The faith of remembrance : Marrano labyrinths

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The faith of remembrance : Marrano labyrinths

Nathan Wachtel ; translated by Nikki Halpern ; foreword by Yosef Kaplan

(Jewish culture and contexts / David B. Ruderman, series editor)

University of Pennsylvania Press, c2013

  • : hardcover

Other Title

La foi du souvenir : labyrinthes marranes

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [367]-380) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In a series of intimate and searing portraits, Nathan Wachtel traces the journeys of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Marranos-Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism but secretly retained their own faith. Fleeing persecution in their Iberian homeland, some sought refuge in the Americas, where they established transcontinental networks linking the New World to the Old. The Marranos-at once Jewish and Christian, outsiders and insiders-nurtured their hidden beliefs within their new communities, participating in the economic development of the early Americas while still adhering to some of the rituals and customs of their ancestors. In a testament to the partial assimilation of these new arrivals, their faith became ever more syncretic, mixing elements of Judaism with Christian practice and theology. In many cases, the combination was fatal. Wachtel relies on inquisitorial archives of trials and executions to chronicle legal and religious prosecutions for heresy. From the humble Jean Vicente to the fabulously wealthy slave trafficker Manuel Bautista Perez, from the untutored Theresa Paes de Jesus to the learned Francisco Maldonado de Silva, each unforgettable figure offers a chilling reminder of the reach of the Inquisition. Sensitive to the lingering tensions within the Marrano communities, Wachtel joins the concerns of an anthropologist to his skills as a historian, and in a stunning authorial move, he demonstrates that the faith of remembrance remains alive today in the towns of rural Brazil.

Table of Contents

Foreword -Yosef Kaplan Introduction: Marranism and Modernity Chapter 1. Juan Vicente's Sanbenito Chapter 2. Heaven Face to Face: Francisco Maldonado de Silva Chapter 3. "They Spoke of the Things of the Law of Moses": Manuel Bautista Perez Chapter 4. "Remember the Mother of the Maccabees!": Regarding Leonor Nunez Chapter 5. "May Everyone Be What He Is": Francisco Botello and Maria de Zarate Chapter 6. "The Law of the Name Received from the Ancients": Fernando de Medina Chapter 7. "Moses, Son of Queen Esther": Theresa Paes de Jesus Chapter 8. "For in This Time All Is Lies, and All Is Truth": Joao Thomas de Castro and Antonio Jose da Silva Conclusion: Faith, Memory, Forgetting Epilogue: "Five Hundred Years of Hunger": Returning Finale: Three Poems by Odmar Pinheiro Braga Glossary Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

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