Communal Dynamics
HUGO MARTINS
35
The New Christians of Portuguese India and their
Descendants: A Case Study of the “Portuguese”Diaspora
in Bombay–Mumbai during the Nineteenth Century
ERNESTINE CARREIRA
36
Jacques Abravanel’s Life Story:
A Sephardic Model Trajectory between the Ottoman
Empire, Portugal, and Turkey?
ALEXANDRE TOUMARKINE
1
Mémoires posthumes et inachevées de Jacques Abravanel, Juif portugais, Salonicien de
naissance, Stambouliote d’adoption, edited by Alexandre Toumarkine, with a foreword by
Rifat Bali (Istanbul: Isis Yayınları, 1999 [first print]).
37
Abravanel’s Unique Attitude to the Biblical Masoretic Text
SHIMON SHARVIT
From early times, debate has arisen over understanding the well-known
phenomenon of ketiv and qeri in biblical text. In fear of doubting the holiness
of the biblical text and its authenticity, scholars have suggested three ways of
interpreting the double reading of ketiv and qeri:
1. The double variants were given as oral law from Sinai, similar to the
meaning of the saying, “Zachor and Shamor were spoken simultaneously,” as
found in Talmudic sources and as elaborated by Radba”z (Egypt, sixteenth
century) and Ha-mahar”al (Prague, sixteenth century).
2. The two variants are a result of corruptions and dispute in
manuscripts at the time of the Second Temple. The members of the Great
Assembly followed the variant found in the majority of them, and, in cases
where they could reach no conclusion, one variant was written “inside” the
text (= ketiv) and the other was written “outside” the text, in the margin (=
qeri). This was David Kimchi’s approach, based on Talmudic sources.
3. The variants of the ketiv reflect various errors made by the prophet
or the author of a biblical book. This is Abravanel’s unique approach,
described at length in his introduction to the book of Jeremiah. In this book,
he found multiple cases of ketiv and qeri – out of all proportion to their
numbers in other books with the same number of words. Under this
interpretation, the qeri variants would represent the corrections subsequently
made by the Masoretes.
Many scholars have strongly criticized Abravanel’s approach on the
grounds of theology: it is impossible – or almost heretical – to assume that
God’s prophet did not master the basic grammatical rules and syntactical
patterns of Hebrew.
38
Theocratic Anarchism in the Political Theory of Abravanel:
The Origin of his Theory in the Political Reality of his
Time in Portugal and Spain
Don Isaac Abravanel is unique among the Jewish thinkers and commentators
of the late medieval era. In both his commentaries to the Bible and his
philosophical writings, Abravanel developed a systematic and comprehensive
political theory that sharply denounces the monarchy as well as other forms of
institutionalized and centralized political regime. Abravanel’s theory exposes
radical and even anarchist political tendencies, based on the view that any kind
of institutionalized human rule is, in effect, a kind of rebellion against God –
who is the only true king.
Abravanel seeks to establish his arguments by relying on biblical sources,
which he interprets as conveying an anti-monarchic, even anti-political
approach. There are, to be sure, biblical chapters and verses that might be
interpreted in this spirit. Nevertheless, there is evidence that Abravanel’s
political theory was greatly influenced by the political reality of his time, and
especially by his own personal experience as a Jew holding influential
positions in the political establishments of Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
Abravanel’s ideas have a significant impact on modern political thought.
In particular, there is much in common between his political views and Martin
Buber’s theory of “theocratic anarchism.”
39
Don Isaac Abravanel’s Attitude Toward
Non-Jewish Exegesis
SHMUEL VARGON
In this lecture, we seek to discuss the use made by Don Isaac Abravanel, who
was born in Lisbon, Portugal (1437–1508), of the work of Gentile biblical
exegetes. His 71-year life span may be divided into three periods: Portugal –
this period, during the reign of Alfonso V, is described by him as “the happiest
of his life,” lasting 46 years (1437–83); Castilia–Aragon–Spain (1483–92) –
where he resided for 9 years until the expulsion from Spain in 1492 when he
was 55 years old; and Italy (1492–1509) – 16 years. He was a leader of Jewish
communities in Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
One of the questions confronting Bible exegetes and scholars is whether
it is appropriate to resort to the theses of Gentile exegetes. Is it proper to
peruse and study Scripture with the aid of non-Jewish commentators? This
question has been engaging Jewish sages for many generations; the question
became more acute from the Age of the Haskalah (Enlightenment) on, and is
still reverberating in the minds of many Jews.
Abravanel is regarded as one of the last medieval exegetes, and one of the
first belonging to the Renaissance and Humanistic Eras, best known today as a
scriptural commentator at odds with his Catholic counterparts. He frequently
cited foreign sources, including Christian exegetes. His own commentaries not
only make use of theirs, but also include moral judgment on their manner of
interpretation. The lecture will discuss his special approach and attitude
toward non-Jewish scholars.
Don Isaac received a broad and comprehensive education in Lisbon,
including traditional religious studies and Jewish philosophy, as well as Greek
and Roman classics and Christian Works; he appears to have known Latin, as
40
is evidenced by the many references to Christian literature in the exegetes’
works.
In various places in his commentaries, Abravanel quotes Christian
scholars, and is known on occasion to accept their views over those of Jewish
commentators. At such places where he prefers the Christian sages’
commentaries, he sometimes states, “And I do indeed find their [the Christian
scholars’] opinions to be more reasonable that those of the other sages that I
mention, of our people” (1 Kings 8, Ref: “Reply to sixth question,” p. 520);
“And the Christian Sages construed ‘and could not fight’ [...], which is
correct” (Isaiah 7, Ref: “And it came to pass in the days of,” p. 62); “And I
have perceived its generalities in the words of one of the gentile sages and find
them to be after my own heart; I hold on to them and reinforce them as
reasonable and acceptable in the general sense of the matter,” Exodus, Bo
Portion, Ref: “And here is the comment.”
While it is true that Abravanel’s exegesis is based on Jewish tradition and
belief in the sacredness of scriptures and the work of Jewish commentators
who preceded him, we have found that Christian commentaries lay beside
rabbinical ones, on the desk where he wrote his commentaries, together with a
number of works by medieval exegetes.
41
António Dias de Cáceres’Travel to Macau in 1589, and the
Trade Development between the “Two Indies”
The penetration of New Christians into Iberian imperial areas was a cause of
constant attention over the years, and often the motivation for criticism,
constant restrictions, and even prohibitions. Regardless of the effort of the
Iberian crowns to limit the circulation of New Christians in their domains, the
presence of such merchants in transoceanic mercantile networks was a
reality. This presentation focuses on one of these merchants, António Dias de
Cáceres. This Portuguese merchant of New Christian origin, a member of the
important Dias de Milão family, traveled from Europe to New Spain and later
to Manila and Macau.
Using documents housed in the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico),
we will discuss the problems of the complex balance of Asian commerce in
the framework of Portuguese and Spanish relations, especially with regard to
the route between Macau and Manila that many − Duarte Gomes de Solis
amongst them − regarded as detrimental to the interests of the Portuguese
Crown. With scarce documentary evidence, the study of Dias de Cáceres’s
voyage to Macau provides a rare opportunity to analyze how merchants tried
to circumvent legal restrictions to commerce between the “duas Índias” (two
Indies), to use Gomes de Solis’ expression, and take the most advantage from
the encounter between the two Iberian empires in Asia (then under the same
administration).
42
The Beginning of a Financial Epic: The Path Trodden by the
Wealthiest New Christian Portuguese Merchants until the
Financial Peak of the Hispanic Monarchy (1575–1640)
SHOEY RAZ
In my lecture, I will focus on the preface and the second part of The Second
Gate in The Soul of Life (published in December 1651, in Amsterdam) by R.
Menashe ben Israel. I will examine Ben Israel’s description of himself as
being inspired to write his book “by the touch of an angel,” and delve into the
intellectual (art, literature, and philosophy) context of this claim.
Furthermore, I will try to offer a new perspective of understanding Ben
Israel’s polemics against the concept of psyche/soul in R. Isaac Arama’s
philosophical works (1420–94), in the framework of the seventeenth-century
polemics on the eternity of souls among the Nação.
44
Talmudic Methodology and Aristotelian Logic:
R. David ibn Bilia’s Commentary on the
Thirteen Exegetical Principles
AVIRAM RAVITSKY
45
“Se convierte con ardentissimo amor a si”:
Forja de la esencia divina en La casa de la divinidad de
Abraham Cohen de Herrera
MIGUEL BELTRAN
Among the scholars who have studied the work of Kabbalist Abraham Cohen
de Herrera, Yosha is the only one to deal thoroughly with some of the topics
addressed by de Herrera in La casa de la divinidad (The House of Divinity).
