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tried to highlight the important information in blue.
HIST 4344.001
What Came Before: European Jewish Culture 1867-1933
Worksheet 1a
January 24, 2023
January 24, 2023
Please read these assignments in the order they appear.
Schechter, Ronald. “A Nation Within the Nation?: The Jews of the Old Regime France,”
pp.18-34 in Obstinate Hebrews: Representation of Jews in France, 1715-1815. (This is an
online article that can be found in the McDermott Library)
•
Before the Revolution, what (where) was the largest population of Jews in France? How
did they come to live there?
•
Who are the Ashkenazim? Who are the Sephardim? (You can find these definitions in
this reference book located in the McDermott Library database). Hay, Jeff T.
"Ashkenazim." The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of World Religions, edited by Linda
Holler, Greenhaven Press, 2007, p. 42.
•
What were the major trades of French Alsatian Jews in the 17th century?
•
What were some of the restrictions on Jews in French territories?
•
What were some of the accusations against Jews in this region?
•
What was the typical political/governing structure of Jewish communities in France
during 18th century?
•
Who were the maskilim? (See attached)
•
What was the Haskalah? (See attached)
•
Who were the Crypto-Jews? (See attached)
•
When were Jews in Paris allowed to practice their religion?
•
Why were the Jews accused of being “Nation withing a Nation” in France?
1
Hundert, Gershon David. “The Importance of Demography and Patterns of Settlement for an
Understanding of the Jewish Experience in East–Central Europe,” pp. 29-38 in The Shtetl.
Steven Katz, Ed. (This reading is from an online book that can be found in the McDermott
Library).
•
What is Hasidism? (See article below).
•
By the end of the 18th century, where did most Polish Jews live (city or small village)?
•
To what does the author attribute the expansion of the Polish Jewish population?
Kassow, Samuel, “Introduction,” pp. 1-23 in The Shtetl. Steven Katz, Ed. (This reading is from
an online book that can be found in the McDermott Library).
•
What was a shtetl?
•
What were two major aspects of the shtetl?
•
How did the professional life of Jews in the shtetls differ from their lives in other places?
•
Where did shtetlekh originate?
•
What was the arenda system? What was the arendar?
•
What was one of the major products produced by the arenda system?
•
What are mikvot?
•
What caused the decline of the shtetl economy by the 19th century?
•
What was the Pale of Settlement? Authorized it? When?
•
When were the restrictions of the Pale finally lifted?
•
What is a yishev? What are yishuvniks?
•
What was a kehilla? What was the kahal?
•
What is a Yeshiva? (See attached reading)
•
What were the two major developments in Eastern European religious life in the 18th and
19th centuries? (See page 10)
•
What does the author see as the five major responses of shtetl jews to the crisis of East
European Jewry?
2
•
What is the chevre kadisha?
•
What were the chevres?
•
What is Tsedaka?
•
How was shtetl life impacted by WWI, the Russian Civil War, and changes dur the
interwar period? (pp. 16-17).
•
What is the Zaddik? (pp. 20)
Bartal, Israel. “The Jews of the Kingdom,” pp. 14-22 in The Jews of Eastern Europe, 17721881. Trans. Chaya Naor. (This reading is from an online book that can be found in the
McDermott Library)
•
What were the three elements common to Polish and German Jewry?
•
What were the duties of the kahal?
•
What was the Sejm?
•
What was the governmental structure of the Jewish communities living in the Polish
kingdom until the partition and the beginning of the modern era?
Bartal, Israel. “’My Heart Is in the West’: The Haskalah Movement in Eastern Europe,” pp. 90101 in The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881. Trans. Chaya Naor. (This reading is from an
online book that can be found in the McDermott Library)
•
When did the Haskalah emerge?
•
What was the main idea of the Maskilim’s push for the new way of thinking? What was
their goal? (pp. 92-93)
•
Who was Moses Mendelssohn? (See attached)
•
The author states that the Haskalah was most likely less responsible for the changes to
Eastern European Jewry by the 19th century. What are several of the issues he felt most
impacted their reaction to modernization and their movement away from traditional
Judaism? (See page 96).
3
Schechter, Ronald. “Jews and Philosophes,” pp. 35-65 Obstinate Hebrews: Representation of
Jews in France, 1715-1815. (This is an online article that can be found in the McDermott
Library).
•
What was the Spanish Inquisition? (See attached article- only the subtitled sections
highlighted in blue are important).
•
The author implies that there is a dualism about the Philosophes’ ideas about the Jews.
What are some of these conflicting notions (know at least 2)?
•
Why, in the author’s opinion, does the Inquisition figure as a prominent symbol in
Enlightenment literature?
•
What is the Talmud? (See the attached article)
•
What is the Torah? (See the attached article)
4
"Talmud." Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, edited by David A. Leeming, et al., Springer, 2010, p.
895. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3042600495/GVRL?u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmarkGVRL&xid=8bde4132. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.
Talmud
Mark Popovsky
From the Hebrew verb ‘‘to learn,’’ Talmud refers to the
central text in the vast corpus of rabbinic literature which
serves as a repository of legal discussions, biblical exegesis,
theology, philosophy, hagiography, legend, history, science, anecdotes, aphorisms, and humor. The Babylonian
Talmud was edited over several generations by the rabbinic authorities of Babylonia, probably attaining a somewhat fixed form in the sixth century. However, individual
passages included may be up to several hundred years
older having been transmitted orally prior to their inclusion in the text. A second Talmud exists, edited in the land
of Israel during the fifth century. Know as the Jerusalem
or Palestinian Talmud, it is smaller, more opaque, and less
authoritative in later legal debates. The term Talmud
unqualified always refers to the Babylonian Talmud
which is written primarily in Aramaic though it often
cites large passages in biblical or Rabbinic Hebrew.
The Talmud is structured around a second century
rabbinic document called the Mishnah or ‘‘recitation.’’
Composed in terse Hebrew, the Mishnah compiles unresolved legal debates among rabbis on a wide range of
subjects including worship, dietary laws, torts, family
law, criminal law, agricultural practices, mourning customs, sexual mores, and holiday observance. These legal
discussions are often surrounded by related narratives and
relevant biblical interpretations. The Mishnah settles very
few of the legal debates it presents and frequently suggests
no rationale supporting the various opinions cited. The
Talmud begins as a commentary on the Mishnah elucidating its cases and alternatively challenging or defending
each of its legal opinions.
While the Talmud retains its structure as a commentary on the Mishnah, it functions much more broadly,
citing new legal cases, relating stories about rabbinic
figures, and opening moral or theological debates unimagined by the Mishnah. The different material included
is woven together in a complicated arrangement that is
only sometimes topical. Often, connections between
Talmudic passages rely on free associations or any number
of other non-linear progressions. The Talmud gives
great weight to material from dreams, word play and the
exploration of fantasy.
The Talmud’s primary method of expression is debate.
No legal precedent, biblical passage, or other ostensibly
authoritative statement stands immune to challenge.
Tantrism
T
895
Much like the psychoanalytic process, rather than attempting to avoid or resolve conflict, Talmudic discourse identifies and even elevates disputes among principles, teaching
the reader to embrace discord rather than repress it. While
the Talmud rarely affirms or rejects one opinion outright,
ironically, it often signals its preference for one opinion over
another by challenging the favored opinion more extensively. Biblical laws are almost never explicitly repealed,
but, with some frequency, problematic biblical passages
are interpreted through Talmudic debate to be so narrow
in scope as to be practically irrelevant in contemporary
society.
The Talmud is traditionally studied in pairs or small
groups, reflecting the conversational question-andanswer style of the text itself. Many have argued that the
process of studying Talmud parallels the psychoanalytic
task as the reader is directed to infer underlying conflicts
from surface level ambiguities or inconsistencies in the
text. Some scholars claim that Freud fashioned elements
of his therapeutic technique from methods of traditional
Talmudic analysis. In modern times, the Talmud is
almost always printed together with the commentary of
Rashi, an eleventh century scholar from Provence, whose
glosses guide the reader through the difficult text which
often assumes that its readers know the entire contents
already.
See also: > Judaism and Psychology
Bibliography
Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. (1998). Swimming in the sea of Talmud. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of America.
Rubenstein, J. L., & Cohen, S. J. D. (2002). Rabbinic stories (Classics of
Western spirituality). Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
T
Tantrism
Kathryn Madden
Tantrism is a religious and philosophical movement
appearing in India around 400 AD that existed within
both Hinduism and Buddhism. In medieval India,
Tantrism was a common element of all the major
452———Torah
Altman, Penny F., and Deborah L. Bobek. "Torah." Encyclopedia of
Religious and Spiritual Development, edited by Elizabeth M. Dowling and
W. George Scarlett, SAGE Reference, 2006, pp. 452-453. Gale eBooks,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3466400253/GVRL?u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmarkGVRL&xid=c7e532d4. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.
other year. Many of the retreats that he gives in the
United States are for veterans of the Vietnam War, trying to help these veterans to heal from their spiritual
and psychological wounds of the war.
The religious teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh center
upon the practices of mindfulness and meditation.
Mindfulness involves being fully present to the present moment, and in so doing coming into touch with
the joys and wonders of life. Being in touch with the
joys and wonders of life does not, however, mean
overlooking life’s suffering. Rather, through mindfulness and meditation one is able to look honestly at the
negative realities of life without being overcome by
grief, anger, or despair. Practices of mindfulness and
meditation enable one to transform these negative
emotions such as anger into positive action for reconciliation, healing, and social justice.
For Thich Nhat Hanh, as for Buddhists in general,
the central virtue is compassion. By “looking deeply”
through meditation, one comes to understand that
those who cause harm do so as a result of their own
brokenness and suffering. Rather than seeking to destroy
them, the appropriate response is to seek ways to
bring about healing.
At the heart of Buddhism are five ethical precepts.
Thich Nhat Hanh refers to them as the five “mindfulness trainings.” These include commitments to (1) foster
compassion for all living beings/don’t kill; (2) foster
generosity/don’t steal or exploit; (3) foster responsible
sexuality/don’t engage in sexual activity without love
and a long-term commitment; (4) foster loving and
truthful speech/don’t lie, gossip, or slander; and (5) practice mindful consumption/don’t use substances that
cloud the mind such as drugs and alcohol.
Thich Nhat Hanh stresses that these practices of
mindfulness, meditation, and commitment to the ethical precepts are not of value only to Buddhists. They
are practices that persons of all religious traditions can
benefit from. Thich Nhat Hanh’s life serves as a model
for how life experiences can influence the direction of
one’s religious development and in what ways one’s
religious life can impact the lives of others.
—John Sniegocki
See also Buddhism; Buddhism, Socially Engaged
FURTHER READING
Nhat Hanh, T. (1987). The miracle of mindfulness: An introduction to the practice of meditation. Boston: Beacon Press.
Nhat Hanh, T. (2001). Essential writings. Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books.
Nhat Hanh, T. (1995). Living Buddha, living Christ. New York:
Riverhead Books.
TORAH
In the narrowest sense, the Hebrew word Torah
refers to the first five books of the Bible. They are
also called the Five Books of Moses (and from the
Greek, the Pentateuch), because historically Judaism
accepted that not just the Ten Commandments, but the
entire Torah was revealed to Moses and to the Jewish
people at Mount Sinai. The Torah contains the laws of
Judaism (including 603 mitzvot or commandments)
and provides an ethical framework for the Jewish
people. It also contains the history of the Jewish
people from the creation of the world until their
arrival at Canaan after the exodus from Egypt. The
Torah is of central influence to the religious and spiritual development of Jews around the world.
The Pentateuch is made up of five books: Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Genesis (or “In the beginning”) tells the story of the
creation of the world, and Adam and Eve’s exile from
the Garden of Eden, as well as the story of Noah
and the great flood that destroyed the world. It also tells
the story of the fathers (or Patriarchs) of Judaism, and
of great importance, it tells of the covenant between
God and Abraham, in which God selects Abraham and
his descendents as the “chosen” people. Exodus (or
“Going out”) tells the story of Moses and of the Jews’
delivery from slavery in Egypt. It also tells the story
of Moses receiving the Torah from God on Mount
Sinai. Leviticus (or “Then he called”) is a book of
laws and instructions, specifically relating to rituals
and practices associated with worshiping God.
Numbers (or “In the wilderness”) tells the story of the
Jews wandering in the desert for 40 years after the
Jews left Egypt. Finally, Deuteronomy (or “Words”)
consists of the last teachings of Moses before his
death. It is a summary of the laws by which the Jews
are to live. Its purpose is to promote purity and unity
among the Jews.
The Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which occurs in the
spring, celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.
On the eve of Shavuot, it is traditional to stay up all
night to study Torah. Many synagogues hold study
Tower of David———453
sessions so that congregates can learn together as a
community.
In a broader sense, Torah can refer to the entire
Jewish Bible (or Tanakh), which in addition to the
Five Books of Moses, includes the Prophets (Nevi’im)
and the Writings (Kethuvim). The Prophets consists
of 21 books. The first 9 are Joshua, Judges, I Samuel,
II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel. There are an additional 12 books of Minor
Prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah,
Michah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,
Zechariah, and Malachi. The Writings consist of 13
books: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra,
Nehemiah, and I Chronicles, and II Chronicles.
Beyond the Bible is the Oral Torah, which came to
be the Talmud. Traditionally, Judaism asserts that the
Oral Torah is the oral instructions God gave to Moses
on Mount Sinai along with the Written Torah. These
instructions involved how to interpret the written scriptures. In the 2nd century C.E., owing to fears that the
Oral Torah would be forgotten, a basic outline called
the Mishnah was written. This outline did not include
in-depth explanations of the laws (or Gemara) of Judaism.
In 5th century C.E. (about 300 years after the Mishnah
was completed), the Mishnah and the Gemara were
compiled into a complete work called the Talmud. The
Talmud thus contains all of the oral instructions and
laws of Judaism. (There are actually two Talmuds,
one written in Jerusalem and one in Babylonia. The
Babylonian Talmud became the authoritative version.)
The Talmud is made up of six sections called
sedarim (or “orders”), which are further divided into
63 masekhot (or “tractates”). The six Seders are Seeds,
Season, Women, Damages, Holy Things, and Purities.
Seeds deals with the laws of agriculture, prayer, and
blessings. Season deals with the laws of the Sabbath
and holidays. Women deals with the laws of marriage,
divorce, and contracts. Damages deals with civil law,
financial law, and ethics. Holy Things deals with sacrifices and the Temple. Purities deals with the laws of
ritual purity.
The Torah used for services in Judaism is written
on a parchment scroll. The scrolls are handwritten in
Hebrew calligraphy by a sofer or ritual scribe and are
scrolled from right to left, just as the words are written right to left. One is never supposed to touch the
parchment of the Torah, and thus when reading from
it, a pointer is used. The scrolls are covered with fabric, often ornamented with crowns on the handles and
a breastplate on the front. These scrolls are kept in a
cabinet in the Temple called an “ark.”
Each week in synagogue, a passage of the Torah,
called a parshah, is chanted. In addition, a passage
from one of the Prophets, called a Haftorah is chanted.
(A specific Haftorah is assigned to each parshah.) In
addition, on holy days and holidays, special readings
from the Torah and Haftorah are chanted. The Torah is
divided into 54 passages, and the entire Torah (from
Genesis to Deuteronomy) is read in 1 year. The final
portion of the Torah is read on a holiday called
Simchat Torah (or “Rejoicing the Law”), which occurs
in the autumn a few weeks after Rosh Hashanah (the
Jewish New Year). On Simchat Torah, the final passage
of the Torah is read and then immediately, the first few
paragraphs of Genesis are read in order to demonstrate
the wholeness of the Torah—it is a never-ending circle.
Before chanting from the Torah, the Torah is paraded
around the synagogue. The chanting is divided into
portions and members of the congregation are given the
honor of having an aliyah (or “ascension”), which is
reciting a blessing over the portion of the reading about
to be chanted. In many synagogues, either before or
after services, members of the congregation gather to
study and discuss that week’s portion in more depth.
In the broadest sense, Torah is a Hebrew word
that can mean teaching, instruction, or law. Thus, any
Jewish study, whether history, philosophy, law, or tradition, can be referred to as Torah study, because ultimately it is derived from what is contained in the Five
Books of Moses. Whether defined narrowly or broadly,
Torah (both its study and the living out of its precepts)
is central to the faith and practice of Judaism.
—Penny F. Altman and Deborah L. Bobek
See also Bible, Jewish
FURTHER READING
Jewish Publication Society. (1985). Tanakh, a new translation
of the Holy Scriptures according to the traditional Hebrew
text. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
TOWER OF DAVID
The Tower of David is quite literally where
Jerusalem began—from historical, religious, and geographical perspectives. To the east of the Tower are
Roth, Cecil, and Yom Tov Assis. "Inquisition." In Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred
Skolnik, 790-804. Vol. 9. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Gale eBooks (accessed January 23, 2023). https://linkgale-com.libproxy.utdallas.edu/apps/doc/CX2587509541/GVRL?u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=5e4e4c9c.
inowroclaw
were raided and demolished, and the synagogue and the cemetery desecrated; 18 Jews were attacked and arrested and three
community leaders brutally murdered. Subsequently nearly all
Jews left Innsbruck, some of them settling in Ereẓ Israel.
After World War II a new community – the smallest in
Austria, with 100 members – was established, and a synagogue
dedicated in 1961. The community was headed by Oscar von
Lubomirski, a converted Polish nobleman. In 1969, the community numbered around 50 members, in 2005 around 70.
A new synagogue was consecrated in 1993 on the site of the
old one.
Bibliography: E. Rimalt, in: J. Fraenkel (ed.), The Jews
of Austria (1967), 375–84; J.E. Scherer, Die Rechtsverhaeltnisse der
Juden in den deutsch-oesterreichischen Laendern, 1 (1901), 618–40; A.
Taenzer, Geschichte der Juden in Tirol und Vorarlberg (1905), 31, 46,
177; Strakosch-Grassmann, in: Juedisches Archiv, 2 (1924), nos. 5–7,
45–49; PK Germanyah.
[Elimelech Rimalt]
INOWROCLAW (Ger. Hohensalza), city in Bydgoszcz province, central Poland. The first documents concerning Jews
there date from 1447. By the end of the 16th century there
was an organized community headed by a rabbi. Nearly all
the Jewish inhabitants were killed when the town was besieged
by the army of Stephan *Czarniecki in 1656. In 1681 King *John
Sobieski renewed the charter of privileges granted to the community in 1600 which had been lost during the siege; although
refused recognition by the municipality, these rights were
enforced by the royal authorities. The Inowroclaw community
was administered by three elders elected every three years by
ballot, cast in the presence of the rabbi and the mayor, each
elder holding office for one year. There were 980 Jews living
in Inowroclaw and the vicinity in 1765. The right to be tried
in Jewish law courts was abrogated after the accession of
the territory by Prussia in 1774. In the following year the
145 houses belonging to Jews were destroyed by a fire, and
the deteriorating economic situation compelled many Jews
to leave. The position improved at the beginning of the
19th century. The Jewish population of Inowroclaw numbered
604 in 1799, 1,265 in 1815, and 1,158 in 1905. With the incorporation of the area in Poland after World War I conditions
deteriorated again and by 1939 the community was reduced
to 172.
[Nathan Michael Gelber]
Holocaust Period
During World War II Inowroclaw served under the name Hohensalza as the capital of one of the three Regierungsbezirke
(districts) in Warthegau. (Before the outbreak of the war, Inowroclaw had 172 Jews. Many of them fled before and just
after the Nazi forces entered.) Wilhelm Koppe, the Hoehere
SS- und Polizeifuehrer of Warthegau, on Nov. 12, 1939, ordered
that the town be made judenrein by the end of February 1940.
On Nov. 14, 1939, a transport of Jews, probably including all
the remaining Jewish population of Inowroclaw, was taken to
*Gniezno and Kruszwica. By the end of 1939 the Jewish com-
790
munity in Inowroclaw had ceased to exist. The community
was not reconstituted after World War II.
[Danuta Dombrowska]
Bibliography: D. Dabrowska, in: BzIH, no. 13–14 (1955),
122–84, passim.
INQUISITION, special permanent tribunal of the medieval Catholic Church, established to investigate and combat
heresy.
The Early Institution
Although the Inquisition was established by Pope *Gregory IX,
it owed its name to the procedure instituted by Pope *Innocent III (1198–1216) for searching out persons accused of heresy. Gregory himself created permanent judges delegate (inquisitores dati ab ecclesia) in 1233, entrusting the mission of
judging heretics to the *Dominicans, who divided their duties
with the *Franciscans on a geographical basis. Life imprisonment was prescribed for the repentant and capital punishment
for the obdurate, after they were handed over to the secular
authorities. The practice of burning heretics at the stake (see
*Auto-da-fé) was introduced in the last years of the 12th century. By 1255 the Inquisition was fully active in Central and
Western Europe, but was never established in England and
Scandinavia. Portugal was not included in the system until
1532. The use of torture for the detection of heresy was authorized in 1252 by Innocent IV (1243–54), and confirmed by
Urban IV (1261–64). Property of those sentenced to life imprisonment or to death was handed over to the secular arm,
but often the Church sought to derive some profit from the
confiscated valuables.
Initially, the Inquisition dealt with Christian heretics,
like the *Albigenses, against whom a full-scale Crusade was
organized in 1209. According to Canon Law, the Inquisition
was not authorized to interfere in the internal affairs of the
Jews, but this rule was abolished on the ground that the presence of Jews caused heresy to develop in the Christian milieu.
The dispute which raged around Maimonides’ books (1232)
provided the Inquisition with a convenient opportunity to
interfere in Jewish affairs (see *Maimonidean controversy).
In June 1242, following the Paris Disputation of 1240, an inquisitorial committee condemned the Talmud in Paris, principally for blasphemy against Jesus and Christianity and for
immoral and anthropomorphic passages contained in it, and
thousands of volumes of it were subsequently burned in public (see Burning of *Talmud). The first mass burning of Jews
on the stake took place in France in 1288, following a *blood
libel at *Troyes. Nevertheless, persecution of the Jews by the
Inquisition in France and Provence remained confined to a
few cases, never reaching the proportions it later assumed in
the Iberian Peninsula, with the National Inquisition.
The papal Inquisition turned its attention to the Jews
after the elimination of the Cathars or Albigensis. It prosecuted and persecuted converts from Judaism who were suspected of Judaizing. It operated intensively in Provence and
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
inquisition
pursued many of the Provençal Jews who had been baptized
and decided to move to Catalonia, to be away from its close
supervision.
The Spanish Inquisition until 1492
The Inquisition in the Crowns of Castile and Aragon was established to combat heresy among the New Christians, a group
comprising Jews who converted under duress during the 1391
Massacres and others who did so during the Tortosa Disputation in 1412–13 and during the subsequent eras of mounting
pressure on the Jews in both Crowns. The initiative for the establishment of the Inquisition in both Castile and Aragon was
that of their two monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, who ruled
both Crowns jointly. It was in September 1480 that orders were
issued for the creation of special tribunals. Soon afterwards,
these tribunals began to function. The National Inquisition by
far surpassed the papal Inquisition of the Middle Ages both
in the scale and intensity of its activities. Its impact on Jewish
history was incomparably greater, for its principal objective
was the persecution of those inclined toward Judaism. Of the
many scholars who have studied the nature of the Spanish Inquisition, some have emphasized its ecclesiastical character,
while others have been inclined to regard it as a distinctly political institution. This Inquisition was in fact established as a
Church institution deriving its authority from the pope, but
it was destined to solve a specifically Spanish religious-social
problem and thus evolved into a political institution, although
retaining its purely religious aspect. The persecutions of 1391
and of 1412–14 created a new religious and social problem in
the Crowns of Castile and Aragon, that of the *anusim or Conversos. Having abandoned the Jewish faith under duress, these
*New Christians continued to maintain close relations with
their former brethren and occasionally seized the opportunity
to emigrate in order to return to Judaism. All attempts made
by the authorities to separate the Conversos from Judaism – by
legislation, by the separation of their dwellings from the Jewish quarters, or through education – were fruitless. From the
second half of the 15th century, a public discussion took place
on the question of the Conversos and various methods and
projects were advanced for the solution of the problem. There
were in fact some distinguished personalities who defended
the Conversos and their right to become integrated within
Spanish society as Christians with equal rights: the most outstanding of these was Alfonso de Cartagena (1384–1456), son
of the apostate *Pablo de Santa María, in his work Defensorium unitatis Christianae (ed. by M. Alonso, 1943). Prominent
among those who adopted a firm attitude against the Conversos was the Franciscan monk *Alfonso de Espina (second
half of the 15th century). In his work Fortalitium Fidei (Nuremberg, 1485–98), he proposed a detailed plan for heresy-hunting among the Conversos, a scheme which might well be regarded as the harbinger of the establishment of the Spanish
Inquisition. This debate was accompanied by violent outbursts
against Conversos, the most important being the attempt by
Pedro *Sarmiento in Toledo in 1449 to institute Inquisition
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
court-proceedings against Conversos who had risen to important functions within Christian society.
