Conversos and Crypto-Judaism (Renaissance and Reformation)

Introduction

Conversos are converts from Judaism to Christianity and their descendants. Other terms include tornizados, New Christians, and marranos. The first three terms are neutral, suggesting conversion. The latter term is of uncertain origin and pejorative. It is used today especially by French-speaking scholars. The term “converso” came into use after a wave of forced conversions (and voluntary conversions) in Aragon and Castile, beginning in 1391. These conversions differed from earlier ones because of their broad scale, and because these converts were not easily assimilated into Christian society. By 1449, the city of Toledo had instituted so-called purity of blood laws (limpieza de sangre) to limit the ability of converts and their descendants to participate fully in Christian life. A debate also emerged around that time about the extent to which conversos were attempting to live as Christians. The Spanish Inquisition was established initially to combat what scholars call “crypto-Judaism,” that is, the continued secret practice of Judaism in some degree after conversion to Christianity. The existence and extent of crypto-Judaism remains a contentious topic. A general scholarly consensus acknowledges the existence of some crypto-Jewish practices among conversos in much of Iberia in the 15th century but also emphasizes the variability, fluidity, and mutability of individuals’ religious beliefs. Meanwhile, the situation for conversos changed in the 1490s. In 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ordered the expulsion of all Jews from their united territories of Spain. Many converted so that they could remain, while others fled to Portugal or elsewhere in the Mediterranean. By the mid-1520s, crypto-Judaism in Spain seems largely to have died out. Ferdinand and Isabella also put pressure on Portugal to expel its Jewish population (which now included refugee Spanish Jews). King Manuel promised a mass expulsion from Lisbon in 1497, but instead organized a mass conversion on the docks. He also guaranteed new converts a generation without inquisitorial scrutiny. Portuguese conversos, free from both the Inquisition and catechism in Christianity, and caught in a corporate social system that identified them as conversos, maintained a sense of themselves as Jewish, which often included crypto-Judaism. These conversos, members of the “nation” (nação), spread across Iberia, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Atlantic, and Asia. Some were devoted Christians, others traveled to cities in Italy and the Low Countries and became “New Jews,” and still others led a religious life that included elements of both Christianity and Judaism, possibly to the present day.

General Overviews

Scholarly overviews of the subject of conversos and crypto-Jews have taken several approaches. One of the earliest and best general studies of conversos is Roth 1992, first published in 1932. Its optimistic and heroic tone seemed less appropriate to the author when he wrote a preface to a revised edition after World War II. The authors of Révah 1959–1960 and Saraiva 2001 engaged in a bitter debate in a newspaper in Portugal in the early 1970s over the nature of conversos and the Portuguese Inquisition. Saraiva took a Marxist approach to the institution, arguing that religion merely masked the Inquisition’s economic goals. Révah argued in contrast for the fundamentally Jewish nature of conversos, albeit a Judaism that was not normative. Alpert 2001 is a survey focusing on crypto-Jews’ encounters with the Inquisition in Spain, while Melammed 2004 more successfully attempts an overall survey of the converso experience, aimed at undergraduates or beginners to the field. But the best more recent survey is Pulido Serrano 2003; the author brings to the task a familiarity with many of the sources, a methodological sophistication, and the tendency of recent scholarship to contextualize converso experiences in the political, corporate, and religious culture of early modern Iberia. The weakness of Pulido Serrano is that it is limited to the Iberian peninsula.

Alpert, Michael. Cryptojudaism and the Spanish Inquisition. Basingstoke, NY: Palgrave, 2001.
DOI: 10.1057/9780333985267Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A superficial survey of converso and crypto-Jewish life in Spain; although it is weak on some details, it addresses the understudied 18th century.
Find this resource:
Melammed, Renée Levine. A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
DOI: 10.1093/0195170717.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Stretches from the initial wave of conversion and emigration in the 15th century, through the expulsions of the 1490s and early modern diaspora, up to the re-emergence of the phenomenon in the 20th century. Though it omits the Ottoman Empire and (more unfortunately) the Americas, it is an excellent starting point for undergraduates, given the author’s command of the secondary literature and the judicious presentation.
Find this resource:
Pulido Serrano, Juan Ignacio. Los conversos en España y Portugal. Madrid: Arco/Libros, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brief (about 80 pages) but a particularly lucid and compelling overview of the history of conversos in the Iberian peninsula, emphasizing that hostility to conversos was not racial or even necessarily religious, but part of a larger array of complex economic, cultural, and political rivalries that divided early modern Iberian society.
Find this resource:
Révah, Israel Salvator. “Les Marranes.” Revue des Études Juives 118–119 (1959–1960): 29–77.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A pathbreaking article by a significant historian of conversos, describing conversos in religious terms as practicing a “potential Judaism.”
Find this resource:
Roth, Cecil. A History of the Marranos. 5th ed. New York: Sepher-Hermon, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A classic account of conversos, first published in 1932. It subscribes to a romanticized, heroic vision of crypto-Jews maintaining their beliefs in difficult circumstances. Not the best source on the Inquisition, and superseded in many respects, but it remains an engaging, readable introduction to the field.
Find this resource:
Saraiva, António José. The Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians, 1536–1765. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Most recent edition and translation of Saraiva, notable for the author’s contention that the Portuguese Inquisition fabricated Judaizers rather than identifying them; he argues that the purpose of the Portuguese Holy Office was financial (taking the savings of a mercantile group labeled Jewish) rather than religious. Not widely accepted by scholars.
Find this resource:
Collected Essays

