International Conference

ABSTRACTS

Jews of Portugal
and the
Spanish-Portuguese
Jewish Diaspora

Ashkelon Academic College

The Ben-Zvi Institute

for the Study of Jewish
Communities in the East

On Wednesday-Thursday, 27-28 June 2018

14-15 Tamuz, 5778
to be held at the University of Lisbon, Portugal

Monday, 2nd July 2018

19 Tamuz, 5778
at the University of Porto, Portugal
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1-2 MOISÉS ORFALI

Spain & Portugal: Two Political Entities – One Sephardic Legacy
3 JOSÉ ALBERTO R.S. TAVIM
Return to the Massacre: Jews living in Lisbon at the Time of the 1506
Massacre
4 YOEL MARCIANO
Folk–Religious Literature among the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula in
the Late Middle Ages
5 JORDI CASALS
Comparison between the Vicissitudes of the Jews Exiled in 1391 and
the Jews Expelled in 1492
6 HANANEL MACK
‎“‎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
7 INÊS LOURINHO
Was the Jewish Community of Toledo Really Persecuted in 1090?
Recovering an Intricate Conjuncture with the Help of Christian,
Jewish, and Muslim Sources
8-9 ELSA PENALAVA
Jews and New Christians in Macao and Nagasaki (c. 1560 – c. 1617)
10 ANA LEITÃO
Jewish Settlers and the Challenges of the Caribbean: Correspondence
Found among Prize Papers (Seventeenth–Eighteenth Centuries)
11 ÂNGELA SOFIA BENOLIEL COUTINHO
Jews from Morocco and Gibraltar in Cape Verde during the
Nineteenth Century: Reconstruction of a Commercial Network in the
Atlantic?
12 EUGENIO A. ALONSO LOPEZ
A Portuguese Crypto-Jewish Diaspora in Seventeenth-Century Cuba
and the Circum-Caribbean Basin
13-14 MEIR BNAYA
A Philosopher in the Stock Market: Ethics and Capitalism in
Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam in Confusión de Confusiones by
Josef Penso de la Vega
15 MIGUEL ANGEL ESPINOSA VILLEGAS
Sephardism in Modern and Contemporary Art: Consistent Topics and
Artists
16 ARIEL LAZARUS
“Guitarra – Liturgia”: A Musical Dialogue with my Spanish and
Portuguese Jewish Heritage
17 SANDRA FONTINHA
The Tree, the Snake, and the Eternal Return in the ‎Portuguese
Crypto-Judaic Liturgy in the Twentieth Century
18 NITAI SHINAN
Between Spain and Portugal: Amador de los Ríos Interprets
Portuguese Jewish History
19 CATARINA SEVERINO
Hebrew Studies in Portugal: A Case Study of the Portuguese
Contributions to the International Congresses of Orientalists
20-22 MICHAEL CORINALDI
Etymology‎’‎s ‎Research – The Names of Marrano Communities of
Portuguese Descendants and the Social and Legal Consequences for
Today
23 MARIA FRAGKOU
Spanish Philo-Sephardic Movements in Europe: Between Cultural
Heritage and Economic Claims (Nineteenth–Twentieth Centuries)
24-25 AVI SASSON
From Gibraltar to Jaffa – The Activity of the Amzalag Family in the
Jaffa Orchard Industry in the Nineteenth Century
26 JORGE AFONSO
The Sephardic Diaspora between Wahabi Pragmatism of Mulei
Slimane and the Double Portuguese Discourse at the Beginning of the
“Oitocentos”
27-28 YITZCHAK KEREM
Forgotten Portuguese Jewish Communities in the Balkans
29 JOSEPH BENATOV
The Bulgarian Jews during World War II
30 GILA HADAR
Arzila: Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Converts on the Route between
Portugal and Fez (1471–1535)
31 JOSE RAMOS
‎“‎The Truth of the Law of Moses‎,”‎‎According to Saul L. Mortera, in
1660
32 MICHAEL WAAS
The Forgotten Portuguese Diaspora: The Ma‎’‎aminim (The Dönme of
Salonika and the Ottoman Balkans)
33 AMICHAI NACHSHON
Galipapa‎’‎s Relationship to the Conversos According to his Sermon on
Psalms
34 JULIA LIEBERMAN
Poverty and Crime in Eighteenth-Century London and the Spanish–
Portuguese Jewish Community
35 HUGO MARTINS
The Individual, the Family, and the Mahamad – A Study on
Communal Dynamics
36 ERNESTINE CARREIRA
The New Christians of Portuguese India and their Descendants: A
Case Study of the ‎“‎Portuguese‎”‎Diaspora in Bombay–Mumbai during
the Nineteenth Century
37 ALEXANDRE TOUMARKINE
Jacques Abravanel‎’‎s Life Story: A Sephardic Model Trajectory
between the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, and Turkey?
38 SHIMON SHARVIT
Abravanel‎’‎s Unique Attitude to the Biblical Masoretic Text
39 ELIEZER DON YEHIYA
Theocratic Anarchism in the Political Theory of Abravanel: The
Origin of his Theory in the Political Reality of his Time in Portugal
and Spain
40-41 SHMUEL VARGON
Don Isaac Abravanel‎’‎s Attitude Toward Non-Jewish Exegesis
42 MIGUEL LOURENÇO RODRIGUES & SUSANA BASTOS MATEUS
António Dias de Cáceres‎’‎Travel to Macau in 1589, and the Trade
Development between the ‎“‎Two Indies‎”
43 ANA SOFIA RIBEIRO
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)
44 SHOEY RAZ
The Soul Congregation: The Second Gate in The Soul of Life by
Menasheh ben Israel, and its Place in the Polemics on the Eternity of
Souls among the Nação
45 AVIRAM RAVITSKY
Talmudic Methodology and Aristotelian Logic: R. David ibn Bilia‎’‎s
Commentary on the Thirteen Exegetical Principles
46-47 MIGUEL BELTRAN
‎“‎Se convierte con ardentissimo amor a si‎”‎: Forja de la esencia divina
en La casa de la divinidad de Abraham Cohen de Herrera
48-49 DEJANIRAH COUTO
Jews and New Christians in the Mediterranean: The “Rescuers”
between Portugal and the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth Century
50-51 MIRIAM BODIAN
Negros, Mulattos, and Ashkenazim: Nação and Raça in the
Portuguese–Jewish Imagination
52 KENNETH BROWN
‎“‎António Serrão de Castro’s Jewish Ballads‎”‎/ ‎“‎Os Romances Judeos
d‎’‎António Serrão de Castro, O Judeo‎”‎
53 YARON BEN-NAEH
Jewish Courtiers in the Ottoman Empire
54 OFRA MATZOV-COHEN
“‎‎The Honor of the King‎’‎s Daughter‎”‎: ‎The Character of Dona Gracia
Mendes and her Contribution to the Community in Modern Hebrew
Literature
55 HAGIT AMRANI
The Particularity of the Portuguese Ketubot ‎in the Jewish Community
of Tunis
56 ORLY C. MERON
Marriage Patterns and Migration among the Jewish–Portuguese
Diaspora: A Marriage Contract from Bayonne before the French
Revolution
57 LILAC TORGEMAN
Public and Commercial Activity by Nineteenth-Century Sephardic
Women as Reflected in Letters from Rabbi Nathan Amram‎’‎s Circles
58 ALONSO MARÍA ISABEL PÉREZ
“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
59-60 HAVIVA ISHAY
The Poetry and Poetics of Meshullam ben Solomon de Piera
61 CARLA VIEIRA
“‎‎The Veil of Secrecy was Removed‎”: Inquisition, Crypto-Judaism,
and Exile in Grace Aguilar‎’‎s Work
62 ROGÉRIO MADEIRA
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
63-64 REGINA IGEL
Portuguese Jews: Writers and Characters in Brazilian Literature
65 SIMÃO DRAIBLATE
Antonio José da Silva ‎“‎O JUDEU‎”‎– Between two Reports in the
Portuguese Literature: Camilo Castelo Branco and Bernardo
Santareno
66 CONSUELO PERUZZO
Travel, History, and Memory: Reconstruction of the Jewish Identity
in the Novel The Strange Nation of Raphael Mendes by Moacyr Scliar
67 MOACIR AMÂNCIO
The Term ‎“‎Jewish‎”‎in Brazilian Historical Poetry
68 JOÃO ESTEVES DA SILVA
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
69 AXEL KAPLAN SZYLD
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)
70 CHERYLL REBELLO
Identity and Ethnic Struggles / Philo-Semitism and Antisemitism
71 SAUL KIRSCHBAUM
Nazism from Portugal, Viewed through the Eyes of Ilse Losa
72 MEIR BAR-ILAN
Worshiping Demons: Between Spain and The Land of Israel
73-75 PINHAS HALIWA
The Regulations of the Expelled Jews in Fez in Inheritance
Matters, and the Influence of the Portuguese Constitution
76-77 MOR ALTUSHLER
R. Joseph Karo and Sephardic Renaissance in the Sixteenth
Century
78 ABRAHAM OFIR SHEMESH
‎“‎I Have Given my Services in Equal Manner to All‎”‎: The Attitude
of Amatus Lusitanus toward Treating Gentiles According to his
Physician‎’‎s Oath
79 FLORBELA VEIGA FRADE
The Portuguese New Christian Doctors ‎and their Diaspora in
Europe during the Seventeenth Century
80 DORON DANINO
The Attitude of the Former Marranos to the Issue of Belief in
Reincarnation
81 CARLA RAMOS GARCÍA
The New Christians in the Rescue of Pernambuco: The
Composition of the Portuguese Nação According to the Payment of
1630
82 MARINA KHABENSKAYA
The Faces of ‎the East European Jewish Community in Portugal
83 SARINA ROFFE
Globalization of Syrian Jews – From Iberia, to Syria, to the
Americas
84 NANCY ROZENCHAN
Jewish Portuguese Ashkenazi Women – From Portuguese to
Brazilian Judaism
85-86 MARK PETER
Seeking Physical Evidence of the Sephardic Presence in
Senegambia, West Africa, 1600–50

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

89-90 ESTHER MUCZNIK & RITA MANTEIGAS

How to tell the History of the Jewish Presence in Portugal

91 ELVIRA AZEVEDO MEA

The Marrano‎’‎s Redemption by Captain Barros Basto, ‎“‎The
Portuguese Dreyfus‎”‎

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

95-96 AIRES FERNANDES

Relations between the Jews and a Number of Portuguese
Monasteries throughout the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

97 AMOS FRISCH
R. Yosef Hayyun‎’‎s Exegetical Method (in Light of his Commentary
on Psalms 2)

98 SOFIA CARDETAS BEATO

“Through the Paths of the Exegesis”: A Historical Critique of the
Biblical Texts

99-100 MOSHE AMAR

The Influence of the Portuguese Expelled Jews on the Fez
Regulations

101-102 MICHAL OHANA

Jewish Thought in Fez after the Spanish Expulsion: Prophecy as a
Case Study

103 DOV COHEN

An Approach to the Literary Activity of Captain Artur Carlos de
Barros Basto (1887–1961(
104 HERVÉ BAUDRY
Artur de Barros Basto – Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh and Portuguese
Judaism as Seen by Foreigners

105 SARA TSUR

Baruch Ben Jacob from Salonika, and his Impressions from the
Visit to the Conversos in Portugal in 1931
106 SILVINA SCHAMMAH GESSER
Returning to Sepharad‎ ‎ in Contemporary Iberia Between
“Musealization” and ‎“‎Entrepreneurial‎”‎Memory

107 CARLOS LEITE

The Inquisition in Face of the Practices of Judaism: Brief Notes on
a Process of Recidivism during the Eighteenth Century

108-109 ODED ZION

Between Tolerance and the Inquisition: The Legacy of Spain and
Portugal through the Eyes of Mordechai Noah (1785–1851)

110-111 MEDA KUHN

The Conversos as Ethnic Minorities: Identities in Transition (as

Represented in Las Excelencias de los Hebreos by Isaac Cardoso)
112 INÊS NOGUEIRO
Jewish Identity in the Genomic Era

113-114 CLAUDIA SIL

Portugal’s Gastronomic Heritage – A Legacy of Kashrut that Must
be Understood and Preserved

115 PAIT HELOISA

The Converso Experience in Brazil: Cultural Absence and
National Discourse

116-117 THIERRY J. ALCOLOUMBRE

The Way to Freedom: Spain and Portugal in the Poetic Work of
Claude Vigée (1921– )