According to Yosha, this neglected work had the purpose of introducing
former Conversos living in Amsterdam in the 1630s not only to Lurianic
mysticism, but also to Neoplatonism. La casa de la divinidad deals with
Lurianic ontology in an ascending order, from the earthly World of Fabrication
through the angelic World of Formation, to the glorious World of Creation.
The text is divided into seven books, representing the seven gates of sanctity
or the seven palaces, and deals with Lurianic psychology and the doctrine of
prophecy. This conforms with other doctrines, including these of Marsilio
Ficino and earlier Neoplatonist authors, like Plotinus or Proclus. Herrera
constantly appeals to the work of Neoplatonic Renaissance authorities,
attempting to find agreement between their philosophy and Kabbalistic
thought. Nevertheless, Yosha does not mention some specific topics with
which Herrera also deals in this work, and which seem to come close to his
views about God’s essence and action in the work, to the Spanish mystics of
the sixteenth century, and even to Spanish conversos of the fifteenth century,
like Alfonso de la Torre. In this way, Herrera’s views regarding philosophical
and theological notions like fate and providence seem to be similar to the
special interest in fate in the work of some fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
Conversos. Other mystical notions are treated in La casa de la divinidad even
if they do not have significant weight in Puerta del cielo (The Gate of
46
Heaven). These notions are, for instance, prophetic vision, light (lumbre), and
particularly love, as the force that unifies the different parts of the
cosmological order.
My aim in this paper is to analyze the conception of love espoused in La
casa de la divinidad, in order to demonstrate that, despite the similarities to
certain Spanish spiritual authors, the references to which Herrera refers are the
works of Renaissance Neoplatonic authors, like Cattaneo or Patrizi.
47
Jews and New Christians in the Mediterranean:
The “Rescuers” between Portugal and the Ottoman Empire
in the Sixteenth Century
DEJANIRAH COUTO
48
In order better to grasp this social practice, we will present a handful of
inquisitorial trials of people from very different social backgrounds, and some
responsa from the rabbis of the Ottoman communities. Pero Vaz, alias João
Alteras, alias Alexandre Reynel, alias Isaq Bendana, originally from Cochin,
India, with a residence in Ferrara, son of Manuel Reynel (1577), was a
merchant of good social status, since he was the godson of a great
contemporary European financier, Genoa Lucas Giraldes. Luis Garcês (1552),
born in Ayamonte, resident in Ferrara, was a “sirgueiro,” i.e. a breeder of
silkworms. João Bezerra, also known as Muce Barcelai or João Português de
Lamego, the most interesting of the three, lived in Istanbul and became hazan
of Joseph Nasi’s synagogue at the latter’s grand Belvedere residence at
Ortaköy/ Kuruçeşme (Istanbul).
49
Negros, Mulattos, and Ashkenazim: Nação and Raça
in the Portuguese–Jewish Imagination
MIRIAM BODIAN
51
“António Serrão de Castro’s Jewish Ballads”/ “Os
Romances Judeos d’António Serrão de Castro, O Judeo”
KENNETH BROWN
52
Jewish Courtiers in the Ottoman Empire
YARON BEN-NAEH
This lecture will deal with a topic that has not been researched hitherto –
Jewish courtiers in the Ottoman Empire. While we know of Jews in such
positions in Iberian courts before the Expulsion, and much more about Court
Jews in Europe in the Early Modern era, very little attention has been given to
Jews holding similar positions in the courts of the sultans. This precarious, yet
coveted, position as supplier of the army or the grand vizier emerged in the
seventeenth century and existed until the 1820s.
These Jews filled a similar role as their European peers, and were totally
dependent on one person (the grand vizier, the commander of the army, the
chief eunuchs), or a network of dignitaries in the imperial court, and on a
network of people who provided funding and merchandise. They rose high
above the social status to which they were entitled as Jews. They also
dedicated time and money, and used their influence in order to assist Jewish
communities.
The court Jews of the Ottoman Empire also used their political power to
enhance their wealth and influence within the Jewish community, but at the
same time cleverly exploited communal resources in a very sophisticated way
to maintain their businesses. In addition, they also gained influence within the
Jewish community, and emerged as important new players in the communal
sphere. The article therefore examines their internal and external status, and
questions their motivations concerning intracommunal actions.
53
“The Honor of the King’s Daughter”: The Character of
Dona Gracia Mendes and her Contribution to the Community in
Modern Hebrew Literature
OFRA MATZOV-COHEN
The experience of the expulsion of the Jews of Spain has been described in
Hebrew and Yiddish literatures since the nineteenth century. From the
beginning of the millennium, a renewed writing on the expulsion from Spain
has begun, dealing with this period, around the character of one of the most
prominent characters in the Jewish world after the expulsion from Spain –
Dona Gracia Mendes. Dona Gracia’s history raises interest in two aspects: in
the family space, and in the public space.
This article therefore, seeks to examine the place of Dona Gracia Nasi
in these two spaces according to the following novels: The Ghost of Hannah
Mendes by Naomi Regan, La Senora by Naomi Keren, and The Golden
Pendant of Dona Gracia by Michal Regev Aharoni. In the eyes of these
writers, Dona Gracia is a powerful, proactive, and ambitious character.
According to these novels, Dona Gracia also devotes her time to her personal
space, to her yearnings and desires as a woman, as a wife, and as a mother.
54
The Particularity of the Portuguese Ketubot in the Jewish
Community of Tunis
HAGIT AMRANI
My lecture will focus on the Jews of Portuguese origin who came from Livorno
to Tunis in the early seventeenth century. They were known in Tunis as Grana,
the plural form of Legorno, the ancient name of the city of Livorno. They
brought with them a cultural, social, and economic heritage that differed from
that of the local Jewish community, which was known as Twansa. This was
different to the other countries of the Maghreb, i.e. Algeria and Morocco, where
the Portuguese Jewish community integrated into the local community; in Tunis
this was not the case. In my talk, I will relate especially to one of the aspects
unique to this ethnic group, namely the “four provisions” that distinguished the
Portuguese ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) in Tunis from that of the
Twansa. The differences in these provisions represented yet an additional factor
that differentiated the Portuguese Jewish community and its family structure
from the local Tunisian Jewish community. The 22 charitable societies of the
Grana community that helped needy brides with their dowries joined forces to
bolster the standing of these provisions, and this distinguished the community
from its mother community in Livorno, where only a single charitable society –
Hebra de Cazar Orfas e Donzelas – was active in this area.
The four provisions of the Portuguese ketubah are a distinct expression of
the Portuguese Jewish heritage preserved by the Grana community, as noted in
all their ketubot: “And the ketubah is drawn up in accordance with the customs
of the holy Portuguese Jewish community, may God guard it and may it live
long, with the provisions practiced there.” I will expand on these provisions and
their unique nature, and provide an explanation as to why they were determined
to represent one of the conditions for receipt of Portuguese citizenship in the
present.
55
Marriage Patterns and Migration among the
Jewish–Portuguese Diaspora: A Marriage Contract from
Bayonne before the French Revolution
ORLY C. MERON
56
Public and Commercial Activity by Nineteenth-Century
Sephardic Women as Reflected in Letters from Rabbi
Nathan Amram’s Circles
LILAC TORGEMAN
57
“For a Thousand Years in thy Sight are but as Yesterday when
it is Past, and as a Watch in the Night” (Psalm 90:4):
Judah Halevi’s selichot la-ashmurot and
Night Prayer in Judaism
This paper offers an analysis of the ’ashmurah (night prayer watch) in Judaism
through the selichot la-ashmurot of the great Spanish-Hebrew poet Judah
Halevi (1070–1141). We will study the beginnings of this kind of prayer in
biblical times, its setting during the Second Temple period, in addition to its
development as a liturgical and paraliturgical practice in Al-Andalus and
Christian Spain. Its development among the Sephardic communities in Italy
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is also examined. Finally, we
present a stylistic approach to these poems, sorting them into three thematic
groups: existentialist poems, poems seeking a deeper intimacy with God and
community, and nationalistic poems.
