The Price of Conversion: Francisco de San Antonio and Mariana de los Reyes (1624)

In this second installment of Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics, we discuss the tale of "The Price of Conversion: Francisco de San Antonio and Mariana de los Reyes"

Avraham Rubén was a Sefardic Jew born in the North African city of Fez. In 1603, at the age of 25, Rubén decides to leave his land. Traveling as an itinerant rabbi, he reaches Antwerp and the Netherlands, where he decides to undergo baptism in 1616 by the bishop of Antwerp. Thereafter, as a New Christian, going by the baptismal name of Francisco de San Antonio, he moves to Lisbon, where he educates the "secret Jews" he meets there in the Hebrew alphabet, kosher food laws, and Jewish prayers. The Portuguese Inquisition arrests him twice for practicing Judaism surreptitiously as a baptized Christian. Escaping town, he stops at Santarem, where at a bar one night he meets María González, a twenty-some-year old Spanish Catholic woman who had been abandoned by her husband, whom she would later claim she presumed he was dead. Under the influence of "something to drink," the pair concocts a plan — María would pretend to be an unmarried Jewish woman named Cafira, she would join the church, and they would get married in return for a grant of land from the King of Spain. The plan began to enfold: the couple performed wedding vows before a city offical in an inn in Lisbon, and then continued on their way to Madrid, where María was (re-)baptized in the Royal Chapel of Madrid and took the baptismal name Mariana de los Reyes ("of the kings"). They were granted a royal estate in La Coruña. The pair lived happily for two or three years, and he continued his work as a clandestine rabbi. The plan may have worked out, if not for the fact that both lovers fell sick, and while teetering on the brink of death in a Madrid, she confessed the entire plan to the priest at the hospital. 

It’s hard to know what role of dissimulation vs. authentic religious faith is present in the case of Avraham Rubén and Mariana de los Reyes. First of all, in some regards, this case is a failure of ecclesiastical discipline — the case shouldn’t have come to this point, because there are some elements that should not have occurred. For one thing, the bishop who married Mariana and Francisco should have done due diligence to make sure that Mariana had not been previously married to Pedro Ribero, and if so, ensured that Pedro had died so she was free to remarry. As it is, the charge of bigamy is not necessarily her fault, because she believed that her husband was dead. These issues are very important in the Catholic church, and the priests should have done due diligence before allowing them to marry.

Secondly, the Church failed to catechize either Abraham or Mariana properly. While Mariana was raised Catholic, she claims innocence: “I’m so stupid that when they baptized me the second time, I didn’t realize what it meant” (103). It’s hard to know whether she’s lying, but given the state of the church, it seems that she was not properly instructed in the faith and did not realize that they had committed an error. The other catechetical error in Ruben’s case was the fact that he was baptized by the bishop of Antwerp, but was never confirmed, yet he partook of communion (p. 91). For new catechumens to the church, they must follow the process of (1) baptism after catechism, (2) confirmation, (3) communion. The fact that he skipped step 2 meant he should never have received communion. And usually the process of catechism takes one to two years — a substantial commitment, similar in duration to conversion to Judaism. During that time, Avraham should have been thoroughly instructed in the doctrines of the faith. If the priests had followed these basic church protocols, then perhaps this case would not have been as severe. This issue seems like it crops up repeatedly in these cases — the New Christians, especially those who were baptized overnight in Portugal — were never properly instructed or educated in the faith, and therefore should not be held responsible for things they did not know. The entire issue is a failure of the Church at the deepest level. The New Christians were held responsible for things they never signed up for, or simply did not know.

Also, the entire plot for Mariana to pretend to be Jewish, join the church, marry Avraham, and steal money reminds me of one of those road movies where the man and the women plan a run away from the law (a la Thelma/Louise, Natural Born Killers or True Romance - both of which were written by Quentin Tarantino, the newly minted Zionist). It is hard to imagine under what circumstances these two desperate lovers thought this was a good plan. Let’s get out of town, Cafira.

Renegade Jew: Luis de la Ysla

In this first installment of Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics, we analyze the Inquisition case of Luis de la Ysla — 

Luis de la Ysla represents a fascinating case: here is not only a young man who lived in 29 different locales around the Mediterranean, but also someone who repeatedly crossed the boundary between identifying as a Jew and identifying as a Christian.

Luis was born as Abraham Abzaradiel in Buytrago, a small Castilian town close to Toledo. He was raised as a Jew, and his grandfather, Yuçufa Abzaradiel, was a tax farmer (the grandfather’s first name suggests familial origins in Arab-speaking lands). At time of the Expulsion in 1492, Abraham traveled to Algiers, where we knew there was a large Jewish presence from the responsa of the rabbis we read of the Duran family — Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet (Rivash, 1326-1408), Rabbi Simon ben Ẓemaḥ Duran (Rashbaz, d. 1444), and his son Rabbi Shlomo ben Shimon Duran (Rashbash, 1400-1467), his son Simon ben Shlomo Duran (Rashbash ha-Sheni, 1438-1510), who succeeded his brother Ẓemaḥ ben Shlomo Duran as Chief Rabbi of Algiers.