118 ELINOR AHARON

The Hidden Jews: Jorge Luis Borges and Fernando Pessoa

119 DAVID BANON

At the Roots of Jewish Modernity: “The First Enlightenment‎”
120-121 YOSSEF CHARVIT
From Dona Gracia until Marco Joseph Baruch: The Normative
Messianic Idea and its Result – Zionism

122 LÚCIA FERREIRA

The Evolution of the New Christians in the Dioceses of Guarda e
Viseu in the Light of Research into the Proceedings of the
Inquisition

123 NUNO RESENDE

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

124-125 JUDITH COHEN

‎“‎Caminhamos e andamos‎”‎: Music and Shifting Identity among
Portuguese B‎’‎nei Anusim

126 ANA CRISTINA SOUSA & GABRIELA BENNER

Agnus Dei versus Menorah – The Encounter between
Christians ‎and Jews in the Region of Carção (Bragança – Portugal)
in the Early Modern Age

127-128 ANDREW GLUCK

Reform under the Guise of Polemics: Some Examples from Jewish
Medieval Philosophy

129 ANTONIO BENTO

Baruch Spinoza and The Hebrew State

130 MENASHE SCHWED

Not a Heretic or a Modernist, but a Jew: Spinoza as a Reformator
of Judaism
131 ARON STERK
The Portuguese Jewish Fellows of the Society of ‎“Antiquaries”‎‎‎and
the Royal Society of London in the Eighteenth Century
132 ABRAHAM GROSS
Toward Publication of the Rebordelo Manuscript
133 ISABEL DAVID & ANOUCK G. CÔRTE-REAL PINTO

Turkish Sephardic Jews and their Quest for Portuguese

Ancestors’ Citizenship
 Spain & Portugal: Two Political Entities –
One Sephardic Legacy

MOISÉS ORFALI

Our discussion of the Sephardic heritage shared by Spain and Portugal is

required because of the fact that, in terms of Jewish culture, Portugal was part
of early medieval Sepharad. During the Muslim period, Sepharad included
almost the entire Iberian peninsula, and, later in the Christian period, the
common cultural affinity continued even if Portugal existed as a separate
Christian entity.
Despite the common parameters of a conjoint and common past and
present and a collective future, which we will discuss, Portugal’s political
independence – almost continuously – contributed greatly to the exclusion of
Portuguese Jewry from the framework of Sepharad. Of course, the term
Sepharad, which defines the Iberian Peninsula Jewry, whose religious and
cultural character was formed as a result of the cultural encounter that took
place in the Western Mediterranean basin from the eight to the fourteenth
centuries, is not to be confused here with the name Sepharad. The name
Sepharad was given in Hebrew to the unified Hispanic kingdoms, led by
Castile and Aragon, a union whose historical significance dates back to the
end of the fifteenth century, the period when the General Expulsion and the
forced conversions put an end to the existence of the Jewish communities.
Until the end of the fifteenth century, it seems that it is impossible to
claim that Portuguese Jewry differed from the Jews of Castile more than the
Jews of Catalonia were different from the Jews of Castile. Following the late
Prof. Yom Tov Assis’s attempt to mark Provence as an integral part of the
Sephardic tradition, we would like to maintain that the greatest scholar of
Spanish Jewry, Yizhak (Fritz) Baer, also contributed to the exclusion of
1
Portuguese Jewry from the world of Spain. In his monumental History of the
Jews in Christian Spain, Baer included all the Jews who lived in the various
Hispanic Kingdoms according to the borders that were formed in the
sixteenth century, when no Jews were left in the Iberian Peninsula.
In the framework of this International Congress, we wish to emphasize
the important place of Portuguese Jewry in the Sephardic legacy – a diverse
and enormous Jewish heritage, developed and preserved among the Jews of
Castile–Leon, Andalusia, Galicia, Asturias, Navarre, Aragon, Valencia,
Catalonia, Roussillon, and the Balearic Islands – a legacy that passed along
with Portugal’s sons beyond the mountains and seas, within an already
existing Jewish Diaspora.

2
 Return to the Massacre:
Jews living in Lisbon at the Time of the 1506 Massacre

JOSÉ ALBERTO R.S. TAVIM

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

In the late Middle Ages, a broad phenomenon of ‎“‎vulgar religiosity‎”‎

developed in Christian Europe. This phenomenon found expression in various
fields. Among the most prominent were: the expansion of religious practice –
which in the past had been reserved only for the clergy – into broad circles of
the population; the development of popular religious literature, an example of
which is ‎“‎The Books of Hours,‎”‎ and translations of the holy books from Latin
into vernacular languages. Vulgar religiosity developed mainly after the Black
Plague, in the middle of the fourteenth century. ‎
Similar existing trends are noticeable also in the Jewish society of the
Iberian Peninsula. During the fourteenth century, the Jewish communities of
Spain experienced severe persecutions (especially during the riots of 1391),
and persistent religious harassment. This atmosphere and these circumstances
created a need for a response from the Jewish community and its leadership,
since they caused embarrassment and perplexity among the Jewish public.
Part of this response was a significant change in the characteristics of the
religious works of this period. If we make a comparison with other religious
works written up to the thirteenth century, we find fewer publications designed
for the elite (the sages), and various works written in this period are intended
for the general public. These works were adapted to meet and respond to the
public’s needs and anguish.
The appeal of the Iberian Jewish intellectuals to their public is therefore a
new trend that shaped their literary production anew. In this lecture, I will
analyze this phenomenon, emphasizing the work of one of the major sages –
Rabbi Isaac Abuhav (the first) – in Castile.
4
 Comparison between the Vicissitudes of the Jews
Exiled in 1391 and the Jews Expelled in 1492

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

Numerous specialists and historians have studied the presence of Spanish–

Portuguese Jews in various Caribbean locations, such as Barbados, Curaçao,
Surinam, and Jamaica. However, thanks to the discovery of thousands of
letters in the British National Archives (Kew, UK) as determinant sources for
the study of the Jewish Diaspora during my Post-PhD, now in the Post
Scriptum: A Digital Archive of Ordinary Writing (Early Modern Portugal
and Spain) project, it is now possible to take a closer look at these
communities, which settled in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries.
In fact, besides providing additional data through correspondence
concerning the existing networks, this primary source offers special insights
into the life, trade, and fears of these Jewish settlers under scrutiny in the
period of the Anglo–Dutch Wars. This documentary evidence, produced on
an informal and/or professional level, and according to subjective choices,
also provides relevant data for the study of personal and/or collective
experiences in correlation with historical facts.
The main importance of this presentation consists in the analysis of
several epistolary mechanisms used by these individuals – men and women –
in order to maintain long-distance communication, how the situational
context is direct and indirectly implied in the epistolary discourse, and the
main goals of such letter writing. In addition, I will point out the meanings of
the judicial gathering made by the British High Court of Admiralty, to better
understand why these and many more manuscripts can be found in the Prize
Papers.
10
 Jews from Morocco and Gibraltar in Cape Verde
during the Nineteenth Century:
Reconstruction of a Commercial Network in the Atlantic?

ÂNGELA SOFIA BENOLIEL COUTINHO

By 1860, about a hundred Jewish merchants originating from Morocco and

Gibraltar were occupied in international trade in the Cape Verde islands. Some
of these Jews settled there, and invested in other economic activities.
The abolition of the Inquisition in Portugal in 1821 certainly created
favorable conditions for this migration flow, as well as the importance of liberal
thinking in Portuguese society of 1800. On the other hand, according to
Portuguese historian Valentim Alexandre, the project of a new African empire
was undertaken in Portugal in 1825, after the formal recognition of Brazil’s
independence. Consultation of the documents held by the National Historical
Archives of Cape Verde enables us to recreate the paths taken by these Jewish
merchants, and to identify the businesses in which they invested. In addition, by
recreating their numerous trips in the archipelago, as well as in the Atlantic and
the Mediterranean ports, we can reveal a network of trade and family relations
in Portugal, Brazil, and in the territories under Portuguese rule.
If these data are compared to the studies we already have on the Jewish
community of Moroccan merchants in the Azores archipelago, in the 1820s, we
may conclude that an international trade network similarly sustained the
insertion strategies in the economic arena under Portuguese political domination
– or in Brazil.
In this presentation, we intend to enquire to what extent these merchants
and their families rebuilt an international trade network in the Atlantic in the
nineteenth century, where, in previous centuries, there had been many Jews
from the Iberian Peninsula and its diaspora, to which they also belonged to a
large degree.

11
 A Portuguese Crypto-Jewish Diaspora in Seventeenth-
Century Cuba and the Circum-Caribbean Basin

EUGENIO A. ALONSO LOPEZ

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

This lecture is based on comprehensive research of the complete oeuvre of

Josef Penso de la Vega (1650–92) – a prominent writer and ‫ – דרשן‬‎darshan‎‎of
the Spanish–Portuguese diaspora in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. We
focus on the ethics of the stock exchange business and speculation,
mercantilism and capitalism as reflected in Penso de la Vega‎’‎s Confusión de
Confusiones (Amsterdam, 1688).
The book – the first to deal with the stock market – is structured as an
informed and witty dialogue between an investor, a tradesman, and a
philosopher. The investor turns out to be an enthusiastic spokesman for
capitalist ideology and the colonial aspirations of the Dutch commercial
companies. The philosopher, who promotes moral values, stability, and
security, stands for the old scholastic philosophy, which is revealed to be
weak, irrelevant, and out of sync with the new realities of the time.
Why is it that, of all people, an old philosopher challenges the turbulent
game of the stock market? In fact, the philosopher is what links the beliefs of a
young Joseph Penso with those of his older self. In the allegorical
play ‎“‎Prisoners of Hope,‎”‎ the 17-year-old Penso offers a pessimistic view of
the earthly existence, casting doubt on the desire for power and wealth, and
encourages his readers to withdraw from the vain pleasures of this world,
whereas in Confusión de Confusiones he guides them through the challenge of
winning the inevitable struggle for life.
The stock market in Penso‎’‎s book is a metonymy of the human condition,
based clearly on a Baroque worldview: the world offers no stability or
13
certainty, human existence is a struggle where one should adapt a
compromising morality.
Penso devotes his book to Duarte Nuñez de Costa, son of Jerónimo
Duarte de Costa, also known a Moshe Curiel, who represented the Portuguese
throne in Amsterdam. This fact indicates what the book reveals: a clear
connection between Joseph Penso and the financial elite of Dutch Jewry, a
new nobility connected to the crowns of Portugal and Spain. It was an
aristocracy that bore both Hebrew and European names, and was multi-lingual
and cosmopolitan, but with no past or pedigree (lineage). The discourse of
acuity (agudeza), wit (ingenio), and erudition (erudición), in classical culture,
were the skills that Penso could offer these new aristocrats in order to
compensate for their lack of heritage and authenticity. ‎‎‎‎‎

14
 Sephardism in Modern and Contemporary Art:
Consistent Topics and Artists

MIGUEL ANGEL ESPINOSA VILLEGAS

The objective of this work is the recognition of the existence of a certain

spirit and a method of work common in the art of the Sephardic Jews. We
will analyze how European critics will contribute to the creation of a plastic
identity based on Moorish style and decorative Mudejar influenced by the
Alhambra, with the aim of creating a Jewish national style. However, even
the Sephardic community of territories of similar cultural influence, such as
those of the Ottoman Empire or North Africa, recognized this as a failure.
We will also analyze the way in which the peculiar manner of seeing
and rethinking reality on the part of the intellectuals and the European
Sephardic community ends up configuring certain ways of understanding art,
and its practice, that were decisive for the birth and evolution of certain
vanguards. We will seek the decisive presence of Sephardic artists in these
European avant-gardes, in the practice of art, in their theory and in their
critique, and not only in Europe, since we will also pay attention to their
involvement in the preparation of an Israeli national art parallel to the
gestation and evolution of the State. Through the work of them all, we will
try to define the existence of certain thematic or artistic constants that can be
related to the existence and expression of a significant Sephardic cultural
identity that motivates them.