58
The Poetry and Poetics of Meshullam ben Solomon de Piera
HAVIVA ISHAY
60
“The Veil of Secrecy was Removed”: Inquisition,
Crypto-Judaism, and Exile in Grace Aguilar’s Work
CARLA VIEIRA
The Jewish community of London, during the first decades of the eighteenth
century, experienced an exponential rate of growth due to the arrival of new
members from Spain and, mainly, from Portugal. A century later, a descendant
of two families that participated in this migratory movement (Lopes
Pereira/Aguilar and Dias Fernandes) reported the background to this episode
in Anglo–Jewish historyin both her fiction and non-fiction writings. Author of
an eclectic and broad body of work, Grace Aguilar (1816–47) is acknowledged
as a unique figure in Victorian literature in the way that she used writing as a
tool to change the image of the Jew (mainly the Jewess) in British society and
culture. One of the current topics of her work is founded on her Portuguese
roots, as well as on her family’s oral tradition: the persecution against the
Iberian Jews/New Christians and their exile in England.
This presentation will focus on three of Aguilar’s writings that address
this topic: the short stories “The Escape” (Records of Israel, 1844), and “The
Fugitive” (Home Scenes and Heart Studies, 1852), and the essay “History of
the Jews of England” (Chambers’Miscellany, 1847), the first text written by a
Jewish author to address Anglo–Jewish history. Through a comparative
approach (using other sources, such as polemical literature, memoirs,
inquisitorial documents, and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ congregation
registers), we will analyze the way in which the Inquisition, religious secrecy,
womanhood, evasion, and integration are represented, taking into
consideration the context of writing, the author’s goals, the expectations on its
reception, as well as the relationship between memory and the shaping of
identity.
61
A “Historical–Fictional”(Re)construction of the Figure of
the Jewish–Portuguese Uriel da Costa in the Novella
Der Sadducäer von Amsterdam(The Sadducee from
Amsterdam) by Karl Gutzkow
ROGÉRIO MADEIRA
62
Portuguese Jews:
Writers and Characters in Brazilian Literature
REGINA IGEL
64
Antonio José da Silva “O JUDEU”–
Between two Reports in the Portuguese Literature:
Camilo Castelo Branco and Bernardo Santareno
SIMÃO DRAIBLATE
65
Travel, History, and Memory: Reconstruction of the
Jewish Identity in the Novel
The Strange Nation of Raphael Mendes by Moacyr Scliar
CONSUELO PERUZZO
This paper is part of a larger body of research that explores the identity of the
Jewish immigrant in Moacyr Scliar’s romances.
The research I intend to present at this Congress proposes the
examination of the relationship between travel, identity, and memory in the
novel A Estranha Nação de Rafael Mendes (The Strange Nation of Rafael
Mendes). The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how these three
concepts are fundamental in the reconstruction and reconfiguration of
elements of Jewish culture that were lost in the process of migration. These
concepts were left along the way as people and communities tried to navigate
processes of assimilation and integration while negotiating the tensions that
arose in the interactions between their new contexts and cultures and their
culture of origin.
The journey presented in this novel recalls, through that shifting of
memories and historical facts along spatio-temporal axes, the reconstruction
of the identity of the Mendes family, who personify the Jewish nation, and
the dispersion and persecution in the Iberian Peninsula, where Jews became
New Christians without forgetting their origin. A transnational journey takes
place in the European countries of Spain, Portugal, and France, as well as
Africa, the USA, and Brazil. The use of fictional elements provides a vehicle
for the presentation of a singular view of Jewish History.
66
The Term “Jewish”in Brazilian Historical Poetry
MOACIR AMÂNCIO
The cliché of the Jew, not as a character but as an extremely negative allusion,
rooted in traditional antisemitism and persistent today, was taken up by José
Dantas Mota (1913–74), a poet recognized by his modernist peers as an
important author since his emergence in Brazilian literature in 1953. The book
of poetry, “First Epistle of John. Jzé da Sva. Xer. – Tiradentes – To the Rich
Thieves” (1967), is based on the life of Joaquim José da Silva Xavier,
Tiradentes. In 1792, Tiradentes was hanged from the gallows, officially for
having participated in a conspiracy against the Portuguese and their
domination over the Brazilian colony. His story became a romantic myth, and
made him a hero for the new country. Tiradentes became the alter ego and
spokesman of the author in his invectives against the usurers, bankers, the
alleged “Jews,” identified with the great political and economic commanders
of Minas Gerais of the eighteenth century, alongside their counterparts,
the “hypocritical Christians” focused on those same goals. The question that
arises is: could it be possible to use this element while removing the
term “Jew” from the history of the West, in order to present it in a restricted
interpretation – apparently unrelated to the broader historical context from
which it originated? And this, in a region where the New Christians
(considered in the text) left cultural clues, albeit diluted, to this day?
67
Gil Vicente and a Defense of the Jews –
A Reading of the Auto da Barca do Inferno(Act of the Ship
of Hell) in Light of the Carta de Santarém, 1531
The character of the Jew occupies an ambiguous position in the work of Gil
Vicente, notably in the Auto da Barca do Inferno, and has therefore been subject
to various interpretations. Equally ambiguous is his accompanying goat
(coextensive with the Jew himself), a presumed allusion to the scapegoat which,
according to the book of Leviticus, received upon itself the totality of sins of the
people of Israel during the Yom Kippur ceremonies. It is therefore a true “duck-
rabbit,” i.e. a figure that can be seen as two contrasting faces: all kinds of vices
are concentrated within it, yet it is also an innocent and arbitrarily chosen
victim.
In an atmosphere of fervent antisemitism, like that of João III’s Portugal, it
would be more than expected that the playwright, a court artist, would conform,
but this does not seem to have been the case. The often-neglected 1531 Letter of
Santarém, which he addressed to the king, shows solidarity with the New
Christians, condemns their persecution, and argues that their integration in the
community should proceed in a peaceful and tolerant manner.
In light of the content of this letter (and other Vicentian texts), which
includes the particularly enlightening words he addressed to a group of
clergymen in Santarém, it will be argued that this ambiguous character of the
Jew comes from a deliberate treatment by the author, and that the correct
interpretation of such ambiguity should – contrary to what one might have
expected – lean toward the victim, i.e that this portrait of the Jew (the eternal
scapegoat) is, above all, a corollary of Gil Vicente’s critical position against the
characteristic antisemitism of his time.
68
In Search of “The Law of Moses”: Underground Readings
and the Fourth Part of the Introduction to the Symbol of Faith
(1583)(Friar Luis de Granada)
This lecture will discuss the influential book written by Friar Luis de Granada
(1504–88): Introduction to the Symbol of Faith (Introducción del Símbolo de
la fe) (1583). This multidimensional and voluminous tract was widely
distributed among diverse populations. It became a best seller of its time. In
addition, and against the will of the author, it also appeared many times in the
inquisitorial questioning of potential Judaizers (Crypto-Jews). I would like to
elaborate on concrete cases in which the work in question, and as I argue,
specifically its Fourth Part (a part that serves as a catechism for New
Christians), served and helped the Judaizers to get closer, deeper, and even to
become familiar with, the “Law of Moses.”
I will also describe those same focal points that could have created
the “unique”attraction of this book to the public. These included: the wide and
systematic translation of fragments of the Old Testament, especially the
Psalms and the Prophets, which were difficult to obtain during the period
under discussion, and, along with this, possible sources of knowledge, like De
bello Iudaico of Flavius Josephus, which revealed parts of their past.
Finally, I will note that this Fourth part of the Introduction as a whole,
and the “pro-Conversos” claims and issues within it, were the main cause of
sympathy for the work among the New Christians in general and the Judaizers
in particular.
69
Identity and Ethnic Struggles /
Philo-Semitism and Antisemitism
CHERYLL REBELLO
The famous psychologist, Carl Jung, theorized that we are born with the
memories and experiences of our ancestors imprinted on our DNA. In the year
2000, I experienced a strange desire to learn Jewish prayers – and thus began
my journey in Judaism.
My maternal family was from Goa, India but had settled in Bombay for
the past three centuries. Their surname was Lobo, which meant “Wolf” in
Portuguese. Catholic by faith, our Christmas tradition were candies that were
deep fried in oil. Could this be a connection to the Festival of Hanukkah,
which normally falls at this season? And there was also a separation of a small
portion of dough from the main dough that was baked. Was this Challah?
Why did the family abandon their family home in Goa, which dated back
to three generations? Were we Conversos, forced into Catholicism at the Goa
Inquisition that started in the sixteenth century? Jews who lived in Goa came
from Spain and Portugal in 1492 to escape the Inquisition in these countries.
Where did these Jews disappear? And why has no one heard or talked about
them?