Abraham moved from Barbary to Genoa, Italy, where he became a Christian, on the eve of his thirteenth birthday. Apparently, the Monarchy had permitted a “right of return” to the Jews who had left the Iberian peninsula as Jews but who converted to Catholicism. Kagan and Dyer (p. 30) note that they may have played a role in Abraham’s family’s decision to have him baptized.

As a New Christian, Luis de la Ysla returned to Spain, and lived in the house of the archdeacon of Toledo - where we have the role of a New Christian living with a church leader - this also happened in the case of Immanuel Tremellius, a Ferrara-born Italian Jew who converted to Christianity in 1530 in Padua and lived with Cardinal Farnese (who would later become Pope Paul III) in a house of converts or domus catechumenorum which had a large number of people [see my thesis - page 190-193, https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101963]. Luis then learned the trade of silk spinning, which is associated as a Jewish dominated trade. He then goes on his way to Ferrara, Venice, Constantinople, Alexandria, and other places.

What is fascinating also about his narrative is his apparent dismissal of his identity before the Inquisition. He notes that “he had been a Jew,” in the past tense (24). He also notes that the merchants in Turkey, “lived like Jews, performed all of the Jewish ceremonies, and ate meat” on Lent, but even though Luis “spent Saturdays with these Jews, eating the same food,” he did not enter the synagogues with them, “but stayed outside and walked around the corrals and along the marshes along with other servants like myself” (25). Luis distances himself from his Jewish associates to garner Inquisitorial sympathy.

Another strange aspect of his case is the number of times he confesses. In Catholic tradition, one must confess only one’s mortal sins as soon as he becomes aware of them. Mortal sins are those (1) one knows are wrong (2) you think about it and (3) you do it anyway. Additionally, the confessional booth is private — anything divulged in the confessional can never be repeated and is completely absolved. It is in the past. So I find it very strange that Luis resolves to not only confess himself several times, but others urge him to confess as well. It denies the power and understanding of confession. (Also, although I disagree that his actions of living like a Jew are something that should be punished as mortal sin) - it seems strange people would urge him to keep confessing. As he himself says, “I had already confessed and been absolved of everything” (28) - although he does note fear of “their Reverences” and “he did not want to suffer any insult.” Even the friar at San Juan de los Reyes told him “it was not necessary to do so again and suggested that I confess other sins” (29). While I believe that Luis would have been released for transparency, he unfortunately died in the prison cell in Toledo at age 31.

Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Abigail Dyer (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).

New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival Pomegranate Awards

I had the opportunity to attend the 28th Annual Pomegranate Awards hosted by the American Sephardi Federation as part of the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. This stunning event was held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in downtown Manhattan at Battery Park. The venue overlooking the Statue of Liberty - an icon integral to one of the theme’s of the evening, namely, the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Liberty, and the vital role of Sephardic Jews in the founding of our nation over 250 years ago.

The event was preceded by a light cocktail hour overlooking the Statue of Liberty, which preluded the entire evening. The main event, in the spacious Edmund G. Safra Hall, was hosted by the dazzlingly dressed Sabrina Soffer. Soffer, a recent graduate of George Washington University and herself of Dagestani Jewish heritage on her mother’s side, whose story she told in My Mother’s Mirror: A Generational Story of Purpose, Resilience, and Self-Discovery, offered opening remarks about the importance of Jewish unity and transmitting Sephardic history and legacy to the next generation. Soffer’s keynote address also touched on her experience with anti-Semitism at university and her upcoming book Of Good Courage: Israel and the West’s Fight for Moral Clarity, co-authored with Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. Soffer’s remarks were followed by those of Hélène Jawhara Piñer, an award-winning chef and scholar, whose cuisine recreates the dishes of Sephardic staples, such as almodrote, braised lamb, and Andalusian challah.

These introductory remarks were then followed by the reception of the Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement for Philosophy the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy. BHL, as he is affectionately known, spoke expressively about the importance of Liberty for American Jewish history. He mentioned that some of the founding citizens of our nation from over 250 years ago, were Sephardic Jews seeking religious liberty, and that Emma Lazarus, whose words are immortalized on Lady Liberty, was herself of Sephardi heritage, descended from those initial 23 pioneers to New Amsterdam. Because of that lineage deep within American history, BHL argued, it is up to Sephardic Jews today to restore American honor.

Two Pomegranate Awards were given for excellence in Music. One went to Murray Perahia, the award-winning pianist and conductor, whose interpretations of the classical composers Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin embody lyrical sensitivity, elegance, and profound musical insight. He is considered one of the greatest pianist alive today, marked by his humble demeanor. This was followed by the Pomegranate Award granted to Jeannette Sorrell, a Grammy-winning conductor, whose childhood dream was to follow in the footsteps of Murray Perahia, with whom she had the pleasure of sharing the stage. Sorrell, born of a Holocaust survivor father whose origin she discovered in 2018 before her Carnegie Hall debut, has led the world’s chief orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Seattle Symphony. Joined by her musical partner Jeffrey Strauss and their troupe Apollo’s Fire, Sorrell performed several deeply provoking pieces from Sephardic Jewish history as a finale to the event. The moving renditions of Avraham Kerido, Borrecho, and Tzur Mishelo, brought several audience members to standing ovation and to tears.