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

This presentation will address the crypto-Judaic liturgical text as a specific

literary issue, on the basis of the prayers published by Samuel Schwarz in 1925 in
the book Os cristãos-novos em Portugal no século XX.
We know that the crypto-Judaic liturgy resulted from the religious
syncretism enforced by the political conjuncture of Portugal in the sixteenth
century. Its connection with Catholicism is unquestionable, as is its connection to
Judaism – in particular with regard to Judaic cosmogony, manifest in a multitude
of direct or indirect references to the myth of creation.
The eminently cyclical character of the Portuguese crypto-Judaic liturgical
literature, which has been perpetuated for centuries from the Inquisition to the
present day in Beira Interior and Trás-os-Montes, is intimately linked to this
esoteric ignominy, which, together with the cyclical nature of the cult, facilitated
the realization of clandestine rituals.
If the cyclical characteristic is undeniable, it is not subsumed in the
successive and diachronic transmission of the rituals, as well as in the repetition
of the prayers throughout the year, according to the requirements of the liturgical
calendar. Furthermore, cyclicity can be verified synchronously in the translation
of the Hebrew texts, but also in an even more complex synchronic spiral logic
inherent to oral transmission and its resulting variations.
In fact, this cyclical feature embraces all levels of worldly and spiritual life:
identity, tradition, history, cult, and exegesis, amongst others, crystallizing in the
references to mythical winged and gigantic animals, both the tree of creation and
wisdom and its derivatives, representing the archetypes of cycle and elevation,
whose union seals the eternal regeneration of the old time and the celebration of
the new.
17
 Between Spain and Portugal: Amador de los Ríos Interprets
Portuguese Jewish History

NITAI SHINAN

Art historian, literary critic, archeologist, and professor of Spanish literature at

the Madrid Central University, José Amador de los Ríos (1816–78) was one of
the most distinguished intellectual figures in Spain under the rule of Queen
Isabel II (1833–68). Today, he is best known for his pioneering work on the
history of Jews of the Iberian peninsula, which culminated in his classical
1876 book Historia social, política y religiosa de los judíos en España y
Portugal ‎(1875–76) (hereafter: History).
While Amador’s reconstruction of the history of Spanish Jewry in the
Middle Ages recently aroused considerable academic interest, no such interest
was shown toward his reconstruction of the history of the Jews in Portugal. ‎
My lecture will attempt to fill in the gaps in the reconstruction of
Amador‎’‎s historical thought, by closely analyzing his descriptions of the
history of the Portuguese Jews. These descriptions will be explained in their
historiographical context as a part of the disputes about the unity/disunity of
Iberian History. These disputes, in which Amador took an active part just a
few years before publishing his History, engulfed Portuguese and Spanish
historians in the middle decades of the nineteenth century.

18
 Hebrew Studies in Portugal:
A Case Study of the Portuguese Contributions to the
International Congresses of Orientalists

CATARINA SEVERINO

Departing from Moses Amzalak‎’‎s mapping of Hebrew Studies in Portugal as

presented at the Seventeenth International Congress of Orientalists (ICO) in
Oxford (1928), this paper inquires into the existence of this field of knowledge
in turn-of-the-century Portugal. Amzalak (1892–1978) himself authored a
considerable body of work on the Jewish presence in Portugal, especially in
the first half of the twentieth century. Amzalak points to Joseph Benoliel
(1858–1937), a Jewish translator fluent in Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish,
French, and Arabic, and Joaquim Mendes dos Remédios (1867–1932), a
professor from the University of Coimbra, whose scholarship traces a
genealogy of the Jewish presence in Portugal and its role in Portuguese history
(Amzalak 1928b, 10). Focus is put on these Portuguese orientalists and the
texts they themselves produced within two sessions of the ICO (Benoliel 1892,
1898; Amzalak 1928a, 1928b): Benoliel‎’‎s were presented to the Tenth ICO
(Lisbon, 1892), which did not however take place, and Amzalak‎’‎s were
presented at the above-mentioned Seventeenth ICO. Mendes dos Remédios
was part of the list of subscribing members of the Fourteenth ICO (Algiers,
1905), the first congress to take place in a non-European country, but did not
deliver any paper. Yet, his Os Judeus em Portugal (1895) will be discussed
here as displaying the same body of knowledge. Ultimately, by sketching the
scientific trajectories of these orientalists, the paper will underscore the
importance of the ICO as sites for legitimizing the emergence of a scientific
culture (Sapiro 2009).

19
 Etymology‎’‎s ‎Research – The Names of Marrano
Communities of Portuguese Descendants and the Social and
Legal Consequences for Today

MICHAEL CORINALDI

The name of a religious community is an essential quality, and includes

historic and environmental roots. One must differentiate between the external
name given by the people or the country where the community lived, and the
internal name given by the members of that community.
The external name for the anusim – forced converts – is Marranos.
According to Roth, the anusim did not know this name in the early
generations. The literal meaning of the name Marranos in Spanish and
Portuguese means pig (see Farineli). There are those who say that the name
characterizes Jews due to their aversion to pork. I believe that there is no
justification for these apologetics, which do not diminish the disdain that the
name conceals. In Jewish halakhic sources, the name Marranos is not
mentioned and the descendants of the anusim are called bnei ha-anusim,
which is the name they have adopted for themselves.
Samuel Shwartz suggested that the source of the name Marranos is
from Hebrew, for example, from the words mareeh ain, meaning for
appearance’s sake, reflecting the gap between the outward appearance of the
descendants of anusim as Christians and their secret observance of many
Jewish customs. Others said the name is a collaboration of two words – mar
anus. Dov Stuchinchky criticized this Hebrew Etymology as “naïve
research.”
Another source for the meaning of the name Marranos is based on the
Aramaic term in the New Testament (Paul, in First Epistle to the Jews,
Corinthians 16: 22): “SIT QUIS NON AMAT DOMINUS SIT
20
ANATHEMEA MARRANA THA.” The explanation of this verse: “That the
non-believers of our Lord [the Jews] will be excommunicated – our Lord
[Jesus] has come,” meaning, that the Jews are waiting for a Messiah and they
are excommunicated and boycotted by the Church. Another version of that
verse replaces “MARRANA THA” with “MARRAN ATHA.” The meaning
is the same – that the Lord already came, but the Judaizers still await the
Messiah. Angel Alcala criticized it as “impossible Aramaic” Etymology. He
suggests submitting Gonzalo Maezo’s explanation that “the origin of marrano
is the old verb marrar that means ‘to miss, to err, to be mistaken.’” All the
above explanations lead to the conclusion that the term “Marrano” was an
affront to Conversos suspected of Judaizing, but because the popular
meaning of marrano is pork, we must eliminate the use of the name
“Marrano.”
Shwartz used the term “New Christians” (“Christianos Novos”), in his
book, and this is to be criticized since it is an external name, given in order to
give them a derogatory classification. The anusim survived due to their
internal rules pertaining to marriage (andogamy) and due to the Christian
attitude toward the New Christians, that for reasons of race and purity of
blood (Limpieza de Sangue), they did not intermarry with Jews. However, the
sociological basis of the Secret Jews is reflected in yet another common name
– Crypto-Jews. My suggestion is to call the anusim groups that wish to return
to Judaism – ba’alei teshuva and not New Christians any more.
In conclusion, I will refer to the criteria for Portuguese citizenship
according to Law No. 43/2013 (Amendment 5 to the Citizenship Act 37/81),
that is based on “Idioma Familiar” – the Portuguese heritage, family names,
family language, customs and the group affiliation that is reflected also in the
demand for authorization of a recognized and over 30-years old Jewish
community. These criteria are more liberal than the Israeli Law of Return and
the Jewish Halakhah. There is a dispute between communities: in Lisbon they

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

The Spanish–Jewish Philo-Sephardic movements appeared in nineteenth- and

twentieth-century Europe. Their history is distinguished in two consecutive
phases. The first records how the Philo-Sephardic wave gradually started to
expand, how Spanish liberal ideas were spread, what the meaning
of ‎“Spaniards without a country‎”‎ was, and how the Spanish–Jewish alliance
was organized. The second phase is the era of the formation of the Spanish
colony in Salonika (Thessaloniki), a period of negotiations between the
Spaniards and the Greeks, and diplomatic missions from Madrid to Athens and
Salonika, which resulted in more permanent state settlements.

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

A number of factors prevented the success of the Wahhabi doctrine in Morocco.

Mulei Sliman, like his father, Muhammad III, was in favor of a return to the
tradition of the Prophet and his companions, and to restoring the primitive purity
of Islam. It is a fact that there were only three major mellahs until the early
nineteenth century – Fez, Marrakesh, and Meknes. According to Europeans who
traveled throughout the Maghreb, the Jews lived throughout the Moroccan
Empire together with the Moors. It was only from the year 1805, that Mulei
Slimane, named the “Pious” by the Jewish sources in a context marked by the
influence of the Wahhabi dogma, ordered four mellahs to be built, and separate
relations to be maintained with the Jewish merchants – who continued to serve
as tujjar al-sultan and customs’ receivers.
Portugal, which in 1774 had signed a peace treaty with Morocco, urgently
needed to approach the Algiers regency for the liberation of more than six
hundred Portuguese captives, and to obtain a peace treaty with the authorities of
Algiers. Among other people, Abraão Cardoso, consul of Algiers in Gibraltar,
and Salomão Benoliel, diplomatic agent of the Moroccan Empire in the same
place, would play an important role in this issue. The Portuguese documentation
shows the existence of a double discourse carried on by the Lisbon authorities
toward these two members of the Sephardic community, as well as to many
others. According to the circumstances, the political powers in Lisbon would
blame the Sephardic communities for all their failures in solving problems with
the Maghreb powers and, on the other hand, it would simultaneously implore
their financial and diplomatic assistance.

26
 Forgotten Portuguese Jewish Communities in the Balkans

YITZCHAK KEREM

While the Sephardic Judeo-Spanish speaking character of the Balkans still

exists, despite largely being extinguished due to the Holocaust, there were a
few Portuguese communities, congregations, and enclaves in the Balkans that
comprised significant parts of the local Sephardic Jewish communities. The
Portuguese communal presence in Salonika was the largest, and was a
relatively early post-Expulsion settlement. In Salonika, the Portuguese kehalim
included K‎”‎K Evora, Portugal, Lisbon Hadash, Lisbon Yashan, Yehia–Liviat
Hen, and Shalom. There were splits and breakoffs that stemmed from
generational friction and other phenomena. Some of the Sabbateans came from
the late migratory waves of Portuguese New Christians. The buildings
themselves were destroyed in the 1917 fire.
Monastir was a community split between Portuguese and Aragonese
communities. The Portuguese first arrived ‎in 1622, as victims of fire from
Salonika. In 1627, the arrival of Portuguese New Christians created friction
with the Aragonese Jews over some of their former Christian customs and
their tradition of digging their own graves. The Ottoman authorities forced the
Portuguese to comply with existing communal burial practices. The
Portuguese synagogue burned down in 1917 during the 22-month siege, and
was never rebuilt.
In Izmir, the Jewish community was formulated only in the late sixteenth
century. Bikkur Holim, one of the earliest synagogues, was founded in 1690
by Solomon de Ciaves, a Dutch–Portuguese Jewish merchant who settled in
Izmir. In 1710, the Portuguese synagogue was founded. As in Salonika, there
were numerous followers of the messianic Shabetai Zvi among the recently
27
arrived Jews of Portuguese New Christian extraction. The Jewish community
of Izmir may even have been as much as a quarter Portuguese. Dowry records
in the Central Archives of the Jewish People in Solitreo Judeo-Spanish script
point to an active Portuguese community as late as the 1920s and ’30s
before ‎migrations to France and, after 1948, to Israel.
The republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) had a distinguished past, reflecting
an active community of Portuguese merchants who were attracted there by its
free trade status. Moise Orfali pointed to their active role in ransoming
captives in the rivalries between the Muslim and Christian corsairs in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the end of the sixteenth century,
Portuguese Jewish merchants were important intermediaries between the
Venetian Empire and the Balkans. The famous former Marrano physician
Lusitanus Amadeus found temporary refuge in Ragusa before settling in
Salonika and establishing a yeshiva in the latter city. The Jews of ‎Ragusa
suffered a blood libel in 1622. Isaac Yeshurun was accused of murdering a
small girl: he stoically maintained his innocence, but was sentenced to 20
years’ imprisonment (he was released after 32 months). As a result of the
blood libel, many Jews moved to Venice and the Ottoman Empire. At the
beginning of the eighteenth century, there were only 218 Jews in the city.
Contrary to Amsterdam, very few Portuguese musical and cantillation
traditions survived from the Balkans. Numerous Jews in Israel from the
Balkans are retracing their Portuguese roots through applications for
Portuguese citizenship. In the process, hundreds of unknown surnames of
Portuguese Jews have been uncovered.

