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The first time I heard the statement, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” (probably from the same source you did, dear reader) my immediate thought was, “They don’t? Why, haven’t we seen this kind of thing often enough?”
We haven’t. Not because the innate process isn’t repetitive in world history, but because Western culture (claiming Alexander the Great to start with) as taught in the US —and perhaps beyond— uses the image of Christopher Columbus as a self-righteous precedent for manifest destiny while justifying rejection of all culpability involved, a not-uniquely-American elitism by which to unite church and state in a moral obligation to conquer, dominate, and exploit “lesser” peoples (including their own lower orders), mercenarily authorizing mass theft, pillage, subjugation, and murder.
By definition, empires utilize any rationales that work; power structures of The West for centuries found profitably effective to wield the Cross as a bludgeon, whip, and vivisector’s blade, further sharpened by programming their own populations, generation-upon-generation, with an expedient personal as well as national Machiavellian obsession to derive psychological security from acting on culturally conditioned aggression toward people who are/think “other” and “different”. Even so modest a difference as gender within one’s own family or community, or precise hue of blue within one’s own political party.
The January/February 2016 National Geographic History magazine’s “Inquisition: Three Centuries of Spanish{sic} Terror” is a case study in selected facts skewed to gratify popular Western elitism, by emphasis on heroic Protestant victimization and resistance, in the history of what’s now a conveniently second-class prevalently Catholic economy...
… as if The Inquisition was not far earlier instituted throughout Europe to eradicate every challenge to “spiritual and temporal supremacy [of the Papacy] over all of Christendom” [1] —i.e., its full geographic reach, including Crusades-enforced imperialism/colonialism, if perhaps short of intercontinental commerce beyond— in which Europe’s power-structures (including popes of royal-house lineages) alternately cooperated or battled for control, whatever was expedient in the moment.
...as if there was no significance in the 1491 Treaty upon the fall of five centuries-old Islamic Granada, last vestige of Al-Andalus ...
… a beacon of learning [among Muslims, Christians and Jews creating] achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science… including major advances in trigonometry (Geber), astronomy (Arzachel), surgery (Abulcasis), pharmacology (Avenzoar), and other fields. Al-Andalus [had been] a major educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for culture and science between the Islamic and Christian worlds...
...all unmentioned in the half-page time-line spanning 1478 to 1834, early among the twelve of this glossy magazine article. Equally invisible, the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, by lethal royal edict upon roughly one in every twenty individuals in the just-invented España — the combined kingdoms under Isabella and Ferdinand, in which 'Los Reyes Católicos' (i.e., ‘the universal rulers’)
started policies to diminish the power of the bourgeoisie [i.e., urban populations: craftsmen, persons engaged in commerce and trade, educators, ‘professionals’] and nobility in Castile, and greatly reduced the powers of the Cortes (General Courts) to the point where they ' rubber-stamped ' the monarch's acts, and brought the nobility to their side.[emphasis added]
Among their majesties’ actions’ precedents, also conveniently before the timeline begins, was the Unam Sanctam of 1302:
which some historians[1] consider one of the most extreme statements of [Papal authority] ever made [laying down] dogmatic propositions on the unity of the Catholic Church, the necessity of belonging to it for eternal salvation, the position of the pope as supreme head of the Church, and the duty thence arising of submission [by everyone in Christendom, regardless of rank, emphasizing] the higher position of the spiritual in comparison with the secular order.[emph. added]
As further evidence for motives of temporal/material/mercenary power underlying apparent religious zealotry:
… On 5 February 1296, Bonifice issued the papal bull Clericis laicos forbidding clerics, without [his authority] to pay to laymen any part of their income or of the revenue of the Church; and likewise all emperors, kings, dukes, counts, etc.[i.e., laymen] to receive such payments, under pain of excommunication.[5]
Edward I of England responded with outlawry, a concept known from Roman law. This effectively withdrew the protection of the English Common Law from the clergy,[6] and confiscated the temporal properties of bishops who refused his levies...