While doing my research, I found a book by Gabriel Dellon, 1649 –
Relation de l’inquisition de Goa, which gives an in-depth account of the
Inquisition. Visiting Goa, I found much evidence of Jewish sites where Jewish
symbols and mikvehs (ritual baths) existed, but archives of the Inquisition had
been destroyed.
I am now in the process of filming a documentary film entitled
“Annouism Dawn” or “Twin Identity.”
70
Nazism from Portugal, Viewed through the Eyes of Ilse Losa
SAUL KIRSCHBAUM
Ilse Losa was born in Germany in 1913. Like so many other Jews forced to
leave their countries of origin and who successfully became part of their host
country, it is fair to consider her as Portuguese. She went to Portugal in 1934,
where the Gestapo threatened to arrest her. And it was in Portugal that she
built a solid literary career. In Portuguese literature, she is better known as an
author of children’s books, and in 1984 she won the Gulbenkian Grand Prize
for Literature for Children.
In addition to children’s literature and translations, however, Losa
published novels, short stories, and chronicles for adults, devoting
considerable space to reflection on the barbarities of the Nazi regime.
Unlike other writers, her emphasis in this topos is not on the atrocities
committed in the extermination camps and the mass murders perpetrated by
the oppressors, but mainly on the vicissitudes of life in Germany, from before
the Nazi era to the immediate postwar period. Her protagonists often spent that
period in exile; after the war, they lived through the traumatic experience of
returning to Germany, where they encountered immense difficulty getting
back in touch with the people and environments that were part of their daily
lives before they were forced to emigrate.
Another frequent theme in her work is the difficulty faced by refugees,
often undocumented, particularly in Portugal, who were unable to get regular
work, and could not travel to other countries due to lack of financial resources.
Lives on hold. We will deal here with the literature of testimony produced by
Ilse Losa.
71
Worshiping Demons: Between Spain and The Land of Israel
MEIR BAR-ILAN
Indulco is a rite of demon worship, where man invokes demons for help in
medical issues, with prayers to the demons as well as such offerings as honey,
sugar, wheat, and more. This rite is relatively well known because of the
numbers of those who denied it – and those who described it. Raphael Patai,
one of the founders of the study of Jewish Folklore, considered this rite to
be “Sephardic,” that is to say, it originated in the Iberian Peninsula, since it
was practiced by Jews who immigrated from there. He was also of the opinion
that the etymology of the word Indulco is Dolce, i.e. sweet.
The aim of the paper is to show that this rite originated much earlier than
the time when Jews were living in Spain, and that the rite not only originated
millennia earlier but was practiced by Jews and non-Jews alike in various
forms throughout the ages. The methodological aspect of a living heathen rite
is demonstrated by similar rites invoking “Masters of Oil,” as is known from
Babylonian magic texts as well as baraita in the Babylonian Talmud, a rite
that was practiced in Ashkenaz and Spain as well.
Biblical texts will be presented showing that the Jews believed in
demons, and worshiped them as semi-gods (or: heathen gods). An
interdisciplinary study will show afresh a well-known rite as a “relic” of a
heathen rite practiced by monotheists for generations.
72
The Regulations of the Expelled Jews in Fez in Inheritance
Matters, and the Influence of the Portuguese Constitution
PINHAS HALIWA
From the thirteenth century on, the various Sephardic communities accepted
stringent regulations dealing with inheritance – the likes of which were
unknown in Jewish communities, both in the East and the West. These
regulations granted legal and property rights to women, and, with respect to
inheritance laws, gave women rights equal to those of their husbands.
Furthermore, the regulations matched the inheritance rights of daughters to
those of sons, in the case of unmarried daughters. This innovation in the
regulations was in complete contradiction to the religious laws as set out in
the Talmud as well as in the post-Talmudic age. Rabbinical judges who were
elected by the communities determined the regulations, and the kingdoms of
Spain and Castile recognized their appointments. These regulations were also
applied in Portugal, following the expulsion of Jews from Spain, as well as in
Fez, Morocco, where tens of thousands of expelled Jews arrived and
established their new home. In Fez, these expelled communities underwent
reorganization, and the regulations were adopted, with some changes and
improvements made by the Moroccan sages. The sages of the expelled
communities were obliged to deal with difficult and complex problems
created by the Expulsion, which left many families divided, with one part of
the family not even knowing the fate of another. Using the Fez regulations,
we will demonstrate their daring, initially in Spain and then in Fez. The
regulations spread to most communities in Morocco, in fact, to nearly all of
them. The rulings of the Moroccan sages were based on these regulations
until the nineteenth century, although changes were introduced in keeping
with the spirit of the times.
73
The issue of inheritance has been a focal issue in Jewish religious law
throughout history, since it is an issue that involves economic and emotional
aspects, and even holds national significance – as in the case of the
prohibition on transferring an inherited property from one tribe to another. It
is for this reason that inheritance by women was prohibited in the Torah and
the Talmud, and it was determined that the husband inherits his wife, and he
precedes any other person in line for her inheritance. However, even back in
the Talmudic period, Talmud sages confronted problems arising from this
determination. The sages of the Mishnah period brought this problem to the
forefront, in cases in which the husband is the inheritor of his wife if she died
without leaving live offspring, and after only a few months of marriage. It
follows that her father buries his daughter and loses his assets or property on
one single day. In the Talmudic period, the sages already determined that the
husband could bequeath an asset to his wife, and, if she acquiesced, she
would lose her ketubah. The sages also ruled that the woman is supported by
her husband’s estate throughout her life, in order to prevent a situation
whereby she would find herself begging for alms after the husband’s death.
The key to the regulations that brought about a complete change in the
Talmudic religious laws can be found in the words of Maimonides, who ruled
that a wife is entitled to stipulate in her ketubah that, when she dies, all her
property shall be returned to the home of her father, because this is a property
condition, and therefore she is entitled to stipulate it. Maimonides also ruled
that the payment of her ketubah shall be in accordance with the national
customs, provided that the customs are applied throughout the country.
The Tulaytulah Regulation enacted in the thirteenth century granted
equal rights to women, and determined that her ketubah would be up to half
the husband’s estate, in order to prevent a situation whereby the amount of
her ketubah would increase and equal the husband’s entire inheritance. In
order to prevent damage to the other heirs, the sum was set at half, not
74
including the dowry and burial expenses. Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel (The
Rosh), who came to Spain to serve as Chief Rabbi, leveled harsh criticism at
this regulation. Following debate about the interpretation of this regulation,
he made changes to it, according to which the women’s rights were not
property rights, but rather rights transferred through inheritance, to transfer to
her heirs.
75
R. Joseph Karo and Sephardic Renaissance
in the Sixteenth Century
MOR ALTUSHLER
Rabbi Joseph Karo is the greatest of the personages of the Golden Age of
Safed, and the most influential legislative authority of the modern age. He is
called “Maran” (“Our Master”) for his encyclopedic book of rulings, Beth
Yosef (House of Joseph), and his legislative work, Shulchan Aruch (Set Table),
which became synonymous with Halakhah itself.
Born in 1488 in Portugal into a family of Toledo scholars, Karo’s
knowledge of the spiritual treasures of Sephardic Jewry and his admiration for
its great masters served as a powerful catalyst for his original creation. This
creation is a hallmark of the revival of Sephardic culture after the destruction
of the Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula.
The lecture will outline Karo’s contribution to the resurgence of the
Sephardic heritage. First, his codification of Jewish law will be presented as
the continuation of Sephardic codifications, especially Mishne Torah
(Secondary Law) by Maimonides, whom Karo regarded as the most important
posek (adjudicator) of all times.
Further, his decision to follow the rulings of three poskim (adjudicators) –
R. Isaac Alfas, Maimonides, and Rabeinu Asher (Ro”sh) – will be analyzed.
This method, which created the dominance of Sephardic rulings while
maintaining the judicial tradition of Toledo, which gave significant weight to
the Ashkenazi Rabeinu Asher, and the code Arba’ah Turim (Four Rows)
written by his son, R. Yaakov ben Asher.
The vitality of Sephardic tradition in Joseph Karo’s heart was expressed
in a mystical vision, in which he was assured by heaven that his Yeshiva
(religious academy) would rise above the reputable Yeshiva of R. Isaac Aboab
76
of Castile. Hence, the second part of the lecture will be dedicated to the
influence of Sephardic Kabbalah on his mystical experiences. An argument
will be made that his mystical diary, Maggid Mesharim (Preacher of
Righteousness), was influenced by the keystone of Sephardic Kabbalah, the
Zohar (Book of Radiance), and other pre-Expulsion compositions. The lecture
will conclude with a brief observation on the exemplary figures of Sephardic
Jewry, who became role models for Karo not only intellectually but also in
leadership.