Collections of essays often suffer from uneven quality, in part because they derive from conference proceedings. Indeed, the strongest collections here were commissioned specifically for publication. Barnett 1989 is an early example; like many works here, it brings together scholarship on conversos and Jews. Graizbord and Stuczynski 2011 is particularly helpful for its focus on Portuguese conversos and for the current scholarly perspective it provides. Kedourie 1992 also fits into this category, and is the best starting point for an undergraduate, general reader, or academic unfamiliar with the field. Kedourie 1992 is also part of another trend among these anthologies, namely, the surge in conferences and publications associated with the 500th anniversary of the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. In this category fall Alcalá 1995, Barros 1994, and Gampel 1997. Kaplan 1985 predates these works, but shares much of their approach, methodology, and in some cases authors. A sign of the continuing interest among scholars in the topic is Ingram 2009, the introductory volume of a series that promises ongoing publication on conversos and crypto-Jews.

Alcalá, Angel, ed. Judíos, Sefarditas, Conversos: La Expulsión de 1492 y Sus Consecuencias. Proceedings of Conference on the Expulsion of 1492 and its Effects, November, 1992, New York City. Valladolid, Spain: Ambito, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The proceedings from a 1992 conference on conversos as part of the quincentennial memorialization of the Expulsion. Though the essays are uneven, this book has the virtue of bringing together most of the key scholars working on conversos at that time.
Find this resource:
Barnett, Richard, ed. The Sephardi Heritage. 2 vols. Grendon, UK: Gibraltar, 1989.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Though most of the essays in these volumes address Jews, rather than conversos, the essays by Beinart and Révah are useful, as is the broader context this work provides. Volume 1, Essays on the Historical and Cultural Contribution of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, was originally published in 1971. Volume 2 is titled The Western Sephardim.
Find this resource:
Barros, Carlos, ed. Xudeus e Conversos na Historia. Acts of an International Conference on Jews and Christians in History, 14–17 October 1991, Ribadavia, Portugal. 2 vols. Santiago de Compostela, Spain: Editorial de la Historia, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The proceedings of a 1991 conference, comprised largely of European authors. Essays are of uneven quality, but some strong contributions. Useful for its geographic range, taking into consideration conversos in various Iberian realms, including Portugal, Aragon, and the Canary Islands.
Find this resource:
eHumanista/conversos. Journal of Iberian Studies.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A new online journal publishing research on Iberian religious minorities in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Find this resource:
Gampel, Benjamin, ed. Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World, 1391–1648. Conference on the Expulsion of the Jews and Its Effects held at the Jewish Theological Seminar, New York City, in November 1992. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Collection of essays from a conference marking the 500th anniversary of the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The volume includes analysis of conversos and Sephardic Jews; the essays on conversos are generally strong and, in the case of Thomas Glick’s essays, anticipate the less essentializing, more contextualized direction in which the field has moved.
Find this resource:
Graizbord, David, and Claude B. Stuczynski, eds. “Portuguese New Christian Identities, 1516–1700.” Special Issue: Jewish History 25.2 (2011).
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brings together some of the best scholars working on Portuguese conversos today, with the added advantage for English speakers that most of these authors had not previously been published in English. Showcases a variety of approaches to the subject. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Ingram, Kevin, ed. Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond. Vol. 1, Departures and Change. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Part of an ongoing series on conversos and moriscos (converts from Islam to Christianity). A series of essays of varying utility, though Meyerson and Zeldes among others are strong.
Find this resource:
Kaplan, Yosef, ed. Jews and Conversos: Studies in Society and the Inquisition. Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 16–21, 1981. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Several essays in this volume provide important perspectives on conversos and crypto-Jews in diverse locations.
Find this resource:
Kedourie, Elie, ed. Spain and the Jews. The Sephardi Experience 1492 and After. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A good introduction to the field for undergraduates or general readers, with accessible essays written by key scholars.
Find this resource:
Primary Sources

Primary sources (information written at the time by participants or eyewitnesses) are a critical component of historical research. Since the 19th centuries, scholars have striven to edit and publish inquisition records and other material relevant to the study of conversos. A relatively early example is Baer 1929–1936. The author’s sources relate largely to Jews, but some also address conversos. Carrete Parrondo 1981–1997 is the product of increased interest in the Spanish Inquisition in the 1970s, as is Beinart 1974–1985. More recently, primary sources translated into English have become available. Homza 2006 and Chuchiak 2012 do not solely address conversos, but their translations into English are reliable and the collections strong. Notre Dame University is taking advantage of the opportunities provided by online publishing to make available its collection of inquisition sources on a site called Inquisition. Primary sources other than inquisition records are also available. Most readily available are theological tracts defending conversos, their conversion, and their fidelity to Christianity, such as Alonso de Oropesa 1979 or Cartagena 1943.