The ascent of *Ferdinand and Isabella to the throne of
Castile in 1474 provided a favorable opportunity for those
Church extremists who advocated a radical solution. The
Catholic monarchs required some faithful supporters for the
consolidation of their rule, and these emerged from among the
churchmen and the townspeople. In exchange for their support, Ferdinand and Isabella introduced a series of restrictive
measures against both Conversos and Jews. However, there is
no reason to doubt that the appeal of Ferdinand and Isabella
to Pope Sixtus IV in 1477, requesting him to authorize them to
establish the Inquisition, was motivated by the religious fervor
which was characteristic of their policy from the start. They
were equally interested in solving a serious social problem and
ensure the full integration of the Conversos within Christian
society. In his reply given on Nov. 1, 1478, the pope authorized
them to appoint inquisitors in every part of Castile.
Two Dominican monks, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de
San Martín, were appointed to head the Inquisition on Sept.
27, 1480, and on Jan. 1, 1481, they began their activities, choosing to start in *Seville because the region of Andalusia was
considered an important center of Judaizers. The inquisitors
demanded that the noblemen deliver into their hands all Judaizers who had fled and been taken under their protection.
A large number of Conversos were arrested, including many
wealthy and notable personalities of Seville. The records of the
tribunal have not been preserved in this case, but from the evidence of the chronicler Andrés Bernáldez it appears that during the years 1481–88 over 700 Conversos were burned at the
stake and more than 5,000 were brought back to the Church
by means of various penalties. In Aragon, the papal Inquisition which had been founded in 1237/8 under the influence
of *Raymond de Peñaforte operated against the Conversos of
Valencia during the 1460s. The results of its activities appeared
unsatisfactory to the king, however, and as early as 1484 he appointed new investigators to take up their duties there.
Moved by the complaints of many Conversos against
the methods of the Seville Inquisition, Pope Sixtus IV at first
(January 1482) opposed the extension of the tribunal to the
Crown of Aragon, but was unable to hold out against Ferdinand’s displeasure and, in October 1483, agreed to extend the
rights of the Inquisition in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia.
During that year, the Jews were expelled from Andalusia and
Tomás de *Torquemada, head of the Dominican monastery
of Santa Cruz in Segovia, was appointed inquisitor-general
of the Spanish kingdom. The measures he introduced determined the character of the institution from the start and left
their imprint on its activities during the whole of its existence.
It was he who decided on the composition of every Inquisition tribunal and abolished all the orders which had previously
been issued by the pope in favor of the Conversos.
In 1483, an Inquisition tribunal, which continued until
1485, was set up in *Ciudad Real. Torquemada intended this
tribunal as an experiment in anticipation of the establishment
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of a tribunal in *Toledo, to prepare the public and test their
reactions. During this period at least 100 Conversos were condemned, 52 to the stake, about 15 in effigy, and the remains
of others were exhumed and burned. An Inquisition tribunal
was also established in *Guadalupe in 1485, and during one
year 52 Conversos were burned at the stake and the bodies of
48 condemned after death were exhumed and burned, as were
the effigies of 25 Conversos who had fled.
In 1485, the tribunal of Ciudad Real was transferred to
Toledo, where, according to tradition, the Conversos had intended to assassinate the Inquisition officers during the Corpus Christi procession, but the plot was discovered and its initiators hanged. The “period of grace” of 40 days, during which
the Conversos were called upon to confess their sins, was extended by a further 90 days. The authorities compelled the
communal leaders of the Jews to proclaim in the synagogues
that any Jew knowing of Conversos who adhered to Judaism, who did not bring this to the cognizance of the Inquisition, would be laid under the *ḥ erem. The tribunal of Toledo,
which had jurisdiction over 88 towns and villages, brought
many Conversos to trial during its early years, but by 1492 the
number of trials gradually decreased, the Inquisition then being busy with preparations for the expulsion. In 1486, 20 autos-de-fé were held in Toledo and 3,327 persons sentenced; in
1488, there were three autos-de-fé in which 40 Conversos were
burned at the stake and over 100 bodies exhumed and burned;
in 1490, there were two autos-de-fé in which 422 Conversos
were burned at the stake and 11 sentenced to life imprisonment; and in 1492, five Conversos were burned at the stake
and a few others sentenced to imprisonment.
Torquemada’s appointment of two inquisitors in *Saragossa in 1484 aroused the anger of the notables of Aragon, who
regarded this as an attack on the freedom of their kingdom
whose laws prohibited the appointment of officials of foreign
origin. After the Inquisition had begun to function there at
full strength, a special delegation representing the various
estates of Aragon appealed to the king to repeal the decree,
but to no avail. In spite of this, the opposition did not subside. When Juan de Çolivera, the newly appointed inquisitor
of Aragon, attempted to establish his tribunal in *Teruel, its
leaders closed the gates of the town to him and he was compelled to settle in the village of Cella. During his stay there,
he conducted the interrogations of the tribunal with unprecedented cruelty, and between 1484 and 1486 over 30 people
were condemned to death, while only seven Conversos were
accepted as penitents – all without a “period of grace” being
proclaimed before the interrogations.
In Saragossa, the Conversos endeavored to obstruct the
progress of the Inquisition; their diplomatic efforts failing,
they organized a plot which resulted in the assassination of the
inquisitor Pedro de *Arbués in 1485. The resultant investigation
revealed that among the leading instigators of the plot were
several of the most prominent New Christians who were also
favorites at court, including members of the *Sánchez, *Santangel, and *Cavallería families. In Saragossa, the number of
792
Conversos who were accepted as penitents was also small in
comparison with those who were burned at the stake. Until
1492, about 600 Conversos were sentenced there.
The establishment of the Inquisition tribunal in *Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, also met with the opposition
of the city’s leaders. Becoming aware of Torquemada’s projected tribunal, large numbers of Conversos fled, severely affecting the economy of the town in consequence. Once more
the complaints were of no avail and in February 1486, Pope
Innocent VIII appointed Torquemada as inquisitor of Barcelona and canceled the appointments of the medieval inquisitors who had functioned until then. In 1487, Torquemada
appointed Juan Franco and Miguel Cassells as inquisitors in
Barcelona and they began their activities in the town in July
of the same year. Additional tribunals were also established
prior to the expulsion in *Lérida and *Huesca. In the latter
town, many Conversos, including *Juan de Ciudad, who had
taken refuge there during the middle of the 15th century, undergone circumcision, and returned to Judaism, were brought
to trial. A number of Jews were also executed; these included
Isaac *Bivach (Bibago), who was accused of having circumcised Conversos. Among the prominent trials held by the Inquisition prior to the expulsion was that of the Holy Child of
La *Guardia in 1490, in which Jews were also involved.
The trials of the Conversos during the first 12 years of the
Spanish Inquisition demonstrated that the extremist churchmen had been true judges of the nature of the New Christians, as trial after trial revealed the loyalty of the Conversos
to Judaism and their close ties with the Jewish communities
of Spain. There is no doubt that the results of the investigations of the Inquisition, which brought to light some 13,000
Conversos who had remained faithful to Judaism, were factors prompting the Catholic monarchs, who sought to create
a national unity in Spain based on religious and ethnic foundations, to order the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdom
in 1492. By expelling the Jews, they hoped to eliminate that
element which was responsible for the Judaizing inclinations
of the Conversos and thus weaken their attachment to Judaism and bring them back to the Christian faith.
Scholars’ Approaches to the Inquisition
Scholars differ on several issues related to the Inquisition.
Some scholars maintain that the Inquisition was the product
of decades of efforts and campaigns that were supported by a
large part of the Old Christian population in the Crowns of
Castile and Aragon and designed to destroy the position enjoyed by the New Christians. These scholars, headed by Benzion Netanyahu, claim that it was not the religious behavior
of the New Christians that caused the creation of the Inquisition but the intention of the political and religious elite of the
Old Christians to eliminate the Conversos from any position
of political, economic, and social power. The Inquisition camouflaged its real intention behind religious motives. The Conversos, according to these scholars, were mostly Christians
who were determined to integrate within Christian society.
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inquisition
The Inquisition prevented them from doing so. The Inquisition was also responsible for the reevaluation of many New
Christians’ attitude to Christianity and Judaism. The flight of
some of the New Christians mainly to Muslim lands to return
to Judaism and join existing communities or establish communities of their own was the result of the anti-Converso policy
pursued by the Inquisition. Those who returned to Judaism,
were accepted as proselytes. According to these scholars, the
Inquisition leveled false accusations against the New Christians, accusing them of Jewish practices.
Other scholars, led by Beinart, claim that the bulk of the
Conversos were forcible converts who wanted to retain their
Jewish identity. They had no choice but to practice Judaism in
secret and transmit whatever they could of their own Jewish
practices and beliefs to their descendants. They were cryptoJews. The Inquisition was established to eradicate any trace of
Judaism in the Converso-society and was generally right in its
suspicions and accusations. The numerous files of the Inquisition are trustworthy, and despite its cruel torture and terrorizing methods, the Inquisition was fundamentally right in its
policy of prosecution against many of the Conversos. It was
prosecuting Christians accused of heretical behavior.
Whatever the true reasons for the establishment of the
Inquisition were, it cannot be denied that social, economic,
racial, and political reasons nourished the trials of the Inquisition and the anti-Converso attitude that existed in Christian
society. According to many Old and New Christian sources
the hatred of the Conversos was due to the envy their economic and social achievements aroused in society in general.
Many of them were able to translate their economic and social
strength into political power which added to the antagonism
they aroused among many Old Christians.
The racial antagonism that existed in Old Christian circles and among Inquisitors puzzled some scholars. A sentence
by Menéndez Pelayo in one of his letters that the Old Christians might have adopted their racial hatred from the Jews
found fertile grounds among certain Spanish historians and
thinkers. Américo Castro, who noted the very strong racial
prejudice among Spanish people which appeared following the
mass conversions of Jews suggested that the Jews were the real
source of this hatred. The Jews were responsible, according to
Castro, for the appearance of the theory of the Limpieza de
sangre (Purity of Blood). Castro and Sánches Albornoz have
claimed that the Inquisition tribunal and its terrible and horrible methods were of Jewish origin. The latter claimed that
“The Inquisition was without any doubt a Hispano-Jewish satanical invention.” Baer has shown how mistaken their understanding of the Jewish judicial system was (Baer, A History of
the Jews in Christian Spain (1966) vol. 2, 444–56).
From 1492
PORTUGAL. The history of the Inquisition in the Iberian Peninsula entered into a new phase with the events which took
place in Portugal in 1497. When King Manuel I was required
to expel the Jews from his kingdom before he could marry the
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
Catholic monarchs’ daughter, he issued an edict of Expulsion
in 1496. The so-called expulsion of the Jews from that country is in most respects a misnomer. King Manuel I, desiring
to secure the extirpation of Judaism without the loss of the
industry and resources of his Jewish subjects, had them all
seized and baptized by force, without allowing them the alternative of leaving the realm. Almost immediately afterward,
however, in order to give them time to adjust themselves to
their new faith, it was ordered (May 30, 1497) that for 20 years
they should be exempt from all persecution on account of religious delinquencies, this period being subsequently extended
to 1534. Thus crypto-Judaism in Portugal had the opportunity
of accommodating itself to the new conditions and acquiring
a far greater tenacity than was the case in Spain.
At the same time, Manuel had given an undertaking that
all proceedings against the recent converts should be within
the exclusive cognizance of the ordinary secular tribunals. This
promise, however, was speedily neglected. As early as 1512,
an application was made to Pope Leo X to extend the Inquisition to Portugal. For the moment, the matter was allowed
to lapse without any further steps being taken. Manuel’s successor, John III, however, was weak and amenable to ecclesiastical influence. Accordingly, in 1531, Dr. Bras Neto, ambassador at Rome, was instructed to take secret steps to procure
from Clement VII the necessary authorization for introducing into his country the Inquisition on the Spanish model.