...Philip of France countered with an embargo … disallowing the export of horses, arms, and money … primarily to keep the French clergy from sending taxes to the pope. By prohibiting the export of gold, silver, precious stones, or food from France to the Papal States, this had the effect of blocking a main source of papal revenue. Philip also banished from France papal agents raising funds for a new crusade in the Middle East...
Royal partnerships with the Inquisition, and alliances against it, served mercenary goals by formally anathematizing all persons and groups perceived as a threat to established power, and legitimizing forfeiture (to the profit of church, state, and local economy) of material means of survival, and of survival itself when desired —of Cathars & Waldensians & Spiritual Franciscans & Husites & Beguines & Jews (and later Muslims) etc etc— legally dehumanizing whomever the ruling powers, secular and religious, found expedient.
By then, the Silk/Spice Roads had been in full swing a dozen centuries, the 30-plus Asian and peri-Asian cultures involved having been influential in shaping the origins of Christianity, less fortunately stimulating Western avarice for global commerce:
...Marco Polo [1254-1324] … (see Europeans in Medieval China) ... was the first to leave a detailed chronicle [see also Benjamin of Tudela 1130–1173] … This book inspired Christopher Columbus[4] and many other travellers [and] influenced European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map.
Students of the Expulsion observe that the Alhambra Decree (Edict of Expulsion) issued March 31,1492 by Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon (2nd cousins from the House of Trastámara )—whose marital union created the first entity called España (Spain)— ordering all Jews not yet slaughtered or sincerely converted to Christianity in preceding persecution to be out of the joined Spanish kingdoms, territories and possessions, by July 31, was a literal deadline mere days before the very-expensive first voyage of Columbus sailed. During these four-months, in which assurances of safety of life and property did not materialize, Spanish Jews wishing to survive had no choice but hand over to local and national economy what remained of their homes and personal and communal possessions, trying to secure survival necessities for flight and carry-able goods that might be barterable for transportation, food, shelter and defense, as refugees at the mercy of mobs and authorities until crossing hopefully less murderous borders … if they made it that far.
The Alhambra Decree involved no creativity on the part of Isabella and Ferdinand: medieval France, Germany, England, Wales, Hungary, and Austria did the same before them —others after (interestingly including the papal states), Portugal almost immediately— and several repeatedly across centuries (down to the Holocaust and beyond). If the Treaty of Granada (1491) had not guaranteed some protections to remaining Muslims, by virtue of still reckonable Islamic power (and commerce) across the Strait of Jebel Tariq (Gibralter) & the Med, perhaps, the same would likely have been done to them at that time.
And eventually did: “on paper” the Edict of 1502
ordered expulsion rather than a forced conversion, but forbade nearly all possible destinations; in reality, the Castilian authorities preferred Muslims to convert than emigrate.[26] ... The order explicitly forbade going to other neighboring regions, such as the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, the Principality of Catalonia, and the Kingdom of Navarre.[22] Of possible overseas destination, North Africa and territories of the Ottoman Empire were also ruled out.[22] The edict allowed travel to Egypt, then ruled by the Mamluk Sultanate, but there were few ships sailing between Castile and Egypt in those days.[28] It designated Biscay in the Basque country as the only port where Muslims could depart, which meant that those from the south (such as Andalusia) would have to travel the entire length of the peninsula.[25] The edict also set the end of April 1502 as the deadline, after which Islam would become outlawed and those harboring Muslims would be punished severely.[28] A further edict issued on September 17, 1502, forbade the newly converted Muslims to leave Castile within the next two years.[25] Historian L.P. Harvey wrote that with this edict … Muslim presence under the Mudéjar status came to an end...[28]
as the ‘Moorish’ culture’s science. literature and art ignited the renaissance and inflated Europe’s ambitions further).