77
“I Have Given my Services in Equal Manner to All”:
The Attitude of Amatus Lusitanus toward Treating Gentiles
According to his Physician’s Oath
Since the Middle Ages, Portuguese Jewish doctors have often received high
regard in their activities by their non-Jewish colleagues, and by society in
general. They have been among those who treated kings, the royal family,
and the aristocracy, and have also been involved in sensitive Court issues.
In the Early Modern Era, after the forced baptism or by free conversion,
many Jewish descendants, then called New Christians, studied Medicine and
practiced their activity in Portugal. However, the Inquisition had strong
powers to control and repress, which drove many of these doctors to exile.
By giving examples, this presentation aims to characterize the New
Christian doctors in Portugal in the seventeenth century. That also includes
verifying the geographical distribution of those doctors, surgeons, and
apothecaries as well as their academic background, and the universities or the
practices where they worked, some by joining an older doctor in Todos-os-
Santos Hospital in Lisbon or Coimbra.
It is also our aim to verify the professional career of those individuals in
the various host countries, their role in medicine and their contribution to new
medical books about medicine.
79
The Attitude of the Former Marranos to the
Issue of Belief in Reincarnation
DORON DANINO
*The subject of this lecture is taken from a chapter in Dr. Doron Danino’s doctorate
dissertation, prepared under the guidance of Prof. Moshe Orfali.
80
The New Christians in the Rescue of Pernambuco:
The Composition of the Portuguese Nação
According to the Payment of 1630
81
The Faces of the East European
Jewish Community in Portugal
MARINA KHABENSKAYA
This communication deals with the history of the East European Jewish
community in Portugal. The first East European Jews from Ukraine, Belarus,
and Russia came to Portugal before World War I; a few fellow immigrants
joined the community at the beginning of the 1920s. However, most of the
members of the East European Jewish community in Portugal came from
Poland in the late 1920s–’30s. A relatively small flow of Jewish immigration
from Eastern Europe found its home in the new country, and significantly
enhanced the life of a local Jewish Community – becoming a part of it. They
brought with them a different life experience and attitude, a distinct culture and
traditions, another language and rites that made them different not only from
the Portuguese society around them, but also from the Sephardic community of
Lisbon. The geopolitical background of these people, their language,
traditions, and customs, as well as the foundation of two important bodies, the
Polish synagogue “Ohel Jacob” and the Association of Polish Jews, allow us to
identify this group as a community of East European Jews inside the Jewish
community of Lisbon.
In the present study, we will try to analyze how these people from such
remote countries managed to leave their mark and create their own legacy in
Portugal in the most varied fields – from professional to social – inside and
outside the community. What was their cultural and professional contribution?
What was the impact of some of the activities they carried out? In our study,
we try to outline the diversity of the life journeys of the East European Jews in
Portugal. Behind each person, there is always a personal story, characterized
by its particular aspirations, moments of success, its dramas, hopes, and
decisions.
82
Globalization of Syrian Jews –
From Iberia, to Syria, to the Americas
SARINA ROFFE
After the 1492 Expulsion from Spain, and the subsequent 1497 Expulsion
from Portugal, many Jewish families remained in Iberia and became
Conversos, some of them secretly practicing Judaism. A majority of Jews in
Spain went to Portugal, where they were subject to expulsion in 1497.
This paper will discuss the Portuguese experience, their migration to
Italy, and later to Syria, where the Iberian Jews had to merge with the
indigenous Jewish Syrian community, causing a certain amount of friction.
The Iberian Jews had European protection, as they were subjects of Italy, and
did not wish to pay the community tax, or adhere to rabbinical rulings.
Eventually, this was resolved by a ruling by Rabbi Haim Mordechai Labaton.
Syrian Jews, both indigenous and Iberian, remained in Syria until the
turn of the twentieth century, when 5,000 Jews left for the Americas (Buenos
Aires, Mexico City, Brazil, and New York) as a result of the economic
situation, military conscription, and the demise of the Ottoman Empire.
Centuries later, we see the globalization of the community, as well as the
parallel infrastructures in Syrian communities around the world, in terms of
education, religion, economics, and governance.
The presentation will discuss the parallel emergence of the communities’
infrastructure, religious observance, leadership, governance, communal
institutions, relationship to Israel and Zionism, occupations, and
education. All Latin American communities of Syrian descent have an
estimated intermarriage rate of less than five percent, due to a rabbinical edict
that forbids marriage to converts who do so for the purpose of marriage.
83
Jewish Portuguese Ashkenazi Women –
From Portuguese to Brazilian Judaism
NANCY ROZENCHAN
Jewish studies in Brazil have long been dedicated to unveiling the histories
of the Inquisition and of New Christians, and the presence of the latter in
Brazilian territory. With the development of tourism aimed at making the
Portuguese “Judiarias” known, there is a growing interest in the history of
the Jews of old times in Portugal, and its contemporary presence in the
country. In this context, the fact that the Portuguese Jewish community is
composed not only of Sephardic Jews, but also some of Ashkenazi origin is
practically unknown in Brazil. Studies developed in Brazil do not even
mention the reasons for the Ashkenazi Jews’ presence in Portugal, their
activities and lives, whether or not linked to the fact that the country served
as a temporary shelter for refugees during World War II. Moreover, there are
Jews from Portugal who migrated to Brazil during the twentieth century;
their small number is not found in the records.
The purpose of this presentation is to give voice to this phenomenon, to
evaluate the origin of the Ashkenazi Jews in Portugal, to analyze how these
people grew up on Portuguese soil and how, later, the Jewish–Portuguese
identity adapted to the conditions of Jewish–Brazilian identity. The study of
the theme is based on interviews conducted in November 2017, in São Paulo,
with three Ashkenazi Portuguese women, two from Lisbon and one from
Porto, belonging to the same age group that, more than fifty years ago, settled
in Brazil.
84
Seeking Physical Evidence of the Sephardic Presence in
Senegambia, West Africa, 1600–50
MARK PETER
86
Father Antonio Vieira S.J. and the Conversion of the Jews:
A Reassessment
CLAUDE STUCZYNSKI
87
The Discovery of Crypto-Judaism
in Portuguese Documentary Cinema
ASHER SALAH
Esther Mucznik, author of the Lisbon Jewish Museum Program, will begin
her presentation with a brief history of the creative process of the Museum,
and the symbolic character of the Museum’s space as a place where
medieval Jewry was located. She will then present the museological plan and
its two components: the Jewish religious culture and the history of a
millennium of Jewish presence in the territory that today is Portugal, namely
in Lisbon. She will also expose the vision that underlies the entire plan,
emphasizing the positive contributions of Portuguese Jews to Portugal and
the Diaspora, and the idea that history and the Jewish heritage are an
89
indissoluble part of Portugal’s history. In this sense, the Museum’s journey
will end with the phrase – “The story you just saw is also your story.”
90
The Marrano’s Redemption by Captain Barros Basto,
“The Portuguese Dreyfus”
The Mékor Haim (Fountain of Life) Synagogue, inaugurated in 1938 and the
center of the Israeli community of Porto, was established by Captain Barros
Basto in 1921 (424 years after its predecessor, which was closed at the time
of the 1496–97 expulsion).
Following the reappearance of the Marranos in the northern part of the
country, Barros Basto’s main objective was to meet them and, with great
patience, sensibility, and understanding, rescue them from fear and
ignorance, and lead them back to normative Judaism. The Republican
Constitution of 1911 now allowed it. It was the Work of Rescue, a
Herculean task that quickly gained the support and help of the Spanish and
Portuguese Congregation of London and of the Alliance Israelite which,
together with the Anglo–Jewish Association, created the “Portuguese
Marrano’s Commmittee.”
Thus began the Captain’s travels in the interior of the country, where
Jewish communities began to appear and the fear and characteristic
clandestinity of the Marranos was overcome. In 1927, the newspaper Ha-
Lapid was created for informative and pedagogical purposes. However, the
political circumstances, which were increasingly reliant on the Catholic
Church, undermined the Work of the Rescue, forcing many Jews to migrate
or emigrate, and Barro Basto was forced to leave the Army in 1937, due to a
conspiracy that originated in the community itself.