After many delays, the Franciscan Diogo da Silva was asked
to accept the appointment of first inquisitor general (Jan. 13,
1532). All these negotiations had been carried on in the strictest confidence, but the news leaked out; before the new inquisitor could assume office, the Portuguese New Christians
took energetic steps, backed by all of their vast influence and
wealth. They dispatched to Rome as their emissary a certain
Converso, Duarte da Paz, who was authorized not to stint in
his expenditure. They won over to their side Marco della Rovere, bishop of Sinigaglia, who had been dispatched to Lisbon
as papal nuncio, and the conduct of the new inquisitor himself
gave rise to suspicions that he too had been bought over by
them. Meanwhile, at Rome, Da Paz had succeeded in procuring from Pope Clement, whose good feeling toward the Jews
was well-known, a brief suspending the action of the previous
December and prohibiting all inquisitional action against the
New Christians. On April 5, 1533, he followed this up by a bull
which became famous as the Bulla de perdão, being virtually a
pardon for all past offenses. To this was added an authorization whereby all persons accused of heresy might justify themselves before the inquisitor general, who reaped a handsome
harvest. This mitigatory measure was finally re-enforced by
the pope on his deathbed, on July 26, 1534. The struggle was
renewed under Paul III who referred the matter to a commission. When Emperor Charles V arrived in Rome, fresh from
his triumph at Tunis, he threw his weight on the prosecutory
side. The result was seen in the papal bull of May 23, 1536,
which formally constituted in Portugal an Inquisition on the
Spanish model, though for three years the forms of secular
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law were to be observed, and confiscations were to be forbidden for ten. Diogo da Silva was confirmed in his position as
first inquisitor general.
This drastic measure caused the New Christians to redouble their efforts. The new nuncio to Portugal, Girolamo
Recanati Capodiferro, was given the authority (which he
used with highly remunerative results) to hear appeals, and
was even authorized to suspend the action of the Inquisition
itself. On the other hand, the king endeavored to strengthen
the authority of the new tribunal by appointing his brother,
Dom Henrique, as inquisitor general in Da Silva’s place. Intrigues were in process at Rome, however, and the pope was
persuaded to issue a bull Pastoris aeterni on Oct. 12, 1539,
which limited the power of the Inquisition still further, guaranteeing the right of appeal to Rome, where (for a consideration) justice, or absolution, could always be obtained. Owing to a quarrel between Capodiferro and the New Christians,
who refused to satisfy his exorbitant demands, this was never
published. Passions in Portugal were still further enraged by
a foolish anti-Catholic placard which had been found affixed
to the door of one of the principal churches in Lisbon, presumably by one of the recent converts. When, therefore, the
three years’ delay came to an end, there was nothing to prevent the bull of 1536 establishing the Inquisition from coming
into operation. On Sept. 20, 1540, accordingly, the first autoda-fé was held at *Lisbon.
Even then, the contest was not at an end. The New Christians forced to acquiesce in the establishment of the tribunal
worked untiringly for the appointment at Lisbon of a papal
nuncio with full appellate powers, and Luigi Lippomano,
bishop of Bergamo, was appointed to this post in 1542, in
consequence of their intrigues. However, a violent quarrel
had sprung up in the meantime between the king of Portugal and the papal Curia, and Lippomano was excluded from
the country. The pope replied to this slight in a brief dated
Sept. 22, 1544, suspending the activities of the Inquisition until an enquiry had been made into its action. During the next
few years negotiations continued without interruption and
at enormous expense on both sides. Ultimately, however, the
king gained the day, offering the pope the administration of
the revenues of the enormously wealthy see of Viseu in return
for compliance to his wishes. The pope at last surrendered to
this magnificent bribe and, on July 16, 1547, by the bull Meditatio cordis, the Inquisition was at last fully established in
Portugal. The New Christians tried hard, but in vain, to obtain
the slight concession that the names of witnesses against them
should be made known, while the appointment of the grand
inquisitor, Dom Henrique, as papal legate cut off all possibility
of appeal to Rome. The prohibition of confiscations remained
for some time a subject of negotiation, but in 1579 they were
at last definitely established.
Tribunals were originally set up in Portugal at Lisbon,
*Coimbra, *Évora, Lamego, Tomar, and *Oporto. The three
last were subsequently discontinued as superfluous, partly in
consequence of the grave abuses and irregularities which were
794
discovered in their administration. The remaining three, however, continued their work with the utmost ferocity; considering the great difference in the size of the two countries, it may
be said that their zeal exceeded even that of the tribunals of
Spain. However, the greater influence and cohesion of the New
Christians in the smaller country brought about temporary
remissions, always in return for huge bribes. Thus, in 1605, a
donation of 1,700,000 cruzados secured a general pardon for
all past offenses, though of course it provided no safeguard
against the future. In 1662, the wealthy Duarte da Silva offered
an enormous subvention in money and ships in return for
certain concessions, but there is little chance that they would
have been granted even if the matter had not reached the ears
of the pope, who immediately made stern representations at
Lisbon. In fact, the period of the greatest inquisitional activity
in Portugal followed. The number of autos-da-fé and of penitents increased year by year. The abuses of the system became
so great that the eloquence of the learned Jesuit, Antonio da
Vieira, procured from Pope Clement X a bull suspending the
operation of the Portuguese inquisitors (Oct. 3, 1674). Since
the inquisitors refused to comply this was followed four years
later by an interdict pronounced upon them by Innocent XI
(Dec. 24, 1678). Ecclesiastical prejudices were too strong, however, to acquiesce in this state of affairs. By a bull of Aug. 22,
1681 the Portuguese Inquisition was reinstated in all of its former authority with no more than one or two minor reforms
and the event was celebrated in a fresh burst of activity. On
Jan. 18, 1682, the first auto-da-fé since the interdict was held
at Coimbra, but it was surpassed by the one which took place
at Lisbon on May 10 of the same year – one of the most notorious in the whole of Portuguese history. The revived power
of the Inquisition was further manifested in a new regulation that the children of condemned heretics might be taken
away from their parents to be brought up in all the traditions
of the Catholic faith (1683). For half a century to come the Inquisition in Portugal continued its bloody career without any
great intermission.
SPAIN. Meanwhile the activities of the Inquisition in Spain
had continued unabated under Diego Deza (1499–1507), the
successor of Torquemada as grand inquisitor, himself of Jewish blood. During his period of office, the excesses committed under his auspices – in particular by Diego Rodríguez
Lucero, the inquisitor of *Córdoba – were notorious: accusations were made wholesale on the flimsiest grounds; incredible cruelties were perpetrated; and no accused person had any
chance to escape. The culmination was reached when no less
than 107 persons were burned alive on an accusation of having listened to the preaching of one Membreque, a bachelor of
divinity. Complaints against these atrocities became so widespread that on Sept. 30, 1505 Philip and Juana suspended the
action of the Inquisition in Castile until they returned from
Flanders. However, the death of Philip put an end to this plan,
and Lucero was emboldened to issue another wholesale batch
of accusations, including one against the saintly Hernando de
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
inquisition
Talavera – archbishop of Granada and formerly confessor to
Isabella the Catholic herself – who died in consequence of the
humiliation imposed upon him. The popular outcry now led
Ferdinand to dismiss Deza and to appoint Cardinal *Ximénes
de Cisneros in his place as grand inquisitor (1507). Proceedings
were instituted against Lucero, but were allowed to drop.
On the accession of Charles V, the Spanish New Christians sent him promises of enormous sums if he would restrict
the power of the Inquisition in his dominions and abolish secret accusations. Similar steps were taken at Rome, where Pope
Leo X prepared a bull in the sense desired. Charles, however, after temporary vacillation, displayed the narrow obscurantism
which was to characterize him through life, and effectively
prevented the publication of the bull. Thereafter, there was no
serious challenge to the authority of the Inquisition in Spain
and it could count throughout upon royal support. Charles’
son, Philip II, carried on and enhanced his father’s obscurantist tradition, maintaining the tribunal in all of its terrible
power in spite of the protests of the Cortes. Under Philip III,
the conde-duque de Olivares endeavored to restrict its might;
but on his fall it continued with its influence if anything increased. It was under this king and his successor, Philip IV, that
the tribunal attained its greatest power and pomp.
The number of the Spanish tribunals ultimately totaled
15: Barcelona, Córdoba, Cuenca, Granada, Logroño, Llerena,
Madrid (called also Corte), Murcia, Santiago, Seville, Toledo, Valencia, Valladolid, and Saragossa, and Palma (Majorca). All acted under the authority of the central tribunal
(the “supreme”). Activity, as far as Judaizers were concerned,
was greatest in Old Castile and least in Catalonia. As time advanced, however, the exclusive preoccupation of the Inquisition with the New Christians came to be qualified. From 1525,
Moors faithful to the religion of their fathers also fell within
its scope, and as the century advanced, there was an increasing number of Protestants and Alumbrados, or visionaries.
By the middle of the 16th century, indeed, the native tradition
of crypto-Judaism had to a large extent become extirpated,
owing to the incredible severity of the Inquisition in the first
years of its existence. However, the place of the Spanish Judaizers was taken, especially during the period of the union of
the two countries, by immigrants from Portugal, or else their
immediate descendants.
At the beginning of the 18th century, with the less obscurantist era which dawned with the house of Bourbon, there was
some slight mitigation, particularly as far as the Judaizers were
concerned, but in 1720 the discovery of a secret synagogue in
Madrid led to a considerable recrudescence of activity throughout the country. During the reign of Philip V (1700–46), 1,564
heretics were burned and 11,730 reconciled to the Church, a
good proportion for Judaizing. After this outburst, the activity
of the Inquisition gradually diminished, though more through
lack of material than through any diminution of zeal.
IN THE BALEARIC ISLANDS. The activity of the Inquisition
in the Balearic Islands reached its climax at the close of the
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
17th century. The Jewish community had officially ceased to
exist in 1435, but the Inquisition had nevertheless been active for the first half century after its introduction (see *Majorca). But the discovery of a secret synagogue in 1678 led to
a renewal of activity. In four autos-de-fé in 1679, no less than
219 reconciliations took place, accompanied by wholesale
confiscations, though there were no capital sentences. However, the insincerity of the enforced repentance soon became
manifest, and in 1688–91 the result was seen in a fresh persecution, accompanied by 45 burnings. By this awful lesson,
crypto-Judaism in the island was finally blotted out, though
the prejudice against those of Jewish blood remained into the
mid-20th century.
End of the Inquisition in the Peninsula
In the second half of the 18th century, the activity of the Inquisition rapidly diminished, partly through the spread of more
enlightened ideas, partly through the lack of human material.
Judaism especially had been almost entirely extirpated in the
larger country and in the more civilized parts of the smaller,
largely through the severity of the Inquisition, but in no small
part through the wholesale emigration to places of greater liberty abroad. In Portugal, the last public auto-da-fé, and the last
in which a Judaizer appeared, took place on Oct. 27, 1765. The
Marquês de Pombal was determined to sweep away this with
other similar abuses and steadily undermined its authority.
The Inquisition revived to some extent after his fall; but early
in the next century, after a prolonged period of comparatively
harmless inactivity, it was formally abolished (March 31, 1821).
In Spain the institution was more persistent. Though with diminished activity, it survived with unimpaired authority until the period of the French Revolution. It was abolished by
Joseph Bonaparte during his brief reign in 1808, and this action was confirmed after his fall by the liberal Cortes of 1813.
The reactionary Ferdinand VII, however, reinstituted it on
July 21, 1814 with all of its previous power and authority. Its
activity during the succeeding period was not great and it was
abolished again by a royal decree during the constitutional
revolution on March 9, 1820. With the counter-revolutionary
movement of 1823, however, its powers revived to some extent. As late as July 26, 1826, a Deist schoolmaster (not a Jew,
as is commonly stated) was hanged and burned in effigy by
an episcopal Inquisition, the last victim of the Holy Tribunal
in the Peninsula; for, on July 15, 1834, the queen mother, Maria Christina, finally and definitely abolished the Inquisition
and all of its powers, after a career of blood which had lasted
for three and a half centuries.
Statistics
FOR SPAIN. It is estimated that in Spain, from the establishment of the Inquisition down to 1808, the number of heretics
burned in person was 31,912; those burned in effigy, 17,659;
and those reconciled de vehementi (see Procedure, below),
291,450 – a total of 341,021 in all. Even these immense figures
are apparently exceeded by the usually careful Amador de los
Rios, who estimates that up to 1525, when the Moriscos first
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began to suffer, the number of those burned in person came
to 28,540; those burned in effigy to 16,520; and those penanced to 303,847 – making a total of 348,907 condemnations
for Judaism in less than half a century. On the other hand, Rodrigo, the apologist of the Inquisition, puts forward the impossible assertion that less than 400 persons were burned in
the whole course of the existence of the Inquisition in Spain.