...The king and queen issued the [Decree] less than three months after the surrender of Granada ... In it, Jews were accused of trying "to subvert their holy Catholic faith and trying to draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs." These measures were not new in Europe.[12]
[Jews had four months to] convert to Christianity or leave the country. Under the edict, Jews were promised royal "protection and security" ...before the deadline. They were permitted to take their belongings with them – except "...gold or silver or minted money or other things prohibited by the laws of our kingdoms...". The punishment for any Jew who did not convert or leave by the deadline was summary execution.[1] The punishment for a non-Jew who [even] sheltered [far less] hid Jews was the confiscation of all belongings and hereditary privileges… [emph. added]
It’s a question ...what fraction of value in “permitted” things do they receive for currency and objects so many are desperate to trade for means of survival and escape in so short a time? ...and how far a refugee gets in a hostile region with few barterables by which to pay for transportation, food, water, shelter, protection for family, survival necessities and the barterables their survival requires? ...and what relief from taxation pressures did Catholic Spaniards enjoy through this extortion of imminently exiled aliens, with their majesties avid for money to finance their enterprises, such as the just-concluded war … and three shiploads of men, equipment, and supplies sailing to find and capture a trade route to China?
...the numbers [of Jewish and accused-of-being-Jewish Spaniards] vary between 130,000 and 800,000. ...Tens of thousands died trying to reach safety. ...rumors spread throughout Spain that many had swallowed gold and diamonds they hoped to take with them [so] Jews were knifed to death and their stomachs cut open … Jews who tried [to leave by sea passage] were often charged exorbitant sums and then sometimes tossed overboard [en route for the sake of stealing their remaining possessions]...
An estimated 200,000 converted to Christianity between the preceding century+ of persecutions and in the face of the Decree, rather than themselves and their families tortured and killed or impoverished past any means for livelihood or escape and then butchered anyway.
...As one of the towering figures in Judaism and [author] of the Mishneh Torah expansion of the Talmud, Maimonides [b. Cordova, Almoravid Iberia ca.1135-Egypt, December 12, 1204] [had written] a landmark doctrinal response to the forced conversions of Jews in the Iberian peninsula by the zealous Almohads… His championing of rationalism [over martyrdom] legitimized crypto-Judaism by [Jewish] standards, and gave doctrinal backing to Jews later in the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
But
...conversos were [constantly subjected] to additional suspicion by the Inquisition, which persecuted religious heresy with a strong focus on Judaism. Additionally, Limpieza de sangre Statutes [Blood Purity Laws] instituted legal discrimination against converso descendants ... the Chuetas of the island of Majorca [were still subjected to it] into the early 20th Century...
Marrano was an Iberian term —expulsion from Portugal was in 1497— for formerly Jewish New Christians suspected of continuing Judaic practices in secret after having ‘chosen freely’ to convert or being
... forced to convert to Christianity ... In Hebrew the terms anusim ("forced ones") and Zera Yisrael ("seed of [the people of] Israel") are sometimes used.
...marrano ... in 15th- century Spanish first meant "dirty", "unclean", "swine", "pig" … In Portuguese the word marrano generally refers to "crypto-Jews", although it also means a type of swine (dialectally), "filthy" or "dirty" (sujo), and "outcast" (maldito, excomungado);[1] while the related terms marrão [mɐˈʁɐ̃w] and marrancho [mɐˈʁɐ̃ʃu] mean only the animal: "pig" or "swine".[2][3] [emph. added.]
...Aside from social stigmatization and ostracism, the consequences of legal or social categorization as a New Christian included restrictions of one’s civil rights, abuses of those already limited civil rights, social and sometimes legal restrictions on who one could marry (anti-miscegenation laws), social restrictions on where one could live, legal restrictions of entry into the professions and the clergy, legal restrictions and prohibition of immigration to and settlement in the newly colonized Spanish territories in the Americas, deportation from the colonies.
In addition to all this endured by New Christians,
the Spanish Crown and Church authorities also subjected New Christians to persecution, prosecution and execution for actual or alleged practice of [their] former religion. ...New Christians, especially those of Jewish origin, were always under suspicion of being "judaizantes" (judaizers), that is, apostizing from the Christian religion and being active crypto-Jews.