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

R. Haim Galipapa served as a rabbi in Osaka and Pamplona, Spain, in the

1370s. His manuscript ‎“‎Homilies on Psalms‎”‎ is available on microfilm and is
catalogued as Oxford manuscript, 2425 Bodleian, pp. 1a-17b (in the Institute
of Manuscripts, the National Library in Jerusalem, it is marked as
21704). ‎Studies on R. Haim Galipapa ignore the existence of this homily. ‎His
identity as the author of this homily is certain, as it is explicitly signed by him
as ‎“‎the words of Haim Galipapa‎”‎(p. 12a).
This homily focuses on the derivation of moral ideas from Psalm
15. ‎Clearly, it was not censored by Christian clergies, despite the fact that it
contains severe allegations against convertors, who are called ‎“‎evil men‎”‎
and ‎“‎convertors to idol worshipping‎.”‎‎ ‎This homily condemns Jewish
convertors in Spain, known as ‎“‎Iberian Conversos‎,”‎‎ and it contains
arguments that are linked to the Jewish–Christian debate of his time.
In my presentation, I intend to reveal the unique contribution of R. Haim
Galipapa in the fight against the convertors of his days, and against the
Christian ideology in general. ‎In addition to his homily on psalms, I will also
refer to his relevant life events and other manuscripts that he wrote.

33
 Poverty and Crime in Eighteenth-Century London and the
Spanish–Portuguese Jewish Community

JULIA LIEBERMAN

On Monday, 21 November 1743, Abraham Pass, not quite 18 years of age,

was executed at Tyburn. ‎He had been found guilty of stealing 250 ells of linen
cloth, valued at £8.00. ‎Pass was a Portuguese Jew originally from Bordeaux,
the son of a merchant family. ‎When he was 12, he was sent to Amsterdam to
learn Hebrew, High, and Low Dutch. ‎After two years in Amsterdam, he
returned to his parental home where he continued to further his education in
the Hebrew and Spanish languages. ‎But soon after, he run away from home
and, for about a year, he traveled from port city to port city where merchant
Jewish communities were to be found: Italy, France, Turkey, Gibraltar, and
Barbados, and, finally, London, where he arrived three years before his tragic
demise. ‎For a while, he connected with the Spanish–Portuguese congregation,
and served as an apprentice to two of its members. ‎Pass’s biography was
written and published by James Guthrie, the ‎“‎Ordinary‎”‎ chaplain of Newgate
prison, whose duty it was to attend to the spiritual needs of those condemned
to death. ‎Although Pass‎’‎s biography is partly formulaic and similar to other
criminal biographies written by Guthrie, much of the information about Pass is
either highly plausible or historically verifiably. ‎My presentation will be a
study of Pass’s biography against the backdrop of how the Spanish–
Portuguese Jewish community in London reacted to the harsh reality of
contemporary Jewish crime.

34
 The Individual, the Family, and the Mahamad –
A Study on Communal Dynamics

HUGO MARTINS

This presentation will explore some of the key characteristics of the

relationship between the mahamad and the family in the Portuguese
community of Hamburg. In doing so, I will examine the many ways in which
the mahamad sought to regulate different aspects of family life, such as
marriage, divorce, and sexuality, but also the increasingly active role played
by household members in the management of familial disputes and negotiating
appropriate behavior for their own purposes. While continuing to emphasize
the gendered hierarchies at the center of family life, these dynamics are often
quite flexible, challenging preconceived notions of rights and obligations, and
the uneven privileging of the latter. In examining some cases referring to the
period between 1652 and 1682, I hope to bring new insights into the often-
unexplored terrain of family–mahamad relationships, and on the lived
experiences of ordinary people in the Portuguese community of Hamburg.

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

Our presentation proposes a study about the New Catholic families in

Bombay who were of Portuguese heritage, and their scope for action in
nineteenth-century British colonial society in Bombay.
The aristocratic and elite Portuguese group that took root from the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on underwent a process of
discrimination, like all local elites of British India, beginning in the second
half of the nineteenth century – going from the status of Portuguese to East
Indians or Half Castes (Mestiços). The ancient community of Bombay, which
defined itself as direct descendants – unlike the Goans, who settled there later
– reacted to the British colonial process of discrimination by reaffirming its
support to the Padroado and its self-representation as Portuguese elite.
However, the integration of its members in the British administrative
machine, in increasingly more modest posts from the 1840s, bears witness to
the marginalization experienced by this social group of European origin (as
also the Israeli community in Bombay) in a colonial context, dominated by
the Anglican Church and the Roman Propaganda Fide.

36
 Jacques Abravanel‎’‎s Life Story:
A Sephardic Model Trajectory between the Ottoman
Empire, Portugal, and Turkey?

ALEXANDRE TOUMARKINE

This presentation is based on the analysis of Jacques Abravanel’s unfinished

memoirs, a French-language text I co-edited.1 Abravanel (1906–93) was born in
Salonika, the Sephardic metropolis in the Eastern Mediterranean. He was a Jew
of Portuguese origin. Claiming to be the descendant of the famous Don Isaac
Abravanel, his family received Portuguese citizenship. Like many Salonikan
Jews, he left the Ottoman town for Constantinople after the big fire in the city
(1917). Abravanel is still remembered as a Consul of Portugal in Istanbul during
the republican period.
This presentation will first discuss the profile of Abravanel’s family, in
comparison to those of other Salonikan Jews. Then, it will discuss the way
Abravanel coped with, used, and somehow (re-)constructed his Portuguese
identity, a belonging he juxtaposed with encompassing the Sephardic Ottomans
and afterwards, the Turkish Jews. The transition between the Ottoman Empire
and the Turkish Republic will be considered here through the positions and jobs
Abravanel got in the banking sector, and in the local branch of the Ford
Company, positions questioning the role played by private sector in Turkey as a
niche for the non-Muslims during the early republican era. Finally, we will turn
to Abravanel’s role as Consul of Portugal in Istanbul, and examine his complex
relationship with Salazar’s regime, as well as the ability this position provided
for protecting the Jews in the Republic of Turkey and abroad.

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

ELIEZER DON YEHIYA

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”

‎MIGUEL LOURENÇO RODRIGUES & SUSANA BASTOS MATEUS

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)

ANA SOFIA RIBEIRO

It is historically incontestable that it was the wealthiest Portuguese

businessmen who were the great financiers of the Hispanic Monarchy from
1626 on (Boyajian; Broens). Nevertheless, the path followed by this elite
group until its direct entry into the Castilian Treasury remains wrapped in
unclear circumstances. Literature explains that the emergence of Portuguese
bankers in Madrid is connected undoubtedly to the bankruptcy of the
Treasury in 1626, and the refusal of Genoese financiers to keep supporting a
monarchy that was incapable of fulfilling its commitments. There was now a
chance for such financiers to be substituted by a national group that had a lot
of accumulated capital and credit expertise.
I intend to provide evidence as the main chronologic focus of this paper
as to how this course toward the Spanish Hacienda was carefully being
prepared from the second half of the sixteenth century on. Cross-referencing
public and private sources, this paper aims to understand how and when New
Christian merchants began to be interested in the business of public debt, on
one hand. On the other hand, it seeks to evaluate the immediate impact of their
belonging to the Hispanic Monarchy after 1580, not only in their financial and
trading activities, but also with regard to the social stigma of having impure
blood, which may have favored their path – or made it more difficult. Finally,
the paper looks at this problem with two premises:
1. The actions of these individual agents in the First Global Age,
established in around 1500 according to the historiography;
2. The conception of these economic dynamics, connecting spaces
controlled by the Iberian powers and transnational economic agents.
43
 The Soul Congregation: The Second Gate in The Soul of Life
by Menasheh ben Israel, and its Place in the Polemics on the
Eternity of Souls among the Nação

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

The Thirteen Exegetical Principles enumerated in the introduction to the sifra

(qal va-ḥomer, gezera shava, binyan av, and so on), were interpreted in many
and different contexts. A unique method that was used by medieval Jewish
scholars to interpret these Talmudic principles was the application of
Aristotelian logic. In my lecture, I will concentrate on one of these
Aristotelian commentaries, no doubt the first among them in its
comprehensiveness, the commentary of R. David ibn Bilia (or: ibn Viliah).
Ibn Bilia lived in Portugal in the first half of the fourteenth century. He
wrote several treatises on a wide range of disciplines: medicine, metaphysics,
poetry, biblical exegesis, religious dogmas, and logic. The innovation of ibn
Bilia’s commentary on the Thirteen Principles was recognized by the author
himself when he said: “I have never seen nor heard one of the sages of Spain
who was motivated to write such a commentary.” In my talk, I will analyze
ibn Bilia’s method and sources, and will try to show how ibn Bilia’s
application of logic to the realm of the Talmud served him in the context of
the polemics regarding the relations between religion and philosophy in
fourteenth-century Spain.

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

The purpose of this paper is to present the transfer of New Christians of

Portuguese origin to the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century ‎by ‎sending
agents of various Jewish communities to ‎Portugal, charged to negotiate the
liberation of ‎those ‎who ‎wanted to leave the country. The ‎term ‎has ‎multiple
connotations – one of them, and ‎the most obvious, is the reference to
captivity ‎in Babylon.
The analysis will take into account the demographic profile of the Jewish
communities in the Ottoman Empire, and their weight in setting up this
practice. We will examine the regularity of the practice, the means
implemented, and the social status of the people ‎involved ‎in the process. Apart
from patrician families, such as the Nasi or Hamon, and some rich merchants,
emigrants from Portugal to the Ottoman Empire were of modest means:
retailers, sellers of trinkets and handkerchiefs, second-hand goods, small
craftsmen (leather workers, gunsmiths, and blacksmiths), pawnbrokers, scrap
dealers. ‎The major communities, through the mechanisms of mutual assistance
according to the Jewish ethics of traditional solidarity that motivated
them, ‎engaged the ‎“‎ releasers‎,”‎‎ those who went to Portugal to negotiate the
departure of their co-religionists. These individuals were to maintain the flame
of Judaism in the converted community in Portugal, but also to
create ‎propaganda in favor of the Ottoman Empire. Patrician families, like the
Nasis, or the more affluent, like the Lindos, Aboals, Habem Nunes, Sahadias,
in Istanbul, maintained their own ‎agents for the purpose.

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

The frequent focus on Conversos as victims of Iberian racial attitudes has

tended to obscure the fact that the Converso descendants of Jews in Spain and
Portugal, while rejecting claims of their own racial inferiority, saw the human
landscape in the same racially inflected terms as others did. When Menasseh
ben Israel, for example, argued that the inferior physical and cultural attributes
of most indios was proof that they could not be Jews of the Lost Tribes, he
was drawing a conclusion that echoed contemporary ethnological discourse.
In this paper, I will explore the lens through which seventeenth-century
Portuguese Jews thought about themselves in relation to other groups. It is
especially important in such an analysis to be careful about seventeenth-
century terminology. Early modern Spaniards and Portuguese (including
Conversos), when identifying and differentiating between human groups or
types, relied on a certain semantic field, one that only seems familiar to us.
The terms ‎“‎nation,‎”‎ ‎“‎race,‎”‎ ‎“‎caste,‎”‎ ‎“‎blood,‎”‎ and ‎“‎lineage‎”‎ were used almost
interchangeably. While their meaning could be biological, there was also much
slippage. A group‎’‎s religious practices, native land, dress, and language, as
well as its perceived level of cultural refinement, contributed to formulations
of human difference in these terms.
In general, Portuguese–Jewish thinking about Africans, indios, and the
various ‎“‎mixed-blood‎”‎ types was not distinguishable from that of other
Europeans. (I am not certain about Converso attitudes to Moriscos.) Of
particular interest in understanding the Portuguese Jews‎’‎ ethnological outlook
is the question of how, within the prevailing discourse, they viewed non-
Sephardic Jews, especially Ashkenazim. It is significant that Menasseh ben
50
Israel reported that members of a Peruvian tribe he did think were descended
from the Lost Tribes were ‎“‎like Spaniards‎”‎ – that is, as he explained, light-
skinned, bearded, civilized, and commerce-loving. He thus projected onto the
long-lost Jews cultural and physical characteristics that Portuguese Jews
associated with Spaniards – and with themselves. Not coincidentally, the
formal collective term the ex-Conversos used in reference to themselves –
‎“‎our Hebrew Nation, Portuguese or Spanish‎ [nossa nação hebrea,
portugueses e hespanholes]”‎‎ – ‎reveals a mixed conception of their
own ‎“‎nation-ness,‎”‎with both ancestral and environmental components.
What, then, did it mean for these Jews that Ashkenazim, though also
Jews by ‎“‎blood,‎”‎ were not (and could not be) members of ‎“‎the Nation‎”‎?
Intellectually, they understood that Ashkenazim belonged to the Jewish
people. What did they mean, then, by insisting that Ashkenazim were a
different ‎“‎nation‎”‎? Was this simply a hostile visceral response to the alien
Ashkenazi cultural style? Or, did they regard the Ashkenazim in more
conceptual terms, as lacking the Iberian naturaleza that Conversos had
acquired not by birth but by virtue of many generations on Iberian soil? I will
address these questions, keeping in mind that inconsistency, ambiguity, and
slippage were pervasive characteristics of early modern ethnological thinking.