Finally, the last person recognized was Avi Issacharoff, the journalist, report, producer, and screenwriter, whose best talent is known for the Netflix hit series *Fauda*. Issacharoff is of Kurdish and Persian heritage himself, and he learned his sense of storytelling, for which he received the Pomegranate Award for Storytelling, from his mother and grandmother who spent long nights enthralled by tales of dragons and monsters. His journalist integrity and humor was brought to light when he shared a story how he met a head of Hamas, who told him he planned to remove all Jews from Israel and send them back to Europe and America, to which Issacharoff asked, “What about me? My grandparents are from Kurdistan and Uzbekistan,” to which the sheikh responded, “You can stay.” Also humorous was Issacharoff’s quip that it was the strength and resolve of Kurdistani ladies, from whom he descends, who were able to stop ISIS in their tracks.

I was pleased to meet several individuals of Bukharian Jewish descent. There was Ruben Shimonov, the skilled calligrapher equally at home in Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Russian, and Spanish, born in Uzbekistan and raised in Seattle, director of Sephardi House. In addition, Joseph Kandov, an award-winning filmmaker, whose several films include The Set-up and Til Death Do Us Part. In addition, I met the mezzo-soprano singer, writer, and educator Yaffa Borukhoba, who wrote and illustrated a children’s book You Don’t Look Jewish and hosts the StreetSmarts MBA podcast.

In this night of pan-Jewish unity, Soffer, Egyptian on her father’s side, also shared how she and an Egyptian student shared a love of the songs of Enrico Macias, who performed the second night of the Festival. Soffer also related how she and a Bukharian student sang together childhood songs such as Kayfuyem, which her mother Lea Wolf — of Kavkazi Mountain Jewish heritage, from the Tat Jews of the Southern Caucasus — taught her.

This piece was originally intended for a Bukharian newspaper.

Watch my interview with Sabrina Soffer on the Embracing Abraham podcast on YouTube.

Zohar:

The Zohar is a very complicated text to outsiders. But has some of its reputation been assigned by scholars? Isaiah Tishby was an English-speaking scholar who produced an early version of a Zoharic anthology. Gershom Scholem was a Hebrew-speaking scholar who made pioneering investigations into the study of Jewish mysticism In general, the main thrust of the arguments espoused by Isaiah Tishby and Gershom Scholem are opposed, as far as their views regarding the authorship of the Zohar. Both scholarly articles begin with a lengthy schema, or description of the parts of the Zohar - so that section is remarkably the same in both authors. But their views of the composition of the Zohar itself come from different directions. Tishby seems to believe that that the Zohar is a confused jumble of kabbalistic strands that somehow found their way into a non-coherent system in the Zohar Ḥadash in the 14th century, which was then added to by other sections. Tishby describes the Zohar as having "many drawbacks," the foremost of which is: "Different topics are jumbled together and subjects that have practically nothing to do with one another are set side by side without any internal connection between them. At many points we jump from one subject to another, without any logical transition or rational continuity" (7), which are more prominent in the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar. He comments: "In these sections are signs of a basic defect in the actual thought structure" (7). Tishby also refers to its "piecemeal"  style, which "seriously obscures its ideas." The reader of Tishby's introduction is left with an entirely mystified, confused introduction to the Zohar. By contrast, Scholem sees the Zohar as a unified, coherent, literary whole by a single author, which has remarkable consistency in its use of linguistic features, despite their particularity. Scholem is arguing against the idea that it is "a multitude of writings of apparently very different character, loosely assembled under the title of 'Zohar'" (159). For example, Scholem praises the section Idra Rabba, or "Great Assembly": "The composition of this part is architecturally perfect; the totality of the speeches constitutes a systematic whole" (160). Scholem especially brings attention to its unified emotional effect: "As the unravelling of the mystery progresses, the participants are increasingly overcome by ecstasy, and in the final dramatic apotheosis, three of the[ rabbi's followers] die in a state of ecstatic trance" (160). In the view of Scholem, the Zohar is a literary composition which is masterfully put together to achieve maximal mystical and emotional impact. Scholem does make the caveat that the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar which Tishby calls out, were likely authored by another author in imitation of the main part. He refers to its "deliberate imitation of the uniform language of the other parts" (168). Elsewhere, Scholem criticizes imperfections in the Zohar's Aramaic, which he considers thirteenth-century Hebrew in disguise (165), but notes its consistent nature throughout (163) and its "rainbow picture of linguistic eclecticism, the constituent elements of which, however, remain constant throughout. The syntax is extremely simple, almost monotonous" (164). He elsewhere refers to the author as an "omnivorous reader gifted with an excellent memory" (172). Personally, Scholem's view inspires me to study the Zohar at a greater depth, whereas Tishby's introduction leaves me confused over the jumble of texts I am about to investigate. Isaiah Tishby, The wisdom of the Zohar (Oxford, 1989), 1-30 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken, 1995), 156-204