...The Spanish verbal participle Judaizante was applied both to Jewish conversos to Catholicism who practiced Judaism secretly and sometimes to Jews who had not converted,[18] in Spain and the New World… [emph. added]
...Judaizers...crypto-Jews… astounding language, still in use today… But continuing, real and suspected Judaic observance by New Christians
...was particularly persecuted from 1300 to 1800 during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, using as a basis the many references in the Pauline epistles regarding the "Law [i.e., Torah] as a curse" and the futility of relying on the Law for attaining salvation, known as legalism. Thus, in spite of Paul's agreement at the Council of Jerusalem, Gentile Christianity [was taught] that any Torah Laws (with the exception of the Ten Commandments and Natural Law) were anathema, not only to Gentile Christians but also to Christians of Jewish extraction. Under the Spanish Inquisition, the penalty to a converted Jew for "Judaizing" was usually death by burning. [emph. added.]
In the NatGeoHistory article, Jews are virtually written out of history.
The text begins on page 64:
Had Francisco de Enzinas not fled abroad, he would have faced two horrible alternatives: years of imprisonment or a painful, ignominious death. A Protestant scholar from the northern Spanish city of Burgos, Enzinas was loathed in his own land, a hatred he turned eloquently back onto his own persecutors in his writings.
“It is impossible to believe that these people are human” Enzinas railed against the inquisitors in 1545. “In fact, they are . . . the spawn of Satan himself. Like the Furties, They have sacked Spain, stripping the wealthy of their estates, and consigning to perdition thousands of souls.”
Tough on the estated wealthy, no doubt. The aforementioned timeline in the article is half of page 66, and a photo of modern Toledo fills the rest of the top half (spreading to 67) while Enzinas continues to rage in the lower remaining quarter alongside a really nice version of this portrait of Philip II of Spain (1527-1598, the one who married Mary Tudor in expectation that would make him King of England, since she was queen; and when she obviously had a uterine tumor rather than a pregnancy and never would, began intriguing to wed her 17-years-younger half-sister Elizabeth, failed, and was so ticked off that he lost his temper and threw his toys all over the place, including the Spanish Armada. Jews had already been expelled from England in 1290, kept out until Cromwell’s Resettlement —doesn’t that sound comfy-cozy?— as “a historic commercial policy” in 1655, so we needn’t concern ourselves further with England ‘til the Epilogue section.)
Page 66 begins its last paragraph,
The Spanish {sic} Inquisition had its origins as part of a larger movement to wipe out perceived enemies of the church and society… Heresy was seen as an attack both on God and ... on the established social order...
On page 67 is the first mention of Jews, of six total in the article, in a paragraph 2/3 of the way along, headed “Spain’s Heretics”:
...Having triumphantly “reconquered” the remaining pockets of Muslim-held Iberia, Spain forced the Jews and Muslims who lived there to convert to Christianity.[insinuating that they all complied] Former Jews, called conversos, were often believed to be practicing their old faith and considered heretics. In the 40 years after its founding, the persecution of conversos was carried out with particular brutality.
By the 16th century, the Inquisition targeted the converted Muslims, called Moriscos, as well.
Page 67 ends with a spoiler-alert, “Following Luther’s challenge to papal power in 1517, the Inquisition identified a new and growing threat: PROTESTANTISM.” They should have been grateful to Protestantism for sustaining their raison d'être. Page 68 is half-filled with the sad tale of a cleric, cadet of a noble family, imprisoned the last seventeen years of life on heresy charges because Grand Inquisitor Fernando de Valdés y Llanos coveted his archbishopric (I did not invent that word). The page then turns to 1502 with “the Alumbrados, a mystic sect suspected of heretical interpretations of the Bible”, cites Protestantism again, and then
[after] the decrees of the Council of Trent in 1564, the Spanish Inquisition extended its oversight to the religious thinking and ethical practices of the whole populace. Bigamy, blasphemy, witchcraft, homosexuality, priests who attempted to seduce women while administering confession, as well as publications regarded as an attack on Cathrolic orthodoxy, were just some of the offenses brought before the inquisitional courts.