51
 ‎“‎António Serrão de Castro’s Jewish Ballads‎”‎/ ‎“‎Os
Romances Judeos d‎’‎António Serrão de Castro, O Judeo‎”‎

KENNETH BROWN

The seventeenth-century Portuguese Converso poet António Serrão de Castro

(1610–83/4) was commonly called ‎“‎O Judeo‎”‎ and ‎“‎Poeta Marrano‎,”‎‎ and was
imprisoned on orders of the Portuguese Inquisition for ten years at the end of
his life. Yet, few literary historians and critics, if any, have analyzed his
satirical works as being representative of an individual closely bound to
normative Judaic customs and belief system. To compound this enigma, much
of his poetic creativity has remained dispersed, forgotten, lost, as one critic so
aptly writes: ‎“‎Para além de vários disperses e de outros poemas de autoria não
confirmada, há un número considerável de inéditos que se encontram em
miscelâneas manuscritas de época.‎”‎
I am currently preparing a critical edition of the poet‎’‎s hitherto-unknown-
to-exist 920 vv. Romance vário a Castidade de Joseph, & Incontinência da
Mulher de Putifar, an extended narrative ballad loosely based on the biblical
source. The numerous ingenious word plays, autobiographical allusions, and
indirect commentaries aimed at the Portuguese Inquisition in this brilliantly
wrought satirical piece, authored in 1674, when the incarcerated poet was aged
64, address the psychological desire of the homebound (that is, Lisbon-bound)
Converso for redemption from oppression in Portugal. It would appear that the
poetic voice in the poem clamors for deliverance from oppression to freedom
in Eretz Yisrael. I plan to include two more of Serrão de Castro‎’‎s ‎“‎Jewish‎”‎
ballads in my analysis: A descobrir Sansão a Dalida o segredo em quê tinha
suas forças and Perguntou-se quê causa tivera Jacob para chorar quando viu
a Raquel.

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

This proposed lecture adopts a micro-historical approach. It will focus on a

marriage contract maintained between families from the Portuguese
community of Bayonne at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Through it,
I will try to glimpse into the world of Portuguese Jewish elites in Bayonne –
the second community of ‎“‎New Christians‎”‎ after Bordeaux – at a time when a
religious marriage contract preceded the notary marriage contract. These New
Christians‎, for the first time, were ‎“‎tolerated‎”‎by a Christian regime.
The analysis of the contract will illuminate various aspects of family life,
gender, and networks among the first generation of immigrants. Through it, we
will try to open a window into the world of the Portuguese–Jewish Diaspora in
southern France, in a fateful era.

56
 Public and Commercial Activity by Nineteenth-Century
Sephardic Women as Reflected in Letters from Rabbi
Nathan Amram‎’‎s Circles

LILAC TORGEMAN

Letters preserved in the archives of Rabbi Nathan Amram (1791–1870), the

emissary of the Hebron community to Europe and the chief rabbi of Alexandria,
shed light on the lives of nineteenth-century Sephardic women in the region of
Eretz Israel, and the significant role played by members of families exiled from
Spain. Both Nathan Amram and his wife Vida (née Anhouri) were members of
such families who settled in Morocco and subsequently immigrated to Israel in
the nineteenth century.
Among the dozens of letters preserved, this lecture focuses on a number
that tell the story of several individuals, influential women from the nineteenth-
century Sephardic elite, who not only cared for their families but were also
active in the commercial and public spheres. Like Dona Gracia Nasi, the famed
Portuguese businesswoman, philanthropist, and stateswoman, these women had
the personal and financial clout to offer assistance in, and influence, the public
sphere. These women included, for example, Rabbi Nathan‎’‎s mother Rebecca
Amram, who was her husband‎’‎s business partner, and Vida‎’‎s mother Zohara
Anhouri, who was in business with her son-in-law. The latter‎’‎s letters
indicate, among other things, her dominant position in this partnership. Another
family member, Rabbi Nathan‎’‎s aunt Reyna, lent money to the Shamah Jewish
community in Damascus, and was also a signatory on a promissory note with its
rabbis. I conclude with the figure of Simḥa ‎ (Muḥa) Eddahan, one of the
wealthiest women in the region, whom many approached for financial aid,
including, for example, Rabbi Samuel Abu, the rabbi of Safed, who sought
financial backing to build the domes of the Ari Synagogue in Safed.

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

ALONSO MARÍA ISABEL PÉREZ

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

Meshullam ben Solomon de Piera flourished in mid-thirteenth-century

Catalonia. Counted among the opponents of Maimonides and the compeers of
Nahmanides, he has been described by Ezra Fleischer as “the most gifted of
the Hebrew poets who took part in the great debate surrounding
Maimonides … a trailblazer who radically altered multiple aspects of the
Hebrew poetry of Spain.” József Patai called him “a divinely endowed poet.…
Though he did not exceed the Spanish poets who predated him, he was the
greatest poet of his time.” In the words of H. Brody, “he was the finest poet of
his generation,” and, according to J. Schirmann, “his is the most innovative to
be found in any generation of the Spanish school of poetry.”
The work of de Piera deeply impressed not only modern scholars, but
also his contemporaries, both due to its prominent role in the debate about the
works of Maimonides, but also – perhaps principally – on account of its
novelty. Contemporary poets, such as Nahmanides and Meir Abulafia, were
quick to imitate him, as they themselves openly declared. Even in the next
generation – that of Ha-Gorni, Ha-Bedersi, and Todros Abulafia – the
influence of de Piera‎’‎s poetry is not difficult to discern. His sway extended
even beyond the borders of Spain and Provence, and the works of Immanuel of
Rome, Judah Siciliano, and others attest to the lasting effects that his poetry
wrought in Italy. In the following generation as well, Ha-Bedersi refers to the
poetry of de Piera, and quotes a verse from a poem penned by him in an
apology to Solomon Adret. The most loyal and deliberate successors of de
Piera were the “company of musicians” (adat nogenim), consisting of
Solomon de Piera, Solomon Bonafed, and Don Vidal Benveniste. The
members of this troupe, active in Zaragoza in the latter half of the fourteenth
59
century and the beginning of the fifteenth century, acknowledged and took
pride in the influence exerted on them by Meshullam, revering his poetry as a
paragon to be emulated. In the view of Solomon de Piera, Meshullam
(apparently his great-grandfather) was the equal of the poets of the Golden
Age in his oeuvre and influence. Some two centuries later, writing in his book
Meimei Yisra‎’‎el, Israel Najara described Meshullam de Piera as “the
superlative poet.”
Yet, having revolutionized Hebrew poetry and deeply affecting poets
across time and space, de Piera has been all but forgotten in modern
scholarship. Scholars of the Hebrew poetry of Spain have referred to his
significance and his innovations, but typically as nothing more than a tangent,
or within a wide-ranging discussion of artists and their creations.
This lecture is the starting point of a study. Our goal is to fill this lacuna
in the chronicles of Hebrew literature: to decipher the challenging, arcane
poems of Meshullam de Piera, which are intertexts to Jewish mysticism in
general and that of Gerona in particular, to the works of the troubadours, and
to the cultural and historical background of his creations; to chart the contours
of his new poetics; and to give it definition as that prevailing among Hebrew
practitioners in Christian Spain.
The corpus at my disposal is an anthology of de Piera‎’‎s poems published
by H. Brody in the fourth volume of Studies of the Research Institute for
Hebrew Poetry in 1938, containing forty-nine poems, with the addition of one
more discovered and published by J. Schirmann after the printing of that
edition.

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

The historical character of the Jewish–Portuguese freethinker Gabriel or Uriel

da Costa (1583/4–1640), who escaped from the Inquisition in Portugal before
experiencing a long-lasting philosophical and religious conflict with the
Sephardic community in Holland, has been the subject of various historical
and biographical texts as well as of some literary texts. My presentation deals
with Karl Gutzkow’s novella Der Sadducäer von Amsterdam (The Sadducee of
Amsterdam), the first fictional treatment of the tragic story lived and narrated
by Uriel da Costa in his autobiography Exemplar Humanae Vitae. It reflects
the aesthetic and ideological concepts of the so-called ‎“‎Young Germany‎,”‎‎ and
blends several fictitious elements into the historical plot – like the character
Judith Manasses, the beautiful Jewish woman with whom the hero falls in
love. My paper is centered on the analysis of the literary (re)construction of
the character of the Jewish–Portuguese heterodox during his fight against the
Jewish orthodoxy of Amsterdam, including the humiliating ceremony of
retraction and atonement which, instead of enabling the reintegration of the
penitent into the Sephardic community, urges him to a tragic fate.

62
 Portuguese Jews:
Writers and Characters in Brazilian Literature

REGINA IGEL

This research emphasizes works by Portuguese nationals or their descendants

who have become a part of Brazilian literature. Following chronological
order, emphases are on works by Bento Teixeira (possibly 1561, Porto –
1618, Lisbon), Antonio José da Silva (“The Jew,” 1701, Rio de Janeiro –
1739, Lisbon), and Ambrósio Fernandes Brandão (1555, Portugal – 1618,
Brazil). All of these three were Crypto-Jews, confessed or not, and their
literary work including concealed manifestations of their predecessors’ faith,
even if they themselves did not follow religious rituals. All three belonged to
the colonial times, and spent part of their lives in Brazil.
Among characters that are Portuguese or their descendants, this study
concentrates on novels. Author Octavio Mello Alvarenga (1926, Minas
Gerais – 2010, Rio de Janeiro), who, in Judeu Nuquim, presents a young
brother and sister, both still young and entrusted by their parents to a family
in Brazil, fleeing from the Inquisition. A estranha nação de Rafael Mendes,
by Moacyr Scliar (1937–2011, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul) clarifies
several of the genealogic lines flowing around the protagonist, Rafael
Mendes – who did not know who his father was, nor that he was probably a
Jew of Iberian origin.
The Portuguese character, Manuel, of the E-novel O Capitão dos
Índios, by Ana Lígia Lira (1979, São Paulo), is based on the real life story of
one of the author’s predecessors, a Crypto-Jew who arrived in Brazil during
colonial times, making his destiny and fortune in the fertile region of the state
of Paraíba, and saving many Jews from the Inquisition. That same state, in
the Northeastern region of Brazil, is the main backdrop to O segredo do
63
oratório, a novel by Luize Valente (1966, Rio de Janeiro), which shows two
women searching for material evidence of the Portuguese Jewish roots of the
Mendes de Brito family.
Although Brazilian literature so far has embraced quite a small number
of literary works including Jews and Crypto-Jews of Portuguese origin, it is
possible that scholars of Brazilian literature may yet find, hopefully, an
“Ariadne’s thread” that will lead us to more discoveries of fictional–historical
creativity. Nevertheless, the elements revealed in the present research may
disclose an idea of what one has to endure when one is creating or living
under political–religious pressures, as happened to some of the authors and
fictional and semi-fictional characters mentioned in this paper.

64
 Antonio José da Silva ‎“‎O JUDEU‎”‎–
Between two Reports in the Portuguese Literature:
Camilo Castelo Branco and Bernardo Santareno

SIMÃO DRAIBLATE

The monumental work by Alexandre Herculano, The Origins and

Development of the Inquisition in Portugal, as well as the Enlightenment and
the weakening of the Holy Office, influenced the inclusion of Jewish themes
in nineteenth-century Portuguese literature, among them three works by
Camilo Castelo Branco published in the same year (1866).
Exactly a century later (1966), Bernardo Santareno published his stage
play with the same title, in which, besides the history of “The Jew,” he
expresses his political and human convictions, as well as inserting
contemporary and real people into the plot.
Born in 1705 (in still-not-independent Brasil), António José da Silva‎’‎s
presence on the stage of life presents us with the unanswered question: was he
sacrificed as a martyr of the Inquisition (as coined by Teofilo Braga) or was he
murdered as a playwright, the enemy of the Holy Office.
In the 200-years’ span that separated the gracious plays by Gil Vicente
and his literary successor, António José da Silva, Spanish companies and
playwrights influenced and “invaded” the Portuguese stage, a consequence of
the rule of three Spanish monarchs (1580–1640).