H.C. *Lea, the modern historian of the Spanish Inquisition,
hesitates to give any definite opinion. It was in the earlier and
most ferocious period of inquisitional activity that the secret
Jews suffered above all, and they furnished therefore a disproportionate number of the victims. In the later period, the
number greatly diminished. Thus, from 1780 to 1820, out of
5,000 cases, only 16 were of Judaizing; but the majority of the
charges at this period were light, and the sentences imposed
in most cases comparatively negligible.
FOR PORTUGAL. As far as Portugal and its dependencies are
concerned, the figures can be given with a much greater approach to precision. There are extant the records of approximately 40,000 cases tried before the Inquisition in the 16th,
17th, and 18th centuries in Portugal, the archives in this respect
being virtually complete. The sentences were carried out at
autos-da-fé numbering something like 750 in all. In these,
as far as can be ascertained, upward of 30,000 persons were
condemned, 1,808 of them being burned at the stake (633 in
effigy and 1,175 in person) and 29,590 being penanced. In
the two decades from 1701 to 1720, 37 persons were burned
in person and 26 in effigy, while 2,126 were penanced. From
1732 to 1742, 66 persons were burned. From 1721 to 1771, 139
persons were burned in person, and 20 in effigy, while 3,488
were penanced.
Elkan *Adler has compiled lists of a little less than 2,000
autos-da-fé which took place in the peninsula and its dependencies from 1480 to 1826. This number should, however, be
further increased.
RECORDS. The records of the Inquisition in Spain and its
colonies generally fell victim to the popular fury at the time
of the abolition of the Inquisition. Scattered documents were
rescued, however, and are to be found in all the great public
libraries of Europe and America, having been largely drawn
upon by H.C. Lea in his History of the Inquisition of Spain (4
vols. 1906). The only sets of archives which have remained substantially complete are those of the tribunals of Valencia, Ciudad Real, Toledo, and Cuenca, which (together with scattered
documents of other tribunals) are mainly to be found in the
national archives at Madrid. The latter have been catalogued
by M. Gómez del Campillo: they comprise something like
1,500 cases of Judaizers or approximately one-quarter of the
whole. Of the records of the tribunals of Córdoba, Granada,
Seville, etc., the only part which is left in a state of virtual completeness is the genealogical section, regarding the *limpieza
de sangre, or purity of blood, of persons who applied for office. The records of the three Portuguese tribunals – Lisbon,
Coimbra, and Évora – have been brought together in the na-
796
tional archives of the Torre de Tombo, at Lisbon. They comprise about 40,000 cases, sometimes filling whole volumes of
more than 1,000 pages each. The majority of these relate to
Judaizers. An approximate catalog, listed by the first names,
is extant in manuscript.
The Inquisition in the Portuguese Possessions
GOA. It had not been long before Conversos, attracted by the
greater security as well as the economic opportunities offered
by the Spanish and Portuguese possessions overseas, in the
discovery and development of which they had taken a notable part, began to flock there in some numbers. The Inquisition followed close at their heels. Thus there was a branch of
the Portuguese Inquisition at Goa, in India, where as early as
1543, a certain Dr. Jeronimo Dias had been burned for maintaining heretical opinions, although the Inquisition proper
was not formally introduced until some years later. In 1546,
the formal establishment of the Inquisition was petitioned by
St. Francis Xavier, but his wishes were complied with only in
1560. The first auto-da-fé took place on Sept. 27, 1563, two Judaizers figuring among the four victims. The subsequent activities became greater and greater. Autos-da-fé of particular
violence took place under the zealous inquisitor Bartholomew
da Fonseca in 1575 and 1578. In each of these 17 Judaizers lost
their lives, a couple of Lutherans also suffering in the first.
With the return of Fonseca to Portugal, the fury abated, so
that from 1590 to 1597 no death sentences were pronounced.
Simultaneously, the number of Judaizers, terrified by the former outburst of activity, diminished, only two figuring among
the 20 victims from 1597 to 1623. In 1618, however, the brothers
Isaac and Abraham *Almosnino, members of a famous Jewish
family of Fez, were tried on a charge of having uttered blasphemies against the Christian faith in the house of the Persian
ambassador at Cochin. Isaac, a physician, was released only
in 1621. Up to the end of the first quarter of the 17th century,
no less than 3,800 cases had been tried by the Goa tribunal
and 37 autos-da-fé held, a number which by 1773 had risen
to 82. As in Portugal, the tribunal was abolished on Feb. 10,
1774, witnessed an innocuous revival after the fall of Pombal
in 1777, and was finally suppressed in 1812.
BRAZIL. A more common haven of refuge for the Portuguese
Conversos was Brazil, where the bishop of Salvador was given
inquisitorial powers in 1579, although all prisoners had to be
sent to Europe for trial. Great visitations were held between
1591 and 1618. Between July 1591 and February 1592 scores of
people came to confess or to testify before the board of inquisitors against foreigners, friends, and relatives. The testimonies
and confessions indicate the presence of a considerable community of Conversos in Bahia (Salvador). In 1593/5 the inquisitors visited Pernambuco, where grave accusations had been
preferred against a number of people. Thus, Diego Fernandes
and his wife Branca Dias had been accused of establishing a
synagogue in the house of Bento Dias Santiago, a central figure among the Judaizers at Pernambuco. The Conversos in
Brazil played an important part in exporting sugar from BraENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
inquisition
zil, thanks to their connections with Conversos in Portugal
and those who escaped to Amsterdam and there returned to
Judaism. Many of them escaped from Brazil to Buenos Aires
and from there to Peru, Paraguay, and Chile, following an investigation opened against 90 Conversos in Bahia.
Inquisitorial activity in Brazil was especially great in the
middle of the 17th century after the Portuguese reconquered
the country from the Dutch, under whose rule many New
Christians had seized the opportunity to return to open Judaism. Many of them figured in the great auto-da-fé at Lisbon of Dec. 15, 1647, when six – including Isaac de Castro Tartas – were “relaxed” (see Procedure, below). In 1713, 38 New
Christians sent from *Rio de Janeiro appeared in the Lisbon
auto-da-fé, others (including Father Manoel Lopes de Carvalho, who was burned alive as impenitent) suffering in the
following year. One of them, Abrabao alias Diogo Rois Rodriguez, called Dioquintio Hebreo, was condemned to be flogged
and to five years in the galleys. The last Judaizer condemned
by the Inquisition in Brazil was Manuel Abreu de Campo; he
died before the sentence was carried out, and was burned in
effigy in Lisbon in 1731. Toward the end of the 18th century
persecution of Judaizers tended to decrease in Brazil, and was
generally aimed at new targets: Freemasons and followers of
the Enlightenment. With the independence of Brazil (1822)
the persecutions ended altogether, and Jews gradually began
to immigrate to that country. Conditions in the Portuguese
colonies in Africa were much the same, an inquisitorial visitation taking place in Angola in 1626.
The Inquisition in the Spanish Colonies
MEXICO. Greater still was the importance of the Conversos
in the Spanish possessions in America. From 1502 to 1802 the
Spanish crown and the pope issued numerous briefs aimed
at prohibiting the entry of Jews and Moors to the New World.
Anybody who arrived in the colonies had to prove that he was
a Christian, with four generations of Christians behind him.
Nevertheless numerous Conversos succeeded in settling in
the New World. Thus in 1519, apostolic inquisitors were appointed for the American colonies by the “Suprema” in Spain,
and in 1528 an auto-de-fé took place in Mexico City in which
three Judaizers – among them a Converso “conquistador” or
companion of Cortes, Hernando Alonso by name – lost their
lives. Thereafter, activity was slight and only sporadic, though
a New Christian named Francisco Millan was reconciled in
1539 and a couple of non-Judaizing heretics in the subsequent
years. In 1571, however, the zeal of Philip II secured the establishment in *Mexico of an independent tribunal for the purpose of “freeing the land, which has become contaminated
by Jews and heretics, especially of the Portuguese nation.” On
Feb. 28, 1574, an auto-de-fé was conducted with great pomp.
At this, only one New Christian appeared, but thereafter the
number grew rapidly.
Activities, at first lukewarm, greatly increased with the
appointment of Alonso de Peralta as inquisitor. On Dec. 8,
1596, there was a great auto-de-fé at which 66 penitents apENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
peared. Of these, 41 were accused of Judaizing, 22 being reconciled, 10 burned in effigy, and nine in person. Of the latter, one
was the illustrious Luis de *Carvajal, governor of the province
of Nuevo León, who was burned alive as a relapsed heretic,
together with his mother and five sisters. On March 26, 1601,
another great auto-de-fé took place, at which 124 penitents
appeared and four were burned. In the preceding 25 years no
less than 879 trials had taken place in all. After this date, however, there was a period of comparative quiescence for nearly
half a century. Up to 1642, only about 20 more Judaizers were
reconciled, one being relaxed in person as against six relaxed
in effigy. When in 1605 the general pardon for Judaizers of
Portuguese extraction reached Mexico, there was only one to
be liberated. However, the subsequent attempt to exterminate
the Portuguese crypto-Judaizers in Spain led to the discovery
of widespread connections in the New World.
From 1642 there was a period of relentless activity. A
mere child, Gabriel de *Granada, arrested in that year was
made to give evidence against over 80 persons, including the
whole of his own family (the record of his trial, published in
AJHSP, 7 (1899), is among the most complete inquisitional
records available in print in any language). In 1646, partly in
consequence of these disclosures, 38 Judaizers were reconciled, bringing a very considerable profit to the coffers of the
Inquisition, and 21 in the next year. In 1648, there were two
autos-de-fé, in one of which eight Judaizers were penanced,
eight reconciled, 21 burned in effigy and one in person: in the
other 21 Judaizers figured, though no burnings took place. The
climax of the Mexican Inquisition was reached, however, in
the great auto general of April 11, 1649 – the greatest known
outside the Peninsula – when out of 109 convicts all but one
were Judaizers. Of these 57 were burned in effigy and 13 in
person, including Tomás *Trevino of Sobremonte. This terrible lesson went a long way toward checking Marranism in the
country, Judaizing occupying a less and less prominent position in the following period. Thus in the auto-de-fé of 1659,
only four Judaizers figured among the 32 victims, and in later
years the proportion was even lower. In 1712, however, a Judaizer was reconciled; and as late as 1788, the trial of Rafael Gil
Rodriguez, a cleric, took place. The Inquisition continued to
protract its inglorious existence for a few more years, being
finally abolished in 1820, after having held upward of 60 autos-de-fé in all. In the Mexican state archive 1,553 files of the
Inquisition, belonging to the period 1521–1823, together with
many others found in different places, show that the Conversos were present everywhere in the country and were represented in every section of society.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. The conquest of the *Philippine Islands by Spain in the late 1560s was soon followed by the establishment of an episcopal Inquisition, an auto-de-fé in which a
few heretics appeared being held in 1572. Subsequently, however, the authority of the Mexican tribunal was recognized
over the islands. The work, never considerable, was at the beginning confined to Judaizers, who were dispatched to Mex-
797
inquisition
ico for trial. Thus, in the auto-de-fé held there on March 28,
1593, two Conversos from Manila (Jorge and Domingo Rodriguez) were reconciled, while proceedings had been begun at
the same time against one Diego Hernandez, who, however,
died in prison. Manuel Gil de la Guardia, an attorney from
Manila, was reconciled at Mexico on March 25, 1601, and
three Judaizers from the Philippines were burned in effigy at
the great auto-de-fé in the same city on April 11, 1649. From
this period down to the abolition of the Inquisition at the beginning of the 19th century, the Inquisition was inactive in the
Philippines, and there is no further mention of Judaizers in
connection with it.
GUATEMALA. Judaizers accused in *Guatemala were tried in
Mexico. Of particular interest is the trial of Rafael Gil Rodriguez, a monk from Guatemala accused of Judaizing after he
had brought two of his friends over to Judaism. He was sentenced to death for this crime: he professed repentance, however, at the last moment, and so was reconciled.
PERU. In *Peru, a tribunal was opened in 1570, though an
active episcopal Inquisition had been in existence since 1539.