Alonso de Oropesa. Luz para conocimiento de los gentiles. Translated and edited by Luis A. Díaz y Díaz. Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1979.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Spanish translation of Lumen ad revelationem gentium, first written in 1468. One of the key works defending conversos and their oneness with Christendom generally. Written by a friar of the Order of St. Jerome, a defender of conversos, and of converso ancestry himself.
Find this resource:
Baer, Fritz [Yitzhak]. Die Juden im Christlichen Spanien. 2 vols. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1929–1936.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Most of the excerpts of sources in this volume address Jewish history in the Iberian Peninsula, but some materials also touch on the early history of conversos and crypto-Jews. Sources appear in Hebrew, Latin, and Spanish; the introduction and notes are in German.
Find this resource:
Beinart, Haim. Records of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition in Ciudad Real. 4 vols. Jerusalem: Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974–1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
These volumes include all the trials of conversos that occurred in Ciudad Real between 1483 and 1527. Collected and transcribed from originals at the National Historic Archives in Madrid. The documents are complete and in Spanish, while the notes and commentary are in English.
Find this resource:
Carrete Parrondo, Carlos, ed. Fontes iudaeorum regni Castellae. 7 vols. Salamanca, Spain: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1981–1997.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Sources and critical apparatus are in Spanish. A useful collection of sources, particularly regarding the 15th and early 16th century.
Find this resource:
Verdín-Díaz, Guillermo, trans. and ed. Alfonso de Cartagena y el Defensorium unitatis christianae. Oviedo, Spain: University of Oviedo Press, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Alfonso de Cartagena, a convert from Judaism to Christianity before becoming a Jesuit priest and bishop, wrote this defense of Jewish converts to Christianity in 1449–1450, in the aftermath of anti-converso legislation in Toledo. The title is translated from the Latin as “Treatise in defense of the unity of Christendom.” This edition is a recent Spanish translation with critical commentary.
Find this resource:
Chuchiak, John F. The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–1820: A Documentary History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Excellent source collection regarding inquisitorial procedure and accusations in colonial Mexico. Sources are translated into English, and the critical commentary is in English as well. While much of the material does not directly relate to conversos, it does have a useful section on crypto-Jewish prosecutions.
Find this resource:
Homza, Lu Ann. The Spanish Inquisition, 1478–1614: An Anthology of Sources. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Outstanding collection of primary sources related to the 125 years of activity of the Spanish Inquisition, all translated into English. Includes excerpts of trials for a variety of accusations, including crypto-Judaism, as well as information and sources on the procedures and establishment of the institution of the Spanish Inquisition.
Find this resource:
Inquisitio: Manuscript and Print Sources for the Study of Inquisition History.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The collection is idiosyncratic, and much of it does not relate directly to conversos, but this online collection is thoughtfully organized and would be useful to students as well as scholars.
Find this resource:
Origins of the Converso Problem

Scholars have approached the early years of the mass conversions to Christianity from Judaism, and the beginnings of a sizable converso population, in a variety of ways. Since at least the 1970s, historians such as the authors of Benito Ruano 2001 and Wolff 1971 have focused on the political and institutional contexts for anti-Jewish and anti-converso violence. In contrast, the author of Marquez Villanueva 2006 has turned to literary sources as well as conventional historical sources for his nuanced analysis of this period. Other scholars, such as the authors of Roth 1995 and Netanyahu 1966 and Netanyahu 1995, have written polemical accounts that share a deep suspicion of Inquisition documents and an almost complete unwillingness to read and discuss them. Their interpretations of the origins of the converso problem lay blame firmly at the feet of racist, politically motivated leaders. Netanyahu in particular has made controversial use of alternate sources, as critiqued in Cohen 1967.

Benito Ruano, Eloy. Los origenes del problema converso. Rev. ed. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This revised version expands upon Benito Ruano’s careful delineating of the 15th-century context of anti-converso sentiment, including the anti-converso legislation in Toledo in 1449 and anti-converso violence in 1467, plus a discussion of the “otherness” of conversos.
Find this resource:
Cohen, Gerson D. “Review of Benzion Netanyahu: The Marranos of Spain; From the Late XIVth to the Early XVIth Centuries According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources.” Jewish Social Studies 29.3 (1967): 178–184.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Still useful for the nuanced, thorough, and concise critique that Cohen provides of the use of sources in Netanyahu 1966.
Find this resource:
Marquez Villanueva, Francisco. De la España judeoconversa: Doce estudios. Madrid: Ediciones Bellaterra, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brings together the most important of this literary scholar’s work on conversos, focusing on the 15th century.
Find this resource:
Netanyahu, Benzion. The Marranos of Spain: From the Late XIVth to the Early XVIth Centuries According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources. New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1966.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Contends that Jewish rabbinical decisions (responsa literature) demonstrate that conversos were faithful Christians, as the Inquisition well knew, and that therefore inquisitorial activity was motivated by racism. Argues as a corollary that Inquisition sources are unreliable. A controversial and polemical work that generated much scholarship but found relatively few supporters.
Find this resource:
Netanyahu, Benzion. The Origins of the Inquisition in Spain. Random House, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Not a history of the Inquisition per se, but a political history contextualizing the rise of anti-converso rhetoric in the 15th century. Discounts the role of religious or economic concerns and polemically asserts that racism is the fundamental cause of the inquisition. Not well regarded by most historians.
Find this resource:
Roth, Norman. Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A polemical work arguing that Inquisition sources are fundamentally unreliable and that scholars have ignored links between the medieval and early modern Inquisitions. The author’s unfamiliarity with Inquisition documents and secondary sources weakens his argument considerably.
Find this resource:
Wolff, Philippe. “The 1391 Pogrom in Spain: Social Crisis or Not?.” Past & Present 50 (1971): 4–18.
DOI: 10.1093/past/50.1.4Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A careful study of the anti-Jewish violence that began the mass conversions of the late 14th and 15th centuries. Argues that the violence was not exclusively anti-Jewish but also expressed significant hostility to political authorities, of whom Jews served as one representative.
Find this resource:
The Challenge of Assimilation into Iberian Societies