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

JOÃO ESTEVES DA SILVA

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)

AXEL KAPLAN SZYLD

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

ABRAHAM OFIR SHEMESH

Ancient Jewish law took a strict approach to medical relationships between

Jews and non-Jews. Sages forbade Jews to provide non-Jews with medical
services: to treat them, circumcise them, or deliver their babies (Mishnah,
Avoda Zara, 1:1–2; 2:2). The current lecture deals with the attitude of Amatus
Lusitanus (1511–68), a notable Portuguese Jewish physician, toward treating
Gentiles.
‎ The physician‎’‎s oath of Lusitanus emphasizes that, as a doctor, he
treated all types of people, of varied faiths and socioeconomic status – Jews,
Christians, and Muslims. However, scholars like Abraham Steinberg assume
that the text was appended because of censorship. ‎At any rate, Lusitanus‎’‎s
biography teaches us that he treated many non-Jews. For instance, he received
an invitation from the municipality of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) to serve as the
town physician and he accepted this mission. In 1547, he left Ferrera and
moved to Ancona. Here he was called upon to treat Jacoba del Monte, sister of
Pope Julius III, and he also prescribed for Julius himself.
‎ Amatus Lusitanus was born in Castelo Branco, Portugal, in 1511. The
Portuguese inquisition forced him to leave his country, and he wandered
through many countries. In spite of the often-hostile religious attitude of his
environment, he did not retaliate against his patients and provided medical
treatment indiscriminately.
‎ ‎ During the course of the lecture, we will examine the versions of
Lusitanus’s physician‎’‎s oath, and compare it to other Jewish medical oaths
such as that of Asaph the physician.
78
 The Portuguese New Christian Doctors ‎and their Diaspora
in Europe during the Seventeenth Century

FLORBELA VEIGA FRADE

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

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Lurianic Kabbalah

began to become popular, and spread worldwide in Jewish communities. This
led to an awakening of the argument around the Kabbalistic belief in general
and, more specifically, belief in reincarnation.
Unlike other Jewish communities in the world, in which the argument
over resurrection was restricted to philosophical and theological fields, there
was another hidden stratum of motives for the argument for the former
Marranos from Spain and Portugal, who had resettled in communities in
Western Europe,
The philosophical ramifications of reincarnation were negligible at this
level, as opposed to the social and religious ramifications that would affect
the fate of the former Marranos who had been able to return openly to
Judaism – and even more so the fate of their Marrano relatives who lived at
the time in the Iberian Peninsula, and who had not yet been able to return
openly to Judaism
This lecture will reveal the hidden motives that affected the different
sections in the Spanish–Portuguese communities, to believe or to oppose
belief in reincarnation.

*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

CARLA RAMOS GARCÍA

In 1497, Manuel I ordered the expulsion or conversion of all the Jews of

his kingdom. In practice, what happened then was a mass conversion and,
thus, a new group was created inside the Old Christian society. In theory,
the idea was the achievement of religious and social homogeneity, but the
New Christians soon realized that this goal was far from being conquered,
and new internal forms of differentiation were created. The Purity of
Blood Regulations and the creation of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536
were two fundamental steps toward the exclusion of former Jews. This
implied not only that the original converts would be excluded from the
majority, but also their descendants. From then on, they would be associated
under the name “Nação.”
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Pope gave
different General Pardons to the Portuguese New Christians. After
promising to pay the king for that Pardon, the converts would receive
different benefits – like permission to leave Portugal, or release from the
Inquisitorial prisons. In order to organize the payment, lists were created
with the names of those who had to pay. Thanks to this, and despite the
destruction of the majority of the lists, we can now study the
composition of a group that was not homogeneous and in which not
everyone wanted to be included.
I will direct attention in this paper to the list of the 1630 Pardon, in
order to study some of the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the Nação.

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

The establishment of two Portuguese Sephardic communities of ivory and

hide traders at Joal and Portodale on Senegal‎’‎s Petite Côte in the first two
decades of the seventeenth century, the subject of a book and numerous
articles co-authored by José Horta and myself, engenders a question: do any
physical remnants survive of this early Jewish presence in West Africa? No
archeological excavations have been carried out yet. However, two potential
sources do exist that might enable us to trace artifacts of these communities
back to Europe. Several of the merchants subsequently moved from Senegal
to Amsterdam, to join the Portuguese community there. Records of the
Amsterdam Portuguese community include a mid-seventeenth-century
inventory of ritual objects in the possession of the Portuguese Synagogue. A
few of the objects are suggestive of West African origins. Moses de Mesquita
gave one Torah scroll to the synagogue. He had lived, as a young man, on the
Petite Côte. A small number of ritual objects were made of ivory – almost
certainly from West African elephants.
In addition, a carved ivory spoon, one of the Luso-African ivories from
sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century ‎“Guiné de Cabo Verde,‎” its handle
embellished by a hand, raises intriguing questions. Elsewhere, I have
proposed that it may have served as a ‎“ponteiro,‎”‎ or Torah pointer (‎‎yad‎‎). My
hypothesis was, I admit, somewhat far-fetched. Rather than depicting a hand
with an extended index finger, as do most ‎“yadim,‎”‎ this carving shows an
ostensibly Christian gesture. (I surmised that this might have been to hide its
true ritual function, in case it fell into the hands of the Inquisition.) To be
honest, I came to doubt my own hypothesis. Recently, however, another
85
Luso-African carved ivory spoon, its handle too ending in a hand, has come to
my attention. This ivory distinctly shows a right hand, the fingers bent, and
only the index finger extended, in the classic gesture of a Torah pointer. The
identification of this ivory as a ‎“‎ponteiro‎” ‎seems much more likely. How and
when did it arrive in Munich? I now propose to revisit my original hypothesis.
Might this (or perhaps both) of the ivories have served as ‎“yadim,‎”‎ with the
ritual function camouflaged so that they appeared to be spoons?
I propose this as a working hypothesis, to be verified by my ongoing
research. The conjunction of an Amsterdam inventory mentioning items in
ivory, the existence of at least two such ivory carvings, and the fact that
Sephardic merchants in Senegambia were the major traders in raw ivory,
suggest that this hypothesis warrants further attention.

86
 Father Antonio Vieira S.J. and the Conversion of the Jews:
‎A Reassessment

CLAUDE STUCZYNSKI

Father António Vieira (1608–97) was a devoted missionary of Brazilian

Amerindians, a supporter of Portugal‎’‎s ‎need to cooperate with Sephardic
merchants, ‎and a committed advocate of the social and religious integration of
the Conversos against Inquisitorial- biased persecution and ethnic exclusion
based on ‎“‎purity of blood.‎”‎In this lecture, I will revisit assumptions regarding
his being an early modern philo-Semitic Jesuit.

87
 The Discovery of Crypto-Judaism
in Portuguese Documentary Cinema

ASHER SALAH

The discovery of Crypto-Judaism in contemporary Portugal is generally

associated with the publication of Samuel Schwarz’s inquiry, Os Cristãos
Novos em Portugal no seculo XX, Lisboa, 1925, at the end of the Portuguese
first Republic (1910–26). However, the first film dealing with these
communities was produced only half a century later, in the context of a
recovered democracy in the aftermath of the 1974 Carnation Revolution.
My lecture will be focused on this two-hour long documentary,
Argozelo, a procura dos restos das comunidades judaicas (1976–77). The
intention of its director, Fernando Matos Silva, was to document the life of
the rural populations of Trás-os-Montes and to collect their musical traditions.
In his search of the last cultural traces of a Jewish legacy in this region of
Portugal, he benefited from the collaboration of such ethnomusicologists as
Michel Giacometti and Fernando Lopes-Graça. The texts read in the voice-
over were written by João Alfacinha da Silva (1949–2007) and by the local
historian and folklorist António Maria Mourinho (1917–1995), gathering
material from problematic sources such as Mario Saa’s anti-Semitic writings.
I will propose an analysis of the representation of Judaism and of the
persistence of Crypto-Judaism in Portugal in Silva‎’‎s documentary, together
with a discussion of the ideological background of this cinematographic
endeavor. The singularity of this first cinematographic document concerning
the Crypto-Jewish phenomenon appears also against the backdrop of the
much more popular but nonetheless controversial 1991 documentary, Les
derniers marranes, by Frederic Brenner and Stan Neuman, with the scientific
collaboration of Inácio Steinhardt.
88
 How to tell the History of the Jewish Presence in Portugal

ESTHER MUCZNIK & RITA MANTEIGAS

Architect Graça Bachmann, the author of the Lisbon Jewish Museum

architecture project will begin by describing the chosen design process. The
analysis of the space, as well as the conditions and current norms, were
fundamental to the Museum’s placing in the historical district of Alfama.
The synthesis of all the elements: the square’s topography, the buildings’
solar orientation; the surrounding architecture; the confining buildings’
height; construction materials applied; the buildings’ type of use; and
outlining sketches – hinted at project solutions. Throughout the various
stages of the architectural project, we used various design techniques as
instruments for the conceptual process, such as: sketching, perspectives,
drawings on photographs, and 3Ds ... thus, the Star of David emerged. The
design methodology is imbued with fantasy, though requiring a
multidisciplinary knowledge, in order to satisfy different requirements –
functional, formal, and esthetic. (A PowerPoint presentation will be shown
simultaneously with drawings of the Museum’s project).

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.”

Finally, Rita Manteigas, museologist, will present some sections of the

future Museum, through which she will illustrate the process of continuous
“dialogue” with the specialists in the different themes, with the museography
team, the multimedia professionals, as well as with the conservators–
restorers for the preparation of the museum objects that are being selected
for the Permanent Exhibition.

The session will be concluding with a 5-minute video dedicated to the

Jewish–Portuguese Diaspora.

90
 The Marrano‎’‎s Redemption by Captain Barros Basto,
‎“‎The Portuguese Dreyfus‎”‎

ELVIRA AZEVEDO MEA

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

We have found connections between several monasteries and the so-called

ethnic–religious minorities, and, in particular, the Jews, from the beginnings
of the formation of the Portugal kingdom. These relationships were
essentially of an economic character.
In fact, the realization of annuity contracts between the parties, or
even the loan of certain sums to members of the clergy, was considered a
relatively usual procedure for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And this
even after the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which, despite condemning
the usury of the Jews, ended up by authorizing the loan of money from Jews
to Christians, dependent on certain rules.
However, it is important to realize what happens in the next two
centuries. On the one hand, there is the “hardening” of civil and canonical
legislation toward the Jews. This can be seen, among other things, in the
case of the laws of 1314 and 1315, and the laws drawn up at the Synod of
Braga, in 1477. On the other hand, Christian society, including the
Portuguese, interacted and began to look at the Jews, creating and
consolidating the stereotype that all Jews practiced usury and got rich by
such means, as Jacques Le Goff shows us in his interesting essay entitled
“The Purse and the Life.”
Given this scenario, even if it is a general one, we will try to explain
the connections between the Jews and certain Portuguese monastic
institutions, trying to understand the typology of those relations, verify the

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

SOFIA CARDETAS BEATO

By the sixteenth century, reformers, Lutherans, and Calvinist orthodox no

longer questioned the traditional conception of a literal inspiration from the
Bible. They understood that it was necessary to abandon this conception in
favor of a valid analysis of sacred and profane texts.
Our attention, the consequence of a seminary work, is thus directed to
the historical–critical exegesis of the Bible in the European sphere until
1940, the beginning of the decade when the Catholic Church recognized the
importance of the new studies, with great freedom of development in the
following decade, but also away from exegesis.
With an aim to perceiving the agents who contributed to the
application of historical critique and the course of exegesis, R. Simon and J.
Leclerc are two names related with such reviews of biblical texts. As the
knowledge of Jewish exegesis progressed, more importance was attributed to
the historical sense. The dedication of the Portuguese B. Espinosa to clarify
the sense of discourse with the truth of things is overwhelming. To submit
the Scripture to historical–critical analyses is not, therefore, an originality of
the Aufklärung, although admittedly there are abundant studies. Specialists
from various civilizations and various disciplines studied biblical exegesis in
the nineteenth century, in their quest for more information.
In seeking the environment in which the biblical text was produced
(historical, social, and cultural), the existential approach was not always
discarded. To arrive at such a distinction was a lengthy process, which, we
hope, will become clearer in this communication.