From that date down to 1805, 34 autos-de-fé were held at
Lima, Judaizers always forming a considerable proportion of
the victims. The earliest denunciations included the whole of
the family of Juan Alvarez, a Converso physician, though they
escaped punishment. In the second auto-de-fé series, however (April 1, 1578), two Judaizers figured, one in the third
(Oct. 29, 1581), and two in the fifth (April 5, 1592). Thereafter,
the number steadily increased, their ranks being greatly reinforced by immigrants from Portugal. At the great auto-defé of Dec. 17, 1595, ten figured, four of them being relaxed to
the secular arm, and one, Francisco Rodriguez, being burned
alive. On Dec. 10, 1600, 14 Portuguese Judaizers figure, two
being relaxed in persons and one in effigy. The auto-de-fé of
March 13, 1605 exhibited 16 Judaizers reconciled, six burned
in effigy, and three in person. Thereafter, there was a considerable falling off, due in all probability to the general pardon
issued to the Portuguese New Christians in 1604. There was a
slight recrudescence in 1608, when one Judaizer was burned,
and in 1612 when, at the auto-de-fé of June 17, there were five
reconciliations for Judaizing.
The outburst of inquisitorial activity in Brazil in 1618 led
to a general flight to Spanish territory, despite the opposition
of the government, and to an increase in the local vigilance.
The results were seen in the great auto-de-fé of Dec. 21, 1625
at which ten Judaizers were reconciled, two relaxed in person,
and two in effigy. It was ten years later, however, in 1635, that
there took place in Peru the greatest outburst of inquisitorial
activity known outside the Peninsula. Owing to a chance arrest, a widespread crypto-Jewish connection was discovered
among the Portuguese merchants at Lima – the “Complicidad
Grande” as it was called. Within a few months, 81 suspected
persons had been arrested, many others being left at large owing to lack of accommodation. Simultaneously, property was
sequestered in such vast amounts as to precipitate a commer-
798
cial crisis. The fruits were reaped at the triumphant auto-de-fé
of Jan. 23, 1639, in which a very large number of Judaizers figured. Seven abjured de vehementi, 44 were reconciled, while
one was relaxed in effigy and 11 in person. Of these, seven were
burned alive, true martyrs to their faith. Among them was
one Manuel Batista Perez, known as the capitan grande, the
wealthiest merchant in the country; and Francisco *Maldonado de Silva (Eli Nazareno), the most notable martyr of the
Inquisition in South America. On the following day, several
more condemned persons were scourged publicly through the
streets. In the autos-de-fé of the following years, last remnants
of the Complicidad Grande were dealt with, Manuel Henriquez, one of those implicated, being burned as late as 1664.
As in Mexico, this display of severity in the second quarter of
the 17th century seems to have broken down Judaizing in the
province for many years to come, the next case – a light one –
occurring only in 1720. However, the last victim burned at the
stake by the Peruvian Inquisition was a reported Judaizer, the
notorious Ana de Castro, who suffered in Dec. 23, 1736. In the
following year, at an auto particular, Juan Antonio Pereira
was punished for the same crime. Though the Inquisition in
Peru continued to be sporadically active until 1806, and even
had many false accusations of Judaizing brought before it on
trivial grounds, no further prosecutions of this nature figure
in its records.
NEW GRANADA. The enormous province of New Granada at
first fell under the sway of the Lima tribunal, which appointed
various commissioners to represent it. These however, were
incompetent and inactive. In 1610, therefore, a new tribunal of
the Inquisition was set up, with its seat at Cartagena and with
authority extending not only over the continental portions of
New Granada but also over the adjacent Caribbean Islands.
The first auto-de-fé took place on Feb. 2, 1614, the last on Feb.
5, 1782, and the Inquisition was abolished by Simón Bolivar
in 1819. During the two centuries of its existence, at least 54
autos-de-fé took place, 767 persons being punished; only five,
however, were burned. Judaizers figured, as always, in fairly
considerable proportion, one appearing at the first auto-de-fé
and something like 50 in all. Thus, at the auto-de-fé of June 17,
1626, seven Judaizers suffered among the 22 penitents, one of
them, Juan Vicente, being relaxed. The Complicidad Grande
at Lima brought about repercussions in Cartagena, where
eight persons were reconciled and nine absolved. There were
no relaxations, but the confiscations put the tribunal in possession of ample funds. On June 11, 1715, there figured the
renegade friar, Jose Diaz Pimienta, who was subsequently
burned. Thereafter, except for one or two minor cases, the
tribunal was inactive: so much so that a certain David de la
Motta, a professed Judaizer summoned to appear in 1783, was
left unmolested, and a born Jew named Jose Abudiente was
suffered to go about undisturbed in San Domingo, with other
coreligionists, in 1783/84.
THE CANARY ISLANDS. In the Spanish possessions nearer
Europe the presence of the Conversos was no less marked.
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inquisition
In the Canary Islands, an episcopal Inquisition was set up to
deal with them as early as 1499. As a result of its enquiries,
there were discovered to be on the islands a number of secret
Jews, and even a secret synagogue. A branch of the Inquisition of Andalusia was accordingly set up at Las Palmas in
1504. Autos-de-fé, at which a few individuals were penanced
or reconciled, were held in 1507 and 1510. In 1526, however,
the tribunal was very active, eight individuals being relaxed
in person, two reconciled, and two penanced. Of these over
one half, including six of the eight relajados, were accused of
Judaizing. Further autos-de-fé, at which however no persons
were relaxed, were held in 1530 and 1534. This outburst of activity seems to have temporarily eradicated crypto-Judaism in
the islands, only four New Christians figuring in the sporadic
prosecutions which continued till 1581 and none at all thereafter until 1597, when all activity temporarily came to an end.
The immigration of Conversos from the Peninsula, however,
at the opening of the 17th century, stirred it to some fresh activity. In 1625 an edict of faith against Judaism was issued, and
the information received in consequence revealed the presence of a whole colony of secret Jews. A considerable proportion of them, however, had already fled, and, owing partly to
this and partly to political considerations, no prosecutions
ensued. Numerous denunciations of the Converso refugees in
London and Amsterdam continued to be made down to the
middle of the century, but no further proceedings were taken
against them. The tribunal, which for a prolonged period had
not occupied itself with Judaizers, was abolished with that of
Spain in 1813, but reinstated in spite of popular hostility from
1814 to 1820, when it was finally suppressed.
Elsewhere in Europe
SICILY. The medieval Dominican Inquisition had existed in
*Sicily as elsewhere, and was revived in 1451, partly at the expense of the Jews, on the strength of an apocryphal decree of
the emperor Frederick II. It was, however, inadequate to cope
with the problem of the Conversos from the Peninsula, particularly Aragon, whose subject the island then was. Accordingly, in 1487, after some negotiation, Torquemada appointed
Fra Antonio de la Peña as the local inquisitor.
The expulsion of the Jews from the island in 1492 added
to the number of insincere converts to be found there; but the
affairs of the local tribunal fell into a hopeless state of confusion, heightened by the dispute between the contending
claims of the Spanish and the papal Inquisitions. At last, in
1500, a reorganization was begun under Montoro, bishop of
Ceflú. Regular activities began in 1511, when, in an auto-defé of June 6, eight persons were burned. In 1513, there were
three autos-de-fé, 39 persons (mostly relapsed penitents) being burned in all. This activity brought great unpopularity on
the head of the Inquisition. On March 7, 1516, on the death of
Ferdinand, the mob sacked its headquarters at Palermo, destroyed the records, and drove the inquisitor Cervera to take
a ship back to Spain. Three years later, he was sent back with
full powers, and, though popular antagonism was not allayed,
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
the tribunal was restored. It was in vain that the parliament
petitioned for an amelioration in its procedure. Its activities
continued unremittingly: on May 30, 1541 there took place a
great auto-de-fé at which 21 persons appeared, 19 of them New
Christians. From this period, however, charges of Judaizing
gradually diminished, an increasing proportion of Protestants
and other heretics figuring in the list. During the long period
of Spanish domination, however, the island still continued to
receive occasional Converso refugees from the Peninsula. One
of the heads of the Sicilian Inquisition, Giovanni *di Giovanni
(1699–1753), was the author of the standard account of the Jews
in the island, L’Ebraismo della Sicilia (1748). By 1744, it was alleged that the Inquisition of Sicily had handed over for burning 201 living heretics and 279 effigies of the dead or of fugitives. The tribunal was abolished by Ferdinand IV on March
16, 1782, amid great popular rejoicing.
MALTA. Up to the surrender of the island of Malta to the
Knights of St. John in 1530, the Sicilian Inquisition maintained
a commissioner there; however, few details are known of his
activities. At a later period the Jewish slaves in Malta looked
to the inquisitor there for a certain measure of protection in
the observance of their religion.
SARDINIA. From the 14th century, Sardinia had formed part
of the dominions of the crown of Aragon and it therefore, like
Sicily, formed a natural haven of refuge for the Conversos of
the Peninsula. A branch of the Inquisition was introduced
in the year of the expulsion of the Jews (1492), when Micer
Sancho Mardia was appointed inquisitor. The popular aversion was extreme, and in 1500 the receiver of the Inquisition
was assassinated in Cagliari by some person who had been
reduced to poverty by his means. Early in the 16th century, its
work was done, and it relapsed into comparative quiescence.
Its existence was not ended, however, until the termination
of the Spanish rule in 1708. The episcopal Inquisition which
succeeded it had little to occupy itself with, all traces of the
Conversos having long since disappeared.
MILAN. The medieval Inquisition in Milan, directed especially against the Cathari, had been stimulated by the popes
into fresh activity at the time of the Reformation. An attempt
made by Philip II to introduce the Spanish model was foiled
by popular opposition. The papal tribunal was reorganized,
however, and put on a firm footing by Carlo *Borromeo. Its
principal occupation was dealing with heretics from the neighboring cantons of Switzerland, Conversos not being common
in the Milanese territories after the general arrest throughout
the Spanish dominions in 1540.
NAPLES. The Dominican Inquisition had been introduced
into Naples by Charles of Anjou after the battle of Benevento
(1266). Although the Neofiti of the kingdom, forced converts
from Judaism at the close of the 13th century, who, like the
Conversos of Spain, remained faithful at heart to their ancestral religion for many generations, afforded it an ample field of
activity, the Neopolitan Inquisition was generally kept by the
799
inquisition
government in a state of subjection. In 1449, however, Pope
Nicholas V dispatched Fra Matteo da Reggio to Naples as inquisitor to proceed against the numerous Judaizing apostates.
After the introduction of the Inquisition into the Peninsula,
and particularly on the addition of Naples to the Spanish dominions at the beginning of the 16th century, a large number of
Spanish Conversos also sought refuge there, as well as others
escaping from the rigors of the new tribunal in Sicily. A further difficulty was offered by the presence of a sizable colony
of Christian heretics, the Waldenses from Savoy. At Benevento,
which was subject to the popes, an Inquisition under Dominican supervision was established by Julius II to deal with the
problem. To counteract this, Ferdinand the Catholic endeavored to procure the extension of the authority of the new Sicilian tribunal over his possessions on the mainland. The popular opposition was so great, however, that the proposal was
abandoned; the same conclusion met other similar attempts in
1510, 1516, and 1547, when a popular rising was provoked by the
suggestions. However, the papal Inquisition was extended in
scope in 1553 and carried on its work ruthlessly. In 1561, there
was a pitiless persecution of the Waldenses in Calabria. Ten
years later, there was lively persecution of Judaizers, seven of
whom, comprising both Converso refugees and native Neofiti,
were sent to Rome and burned at the stake in February 1572.
In 1585, Sixtus V established a regular commissioner of the
papal Inquisition in Naples, but popular prejudice remained
unchanged, and as late as 1747 brought about the removal of
certain abuses. By the middle of the 17th century, however, heresy in Naples had been largely stamped out, and little more is
heard of Conversos or of Neofiti.
PAPAL STATES. In Rome the Inquisition maintained a certain
authority over the Jews after the issue of the bull Turbato corde
of Clement IV in 1267, subsequently repeatedly confirmed, enjoining the Inquisition to proceed not only against renegades
but also against those who seduced them from their faith.
This was no doubt responsible for the persecution of 1298, in
which Elijah de’ *Pomi(s) lost his life. Its effects were mitigated in the following year by Boniface VIII, who declared
that, in spite of their wealth, the Jews were not to be included
among the “powerful persons” against whom the Inquisition
might proceed without disclosing the names of those who had
denounced them. Under the Renaissance popes, the Roman
Inquisition was so little vigilant that the Conversos were able
to return to Judaism in the Papal States without interference.