The article skips to the 18th century, prematurely summing up, on page 69:
During it’s entire existence, historians estimate that roughly 200,000 people were arrested by the Spanish Inquisition.
Grammatical flaws aside, either the article’s editor and writer cannot do math, or Jews in total are not people, or Jews in total being stripped (cf. the plaint of Enzinas, above, on behalf of Spain’s landed gentry) of their few rights and “wealth” by the combined might of church and state, with a pretense at choice between conversion, death, or potentially lethal escape —all as punishment for not being Christian— is not equivalent to Inquisition detention and judgment.
Page 69 goes on to discuss “Securing a Confession” (continued to page 70), with mention that “the accused could sometimes persuade prosecutors to declare certain witnesses invalid” after having said how extraordinarily rare any defense was, and that “Neighbors and acquaintances were encouraged to inform on suspects, especially in cases of alleged witchcraft.” One might retort, “um, especially in cases of everything.”(See below Contemporary drawing of the May 21,1559 "act of faith" .) Page 70 contains the second mention of Jews in this article: a photo of a saint’s reliquary and the caption:
Not all conversos were persecuted. St. Teresa of Ávila [1515–1582], a mystic who played a key role in the Catholic Counter-Reformation, was descended from Jewish converts.
Teresa’s usefulness in the Counter-Reformation perhaps protected her?
Half of the 70-71 spread is “Interrogations in Jail” painted ca.1710-20 by Alessandro Magnasco (1667-1749) “an Italian late-Baroque painter active mostly in Milan and Genoa... best known for stylized, fantastic, often phantasmagoric genre or landscape scenes.” NatGeo details six “Inhumane Interrogation Tactics” numbered upon the painting, and comments “Scholars still debate how prevalent torture actually was.” No scholars named, no evidence cited. In view of documented medieval readiness to utilize trial by ordeal for a broad range of legal and religious infranctions, the “debate” appears more agenda’ed than naive, cf wikipedia’s The Spanish Inquisition - Activity of the Inquisition
...Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of Justinian made it a capital offense. Rulers, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics".[17] The monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile to discover and punish crypto-Jews... Ferdinand II of Aragon pressured Pope Sixtus IV to agree to an Inquisition controlled by the monarchy by threatening to withdraw military support at a time when the Turks were a threat to Rome. The pope issued a bull to stop the Inquisition but was pressured into withdrawing it. On 1 November 1478, Pope Sixtus IV published the Papal bull, Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus, through which he gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors in their kingdoms…
The first auto-da-fé was held in Seville on 6 February 1481: six people were burned alive. From there, the Inquisition grew rapidly in the Kingdom of Castile. By 1492, tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities: Ávila, Córdoba, Jaén, Medina del Campo, Segovia, Sigüenza, Toledo, and Valladolid.
… In 1483, Jews were expelled from all of Andalusia. Though the pope wanted to crack down on abuses, Ferdinand pressured him to promulgate a new bull, threatening that he would otherwise separate the Inquisition from Church authority.[20][21] Sixtus did so on 17 October 1483, naming Tomás de Torquemada Inquisidor General of Aragón, Valencia, and Catalonia.
Torquemada quickly established procedures for the Inquisition. A new court would be announced with a thirty-day grace period for confessions and the gathering of accusations by neighbors. Evidence that was used to identify a crypto-Jew included the absence of chimney smoke on Saturdays (a sign the family might secretly be honoring the Sabbath) or the buying of many vegetables before Passover or the purchase of meat from a converted butcher. The court employed physical torture to extract confessions… [emph. added]
On Page 72 of the NatGeoHist article are the 3rd & 4th references of Jews, one an allusion with an illustration captioned “A 1664 painting depicts the alleged murder of Inquisitor Pedro de Arbués by conversos in 1495” and the other small extent of text remaining is,
...If the accounts are to be belied, the cruelty reached barbaric levels in 1637, when the Inquisition in Valladolid forced Jewish converts, found guilty[as if there was any alternative] of desecrating an Image of Christ, to listen to their sentence with their right hand nailed to a post..