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
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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.

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 Artur de Barros Basto – Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh
and Portuguese Judaism as Seen by Foreigners

HERVÉ BAUDRY

During geological surveys in the North of Portugal in the 1920‎s, Samuel

Schwarz uncovered populations of Crypto-Jews descending from the
Sephardim persecuted in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries. He published his
observations and reflections in 1925.
A year later, Lucien Wolf was sent to Portugal by the Alliance Israélite
Universelle to check out the situation, and to propose appropriate measures
for the renewal of Judaism in the country. He is among the individuals who
met and were impressed by Artur de Barros Basto, an Army officer who was
baptized as a Catholic and returned to Judaism under the name of Abraham
Israel Ben-Rosh. Other travelers fascinated by the existence of these
populations and Barros Basto‎’‎s proselytism came and visited him in Porto.
This presentation focuses on these visitors from Europe, aiming at portraying
a man known as “the Apostle of the Marranos” or “the Portuguese Dreyfus.”

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

SILVINA SCHAMMAH ‎GESSER

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

Through a careful reading of three processes of the Inquisition, the purpose

of this article is not merely to identify the trajectory of the person involved
in it, but also some of the practices of Judaism allegedly carried out by it, as
well as all the steps taken by the Inquisition during the successive
interrogation procedures.

107
 Between Tolerance and the Inquisition: The Legacy of
Spain and Portugal through the Eyes of Mordechai Noah
(1785–1851)

ODED ZION

The aim of this paper is to analyze the attitude of an American-born

Sephardic Jew, Mordechai Manuel Noah (1785–1851), a descendant of the
Portuguese New Christians, vis-a-vis Church–State relationship through
medieval and early modern Spain. Noah was a diplomat, journalist,
playwright, a proud American patriot, as well as a proto-Zionist. He held a
recognizable lineage related to the medical doctor Samuel Nunes – who fled
from the Portuguese Inquisition in 1732 to Georgia.
In his diplomatic career, President James Madison appointed Noah in
1813 as Consul to the kingdom of Tunis. However, Secretary of State James
Monroe regarded Noah’s religion “as an obstacle to the exercise of his
Consular function,” and eventually, in 1815, Noah lost his post. For Noah,
this was as a serious challenge to the American values of Church–State
separation. He used his short diplomatic experience as an opportunity to
hone his opinions on that issue. His encounter with Spain, while traveling
there in 1813 during his diplomatic service, led him to explain that the
backwardness of contemporary Spain was the result of an Inquisitorial
mentality and the eminent role that the Catholic Church still held in the life
of the Spanish nation. He saw in the Inquisition, as the embodiment of
fanatic Spanish Catholicism, an institution that not only persecuted its
enemies but also destroyed the state.
At the same time, Noah also held another image, that of pre-
Inquisitorial medieval Spain, guided by religious tolerance and prosperity.

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

The definition of the Converso – a converted Jew – consists of multiple sub-

definitions that differ from each other: 1. Crypto-Jew; 2. Marrano; 3. New
Christian; 4. those who were forced to convert (anusim); 5. those who
converted voluntarily (meshumadim). This research uses the Jewish
apologetics text Las Excelencias de los Hebreos (1679), written by Isaac
Cardoso, a converted Jew himself, as the literary and historical platform
revealing the lives of the Conversos of that time. As no one could openly
admit to being of Jewish origin, the text remains the only voice granted to a
mute existence.
Born in the early seventeenth century in ‎Portugal, Cardoso‎’‎s life story
embodies a bridge between two seemingly irreconcilable cultures – Iberian
Catholicism and Italian Judaism – representing a rite de passage from an
inner fractured and outer stable life in Spain to an inner stability and a
fractured communal life in Italy, leaving his past behind, and creating a new
identity in exile.
Although the study of the Conversos benefits from considerable research,
little work has been done examining this community from an ethnic rather
than a religious perspective. Miriam Bodian is one of the first scholars
introducing the innovative approach of exploring the identity, behaviour and
ethnicity of the Conversos as reflecting a mobilisation of general survival
strategies when dealing with discrimination, conflict and stigma, capturing
their identity and behaviour not as emerging from a Jewish consciousness but

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

Questions of identity, either individual or collective, have been a persistent

subject of attention throughout human history. The history and identity of
human populations is a topic of growing interest in many fields of
knowledge, from genetics and evolution, to sociology and the history of
ideas. Through a constellation of well-known historical events, the Jewish
populations are a paradigm of communities in constant migration. Such
movements generate a genetic flow among populations that will ultimately
define complex patterns of genetic diversity. The power of the genomic data
to infer degrees of kinship, migratory routes, levels of miscegenation, as well
as divergence estimates among populations has already been demonstrated
thoroughly.
Biology or molecular genetics as a means or tool of reconstructing an
identity is therefore on the agenda, and assumes particular relevance when it
concerns the complex concept of ‎“Jewish identity.”‎‎ Recently, the possibility
of using genetic tests for the attribution of citizenship under the ‎“Law of
Return”‎‎ was announced by the State of Israel. The use of genetic testing for
this purpose is far from consensual, and a controversy between political,
religious, and civil society set in motion. It is therefore urgent to open an
informative dialogue about the potentiality and social impact that this new
tool –genomics – signifies.

112
 Portugal’s Gastronomic Heritage – A Legacy of Kashrut
that Must be Understood and Preserved

CLAUDIA SIL

One of the most unexpected impacts of the Jewish presence in Portuguese

culture is the gastronomic legacy. Simple and balanced as regards nutritional
values, Portuguese cuisine varies between the labels of Mediterranean and
Atlantic while entirely embracing neither of these; simultaneously it is also
close to the kosher Jewish ethnic diet.
The Spanish Edict of Expulsion of the Jews in 1492 drove many
thousands of Jews to Portugal, where they represented a high percentage of
the total Portuguese population since then, like now, it was a much smaller
country than Spain. The Portuguese demography changed dramatically, and
it is impossible to believe that there was no cultural influence over the native
population. Spanish Jews joined the local Jewish communities all over the
country. The “New World” was yet to discover the Jewish Diaspora, as it did
not yet reach the American continent. Moreover, language, security, family,
proximity, and international trade issues made Portugal a preferred location
for the migratory flow.
The first codfishes started to arrive in the country at the beginning of
the sixteenth century, coming from “Terra Nova” (today’s Newfoundland
and Labrador province in Canada). Cod quickly became a popular kosher
food among the local Jewish populations due to the ease of its transport
when salted and dried. New kosher slaughterhouses and shochtim (ritual
Jewish slaughters) were not easy to set up or find. What locals observed was
that their new neighbors, educated and wealthy, ate a lot of fish. Today,
Portugal is among the three countries that eat the most fish per capita (with
Japan and Norway) – far more than the Spanish, who eat five times less.
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Codfish (Gadus morhua), haddock (Merluccius merluccius), and sardines
(Sardina pilchardus) are favorite dishes in Portugal, using exclusive and
world cooking techniques.
Traditional Portuguese main courses do not make any use of dairy
products, which is dramatically different from all the other European
countries, which commonly use cheese, butter, cream, or yogurt in their
recipes. The preferred cooking fat is olive oil (in old and modern Portuguese
“azeite,” which sounds the same as as the Hebrew ‫( ַ֫זי ִת‬transliterated
“zayith”). Many main dishes make use of vegetables and pulses (in modern
Portuguese, the main word is legumes) and cereals. A large variety of
vegetable soups is popular and mandatory at Portuguese tables. Chicken
soup (canja) is used for sick people and postnatal woman. In the mountain
areas, lamb and goat are meat favorites and used for special occasions and
festivities all over the country. All Portuguese families eat fried dough
pastries at Christmas. The Portuguese made considerable use of spices.
There are ancient recipes for smoked and garlicky sausages stuffed with
bread and shredded poultry and veal meat (alheira), or with a single cow’s
tongue, that were used to confuse the Inquisition (both from Trás-os-Montes
region). Although the pork consumption per capita in Portugal has risen in
recent years due to the economic crisis, it still represents five times less than
in Spain. With no other neighboring countries but Spain, Portugal’s
substantial gastronomic differences illuminate the traditional Portuguese
kashrut legacy theory. External gastronomic influences have begun to
change the Portuguese recipes’ profile in the last four decades, and this
ethereal patrimony could quickly be lost forever.

114
 The Converso Experience in Brazil:
Cultural Absence and National Discourse

PAIT HELOISA

The goal of this paper is to illuminate traditional and persistent questions

about Brazilian society related to political discourse and cultural norms, with
particular emphasis on the specific experience of the Conversos of colonial
times. Recent research on the Portuguese Inquisition shows its profound
impact on Brazilian society, even though the event is virtually absent from
collective memory.
Jews and Conversos did not find conditions in colonial Brazil that
allowed them to remain Jews or return to their faith. The economy was
regulated by the State in the most populated areas, while the interior was
essentially left to itself. No printing press was allowed to enter the land until
the nineteenth century, and education was mostly in the hands of the Church.
Jews either remained in the big cities, renouncing their faith in order to enter
public office or even the Church, or went inland, secretly remained Jews, and
devoted themselves to low-productivity economic activities. With time,
poverty robbed them of the necessary means to educate their children,
weakening their ties to Judaism.
We show that religious persecution was the most visible aspect of a
broader oppression that included distinctive social and cultural habits. The
result of the process was a ‎“‎cultural absence‎”‎ in national life, addressed only
recently, which we relate to a blind spot in our present understanding of
Brazilian culture and society. The Jewish experience will be examined
therefore as a vivid, although silenced, example of our intractable national
dramas.

115
 The Way to Freedom: Spain and Portugal
in the Poetic Work of Claude Vigée (1921–)

THIERRY J. ALCOLOUMBRE

Claude Vigée occupies an unusual position in the French postwar literary

landscape. Born in Alsace in 1921, Vigée joined the resistance during World
War II. Narrowly escaping deportation to the Nazi death camps under the
Vichy regime, he fled to the United States. He spent twenty years in exile
there before moving to Jerusalem, where he continued to produce some of
his most important writing. His polymorphous body of work reflects this
experience of the “passage” from exile to deliverance. Situated at the
crossroads of worlds and continents, his writing is some distance removed
from the main French literary and philosophical currents of recent decades,
and constitutes in many ways a form of questioning of those currents.
Vigée evokes Spain and Portugal in his book La Lune d’hiver (Winter
Moon). At once memoir, diary, poem, and essay, the book recounts the
poet’s experiences from the beginning of World War II to the Aliyah
(immigration to Israel). Madrid and Lisbon make an appearance as
obligatory way stations in the journey from Europe to America. Vigée only
gives them a few pages, but they are some of the most meaningful pages he
ever wrote, and they hold an essential place in his work.
Vigée first gives us an exceptional account of the daily life of a
refugee in Spain and Portugal, of the social and political situation in the two
countries, and of what it was like to cross the Atlantic under the constant
threat of German torpedoes. However, Lisbon is also the site of an almost
mystical existential and spiritual experience. Its coastal landscape, with its
play of shadow and light, influenced Vigée’s vision of the world and his
understanding of his vocation as a poet. This experience gave birth to his
116
first major work, La lutte avec l’Ange (Wrestling the Angel), inspired by the
biblical story of Jacob’s struggle with a heavenly being. For Vigée, Jacob is
the prototype of the Jewish people, facing its destiny as a mortal being
engaged in history. The struggle also represents the poetic endeavor, which
Vigée sees as a perpetual fight for life – against the temptation to succumb to
despair and silence. It was in Lisbon that Vigée conceived the idea that
poetry and the Jew have the same destiny.

117
 The Hidden Jews: Jorge Luis Borges and Fernando Pessoa

ELINOR AHARON

World War II exposed the Jewish failure to assimilate in Europe. During

those ten or so years of Nazism, not only was the Jews’ citizenship
revoked, but their mere humanity was questioned and dismissed.
In the aftermath of the war, Jews rebuilt their communities or formed
new ones on the continent, but the ancient yet ever-present questions of
identity and loyalty remain relevant. The establishment of the state of Israel
has only intensified them. In the ethical reality offered by French philosopher
Emmanuel Levinas, the individual’s ability to develop his or her subjective
identity is conditional upon an ethical relationship between fellow men. To
be precise: it is the individual’s ability to respect and protect their
“ otherness” to him, which enables him to discover his own unique
individuality.
Regarding Jews, however, Levinas claims, the distinction between
nationality and the principle of freedom of religion is never clear or
unbiased. The suspicion of what he termed “double allegiance” is
permanently casted, and so, every Jew in Europe is essentially a “Marrano.”
Although the origin of the term “Marrano” is uncertain, the intention
behind labeling a citizen as one is clear, not only to shed doubt on his
religious devotion but also to question his loyalty to the host country’s
values.
With Levinas’s views in mind, we will examine the cases of Argentinian
writer Jorge Luis Borges and Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa – both
literary icons of the twentieth century – known for disputing every aspect
of the notion of identity, who were accused of being Marranos.