The Portuguese Dreyfus had to wait seventy-five years before he
obtained his well-deserved rehabilitation, in 2012.
91
The Impact of Sephardic Culture on the Liturgy
REUVEN KIMELMAN
This study deals with two prayers in the daily liturgy that were changed in the
Sephardic culture and which were accepted in the Ashkenazi liturgy. The two
prayers are Aleinu and Yishtabah.
With regard to Aleinu, we show when and where the last verse (Zech.
14:9) was added to the Aleinu in the late sixteenth century under the influence
of Isaac Luria, who apparently was affirming an earlier practice mentioned by
Meir ibn Gabbai in the early sixteenth century. It also shows how Aleinu was
introduced first into Minhah by the fifteenth century, as attested to in Ms.
Paris 592 of Lisbon, 1484. David b. Zimra and Moshe Cordovero promoted
this version, followed by Isaac Luria; it was then accepted throughout the
Jewish world.
With regard to Yishtabah, we show how efforts to inscribe the name of
Abraham at the end of Yishtabah start with Aram Zova’s version. It then
underwent refinement in Sephardic liturgy, which was followed by its
acceptance in the Hassidic amalgamation of Sephardic and Ashkenazi liturgy.
92
Business, Family, Judaism, and Inquisition
(Portugal and Brazil in the Seventeenth Century(
LINA GORENSTEIN
This paper discusses the impact of inquisitorial action on some of the business
networks of the Portuguese New Christians. The family relationships,
fundamental to business success and commercial capitalism, also provided a
guide to the inquisitorial tribunals. The commercial network that enabled the
Conversos to maintain contact with and their knowledge of European Judaism
also facilitated the maintenance of Crypto-Judaism, both in Portugal and in
Brazil.
Celebratory dates such as Yom Kippur and Pesach, prayers to be said on
certain days of the week, food and hygiene practices, and all the information that
the Portuguese New Christians received from European Jews came through
notes, letters, and copies of the Old Testament, all of which contributed to the
religious formation of the Conversos.
The Inquisition was familiar with such methods of communication, and
tried to intercept them mainly through the turning in of evidence of people
incarcerated, who gave information regarding travelers arriving by boat and in
possession of forbidden books.
The inquisitorial processes, today archived in Tombo’s Tower in Lisbon,
provide the documentation for this research. There is also an extensive
bibliography on the Jewish and New Christian commercial activity in the
Atlantic and in the Mediterranean.
We will examine the family of Fernão Rodrigues Penso, a prominent New
Christian businessman in the second half of the seventeenth century, his
connections to Brazil, his relationships with his network (the Mogadouro, the
Pestana, and the Costa Cáceres families), his arrest, and especially, his Crypto-
Judaism.
93
The Sacred Poetry of João Mendes da Silva
FRANCISCO TOPA
The purpose of this paper is the presentation and study of the sacred poetry
(partially unpublished) of João Mendes da Silva (1659–1736), a Jew from Rio
de Janeiro, and father of the playwright António José. There are three texts in
question: the long poem Christiados; Vida de Christo Senhor Nosso
(published anonymously, of which I found three manuscript versions), and
two unpublished works, a novel about the Cross of Christ and the verse
translation of the Symbol of Saint Athanasius. It is possible that all these
poems were motivated by the author’s desire to escape the clutches of the
Inquisition, which arrested and martyred many members of his family.
94
Relations between the Jews and a Number of
Portuguese Monasteries throughout the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
AIRES FERNANDES
95
types of contracts established, and understand whether there was differential
treatment.
We will also try to confirm whether there was, in fact, a sharp decline
or decrease in these contracts at the end of the Late Middle Ages, and
attempt to identify the true reasons for this eventual break, and whether such
constraints arose from the application of legislation or from other factors,
besides trying to know how legal impediments were circumvented.
96
R. Yosef Hayyun’s Exegetical Method
(in Light of his Commentary on Psalms 2)
AMOS FRISCH
In this lecture, I will consider the exegetical method of R. Joseph Hayyun, the
leader of the Lisbon community in the fifteenth century, a disciple of R. Isaac
Canpanton’s and Isaac Abravanel’s teacher. Instead of presenting random
examples from his Bible commentaries, I will focus on what he wrote about
Psalm 2 as a way to learning about his method.
My starting point is his reading of verse 4, and his statement that the two
verbs in it – יש ֹחקand ילעג, “laughs”and “derides”– are “synonyms.”On the face
of it, this deviates from one of his paramount exegetical principles, which is that
the text does not “repeat itself in different words.” It has already been observed,
however, that the main point for him is not that two words must have different
senses but that redundancy in the parts of the verse is avoided. He does this here,
too, by differentiating the motives behind the two verbs. This way of resolving
the problem of redundancy is invoked not merely to escape a local difficulty, but
is one element in the chain of inner links that bind the psalm together.
The next step is to consider his reading of “against the Lord and against His
anointed” (verse 2) as the unifying thread of the entire psalm. Hayyun’s wish to
demonstrate the psalm’s unity is suggestive of the method of a later
commentator, Malbim (nineteenth century). In fact, the two can be compared not
only with regard to the “repletion in different words” (Gross, in his book on
Hayyun, does so), but also in their desire to highlight the coherence of the
literary unit, as I have demonstrated for Malbim in my studies of his
commentaries.
In the last part of the lecture, I will consider how Hayyun relates to earlier
exegetes, as reflected in his commentary on Psalm 2 and in light of his statement
in his preface to the commentary on Psalms.
97
“Through the Paths of the Exegesis”:
A Historical Critique of the Biblical Texts
98
The Influence of the Portuguese Expelled Jews
on the Fez Regulations
MOSHE AMAR
In my lecture, I will focus on the development that took place in the laws
pertaining to a woman receiving an inheritance, in the regulations and
rabbinic decisions of the sages of Morocco.
Jewish laws relating to inheritance between spouses leave a feeling – in
certain instances – that an injustice has been done to one of the parties.
Hence, attempts have long been made to find ways to remedy this injustice.
During the Middle Ages, regulations were enacted by sages and community
leaders alike, in both the East and the West, in Ashkenazi communities and
throughout the Sephardic diaspora. However, as time passed, cracks were
found in these that still left a sense of injustice, and so there were places
where additional regulations were enacted to close those cracks, and so on.
In my talk, I will expand on the situation within Moroccan Jewry, in
which greater use was made of regulations to solve the social and economic
problems caused by the circumstances of the times.
Commencing with the Expulsion from Spain in 1494, we find
differences in Jewish inheritance law in Morocco, between the residents and
those who had been expelled from Spain. The veteran Jewish residents of
Morocco conducted themselves in line with the standard Halakhah, while the
expellees enacted regulations that established that couples who marry should
be treated as partners when it comes to matters of division of an estate. Thus,
on the death of one of them, the remaining spouse would take half of all the
property that both possessed. The other half went to the heirs – if they had
99
children together, then it went to the children. And, if they did not have
children, then the other half went to other relatives.
Up to mid-eighteenth century, these regulations enacted by the
expellees in regard to inheritances were followed, in practice, without
challenge. From the second half of the eighteenth century, however, we
begin to hear of misgivings or challenges regarding borderline cases – such
as the death of the wife soon after the marriage; or instances in which only
one party had brought a dowry into the marriage, in which case the division
of the estate appeared unfairly and unjustly tilted in favor of the other party.
Rabbi Eliyahu Hatzarfati was among the first of the sages to rule that, in
borderline cases, the division rule should not apply. For example, if the wife
died soon after the marriage, each party would take back what they had
brought into the marriage. Similarly, if only one party had brought in a
dowry, then the other party would have no rights to the estate.
Although there were numerous opponents to his innovation, it was
increasingly adopted by many sages, until 1815. In that year, Rabbi Raphael
Berdugo enacted the “Regulation of Choice” in the city of Meknes, which
established that first choice was to be given to the husband or his
representatives or heirs in determining whether to give the wife or her heirs
the value of her ketubah, or half of the estate. Similarly, it granted a wife
whose husband had died the right to simply take back her dowry, and waive
her rights to the estate. This regulation, with minor changes, was adopted
also in Fez and in other cities. Significant changes in inheritance law took
place in 1947, with new rules being established by the Moroccan Council of
Rabbis.
This constant discussion and introduction of amendments to inheritance
laws at various times are unique to the sages of Morocco, and have no
parallel in any other Jewish community.