Conversos made up a small but significant part of the population, and the speed and forcible nature of their conversions from Judaism to Christianity made assimilating these “New Christians” into the “Old Christian” majority difficult. This process was rendered even more problematic by the anxious need to categorize and distinguish who had and who had not converted to Christianity, as Nirenberg 2002 explains. Those genealogical mentalities are also implicit in Sicroff 2010 in its discussion of purity of blood laws. Meyerson 1992 explores the multiple answers given by family members to the challenge of conversion, and how those answers might change after the publication of the expulsion edict in 1492. Tensions could continue for generations, as Huerga Criado 1994 demonstrates. But when examined over the span of two centuries, Spanish conversos seemed to be moving, to a greater or lesser extent, toward assimilation, as demonstrated in Martz 2003, and to an extent in Huerga Criado 1994 as well. Certainly, some conversos assimilated into the larger society were devout Christians and had a significant impact on the history of Christianity, as Gómez-Menor Fuentes 2011 demonstrates. Rosenstock 2002 emphasizes the potential for devout if occasionally somewhat unorthodox Christian belief among conversos. And Pastore 2004 is the best work on the complicated topic of varieties of beliefs among assimilated, devoutly Christian conversos.

Gómez-Menor Fuentes, José-Carlos. “El Linaje Toledano de Santa Teresa y de San Juan de la Cruz—Discurso de ingreso.” Toletum, 2d ser., 5 (2011): 87–141.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed study of the genealogy of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross in the context of the history of Toledo, demonstrating extensive links to converso families. A recent example of a longstanding historiographical trend demonstrating the converso origins of devout Christians important in church history.
Find this resource:
Huerga Criado, Pilar. En la Raya de Portugal: Solidaridad y tensiones en la comunidad judeoconversa. Salamanca, Spain: Universidad de Salamanca, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Notable for the author’s willingness not to rely on reified, essentialized categories for Portuguese conversos. This study of a border town between Spain and Portugal provides a helpful close look at this mobile community and the partial process of assimilation.
Find this resource:
Martz, Linda. A Network of Converso Families in Early Modern Toledo: Assimilating a Minority. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Engages in a close analysis of a number of converso families in Toledo to document their ancestry and demonstrate the slow and qualified assimilation of these people into Old Christian society between the 15th and 17th centuries.
Find this resource:
Meyerson, Mark. “Aragonese and Catalan Jewish Converts at the Time of the Expulsion.” Jewish History 6.1–2 (1992): 131–149.
DOI: 10.1007/BF01695215Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on the strategies employed by some Jewish families to protect their interests, as some members converted to Christianity while others remained Jewish. These strategies, however, could cause tensions when the Jews were expelled from Spain. Available online.
Find this resource:
Nirenberg, David. “Mass Conversion and Genealogical Mentalities: Jews and Christians in Fifteenth-Century Spain.” Past & Present 174 (2002): 3–41.
DOI: 10.1093/past/174.1.3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Fresh approach to debates about Spanish and Sephardic Jewish interest in ancestry, arguing that both were given new force in the wake of conversions of Jews to Christianity, which created a “crisis of categorization,” as Jews and Christians both struggled to identify which conversos were Christian and which were Jewish. Available online.
Find this resource:
Pastore, Stefania. Un’eresia spagnola: Spiritualità conversa, alumbradismo e inquisizione (1449–1559). Florence: Olschki, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An outstanding study of devoutly Christian conversos and their links to unconventional religious beliefs in Spain, particularly the heresy of illuminists (alumbrados). The author demonstrates that conversos shared beliefs with other Spanish Christians who rejected ritual for an interior religiosity eventually labeled heretical.
Find this resource:
Rosenstock, Bruce. New Men: “Conversos,” Christian Theology, and Society in Fifteenth-Century Castile. Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 39. London: University of London, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on the writings of converso theologians Alonso de Cartagena (1384–1456) and Juan de Torquemada (1388–1468), particularly their responses to Toledo’s anti-converso legislation of 1449. Argues that these theologians valorize a distinctly Jewish mode of sincere Christianity by converts. Pastore 2004 is better, but this anthology is a start for those who can’t read Italian. The deleted material doesn’t need to be in the annotation.
Find this resource:
Sicroff, Albert. Los Estatutos de “limpieza de sangre.” Controversias entre los siglos XV y XVII. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
First published in 1960, this remains the definitive study of the legislation that progressively barred conversos from access to civil service work, a position in the clergy, or the right to emigrate. As Sicroff notes, these laws did not always screen out conversos as consistently as lawmakers had wished.
Find this resource:
Conversos and Inquisition