118
 At the Roots of Jewish Modernity:
“The First Enlightenment‎”

DAVID BANON

It is a widely held opinion that Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) was the

harbinger of Jewish modernity. This assertion is submitted to scrutiny in this
paper. Our inquiry will discover a pre-modernity – ‎“‎the first Aufklärung‎”‎– as
it is revealed in the works of two sons of Portuguese Marranos: ‎B. Spinoza in
his Theologico-political treatise, and Menashe ben Israël‎’‎s (1604–53)
Vindiciae Judaeorum – as well as in the book of the Italian Rabbi Simone
Simh‎’‎a Luzatto (1583–1663): Discorso circa il stato degl‎’‎Hebrei (Venice,
1638).
Mendelssohn asked one of his peers to translate Menashe ben Israël‎’‎s
book into German. A year later, in 1782, he himself wrote a preface to this
book. A close reading of Mendelssohn‎’‎s Jerusalem or Religious Power and
Judaïsm will confirm that these thinkers inspired him, even if they are not
explicitly named. The struggle for Jewish emancipation, as it appears in
Mendelssohn‎’‎s Jerusalem, is in debt to these thinkers. However, this fact has
been obscured by history books used in the study of this era. This leaves no
doubt: ‎it can be established that the Sephardic Jews were the ‎avant garde‎ of
Jewish modernity.

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 ‎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.

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 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.

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 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

This presentation is intended as a first introduction to the study of the Jewish

beliefs and ceremonies of the New Christians of the bishoprics of Guarda
and Viseu throughout the time of the Portuguese Inquisition (1536–1821).
We will examine some of the cases brought against the defendants of
these regions during the relevant period. At the same time, we will try to
infer to what extent – if any – the action of Inquisitorial Courts determined
changes in the Jewish practices of these communities.

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 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

The valley of Bestança is a territory perfectly delineated by its physical and

human geography, through its morphological characteristics, and the
administrative grid that had its limits there. At the same time a place of refuge
and migration, the 13 or so kilometer Bestança valley, located in the
municipality of Cinfães, was a populated area including the old municipalities
of Cinfães, Ferreiros de Tendais, and Tendais.
Certain individuals and families established themselves alongside the
lower and middle watercourses on both sides of the riverbanks during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their notoriety as Jews earned their
descendants a certain amount of anxiety and persecution by the state and
church institutions.
The fact that the noble family of Cunha Soutomaior, descendants of
Crypto-Jews from Barcelos (Portugal), gathered at Bestança in the
seventeenth century in their manor house, Tintureiros, seems to reinforce the
idea of a place suitable for the installation of a Crypto-Jewish community,
away from the main urban centers and the vigilant ruling powers.
Using the concept and methodological tools of Social Network Analysis
(SNA), and through the cross-referencing of written sources such as the
parish records and the legal processes ‎of the Inquisition, we will try to answer
questions about the existence or lack thereof of networks of complicity and
sociability of Crypto-Jewish families who lived in a number of villages in the
region of the Bestança Valley.

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 ‎“‎Caminhamos e andamos‎”‎: Music and Shifting Identity
among Portuguese B‎’‎nei Anusim

JUDITH COHEN

For close to a quarter of a century, I have conducted fieldwork and research

among the Jews of rural Portugal, particularly in Belmonte and the nearby
regions of Beira Baixa, and Tras-os-Montes. As the years have gone by, the
old rezadeiras, prayer-women, who were the last generation actively to
maintain Crypto-Judaism in the sense of ‎“‎hidden‎,”‎‎ have mostly passed away.
In some cases, I may have been the last person to record them. Meanwhile,
younger generations have grown up differently, not only living as open rather
than ‎“‎Crypto-‎”‎Jews, but also, with increasing visits from non-Portuguese
Jews, going on trips to Israel, and surfing the Internet – slow to arrive, but
then quick to grow. I examine the differences in the selection of musical
repertoire for both religious performance and for listening, taking into account
these shifting circumstances. In some cases, I have known young adult
community members since they were infants, or have even known their
families before they were born. ‎The title ‎“‎Caminhamos e andamos‎”‎ – ‎“‎we
travel and we walk/go‎,”‎‎ is from a symbolic song that the Belmonte Crypto-
Jews traditionally sing during Passover, and it is used here to reflect these
new paths and roads in their long and courageous journey.
I am happy to accommodate language differences by preparing my
PowerPoint – rich in images and sounds from my fieldwork over the years –
in one language, and speaking in other; for example, Portuguese and English.
I can present fluently in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French.
I would also like to give a concert, of the sort known in Spanish
as ‎“‎concierto didáctico‎,”‎‎ of the older Judeo–Spanish repertoire of narrative
124
ballads (romances/rimances/quadras), and life and calendar cycle songs. If
budget permits, I would like to invite a long-time music accompanist who
lives in Madrid to join me. I accompany myself, but of course having another
instrumentalist enriches the experience considerably for the audience. I could
do one – paper or concert – in Lisbon and the other in Porto.
I can do one presentation, in the form of a Performance–Talk, which
combines a talk and a concert, and would be about an hour in length. This
would include the proposal below, but set into a wider context of the basics of
Sephardic songs, and their place in the regional and early music of Spain and
Portugal.
As the only ethnomusicologist, to my knowledge, to have visited not
only Belmonte, but also the villages of Beira Baixa and Tras-os-Montes
regularly for close to a quarter of a century (starting in 1994 and never
stopping), and also one of the few performers of Sephardic and also
Portuguese traditional music with a doctorate (PhD) in the field and a
Master‎’‎s in Medieval Music, I feel I am unusually well-positioned to be
featured in this conference as a senior scholar and performer.
One way or another, I would like to present in both cities, Lisbon and
Porto; several people in both communities have asked me when I am next
presenting talks and music in both.

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 Agnus Dei versus Menorah –
The Encounter between Christians ‎and Jews in the Region
of Carção (Bragança – Portugal) in the Early Modern Age

ANA CRISTINA SOUSA & GABRIELA BENNER

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.

126
 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
127
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

The idea that Spinoza‎’‎s Theological–Political Treatise (TPT) is directed

primarily against the Mahamad elite of the Talmud Torah congregation of
Amsterdam is an idea that emerged very early – long before Spinoza‎’‎s
publishing of the TPT. This idea suggested that the timely flattery of Christianity
at the TPT served Spinoza‎’‎s resentment against the rabbis of this community,
particularly against haham Saul Levi Morteira, his former professor at Yeshiva
Keter Torah (“The Crown of the Law”). Some scholars believe they can justify
this claim using a so-called manifesto written in Spanish, entitled Apología para
justificarse de su abdicación de la Sinagoga. Indeed, today, many authors share
the opinion that the original text of the Apología is included and rewritten in the
TPT.
A year before his death in 1660, Morteira wrote (in Portuguese) his
Tratado da Verdade da Lei de Moisés (Treatise on the Truth of the Law of
Moses: TTLM), the study of which is indispensable if one is to understand the
motivation that led to the drafting of Spinoza‎’‎s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.
Indeed, as Herman Prins Salomon showed in his edition of Morteira‎’‎s TTLM,
there is an undeniable genetic relationship and a negative emulation between the
two lines of thought and the two works, with Morteira‎’‎s Tratado (1659–60)
decisively influencing Spinoza‎’‎s TPT (1670).
The present paper has three parts:
1. Historical context of the publication and reception of the Theological-
Political Treatise;
2. Critical analysis of Spinoza‎’‎s thesis, according to which the ruin of the
Hebrew State makes Judaism anachronistic;
3. Tentative interpretation of a passage in chapter 3 of the TPT, where
Spinoza admits the possibility of a Jewish State restoration.

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 Not a Heretic or a Modernist, but a Jew:
Spinoza as a Reformator of Judaism

MENASHE SCHWED

The main argument of this presentation is that the proper interpretation of

Spinoza‎’‎s philosophy is to see him as a religious reformator. It is based on two
interlinking theses, an interpretive one regarding a reformative reading of his
Theological–Political Treatise, and a more biographical one concerning his
unique intellectual heritage, which, taken together, suggest that Spinoza was far
more radical than just a heretic or secular modernist. ‎
The first thesis rejects the ordinary understanding of Spinoza as a heretic,
who rejected Judaism and the rabbinic authority, or a secular modernist, who
anticipated the modern, Israeli, secular Jew. Rather, he argues for a radical
reformation of Judaism, as he did not stop being religious in his philosophy at
least. The second thesis is that what enables Spinoza‎’‎s philosophy to be far
ahead of its time was a unique combination of three biographical circumstances:
1. Spinoza belonged to the Portuguese Crypto-Jews who eventually
returned to Judaism;
2. His extensive education in Jewish Sephardic philosophers;
3. The inevitable confrontation in which Spinoza found himself, with the
strict Ashkenazi rabbinical interpretation of the scripture and Judaism. This
confrontation was unavoidable to begin with, since Spinoza was part of the
Portuguese Crypto-Jewish community and, thus, suspected on religious grounds.
Does Spinoza‎’‎s Treatise undermine the foundations of Judaism so far as to
argue, as did Mendelssohn, that it is incompatible with it? The argument here is,
to the contrary, that the Treatise advances a reformation of Judaism. Spinoza‎’‎s
most divisive legacy was his limitation of Mosaic law‎’‎s validity for history; this
revolutionary idea has been rejected by many Jewish thinkers, probably because
it was a call for a reformation within Judaism.

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.
131
 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.

132
 Turkish Sephardic Jews and their Quest for Portuguese
Ancestors’ Citizenship

ISABEL DAVID & ANOUCK G. CÔRTE-REAL PINTO

In 2013, the Portuguese Parliament unanimously passed an amendment to its

law on nationality, granting descendants of Sephardic Jews who escaped the
Inquisition the right to apply for Portuguese nationality. Presented as a judicial
act of reparation similar to the one adopted in Spain, it came into force in 2015.
According to the most recent official statistics, the majority of requests for
Portuguese nationality have come from Israel and Turkey.
This presentation, based on a qualitative methodology, aims at
understanding why so many Turkish Sephardic Jews are applying for
Portuguese nationality despite other similar alternatives – in addition to the
Turkish hegemonic discourse of peaceful togetherness and its continuous state
protection toward its Jewish minority from Ottoman times until today. We
hypothesize that efforts to receive a second citizenship from an EU country
result mainly from growing safety concerns among Turkish Jews, reinforced by
their stigmatized identity. However, getting a Portuguese passport does not
mean leaving Turkey but is, rather, an “insurance policy,” a contingency plan
against further violence and insecurity. It expresses a new strategy of identity
for Turkish Sephardic Jewish families, to ensure their (self) protection in
Turkey without (yet) challenging their primary Turkish citizenship.
Motivating factors, such as growing authoritarian trends in Turkey,
increasing perception in Turkey of discrimination and insecurity related to
Jewish identity, path-dependency, and a history of ambivalent relations
between the Jewish minority and the Turkish state, will be studied as well as
such factors as the flexibility of Portuguese citizenship and the EU
opportunities attached to it.

133
 Academic Committee:

Prof. Moisés Orfali, Bar-Ilan University

Prof. Claude B. Stuczynski, Bar-Ilan University
Prof. José Alberto Tavim, University of Lisbon
Prof. Elvira Mea, University of Porto
Prof. Shimon Sharvit, Ashkelon Academic College
Prof. Moshe Amar, Ashkelon Academic College
Dr. Yoel Marciano, The Ben-Zvi Institute & Ariel University
Dr. Shimon Ohayon, Director of the Dahan Center

Conference Director:
Dr. Shimon Ohayon, Director, Dahan Center, Bar-Ilan University

Organization and Production:

Ms. Ora Kobelkowsky, Dahan Center, Bar-Ilan University

Information and Registration:

The Dahan Center for Culture, Society and Education in the Sephardic Heritage
Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 52900 ISRAEL
Tel: +972-3-5317959
E-mail: dahan.center@biu.ac.il
www.dahancenter.co.il