This period, however, came to an end with the beginning
of the Counter-Reformation. In 1542, Paul III instituted the
“Congregation of the Holy Office” (Congregatio Sancti Officii),
consisting of six cardinals, with the intention of stimulating it
into greater activity. In 1555, Paul IV ordered proceedings to
be taken against the Portuguese Converso colony settled, with
the sanction of his predecessors, in *Ancona. This resulted in
a terrible persecution in which 25 persons were burned alive,
60 sent to slavery in Malta, and many more subjected to other
punishments. In 1557, the proselyte to Judaism, Fra Cornelio da
800
Montalcino, was burned at the stake at Rome. Subsequently,
several Conversos who ventured to Rome suffered, while others were dispatched there for punishment. Thus at the beginning of 1571, seven Judaizers sent from Naples were burned; in
1583, Diego Lopez and Gabriel Henriques (“Joseph Saraval”),
Converso immigrants from Portugal who had settled at Ferrara, suffered martyrdom; in 1640, Ferdinando Alvarez, alias
Abraham da Porto, an old man of 76, was burned at the stake.
However, in this period the Inquisition in the Papal States was
largely occupied with securing the obedience of the Jews to
the discriminatory legislation in force against them and in
the supervision of the Hebrew literature. Indeed, its reputation among the Jews was not bad: in 1784 the community of
Rome petitioned that the supervision of cases where a Jewish
child was claimed for baptism should be placed under its control. Similarly in 1711, the Inquisition investigated a charge of
ritual murder which had been made against the Jews of Ancona, who were fully absolved.
MANTUA. Elsewhere in Italy, conditions were much the same.
Thus at Mantua Solomon *Molcho was burned in 1532 as an
apostate Judaizer. In the same place, an old woman named Judith Franchetti was burned alive for sorcery in 1600 at the age
of 77: the main charge against her was that she had persuaded
a certain nun to embrace Judaism.
VENICE. The Inquisition at Venice, one of the principal centers of refuge for the Conversos from the Peninsula, similarly dealt with many Jewish cases. Between 1557 and 1711 the
records of no less than 80 are preserved. Of these, approximately one-third are concerned with immigrants from Spain
and Portugal; the rest deal with insincere local converts and
with technical offenses committed by conforming Jews. Notable amongst the latter is a case against Leone *Modena, who
for the sake of security voluntarily denounced the uncensored
Paris edition of his Historia de’ Riti ebraici (1637). The persecution of the Conversos in Venice by the Inquisition reached
its height in the decade 1558–68, when Fra Felice Peretti da
Montalto (later Pope Sixtus V) was inquisitor. In comparison
with the Roman tribunal, however, it was humane, and never
seems to have proceeded to any sentence of death.
TUSCANY. In Florence, the Inquisition seems to have restricted itself to a considerable degree to the supervision and
encouragement of apostates to Christianity. However, it also
prosecuted a number of Conversos from Spain and Portugal
resident in the city, especially in the first decade of the 17th
century. In Pisa and Leghorn, the operation of the Inquisition against the Conversos was expressly limited by the concessions of 1593, which were confirmed in the case of Jacob
Gutiérrez Penha in 1730.
Procedure
In the course of time, the Spanish Inquisition evolved an elaborate procedure of its own. When a tribunal was opened at any
place, an edict of grace would be published, inviting those con-
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inquisition
scious of heresy to come forward and make confession within
a “period of grace,” generally of 30 or 40 days. After the lapse
of this period they could be proceeded against by Inquisition
officers. At later stages, an edict of faith would periodically
be issued, summoning all persons, under pain of excommunication, to denounce to the authorities all offenses enumerated in it of which he might have cognizance. These invariably comprised all those popularly associated with Judaism:
lighting candles on Friday evening, changing the linen on the
Sabbath, abstaining from pork and scaleless fishes, observing
the Jewish holidays and especially the Day of Atonement and
the fast of Esther, laying out the dead according to the Jewish
custom, etc. By this means, the whole population became accomplices of the Inquisition in its task of eradicating heresy;
and the denunciation of one of the customs mentioned above,
performed absentmindedly or by mere force of habit, was frequently sufficient to bring a man to the stake.
ARREST AND EVIDENCE. Everything took place under the
greatest secrecy, which became one of the main terrors of the
Inquisition. Any breach of this was liable to be punished with
the utmost severity, like heresy itself. From the moment of arrest, therefore, the utmost segregation obtained. The accused
persons were confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition, such
as may still be seen in Évora and elsewhere. As was inevitable,
there were sometimes terrible abuses, women suffering especially; and it happened more than once that female prisoners
were dragged pregnant to the stake.
The rules governing evidence were so devised as to exclude all witnesses who were likely to be of any use to the
prisoner, on the ground that their evidence would be untrustworthy. No such scruples, however, prevailed with regard to
witnesses for the prosecution, who were frequently inspired
merely by venom. Moreover, the names of the accusers were
suppressed, though originally this was supposed to be permissible only in the case of “powerful persons” who might
intimidate the witnesses. The accusers and accused were thus
never confronted. The evidence admitted was flimsy in the
extreme: mere regard for personal cleanliness might be sufficient to convict a man of Judaism or Islam, and so cost him
his life. Once the accusation was made, the subsequent procedure was based upon a desire to make the accused person
confess his crime and thus be admitted to penitence. If this
was not forthcoming spontaneously, in accordance with the
spirit of the age, torture might be applied: though as a matter of fact in this particular instance the Spanish Inquisition,
notorious though its cruelties were, compared favorably with
the Roman, where torture might be continued even after confession in order to extort the names of accomplices. Death
under torture was by no means uncommon. In most cases,
however, the physician who was present enforced sufficient
moderation to avoid this conclusion. Generally, the torture
was abundantly sufficient to elicit a confession, if one had
been withheld up to that point. It was imposed in most cases
only to procure the confession of what the inquisitors already
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
knew or suspected. The cases in which a condemnation was
avoided were therefore few in the extreme. Thus, in the Toledo
tribunal between the years 1484 to 1531 they totaled on an average less than two yearly. In the Portuguese Inquisition, the
number of condemnations came to well over three-quarters
of the total number of cases tried.
PUNISHMENTS. Often, in the case of any convicted person
who professed repentance, “reconciliation” followed and the
defendant was restored to the bosom of the Church. In such
a reconciliation the defendant had to abjure either de levi or
de vehementi. A transgressor of a de levi reconciliation may
perhaps be punished to abjure de vehementi. This, paradoxically enough, being itself considered a punishment since the
convicted person had to participate in the procession of the
auto-da-fé, and had to do many penances, pilgrimages to holy
shrines etc. There were two forms of reconciliation de vehementi, and a slight transgression from Christianity would be
considered a relapse into the old sins. Harsher penalties in
force included scourging, very common in the early period
but remitted more and more frequently as time went on. This
was executed publicly under every humiliating circumstance.
Similar, with the omission of the lashes, was the verguenza,
which consisted of the offender parading in the town stripped
to the waist and bearing the insignia of the offense, the towncrier meanwhile proclaiming the sentence. The mordaza or
gag was sometimes applied, this being regarded as increasing the humiliation of the punishment. In abjurations de levi,
he added that in case of failing in his promise to comply with
punishment he should be held as impenitent: in abjurations
de vehementi, that in such a case he should be considered and
treated as a relapsed heretic. A reconciliation of this sort could
be performed only once and any subsequent conviction was
taken as an obvious proof that the original penitence had been
insincere and the culprit was condemned to the stake.
The reconciliation was invariably accompanied by a punishment of varying intensity. More severe was the penalty of
the galleys, an economical device of Ferdinand the Catholic
whereby the punishment of heresy was turned to the benefit of
the state and which was adopted by the Roman Inquisition. In
1573, and again in 1591, the Suprema ordered that all Conversos, even when confessing their crime freely, should be sent to
the galleys, and it remained a penalty very frequently inflicted
upon secret Jews. In the course of the 18th century, other types
of penal servitude were substituted. For women, forced service
in hospitals or houses of correction was the alternative.
Perpetual incarceration was another common form of
punishment; though the prison was known by the euphemistic title of casa de la penitencia or de la misericordia. At a
later period, the duration of the imprisonment was generally
decreased, persons being released after eight years or even
less, though the title of the punishment officially remained
the same. Among the other punishments may be mentioned
that of exile or exclusion from certain places, and the custom
of razing to the ground the house of any particularly heinous
801
inquisition
offender or one in which heretical – especially Jewish – services had been held.
It was not only in his own person that any person convicted of a serious offense by the Inquisition was punished. A
number of disabilities followed which fell not only on those
penanced but also on their children and their male descendants for two generations to come: they were not allowed to
enter Holy Orders; they were excluded from any public dignity; they were not permitted to become physicians, apothecaries, tutors of the young, advocates, scriveners, or farmers
of revenue; they were subjected to certain sumptuary laws,
not being permitted to wear cloth of gold or silver or precious stones, to bear arms, or to ride on horseback. Neglect
of these provisions, sometimes even after the lapse of several
generations, brought the offender once more into the clutches
of the Inquisition. However, infractions were generally punished only by a fine, and the sale of rehabilitation ultimately
became very common.
One of the strongest weapons of the Inquisition was the
power it had of confiscating the property of those convicted
of heresy. At the beginning, the proceeds were devoted to
the use of the crown, but they gradually devolved more and
more upon the Inquisition itself. In the early period, general
arrangements on the part of the New Christians to save themselves from arbitrary confiscation were not uncommon, but
this practice speedily died out. It was through this power that
the Inquisition was raised into a corporation of such vast influence and wealth. Above all, it made it overwhelmingly to
its interest to procure the conviction of all who were brought
before it, especially when they were persons of great means.
Nothing else, perhaps, was more instrumental in draining the
Peninsula of its accumulated wealth during the course of the
16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. It was a weapon which struck at the
whole of a man’s family, and might reduce it in a moment from
affluence to beggary, while through its means the economic life
of the whole country was liable to be disorganized.
THE DEATH PENALTY. The final sanction of the Inquisition
was that of death. As an ecclesiastical body, however, it was
not permitted itself to be a party to this. It therefore “relaxed”
the convicted person to the secular arm, with a formal recommendation for mercy, adding that if it were found necessary
to proceed to the extreme penalty, it should be done “without effusion of blood” – that is, by burning. This was an old
legal fiction of the Catholic Church dating back to the 11th or
12th century; and the mode of punishment was justified by a
text in John 15:6: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth
as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast
them into the fire, and they are burned.”
Generally speaking, the extreme penalty was reserved
for those who refused the opportunity for repentance: either
the contumacios, who gloried in their crime and died true
martyrs; or the “relapsed,” who had been reconciled on some
previous occasion and whose backsliding proved their insincerity; or the diminutos, whose confession was incomplete
802
and who shielded their accomplices; or the negativos, who
refused to confess to the charges made against them in the
hope of escaping conviction. In this last category there must
necessarily have been included on occasion some who were
absolutely innocent of the crimes imputed to them and would
not confess to falsehood even to escape death. The fact that
such persons were condemned to the flames shows clearly on
what sure ground the Inquisition generally felt itself. “Dogmatizers,” or those who, whether baptized or not, propagated
heretical views were also regarded as inevitable victims, and
in the earlier period of the Inquisition many fervent professing Jews suffered under this head. However, by no means all
of those executed capitally were burned alive. A profession
of repentance, even after condemnation, was almost always
effective in securing preliminary garroting, only the corpse
then being burned at the stake. The effigies of fugitives, with
the bones of those who had escaped justice by death (sometimes in prison or under torture) would similarly be committed to the flames. Those burned in effigy on certain occasions sometimes totaled something like half as many as those
burned in person. This was far from an empty formality, as
the condemnation secured the confiscation of their property,
while reconciliation was in such cases obviously outside the
bounds of possibility.
THE AUTOS-DA-Fé. The sentences of the Inquisition were
announced at the so-called Act of Faith: *auto-de-fé as it was
termed in Spain and auto-da-fé in Portugal. For lighter offenses, the ceremonial might be private (auto particular or
autillo), in which case it would be held in a church; but this
was rarely resorted to for so grave a crime as Judaizing, particularly as it was considered wrong to pronounce a sentence of
death in the sacred precincts. In most cases, the ceremony was
public (auto publico general). This ultimately became the subject of elaborate organization. The ceremony would take place
on some feast day in the principal square of the city. Ample
notice was given so as to attract as large a group of spectators
as possible, spiritual benefits being promised to all who were
present. Two stagings were erected at vast expense – one for
those convicted and their spiritual attendants, and the other
for the inquisitors and the rest of the authorities, while a temporary altar, draped in black, was set up in the middle.
