The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon PDF

Author: Richard Zimler

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2000-03-15

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1590208064

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International Bestseller: “A moody, tightly constructed historical thriller . . . a good mystery story and an effective evocation of a faraway time and place.” —The New York Times After Jews living in sixteenth-century Portugal are dragged to the baptismal font and forced to convert to Christianity, many of these New Christians persevere in their Jewish prayers and rituals in secret and at great risk; the hidden, arcane practices of the kabbalists, a mystical sect of Jews, continue as well. One such secret Jew is Berekiah Zarco, an intelligent young manuscript illuminator. Inflamed by love and revenge, he searches, in the crucible of the raging pogrom, for the killer of his beloved uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist, discovered murdered in a hidden synagogue along with a young girl in dishabille. Risking his life in streets seething with mayhem, Berekiah tracks down answers among Christians, New Christians, Jews, and the fellow kabbalists of his uncle, whose secret language and codes by turns light and obscure the way to the truth he seeks. A marvelous story, a challenging mystery, and a telling tale of the evils of intolerance, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon both compels and entertains. “The story moves quickly . . . a literary and historical treat.” —Library Journal ''Remarkable . . . The fever pitch of intensity Zimler maintains is at times overwhelming but never less than appropriate to the Hieronymous Bosch-like landscape he describes. Simultaneously, though, he is able to capture, within the bedlam, quiet moments of tenderness and love.” —Booklist (starred review)

Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822

Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822 PDF

Author: Alan P Marcus

Publisher:

Published: 2024-11-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780826367167

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"This masterful use of Inquisition records and other sources reveals the roles of Portuguese Jews in colonial Brazil and, more broadly, in networks that spanned the Atlantic from Brazil to Amsterdam, Africa, the Caribbean, New York, and other places."--Andrew Sluyter, author of Colonialism and Landscape: Postcolonial Theory and Applications The diaspora of Portuguese Jews and New Christians, known as Gente da Nação (People of the Nation), is considered the largest European diaspora of the early modern period. Portuguese Jews not only founded the first congregations and synagogues in Brazil (Recife and Olinda), but when they left Brazil they played an imperative role in establishing the first Jewish communities in Suriname, throughout the Caribbean, and in North America. Drawing on nearly twenty thousand digitized dossiers of the Portuguese Inquisition, this volume offers a comprehensive, critical overview informed by both relatively inaccessible secondary sources and a significant body of primary sources.

The Marrano Factory

The Marrano Factory PDF

Author: António José Saraiva

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 9789004120808

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First published in Portuguese in 1969, this is the only work by Antonio Jose Saraiva available in English and the only single-volume history devoted primarily to the working of the Portuguese Inquisition, a most lucid and compact survey. "The Marrano Factory" argues that the Portuguese Inquisition s stated intention of extirpating heresies and purifying Portuguese Catholicism was a monumental hoax; the true purpose of the Holy Office was the fabrication rather than the destruction of "Judaizers."

Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation

Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation PDF

Author: Miriam Bodian

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1999-07-22

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9780253213518

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"An engaging introduction to the tortuous plight faced by exiled conversos in Amsterdam and their methods of response. Choicet; In this skillful and well-argued book Miriam Bodian explores the communal history of the Portuguese Jews . . . who settled in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century." —Sixteenth Century Journa Drawing on family and communal records, diaries, memoirs, and literary works, among other sources, Miriam Bodian tells the moving story of how Portuguese "new Christian" immigrants in 17th-century Amsterdam fashioned a close and cohesive community that recreated a Jewish religious identity while retaining its Iberian heritage.

Iberian New Christians and Their Descendants

Iberian New Christians and Their Descendants PDF

Author: Jack Cohen

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2019-06-20

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1527536211

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This ground-breaking volume explores the relatively new academic field of Bnei Anousim studies (also referred to as descendants of New Christians, Conversos, or Marranos), whose Jewish ancestors in Iberia were forcibly converted to Catholicism from 1391 through to the fifteenth century. Chronologically, this book focuses on the eighteenth century, a later period of Inquisition activity marked by the Portuguese Inquisition’s relentless attacks against the Jewish “heresy” and the resultant mass exodus of New Christians from Portugal to Brazil. Several chapters concern the contemporary phenomenon of descendants of these New Christians seeking their Jewish roots. However, among a population that has retained almost no memory of their origins, how authentic are their Jewish roots? After the passage of hundreds of years, how much of what they perceive as “Jewish” is truly a lost Sefardi heritage? This volume addresses these questions from the perspectives of history, demography, genealogy, anthropology, and genetics.

Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities

Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities PDF

Author: Yosef Kaplan

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-02-11

Total Pages: 654

ISBN-13: 9004392483

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From the sixteenth century on, hundreds of Portuguese New Christians began to flow to Venice and Livorno in Italy, and to Amsterdam and Hamburg in northwest Europe. In those cities and later in London, Bordeaux, and Bayonne as well, Iberian conversos established their own Jewish communities, openly adhering to Judaism. Despite the features these communities shared with other confessional groups in exile, what set them apart was very significant. In contrast to other European confessional communities, whose religious affiliation was uninterrupted, the Western Sephardic Jews came to Judaism after a separation of generations from the religion of their ancestors. In this edited volume, several experts in the field detail the religious and cultural changes that occurred in the Early Modern Western Sephardic communities. "Highly recommended for all academic and Jewish libraries." - David B Levy, Touro College, NYC, in: Association of Jewish Libraries News and Reviews 1.2 (2019)

The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1450-1800

The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1450-1800 PDF

Author: Paolo Bernardini

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 600

ISBN-13: 9781571814302

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Jews and Judaism played a significant role in the history of the expansion of Europe to the west as well as in the history of the economic, social, and religious development of the New World. They played an important role in the discovery, colonization, and eventually exploitation of the resources of the New World. Alone among the European peoples who came to the Americas in the colonial period, Jews were dispersed throughout the hemisphere; indeed, they were the only cohesive European ethnic or religious group that lived under both Catholic and Protestant regimes, which makes their study particularly fruitful from a comparative perspective. As distinguished from other religious or ethnic minorities, the Jewish struggle was not only against an overpowering and fierce nature but also against the political regimes that ruled over the various colonies of the Americas and often looked unfavorably upon the establishment and tleration of Jewish communities in their own territory. Jews managed to survive and occasionally to flourish against all odds, and their history in the Americas is one of the more fascinating chapters in the early modern history of European expansion.

The Long Arm of Papal Authority

The Long Arm of Papal Authority PDF

Author: Gerhard Jaritz

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2005-07-20

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 6155053790

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The volume contains selected papers from two conferences in 2003, at the University of Bergen (Norway) and at Central European University in Budapest. They deal comparatively with the communication of the Holy See with Northern Europe and Eastern Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages, both areas at the margins of Western Christendom. Special emphasis is placed on analysis of registers in the Apostolic Penitentiary.

New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations

New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations PDF

Author: Elisheva Carlebach

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-11-25

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 9004221174

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This work revisits the millennia-old Jewish-Christian encounter by providing a nuanced understanding of its challenges as well as presenting new perspectives on hitherto neglected areas of cultural, religious, and social interchange and influence.