Research on early modern Inquisitions is vast and complex. A useful starting point is the separate Oxford Bibliographies article, Spanish Inquisition. Scholarly debates in research on conversos in particular and their experiences before the Inquisition traditionally focused on the reliability of Inquisition records or, more importantly, the reliability of the testimony given to inquisitors. Some scholars, like the authors of Beinart 1981, Melammed 1999, and d’Abrera 2008, have been more likely to credit the evidence given to inquisitors by conversos about crypto-Jewish practices. It is important to note that all three acknowledge the need to examine Inquisition sources critically, however. Other scholars, like the author of Salomon 2007, have trained a much more skeptical eye on inquisition material, and have found that there are many claims of Jewish practice that do not hold up to close scrutiny. More recent studies have worked to contextualize the experience of Spain’s conversos in a political, social, and religious orbit, demonstrating through Inquisition sources the contingent, constructed nature of converso beliefs and practices. See, for example, Graizbord 2004 and Starr-LeBeau 2003. Bodian 2007 takes this process a step farther, providing evidence that these crypto-Jewish martyrs constructed their religious self-understanding as Jews in part through Christian theologians. Pastore 2004 moves beyond this focus on the microcosm of Inquisition trials to uncover the intellectual historical context of converso religious life, and so clarify the history of conversos and of the institution of the Inquisition.

d’Abrera, Anna Ysabel. The Tribunal of Zaragoza and Crypto-Judaism, 1484–1515. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A thematic summary of inquisitorial material related to accused crypto-Jewish practices for the Crown of Aragon. As in Gitlitz 2002 (cited under Converso Beliefs, Practices, and Identity) the author tries to determine crypto-Jewish practice from Inquisitorial accusations and testimony.
Find this resource:
Beinart, Haim. Conversos on Trial: The Inquisition in Ciudad Real. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Close study of the first major set of Spanish Inquisition trials, operating from the premise that most conversos in this period desired to live as Jews. Usefully structured more as a case study of the functioning of the Inquisition than as a study of conversos as crypto-Jews.
Find this resource:
Bodian, Miriam. Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Four cases of men who resisted cooperation with Inquisition officials to attain martyrdom. Explains their experiences in the larger religious context in which they lived. Demonstrates that they were in some ways a product of their encounters with the Inquisition and, for example, made use of Protestant readings of the Bible.
Find this resource:
Graizbord, David. Souls in Dispute: Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580–1700. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Outstanding study of cases in which conversos voluntarily presented themselves before the Inquisition to confess to crypto-Jewish practices. These cases also serve as a way to examine mutable identities of early modern New Christians.
Find this resource:
Melammed, Renée Levine. Heretics or Daughters of Israel? The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
More interested in evidence of devoutly Jewish crypto-Jews, rather than evidence of assimilation, Melammed shows that in the first few decades of Inquisition trials, women were centrally involved in crypto-Jewish practices.
Find this resource:
Pastore, Stefania. Un’eresia spagnola: Spiritualità conversa, alumbradismo e inquisizione (1449–1559). Florence: Olschki, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A tour de force, examining closely the links between conversos and unconventional religious beliefs in Spain, particularly the heresy of illuminists (alumbrados). The author argues that these conversos are not crypto-Jews but devout Christians who rejected ritual for an interior religiosity that ultimately attracted the attention of inquisitors.
Find this resource:
Salomon, Herman Prins. “Spanish Marranism Re-Examined.” Part 1. Sefarad 67.2 (2007): 367–414.
DOI: 10.3989/sefarad.2007.v67.i2.449Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first of a four-part article that closely examines a series of interrelated trials, demonstrating the necessity of skeptical, critical reading of Inquisition trial records. Salomon’s study suggests how apparently “Jewish” practices could in fact have multiple sources and explanations. For Part 2, available online, see Sefarad 68.1 (2008): 105–162. For Part 3, available online, see Sefarad 68.2 (2008): 413–459. For Part 4, available online, see Sefarad 69.1 (2009): 131–158.
Find this resource:
Starr-LeBeau, Gretchen. In the Shadow of the Virgin: Inquisitors, Friars, and Conversos in Guadalupe, Spain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Uses a case study to show the complexity of converso relations and integration with Old Christians, while also demonstrating the indeterminacy and variability of converso beliefs and practices, even before 1492 and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
Find this resource:
Converso Beliefs, Practices, and Identity

Research on converso beliefs and practices, and the related question of a converso identity or essential nature, are among the most contentious aspects of this historiography. Much of the literature is closely tied to reading of Inquisition sources; for a fuller picture of this discussion, see Conversos and Inquisition. Earlier scholars were more concerned with trying to determine the essential nature of conversos; Yovel 2009 can be considered part of this effort. Faur 1992 in a related historiographical strain does not essentialize conversos, but does essentialize the environment from which they emerged, and posits a single overriding motivation for their conversion. A parallel trend in scholarship attempted to uncover crypto-Jewish religion, of which Gitlitz 2002 is a good example. At its worst, this scholarship almost always understood crypto-Judaism as a reified entity. More recently, scholars have shied away from essentializing modes in favor of fine-grained studies focusing on the complex details and variations of individual cases. This change in approach has meant rethinking the relationship between conversos, even crypto-Jews, and Christianity, as, for example, Koren 2005, Martin 2011, and Yovel 1999. The case studied in Siebenhüner 2008 does not technically involve an Iberian converso, but fits into the historiography neatly and is illuminating of broader concerns. Wachtel 2013 argues for a common “marrano condition” that revisits in some ways the earlier historiography, particularly identifying conversos as harbingers of modernity, but also recognizes the distinct and varied qualities of converso beliefs.