Most of 72 is taken up by the Arbues sidebar and painting, and the left 1/3 of a modern photo of Madrid’s Plaza Mayor spreading to page 73, captioned
Death in the Public Square — In 1680, a spectacular auto-da-fe was held [here] presided over by [Habsburg] King Carlos II. Of the 118 prisoners sentenced that day, 19 were executed. [burned alive]
and on Page 73 below the photo, a 5th allusion to Jews, again as conversos:
In 1590 ...the [adult son] of a condemned man was denounced for having taken up the position of a town councillor [one of the many actions and roles forbidden to descendents of marranos]. Summoned before the court, he revealed a document detailing the confession of adultery by his mother and the he was, in fact, the illegitimate son of a Catholic family.
Had his mother deliverately brought dishonor on herself to give her son a chance in life? A society in which it was preferable to be an illegitimate child of Christians than to be a legitimate son of conversos reveals the desperation in which so many Spaniards lived...
Page 73 ends the main body of the article, roughly 2200 words, excluding sidebars and photo captions that comprise perhaps another 1000 words. Pages 74-5 is a spread entitled “Crimes and Punishments” noting that besides “monitoring{euphemism much?}the religious practices of Jewish and Muslim converts, the Inquisition functioned as a vice police across the whole population...” with four cases of policing superimposed on a version of The Inquisition Tribunal/Escena de Inquisición by Francisco Goya (1746-1828). The fourth case reports the 6th and final mention of Jews in the NatGeoHist article on the Spanish Inquisition:
...Toledo, 1637… Juan and Enrique Nunez Saravia, Madrid bankers descended from Portuguese Jews, were accused of secretly practicing Jewish rites and of protecting others who did so. On arrest, Juan was put to torture and, although he confessed nothing that could be considered heretical, was [convicted on charges of] taking capital out of the country for Jewish causes abroad… The two brothers were sentenced in public [to admitting to and renouncing these heresies] and to pay a heavy fine [resulting in confiscation of everything they ‘owned’]. The sentence led to the economic ruin of both. [emph. added]
The case is also reported in Baron [1] Vol. XV: “They emerged from their tribulations totally impoverished, [in poor health] and with few friends.” The sentence likely led to their deaths, not necessarily counted as executions any more than being knifed on the chance of swallowed valuables, or dying of exposure fleeing Spanish territory in 1492 did.
IN SUM AND IN SHORT
In roughly 3,000 words and illustrative material filling half the space of twelve 8½ x11” pages of NatGeoHist’s article on the Spanish Inquistion —among the main aims of which it’s admitted was “monitoring the religious practices of Jewish ... converts”— Jews rate mention briefly six times (twice in converso form) and the Expulsion is not mentioned at all.