100
Jewish Thought in Fez after the Spanish Expulsion:
Prophecy as a Case Study
MICHAL OHANA
With the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Jewish exiles sought refuge in
Portugal, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and North Africa. Among the North
African countries, Morocco harbored the largest number of refugees, of
whom a large number settled in Fez, a leading urban center of significant
economic and national importance at the time.
The arrival of the Spanish exiles brought with it a wave of new
intellectual activity to the local Jewish community. While past research has
shown their contribution in the fields of Halakhah, piyyut, and historiography,
I will demonstrate that a new chapter began in the realm of Jewish philosophy
as well, and that intellectual creativity in this field reached new peaks.
The philosophical works of the descendants of the Spanish exiles were
diverse, and included various literary genres that had previously existed in
Spain. A review of their writings reveals that they addressed the main issues
of Jewish thought discussed in the Middle Ages, and that they were greatly
inspired by the writings of earlier Spanish thinkers. It appears that it was
philosophy in its moderate form that had shaped their worldview, and that,
through their various works, they continued to deepen its influence within the
Moroccan Jewish community.
I would like to contend, therefore, that the Sephardic philosophical
tradition continued to exist after the Expulsion not only in the Ottoman
Diaspora and in European Sephardic communities, as claimed in previous
research, but in Morocco as well.
In order to examine the religious thought of the Spanish descendants in
Fez, I chose to focus on the issue of prophecy as a test case. Prophecy, in all
101
its various aspects, was one of the central issues addressed by Jewish thinkers
in the Middle Ages. I will demonstrate that during the sixteenth–seventeenth
centuries, the rabbis of Fez had a dialectic interpretation of various aspects of
prophecy, resulting from their ambivalent approach to prophecy as a
phenomenon that is natural in a certain sense yet also involves divine
intervention.
102
An Approach to the Literary Activity of
Captain Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (1887–1961(
DOV COHEN
The many studies published about Captain Barros Basto have taught us much
about his dynamic life and tireless efforts for the “Obra do Resgate,” on
behalf of the Portuguese Crypto-Jews during the early twentieth century. Yet,
to date, little is known about his robust and extensive literary output. This
lecture is meant to fill that gap and to present – for the first time – Barros
Basto’s literary corpus, while systematically documenting his writings.
103
Artur de Barros Basto – Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh
and Portuguese Judaism as Seen by Foreigners
HERVÉ BAUDRY
104
Baruch Ben Jacob from Salonika, and his Impressions
from the Visit to the Conversos in Portugal in 1931
SARA TSUR
Ben Jacob was a graduate of the “Talmud Tora” and a well-known educator
in Salonika. He joined the Mizrahi Organization, and took part in their
activities. He published books that taught the Hebrew language as a living
language according to a new teaching technique developed at the time in
Israel called “Hebrew in Hebrew.” As an educator, Ben Jacob wrote a
moralistic book called Moral y Educasion Judea, and inserted literary pieces
on Judaism and basic human values into the books he published.
Ben Yaacov was published frequently in Mizrahi’s papers and
periodicals, as well as in the daily magazine El Puevlo, which was Zionist in
orientation. Because Ben Jacob cherished the Jewish legacy and the Jewish–
Spanish heritage, he preserved it by documenting the various traditions of
the multiple congregations in Salonika. He also succeeded in reviving old
traditions in the process. He republished old prayer books, wrote biographies
of personalities from the Jewish world, copied tombstone inscriptions from
the Old City’s cemetery, and renewed the tradition of the liturgical poem –
which nearly disappeared after the fire of 1917.
He founded the singers’ association “Naim Zemirot,” and wrote
liturgical poems that he published in the book of poems under the same
name, in order for them to be sung on special occasions by the singers.
105
Returning to Sepharadin Contemporary Iberia:
Between “Musealization” and “Entrepreneurial”Memory
Over the past two centuries, the interest in Spain and Portugal, and what has
conventionally been defined as “Sepharad,” has responded to different
political, social, economic, cultural, and epistemological trends taking place
in Iberia (Riviere Gómez; Shinan; Friedman; Menny; Ojeda Mata; Rhor;
Bush; Baer; Schammah Gesser). Taking into account this Longue Durée of
Iberian responses to the Sephardic past, as well as the irresolvable internal
contradictions that the concept of “Sepharad” entails – especially in reference
to the gap between discourses about a symbolic/absent/generic Sephardic Jew
and the real communities in present-day Iberia – the paper will discuss
tensions inherent in the musealization procedures that accompany:
1. the rise and maintenance of La Sinagoga del Tránsito, the first
Sephardic museum in the city of Toledo approved by the Spanish Head of
State, Francisco Franco, in 1964 as part of Spain’s national heritage; and,
2. the negotiations and debates that are postponing the opening of the
Jewish Museum in Lisbon, programmed to open in 2018.
106
The Inquisition in Face of the Practices of Judaism:
Brief Notes on a Process of Recidivism during the
Eighteenth Century
CARLOS LEITE
107
Between Tolerance and the Inquisition: The Legacy of
Spain and Portugal through the Eyes of Mordechai Noah
(1785–1851)
ODED ZION
108
This situation, in which state and religion were purportedly separated,
enabled Jews, Muslims, and Christians to contribute and flourish, and
develop the economy, culture, and science. Thus, for Noah, Spanish history
could teach the American citizen an important lesson. He saw the separation
between religious and political spheres as an essential guarantee to enable
religious freedom and prosperity – whether in medieval or early modern
Spain, or in the USA.
109
The Conversos as Ethnic Minorities:
Identities in Transition (as Represented in Las Excelencias
de los Hebreos by Isaac Cardoso)
MEDA KUHN
110
rather reflecting a mobilisation of general human strategies when facing
rejection. We are in fact facing a community defined by cultural hybridity,
transitioning between different cultures, religions and geographical areas,
resulting in a life characterised by ambiguity and duality with no real sense of
belonging: enmeshed in and rejected by the Iberian society.
The concepts that will be analyzed include:
1. identity as a changing, evolving, and adaptive mechanism defined by
the majority and constructed in response to the way they are perceived by the
“Other”;
2. a collective/group identity artificially created by a society in need of
clear boundaries, that will not accept the “Different” as being an integral part;
3. communities of memories – bonded by traumatic experiences, shared
memories become shared reference points;
4. cultural hybridization created as a result of transitioning between
different cultures and geographical areas, resulting in a life of duality and
double consciousness.
Even though in reality this was a heterogeneous community defined by
diversity the Coversos were artificially perceived as a homogeneous group.
They remained socially marginalised, all the characteristics previously
attributed to the Jews were now being projected onto them, while a clear
differentiation was made between the majority of “pure” lineage and the
“tainted” origin Conversos. In a society where group boundaries are drawn in
a defined and clear way, the Coversos of the 17th century threaten those
boundaries, in the end remaining a nation apart. This approach can be
projected onto other communities of immigrants living in different eras and
diverse geographical areas, struggling for acceptance.
111
Jewish Identity in the Genomic Era
INÊS NOGUEIRO
112
Portugal’s Gastronomic Heritage – A Legacy of Kashrut
that Must be Understood and Preserved
CLAUDIA SIL
114
The Converso Experience in Brazil:
Cultural Absence and National Discourse
PAIT HELOISA
115
The Way to Freedom: Spain and Portugal
in the Poetic Work of Claude Vigée (1921–)
THIERRY J. ALCOLOUMBRE
117
The Hidden Jews: Jorge Luis Borges and Fernando Pessoa
ELINOR AHARON
118
At the Roots of Jewish Modernity:
“The First Enlightenment”
DAVID BANON
119
From Dona Gracia until Marco Joseph Baruch:
The Normative Messianic Idea and its Result – Zionism
YOSSEF CHARVIT
The messianic idea, in its original form, is nothing more than a normative
historical blueprint, whose meaning is the reestablishment of Jewish
statehood in the Land of Israel. This is a paradigm, which Maimonides placed
in the “Laws of Kings and Their Wars,”according to which the King Messiah
is a political figure who, in the establishment of a renewed Israeli statehood,
is acting from rational, concrete, earthly ideals.
What happened in connection with the Land of Israel in the sixteenth
century, which was perceived as a Renaissance, and when the Israeli nation
was established on its soil, confirmed these insights, according to which
Jewish statehood is being renewed, and the authentic messianic idea is
realized. The messianic idea that underlies all this, then, was not abstract–
theoretical, metahistorical, but real–practical–operational–historical. In the
nineteenth century, the Zionist enterprise, which sought to renew Jewish
statehood in the Land of Israel, would naturally embrace the components of
the conquest of the land, the settlement of the land, the ingathering of the
exiles, the conquest of labor, and the Hebrew language.