Faur, José. In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An essentializing, provocative argument, claiming that hostility to critical thought within the Jewish community pushed creative thinkers to convert to Christianity. These conversos ushered in the modern era. Includes a typology of conversos as well as a thoughtful literary analysis of several converso authors; particularly strong on Uriel da Costa (1585–1640).
Find this resource:
Gitlitz, David M. Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Assembles accusations and evidence from a variety of Inquisition trials to provide an overview of what the author describes as crypto-Jewish religion. Reads the sources unproblematically, but is useful for giving a sense of the range of accusations victims offered or inquisitors wanted.
Find this resource:
Koren, Sharon Faye. “A Christian Means to a Conversa End.” Nashim (9, Spring 5765/2005): 27–61.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A refreshingly astute and nuanced study, detailing the influence of Christian theology and gendered modes of religious expression in the career of a young conversa prophetess in Spain around the year 1500.
Find this resource:
Martin, John Jeffries. “Marranos and Nicodemites in Sixteenth-Century Venice.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 41.3 (Fall 2011): 577–599.
DOI: 10.1215/10829636-1363954Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comparative study of conversos and Nicodemites (crypto-Protestants) in Venice, arguing that traditional understanding of interior, private belief and exterior conformity explains Nicodemites but not conversos, who did not necessarily wish to return to normative Judaism, and who (Martin argues in opposition to other scholars) did not emphasize interior conviction. Available online.
Find this resource:
Siebenhüner, Kim. “Conversion, Mobility, and the Roman Inquisition in Italy around 1600.” Past & Present 200 (August 2008): 3–35.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A fascinating case study, comparing one woman’s Inquisition trials from Venice and Rome. The accused’s strikingly different self-presentation in these cases suggests the mutability of religious identity for conversos; her travels from Poland to Malta to Sicily to Venice indicate how mobile early modern populations could be. Available online.
Find this resource:
Wachtel, Nathan. The Faith of Remembrance: Marrano Labyrinths. Translated by Nikki Halpern. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Original French edition published 2003. Uses Inquisition trials from the Americas for a series of case studies of crypto-Jews. Emphasizes the syncretic and mutable quality of various conversos’ beliefs, but also asserts that there is a commonality in the need for remembrance, secrecy, and an ever-diminishing set of core beliefs.
Find this resource:
Yovel, Yirmiyahu. The New Otherness: Marrano Dualities in the First Generation. San Francisco: Swig Judaic Studies Program, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Much better than Yovel 2009, this short, focused study addresses early challenges for conversos in the 16th century and the hybridity of their religious practices soon after the mass conversions of the late 14th and early 15th centuries.
Find this resource:
Yovel, Yirmiyahu. The Other Within: The Marranos: Split Identity and Emerging Modernity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that conversos had a fundamentally dual or hybrid identity that helped usher in the skepticism and rationalism of the modern era. But unchanging duality across generations can be as rigid and essentializing a vision of converso life as those who argue that all conversos were devout Christians or devout Jews.
Find this resource:
The Converso Diaspora in Europe

Scholars have long been interested in the broad dispersion of conversos across Europe, and the communities that they formed, which often included individuals who engaged in either Jewish or Christian practices, or sometimes both. The largest of these communities was in Amsterdam, best described in Bodian 1997. Also important were the communities at Livorno (Trivellato 2009), in Venice (Pullan 1983 and Ruspio 2007), and in France (Roth 1929). Recently, Zeldes 2002 sketched out the outlines of the diaspora community in Sicily, a difficult task, given the paucity of extant documentation. Others have taken a broader view; Ray 2013 traces the early history of this diaspora, and Israel 2002 is a series of essays that collectively provide a multi-century history of the diaspora, and the activities of its members. Trivellato 2009 also suggests the extent of these networks, reaching from Europe and the Mediterranean to India.

Bodian, Miriam. Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Justly award-winning book shows tension between collective identities of Jewishness and being part of the nation in the “New Jewish” community in Amsterdam, a tension played down by community leaders who wanted to represent the “return” to Judaism as unproblematic. Also shows centrality of exile and redemption in crypto-Jewish theology.
Find this resource:
Israel, Jonathan. Diasporas within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews, and the World Maritime Empires, 1540–1740. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brings together new and newly revised essays by this accomplished scholar, exploring trade networks in these communities and their broader context. Without the focus of a monograph but enormously useful for understanding the converso diaspora.
Find this resource:
Pullan, Brian. The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550–1670. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1983.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The middle third of this book provides a cogent explanation of the Venetian Inquisition; the final third focuses on the Iberian conversos, crypto-Jews, and New Jews who lived in Christian and Jewish Venice. Offers a subtle and thoughtful analysis of converso life by using clear, readable prose.
Find this resource:
Ray, Jonathan. After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry. New York: New York University Press, 2013.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on the Mediterranean community of Sephardi Jews, conversos, and crypto-Jews before 1600, providing a useful explanation of the early and least studied period of the diaspora. Also examines corporate structure and the development of the concept of the “nation” (nação).
Find this resource:
Roth, Cecil. “Les marranes à Rouen: Un chapitre ignoré de l’histoire des Juifs de France.” Revue des Études Juives 88 (1929): 113–155.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first and still useful study of the converso community in Rouen, detailing their return to the open practice of Judaism. Shares the strengths and weaknesses of Roth’s impressive body of scholarship: his careful research, his engaging writing style, his reluctance to footnote, and his heroic interpretation of converso history.
Find this resource:
Ruspio, Federica. La Nazione Portoghese. Ebrei ponentini e nuovi cristiani a Venezia. Turin, Italy: Zamorani, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A close study of the “nation” (nação) in Venice, and important for the author’s use of civic records as well as Inquisition records. Argues that even after conversos were given the right to live as Jews, many chose to live in Christian communities as Christian conversos.
Find this resource:
Trivellato, Francesca. The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A compelling study of the far-flung trade networks of a Sephardic merchant business, detailing strategic choices made in dealing with judicial, financial, familial, and political powers. Demonstrates the broad reach of these communities, stretching from the Mediterranean to India.
Find this resource:
Zeldes, Nadia. The Former Jews of This Kingdom: Sicilian Converts after the Expulsion, 1492–1516. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Uses inquisitorial financial records to investigate the lives of its converso victims in Sicily (under the control of the Crown of Aragon) after the Spanish Expulsion in 1492. As elsewhere, local “Old Christians” were hostile to the Inquisition and its activities, and not necessarily encouraging strong action against conversos.
Find this resource:
The Converso Diaspora in the Atlantic World