The danger to society of church either joined to state in governing or as a legitimized adversary in governing, is not even approached. The article appears to conclude, “some sh*t happened, by and to people long past, nothing like we are today,” the more bizarre considering the historical Epilogue:
EPILOGUE
On 16 December 1968, four hundred seventy-six years after the Alhambra Decree, the Edict of Expulsion was formally revoked. In 2014 (46 years later) modern Spain offered dual citizenship to “compensate for shameful events in the country’s past"[3] for Sephardic Jews who can prove dissent —sorry, descent— from Expulsion survivors, "becom[ing] Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality."[4][5]
Spanish citizenship, don’t leave home without it. Gee, thanks. Of businesses or homes — not to mention entire juderias (ghettos, Jewish quarters)— taken in forced purchase or confiscation in the bad old days when so many died, no restoration. This means all [re]New[ed] Citizens (bit of wordplay there — New Christians— you got it, right?) have to buy or rent if they’d like to visit or retire there (the depressed Spanish economy may make life more affordable than elsewhere) or as telecommuting wage-earners. Confiscated and forced-sale medieval valuables also not restored, the buying, renting, electricity, cooking and heating gas, food, water, garbage and sewage fees, have to be paid by earnings/income from outside Spain coming into Spain. New Citizens in a position to bring their own businesses there each will be adding a job or 2 or 20 to the local economies and tax rolls, if only in the form of temporary construction work or longer-term auxiliary jobs (support staff, janitorial, etc). Folks not qualifying for citizenship but warmed by the empty compensatory gesture and who have the means may swell history-oriented tourism. So, basically, after five hundred years, it’s legal to be Jewish and not dead in Spain, providing we inject cash into the Spanish economy — Spain imitating England and Cromwellian Resettlement! The NatGeo article was written by a Spanish university history faculty member, so I’m guessing this flattery hasn’t panned out much, and if any of us there find ourselves in ‘difficulties’, no doubt the nations of our birth will send the Marines to save us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See also wikipedia’s Timeline of antisemitism (5th Century section cites the year 418 for “The first record of Jews being forced to convert or face expulsion. Severus, the Bishop of Minorca, claimed to have forced 540 Jews to accept Christianity upon conquering the island. Synagogue in Magona [now Port Mahon capital of Minorca], burnt.”)
FOOTNOTES AND NON-ONLINE RESOURCES
[1] Baron, Salo Wittmayer. A Social and Religious History of the Jews. 2nd rev. enl. ed., Columbia Univ.Pr., 1965. Late Middle Ages and Era of European Expansion, 1200-1650, Vol. IX “Under Church and Empire”, Chapter XXXVII — Infidel.
[2] Roth, Cecil. A History of the Marranos. Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1932. “Contra la verdad no hay fuerça.”
[3] Marcu, Valeriu. The Expulsion of the Jews From Spain. Translated from the German by Moray Firth. Viking Press, New York, 1935.
Ausubel, Nathan. Pictorial History of the Jewish People: From Bible Times to our Own Day Throughout the World. 5th pr. Crown Publishers, New York, 1953. (single volume)
Ben-Asher, Naomi & Leaf, Hayim, eds. The Junior Jewish Encyclopedia, 2nd rev.ed. Shengold Publishers, New York, 1958. (single volume) “But for learning, heaven and earth would not endure.” Talmud, Pesahim.
Bridger, David & Wolk, Samuel, eds. The New Jewish Encyclopedia. Behrman House, New York, 1962. Assoc. editors Stephen Kayser, Harold Hayes, Abraham Rothberg. Photographs by Anne Zane Shanks & Marvin Koner. Forward by Abba Eban. (single volume)
Eban, Abba. Heritage: Civilization and the Jews. Summit Books, New York, 1984.
Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. Haggadah and History: A Panorama in Facsimile of Five Centuries of the Printed Haggadah from the Collections of Harvard University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1975.
Other nonfiction of related interest:
Alexy, Trudy. The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot. Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Birmingham, Stephen. The Grandees: America's Sephardic Elite. Harper & Row, New York, 1971.
Fiction:
Greenberg, Joanne. The King Persons. Henry Holt, New York,1963. Historical fiction on the massacre of the Jewish population of York at York Castle in 1190.
LAST MINUTE CHANGE OF PLANS
I had hoped to include a comparison to the NatGeoHistory article, in the form of quotes from the popularly written biography Doña Gracia of the House of Nasi, by Cecil Roth, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1948. The NatGeo discussion with comparison in the form of wikipedia and other blockquotes, is too long too allow anything further, and — happily — wikipedia now has a pretty decent article on Gracia Mendes Nasi, 16th century businesswoman, politician, rescuer of refugees from Spain, and —through belated but growing rediscovery of her legacy— “owner” of a Facebook page, facebook.com/donagraciaworldwide
Note on Comment Replies
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Thanks for reading.
Shabbat shalom.