Indeed, in the nineteenth century, Marco Joseph Baruch and Rabbi Dr.
Yehuda Bibas, the fathers of Zionism in the Sephardic Diaspora and in
Islamic countries, corresponded naturally and directly to the sixteenth-century
vision of the reestablishment of Jewish statehood in the Land of Israel. They
believed that the authentic messianic idea represented Zionism as a modern
project deeply connected with ancient trends.
120
Gershom Scholem and Ben-Zion Dinur thought otherwise, however –
they chose to skip the sixteenth century: the point of departure of the Zionist
enterprise was the Sabbatean crisis, on the one hand, and its ramifications, on
the other. Dinur is secondary to Scholem, saying that Zionism is not a break
in Jewish history, as Scholem claimed, but a complete realization of Jewish
history. In his view, Zionism is an original expression of an ancient national
consciousness and is a necessary natural result of Jewish history. However,
Dinur does not attribute it to the sixteenth century, as I believe he should have
done. Gershom Scholem, on the other hand, believes that after the Sabbatean
crisis, a process of secularization of traditional Jewish society was allowed,
and modern movements – education and reform – penetrated the walls. They
were followed by secular ideologies such as socialism, communism, and
Zionism, which could not have taken root in Jewish society had the spiritual
walls of the ghetto not been breached. Zionist historiography sought to
present “Zionism” as an act of rebellion in exile and a revolution whose
foundations are in a “crisis of consciousness.”
Thus, while the “connection to Zion” embodies a traditional and passive
world, “Zionism” embodies a rebellion in the tradition that leads to activism.
Is that so? It seems that this is a pattern that is not suited to the Sephardic
Diaspora, but rather to the Ashkenazi diaspora, in which a split and a polar
sociological division between tradition and crisis were created. Zionist
historiography is consistent in its desire to emphasize the change, the fracture,
and the revolution rather than the continuum, continuity, and evolution.
121
The Evolution of the New Christians in the Dioceses of
Guarda e Viseu in the Light of Research into the
Proceedings of the Inquisition
LÚCIA FERREIRA
122
A Promised Land? The Valley of Bestança
(Cinfães, Portugal) and the (Probable) Existence of Local
Networks of Crypto-Jews
in the Fifteenth and the Eighteenth Century
NUNO RESENDE
123
“Caminhamos e andamos”: Music and Shifting Identity
among Portuguese B’nei Anusim
JUDITH COHEN
125
Agnus Dei versus Menorah –
The Encounter between Christians and Jews in the Region
of Carção (Bragança – Portugal) in the Early Modern Age
The practice of collecting paschal candle wax and its use in making small
wax plates has long roots in Western Christianity. These medallions, of
different shapes and sizes, are known as “Agnus Dei.” The inscription,
“Ecce Agnus Dei qui tollis peccatta mundi,” accompanies their image. The
reverse side of the plaque presents the impression of an image of the Pope
who consecrated it. Made from pure paschal wax and blessed by the popes,
in a strongly ritualized, ceremonial context, the “Agnus Dei” were a source
of great devotion from the beginning. The faithful attributed to them salutary
and prophylactic powers. For this reason, they were also understood to be
benign relics. They shared space on altars with small paintings and
ostensories. They were also stored as metal medallions and often worn as
relic pendants.
In view of the above, the wax medallion that is exhibited at the
Marrano Museum of Carção (Bragança, Portugal), is of particular interest. It
is an oval-shaped medallion, which displays, on the obverse side, the “Agnus
Dei” with the Cross of Christ and, on the reverse side, a dove on a Menorah,
the seven-branched candelabra – the highest symbol of Judaism. The Carção
medallion brings together the fundamental symbols of two conflicting
religions in the Iberian Peninsula of the Modern Age. It provides new
insights into the differences between “Old Christians” and “New Christians”
(of Jewish origin), in the appropriation of objects of great symbolic
significance and their adaptation to new symbols and meanings.
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Reform under the Guise of Polemics:
Some Examples from Jewish Medieval Philosophy
ANDREW GLUCK
In this paper, I will focus on two important figures of late medieval Jewish
philosophy: Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo. They are closely related, the
latter being the student of the former, and both opposing the strong influences
of Aristotle that can be found in Maimonides and Gersonides. Yet, both are
somewhat enigmatic, and perhaps have not been studied nearly enough.
Both Crescas and Albo devoted a great deal of effort to anti-Christian
polemics. This is completely understandable, given the situation that
prevailed on the Iberian Peninsula post-1391. What is of particular interest,
however, is the degree to which both appear to have been knowledgeable of
and even influenced by Christian thought. It is generally believed, for
example, that Albo’s (arguably weak) concept of natural law was derived
from Christian sources, and that Crescas’s quasi-determinism might have
been influenced by Abner of Burgos (a Converso). Recent archival research
has opened up new questions regarding the actual beliefs of others who
engaged in fierce anti-Christian polemics; the best example of this is Profiat
Duran, who might also have been influential in our more limited area of
research.
It seems reasonable to assume that both Crescas and Albo had hidden
beliefs that they chose not to expose – either to their fellow Jews or to the
Christians who persecuted them. In fact, it seems almost impossible to believe
otherwise, since these were both individual philosophical thinkers, despite the
conventional opinion that Albo was merely an unoriginal synthesizer. In this
case, therefore, I believe it is worthwhile to make some conjectures regarding
underlying yet unexpressed beliefs. That is because in at least a few ways
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these were both obviously radical thinkers even without the benefit of any
conjectural speculation. I suspect that, within some of their polemics, we can
find clues to beliefs that they perhaps chose not to express directly. In
particular, I suspect that they were both critical of their contemporary
communities in ways that might not have been safe or prudent to express.
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Baruch Spinoza and The Hebrew State
ANTONIO BENTO
129
Not a Heretic or a Modernist, but a Jew:
Spinoza as a Reformator of Judaism
MENASHE SCHWED
130
The Portuguese Jewish Fellows of the Society
of “Antiquaries”and the Royal Society of London
in the Eighteenth Century
ARON STERK
Between 1723 and 1769, decades before the German Haskalah, nine English
Jews were elected to the prestigious Royal Society of London, and two of
these to the more exclusive Society of Antiquarians. Only two of these were
rich German Jews, the rest were Portuguese, including the physicians Isaac
Sequeira de Samuda and Jacob de Castro Sarmento, and a foreign member,
Jacob Rodrigues Pereira of France. All the remaining Portuguese Jews were
closely related to the London Mendes da Costa family, including Joseph
Salvador and his cousin, the naturalist and noted conchologist Emanuel
Mendes da Costa. Within the societies, they mixed on terms of equality with
members of the British and European élite, including Portuguese diplomats
resident in London like Carvalho e Melo, later Marquis of Pombal.
For many of the Jewish members, membership of the learned societies
was a fashionable indication of their remarkable integration into English
society. De Castro Sarmento and Emanuel Mendes da Costa were active
members, however, and significant contributors to the scientific “Republic
of Letters,” part of the network of correspondence, and exchange of
instruments and specimens, that was so central to the scientific
Enlightenment, de Castro Sarmento being a mediator of the new Newtonian
physics to Portugal. In this paper, I look at how these Portuguese Jews were
so readily able to enter the establishment, and learned societies, their
contribution to seventeenth-century science, and the assimilative risks of
Deism and conversion involved in such close integration into English
society.
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Toward Publication of the Rebordelo Manuscript
ABRAHAM GROSS
It was almost a century ago, while on a trip to the north, that Arturo Barros
Basto discovered a small notebook containing Marrano prayers in the small
village of Rebordelo in the Trás-os-Montes region. He published that
manuscript within a few months of his trip in three consecutive issues of his
Ha-Lapid newspaper during 1928, two years after the publication of Samuel
Schwartz’famous book, which included a collection of numerous oral prayers
preserved within the New Christian community of Belmonte.
The Rebordelo manuscript then “disappeared,” and was rediscovered
only about a decade ago.
This presentation will relate:
1. The story of the rediscovery of this precious physical testimony of
Marranism survival in northeastern Portugal;
2. Research and steps taken toward its publication;
3. The context of this activity as the first project of the re-established
regional Centro do Juadismo in Chaves.
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Turkish Sephardic Jews and their Quest for Portuguese
Ancestors’ Citizenship
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Academic Committee:
Conference Director:
Dr. Shimon Ohayon, Director, Dahan Center, Bar-Ilan University