Research on conversos and crypto-Jews in the Atlantic world began in earnest in the 1970s, with scholars like the authors of Liebman 1970 and Novinsky 1972 identifying and using previously underutilized or untouched archival material. A more recent generation of scholars has made use of new methodologies in religious, cultural, intellectual, and institutional history and anthropology to revitalize work on conversos and Inquisition in the Americas, among many the authors of Feitler 2003 and Wachtel 2013. In the last few decades, there has been increasing interest in the Atlantic world as a conceptual framework for understanding economic and cultural activities in the early modern period. This movement has led to renewed interest in Portuguese conversos, also known as the “nation” (nação), in the Atlantic. The authors of Kagan and Morgan 2009 and Studnicki-Gizbert 2007 demonstrate this trend. Both Atlantic world history and popular culture have renewed interest in the history of the Caribbean, which remains understudied by scholars. As a result, much of that research has been undertaken by amateur or popular historians, like the authors of Goldish 2009 and Kritzler 2008.

Feitler, Bruno. Inquisition, juifs et nouveaux-chrétiens au Brésil: Le nordeste XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An excellent study of conversos and crypto-Jews in Brazil, with a particularly good discussion of the period of Dutch control of the Portuguese colony. “New Jews” from the Netherlands came to Brazil with the Dutch and encouraged the sometimes unwilling conversos to embrace Judaism.
Find this resource:
Goldish, Josette Capriles. Once Jews: Stories of the Caribbean Sephardim. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A history of Caribbean conversos and Jews from the late 18th century, written by an amateur historian and Curaçoan Sephardi Jew. Engaging and well researched, with an occasional personal focus on several family histories.
Find this resource:
Kagan, Richard L., and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collection of essays by several important researchers in this field; the book showcases current understandings of converso and Sephardic Jewish communities from Europe to English, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas.
Find this resource:
Kritzler, Edward. Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved out an Empire in the New World in their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom—and Revenge. New York: Doubleday, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An engagingly written but outdated and unreliable source on Jews and conversos in the New World.
Find this resource:
Liebman, Seymour B. The Jews in New Spain: Faith, Flame, and the Inquisition. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1970.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of the first efforts to make sense of conversos and crypto-Jews in New Spain (Mexico). The product of much archival research, but marred by the author’s heroic vision of his subjects and by its unreliability on many details.
Find this resource:
Novinsky, Anita. Cristãos-novos na Bahia. São Paulo, Brazil: Editôra Perspectiva, 1972.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This author initiated the most recent wave of study of conversos in Brazil. Novinsky emphasizes that many conversos were not crypto-Jews, or interested in Judaism, and is sympathetic to interpretations of the activities of the Portuguese Inquisition that focus on economic motivations and inquisitorial duplicity against its victims.
Find this resource:
Studnicki-Gizbert, Daviken. A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195175691.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines Portuguese converso communities in the port cities of the Atlantic, emphasizing financial, mercantile, and political activities of Catholic conversos and conversos who had returned to Judaism, and providing a clear sense of how these trans-Atlantic networks operated.
Find this resource:
Wachtel, Nathan. The Faith of Remembrance: Marrano Labyrinths. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2013.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The most important recent work on crypto-Jews in the Americas, focusing on the colonial period but stretching to the present. Wachtel’s interest stretches from Mexico to Lima to Brazil. Original French edition, La foi de Souvenir. Labrythes marranes (Paris: Seuil) published in 2001.
Find this resource:
Important Converso Individuals and Case Studies

The themes of secrecy, mobility, and lives upended that run through converso histories (and scholarship about them) mean that crypto-Jews make for interesting reading. At times individual cases also provide a helpful model for understanding conversos as a whole. Yerushalmi 1971 and Kaplan 1989 both take as their subject individuals who lived, apparently happily, in Spain for decades before fleeing to the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam, which was founded by crypto-Jews. There they revealed their longing to live a Jewish life. In both cases, that transition was a difficult one. By contrast, the most famous female conversa of the early modern period, Doña Gracia Nasi, has been studied more for her economic and cultural significance than for her religious journey from practicing Catholic in Portugal to practicing Jew in the Ottoman Empire. For a one-volume biography of Nasi, it is still helpful to turn to Roth 1992. Much of the best recent work on the Nasi family has been done in articles and essays rather than books. Two good examples include Garshowitz 1995 and Salomon and Leoni 1998. Finally, the best-known crypto-Jew of the Americas was Luis de Carvajal, whose story is engagingly told in Cohen 1973.

Cohen, Martin. The Martyr: The Story of a Secret Jew and the Mexican Inquisition in the Sixteenth Century. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A highly readable biography of probably the most famous crypto-Jew of the Americas, Luis de Carvajal el Mozo, nephew of a conquistador and governor of the same name. Firmly grounded in archival sources.
Find this resource:
Garshowitz, Libby. “Gracia Mendes: Power, Influence, and Intrigue.” In Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women. Edited by Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean, 94–125. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Particularly focuses on the ability of Gracia Mendes (1510–1569) ability to control her financial and personal life, in part through manipulation of the complex entanglements of Portuguese and Jewish marriage and inheritance law as she and her family moved across Europe.
Find this resource:
Kaplan, Yosef. From Christianity to Judaism: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A lucid and fascinating study of a key figure in the Amsterdam Jewish intellectual community. Kaplan describes the process by which Orobio de Castro (1617–1687) slowly acclimated himself to life in a normative Jewish community and defended Judaism, even as other “New Jews” ran afoul of the community.
Find this resource:
Roth, Cecil. Doña Gracia of the House of Nasi. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Despite its age (it was first published in 1948) and its occasionally frustrating lack of footnotes, Roth’s book remains the most readable monograph devoted to this fascinating conversa woman; Roth’s lack of footnotes does not suggest a lack of research.
Find this resource:
Salomon, Herman Prins, and Aron de Leone Leoni. “Mendes, Benveniste, de Luna, Micas, Nasci: The State of the Art (1532–1558).” Jewish Quarterly Review 88.3–4 (1998): 135–211.
DOI: 10.2307/1454662Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article provides an explanation of the complex use of names in this important family; in the process reveals much about familial intermarrying and the details of the imprisonment (and subsequent release) of Diogo Mendes (d 1542–1543) in Antwerp by Charles V. Available online.
Find this resource:
Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Fascinating study of Isaac Cardoso (1603/04–1683) someone who lived the first forty-four years of his life as a noted figure in Christian Spain, then fled and converted. Yerushalmi finds hints of Cardoso’s Jewish inclinations in his writings as a Christian, and lingering evidence of his Christian upbringing in his writing as a Jew.
Find this resource:
Crypto-Jews in the Modern World

The possibility of present-day crypto-Jewish communities has engaged scholarly and popular interest. Selke 1986 discusses the long-standing community in Majorca, who suffered inquisitorial persecution in the 17th century, though they existed to the 20th century. The best-known modern crypto-Jewish community is the one in Belmonte, Portugal, first described by the author of Schwartz 1925. Various Jewish groups have worked to integrate this crypto-Jewish community back into normative Judaism during the 20th and 21st centuries, as indicated in Brenner 1992. More complicated for scholars has been the debate over the existence of an ongoing crypto-Jewish community in the southwestern United States, particularly New Mexico. This thesis began attracting attention in the 1980s through the author of Hordes 2008. It has been complicated by the fact that many of these individuals previously had not recognized family practices as signifying a Jewish identity. Part of this phenomenon involves individuals discovering a long-dormant Jewish heritage in adulthood, raising questions for scholars about the veracity of these claims and why they continue to hold a compelling interest for scholars and others, as summarized in Carroll 2002. Recent scholars like the author of Kunin 2009 have tended to reaffirm the validity of these claims, but also to analyze how such claims—and the diversity of practices upon which these claims rest—function in defining one’s identity as a crypto-Jew.

Brenner, Frederic, ed. Les Marranes. Paris: Editions de la Différence, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book was released in conjunction with the 1991 documentary “Les derniers marranes,” and helpfully addresses the community in Belmonte as it existed in the late 20th century.
Find this resource:
Carroll, Michael P. “The Debate over a Crypto-Jewish Presence in New Mexico: The Role of Ethnographic Allegory and Orientalism.” Sociology of Religion 63.1 (Spring 2002): 1–19.
DOI: 10.2307/3712537Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful survey of the historiography on modern crypto-Judaism in New Mexico and the plausibility of the thesis of New Mexican crypto-Judaism, followed by an analysis of why this thesis is so compelling to so many current scholars. Available online.
Find this resource:
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The result of research undertaken since the 1980s, this book is the author’s culminating statement about this phenomenon and reflects decades of study and dissemination of his work. Strongly asserts that New Mexico has had a continuous Crypto-Jewish population since the colonial period.
Find this resource:
Kunin, Seth. Juggling Identities: Identity and Authenticity among the Crypto-Jews. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Summarizes scholarly debate about the historical veracity of New Mexican crypto-Jews, and provides an important refutation of critiques of New Mexican crypto-Jewish ancestry. The focus of this anthropologist’s work is an analysis of the diverse ways that self-identifying contemporary crypto-Jews lay claim to an authentic crypto-Jewish heritage.
Find this resource:
Schwartz, Samuel. Os cristãos-novos em Portugal no século XX. Lisbon, Portugal: Livraria Universal Armando J. Tavares, 1925.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first account of the best-known modern crypto-Jewish community, that of Belmonte, Portugal. Schwartz details the women-organized ceremonies, notes the secrecy that was critical to their practices, and records their prayers.
Find this resource:
Selke, Angela. The Conversos of Majorca: Life and Death in a Crypto-Jewish Community in XVII Century Spain. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provides an in-depth explanation of the religious practices and social segregation of the conversos of Majorca, known as los chuetas, and the series of trials against them in the late 17th century.