The proceedings would be opened by a procession in
which all the clergy of the city took part. Behind them followed those condemned to appear. All those abjuring de vehementi had to carry lighted tapers in their hands and to wear
the sanbenito or saco bendito (the abito as it was called in the
official sentence). This, which was an innovation of the Spanish Inquisition, consisted of a long yellow robe, transversed by
a black cross (in the case of those convicted of formal heresy
alone, only one of the arms was necessary). In case the heretic had escaped the stake by confession, flames were painted
on the garment, which was sometimes of black. Those condemned to be burned bore in addition pictures of demons
thrusting the heretical into hell, while they wore tall miters
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
inquisition
similarly adorned for additional prominence (the use of these,
which were worn in different forms also by bigamists and perjurers, was forbidden by the Roman Inquisition in 1596). In
certain cases, as an additional punishment, the sanbenito had
to be worn in public even after the release of the prisoner, exposing him to universal scorn and derision. After it was removed, it was generally hung up in the parish church of the
delinquent accompanied by a fitting inscription, thus marking
out the wearer and his family for lasting humiliation. These
memorials of shame were destroyed only with the abolition of
the Inquisition in the early years of the 19th century.
When the procession had arrived in the square where
the auto-da-fé was to be celebrated, amid general scorn the
penitents would take their place on the scaffolding reserved
for them. A sermon would then be preached by some distinguished cleric, directed especially against the penitents, upon
whose heads a torrent of the most unsparing insults would be
poured. They would then appear one by one before the pulpit
to hear their sentences, which would hitherto have been kept
a profound secret. This took some time, the proceedings often
being protracted into night and sometimes being spread over
two or even three days. The sentences of those “relaxed” to
the secular arm were left to the last. They were then formally
condemned to death by the civil magistrate and escorted to
the quemadero (or brasero), the place of burning, by a detachment of soldiers, whose presence was sometimes necessary to
save them from a violent but more humane death at the hands
of the infuriated mob. To light the brand with which the pyre
was kindled was considered a religious duty and honor of the
highest degree and frequently fell to the lot of visiting royalty.
The ashes of the victims were supposed to be scattered to the
winds. A repentant heretic would sometimes be strangled before being burned.
During the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, the autode-fé came to be regarded as a great public spectacle in the
Peninsula and its dependencies, vying in popular appeal with
bullfights. Especially splendid celebrations would sometimes
be arranged in honor of royalty: thus on Feb. 24/5, 1560, an
auto-de-fé was held at Toledo to celebrate the visit of Philip II
and his bride, Isabella of Valois; the tribunal of Madrid was
inaugurated on July 4, 1632 by an auto-de-fé in celebration
of the safe delivery of the queen; but the climax was reached
on June 30, 1680 on the Plaza Mayor of the same city, in the
presence of Charles II and his bride, Marie Louise d’Orléans,
in honor of their marriage. At this, which began at six o’clock
in the morning and lasted 14 hours, no less than 51 persons
were burned either in person or in effigy, the king himself
setting light to the brand which kindled the quemadero. This,
as a great court spectacle, formed the subject of a painting by
Rizi. It was the last great solemnity of its kind, as Philip V, the
first of the Bourbon line, refused (in 1701) to grace with his
presence one arranged in honor of his accession, and the usage was henceforth abandoned.
Accounts of the auto-da-fé, giving full details of the
names of the victims and the nature of their punishment, with
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
particulars of who was burned alive, who after garroting, or
who in effigy, were subsequently printed and hawked about
the streets: they form one of the main sources of information for the proceedings. Similarly, the sermons preached at
the auto-da-fé were often subsequently published: in Portuguese alone, about 75 are extant in print. They speak of
the penitents often as Jews, and in terms of the most outrageous vituperation. Most noteworthy is the sermon delivered
on Sept. 6, 1705, at the great auto-da-fé held at Lisbon by the
archbishop of Cranganore which was notable for the violence of its language: it was answered by David *Nieto, haham
in London, in a crushing pamphlet which is a masterpiece
of polemic and was not without influence in weakening the
prestige and destroying the influence of the Inquisition in
Portugal. On the other hand, counterparts of these pamphlets were sometimes issued at Amsterdam and elsewhere,
where the local rabbis and poets would mourn the death of
their martyrs in sermons and elegies. A noteworthy example
is the volume of collected pieces published on the occasion
of the martyrdom of Abraham Nuñes *Bernal at Córdoba in
1655. In the prayer books printed for the use of the Converso
communities abroad at this period there is included a special
*Ashkavah beginning “God of Vengeance” to be recited in the
synagogue in memory of “those burned for the Sanctification of the Name.”
It was in Portugal that the New Christians formed the
most important element in the population, and there accordingly that the victims of the Inquisition were the most illustrious. Among the most noteworthy of the martyrs, a few
names may be mentioned: Luis *Dias of *Setúal, a poor tailor
of Setúbal who claimed to be the Messiah (1540); Gonçalo
Bandarra, the prophet of Sebastianism (1540); perhaps the
famous David *Reuveni, probably burned c. 1538; Antonio
*Homem, professor of Canon Law at the University of Coimbra, who officiated as rabbi at a secret synagogue in that
city (1624); Fra Diogo da *Assumpção, a promising theologian,
who remained revered by the Conversos as a martyr many
years after his death (1603); Lope de *Vera y Alarcon, a young
noble who circumcised himself and went by the name of Judah
the Believer (1644); Isaac de *Castro Tartas, whose fortitude
made a deep impression on all who came into touch with
him (1647); Manuel Fernandes *Villareal, poet and diplomat (1652); and Antonio José da *Silva, the dramatist (1739).
Many other persons (such as Tome Vaz, the jurist, or Andre d’Avelar and Pedro Nuñes, the mathematicians) suffered
lesser penalties. In Spain, among the illustrious victims may be
mentioned Felipe *Godínez, the poet, who was reconciled
at Seville in 1624, and Antonio *Gómez *Enríquez (Henriquez), the playwright, who was burned in effigy at Madrid
in 1680.
Bibliography: GENERAL, SPAIN AND CASTILE: E. van
der Vekené, Bibliographie der Inquisition (1963); H.C. Lea, History
of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 vols. (1906); E.N. Adler, Auto de Fe and
Jew (1908); Baer, Urkunden, index; Baer, Spain, index; C. Roth, History of the Marranos (1932); idem, The Spanish Inquisition (1938); B.
803
insdorf, annette
Ilorca, La Inquisición en España (1946); Ḥ . Beinart, Anusim be-Din
ha-Inkeviziẓ yah (1965; English trans. Conversos on Trial (1981)). Add.
Bibliography: H. Beinart, Records of the Trial of the Spanish Inquisition in Ciudad Real (1974–5), 4 vols.; idem, in: Mediaeval Studies,
43 (1981), 445–71; J.P. Villanueva, ed., La Inquisición española; nueva
visión, nuevos horizantes (1980); J.M. García Fuentes, La Inquisición
en Granada en el siglo XVI (1981); J. Contreras, in: Estudios de historia
social 20/21 (1982), 429–45; idem, El Santo oficio de la Inquisición en
Galicia, 1560–1700 (1982); E. van der Vekené, Bibliotheca bibliographica historiae sanctae inquisitioni (1982–83), 2 vols.; J.M. Monsalvo Antón, in: Studia historica, 2:2 (1984), 109–39; A. Alcalá, ed., Inquisición
española y mentalidad inquisitorial (1984); Y. Kaplan (ed.), Jews and
Conversos; Studies in Society and the Inquisition (1985); J. Blázquez
Miguel, La Inquisición en Albacete (1985); idem, La Inquisición en Castilla-La Mancha (1986); idem, El tribunal de la Inquisición en Murcia
(1986); idem, Inquisición y criptojudaísmo (1988); idem, in Hispania
sacra, 40 (1988), 133–64; idem, Judíos, herejes y brujas (1990); H. Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries (1985); idem, in: Bulletin hispanique 88 (1986), 321–56; C.
Carrete Parrondo, El Tribunal de la Inquisición en el Obispado de Soria
(1486–1502) (1985); idem, Proceso inquisitorial contra los Arias Dávila
segovianos: un enfrentamiento social entre judíos y conversos (1986);
R. Levine-Melammed, in: PAAJR, 53 (1986), 91–109; J.I. Gutiérrez Nieto, in: El siglo del Quijote (1580–1680). vol. 1, Religión, filosofía, ciencia (1986), 645–792; A. Cascales Ramos, La Inquisición en Andalucía
(1986); B.R. Gampel, in: J. Stampfer (ed.), The Sephardim: A Cultural
Journey from Spain to the Pacific Coast (1987), 36–57; A. Alcalá (ed.),
The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind (1987); S. Haliczer
(ed.), Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe (1987); M.A. Bel
Bravo, El auto-de-fe de 1593. Los conversos granadinos de origen judío
(1988); R. de Lera García, in: Sefarad, 47 (1987), 87–137; idem, in: Inquisição (1989–90), vol. 3, 1087–1108; L. Coronas Tejada, Conversos
and Inquisition in Jaén (1988); J. Belmonte Díaz, Judíos e Inquisición
en Ávila (1989); J-P. Dedieu, L’administration de la foi: L’Inquisition
de Tolède, XVIe–xvii e siècle (1989); J. Martínez Millán, in: Sefarad,
49 (1989), 307–63; J.A. Ollero Pina, in: Hispania sacra, 40 (1988),
45–105; W. Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from
the Basque Lands to Sicily (1990); J.M. de Bujanda, in: M.E. Perry
and A.J. Cruz (eds.), Cultural Encounters: The Impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World (1991), 221–47; F. García Ivars, La
represión en el tribunal inquisitorial de Granada, 1550–1819 (1991); B.
Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain
(1992); C. Carrete Parrondo and Ma. F. García Casar, El Tribunal de
la Inquisición de Sigüenza, 1492–1505 (1997). CROWN OF ARAGON
(Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia and Majorca): B. Braunstein, The Chuetas of Majorca (1936); M. Ardit, L’inquisición al País Valenciá (1970);
E. Fort I Cogul, Catalunua I la Inquisición (1973); J. Ventura Subirats,
in: Cuadernos de historia económica de Cataluña, 14 (1976), 79–131;
R. Garcia Cárcel, Orígenes de la Inquisición española: el Tribunal de
Valencia, 1478–1530 (1976); J. Ventura Subirats, Inquisición espanyola
I cultura renaixentista al País Valenciá (1978; J. Perarnau, in: Revista
catalana de teología, 4 (1979), 309–53; A. Alcalá, Los orígenes de la Inquisición en Aragón (1984); A. Blasco Martínez, in: Aragón en la Edad
Media, 7 (1988), 81–96; J.L. Palos, in: L’Avenc, 47 (marc 1982), 21–31;
J. Edwards, in: REJ, 143 (1984), 333–50; A.S. Selke, The Conversos of
Majorca (1986); Y. Assis, in: Mediaeval Studies, 49 (1987), 391–410; J.
Riera I Sans, in: Aplec de treballs, 8 (1987), 59–73; J. Blázquez Miguel,
La Inquisición en Cataluña (1990); S. Haliczer, Inquisition and Society
in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834 (1990); NAVARRE AND THE
BASQUE COUNTRY: I. Reguera, La Inqisición española en el País Vasco
(1984); CANARY ISLANDS: H. Beinart, in: Transactions of the Jewish
804
Historical Society of England, 25 (1977), 48–86; idem, in: Helmantica, 28 (1977), 23–32; L.A. Anaya Hernández, in: Inquisição, vol. 1
(1989–90), 161–76; PORTUGAL: A. Herculano de Carvalho, History
of the Origin and Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal (1926);
A. Baião, A Inquisição em Portugal e no Brasil (1921); J.L. D’Azevedo,
Historia dos Christãos Novos Portugueses (1922); A.J. Teixeira, Antonio Homem e a Inquisção (1902); N. Slouschz, Ha-Anusim be-Portugal (1932). Add. Bibliography: R. Carrasco, in: Hispania 166
(1987), 503–59; AMERICA: J.T. Medina, Historia del Santo Oficio en
Cartagena de las Indias (1889); idem, Historia del Tribunal del Santo
Oficio de la Inquisición de Lima (19562); idem, La Inquisición en el
Rio de la Plata (1945); idem, La Imprenta de Bogotá y la Inquisición
en Cartagena de las Indias (1952); idem, Historia del Santo Oficio de
la Inquisición en Chile (1952); idem, Historia del Tribunal del Santo
Oficio de la Inquisición de México (1905); H.C. Lea, The Inquisition
in the Spanish Dependencies (1908); A. Toro, Los Judíos en la Nueva
España (1932); Mariel de Ibáñez, La Inquisición en México durante el
siglo XVI (1946); E. Chinchilla Aguilar, La Inquisición en Guatemala
(1953); A. Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil (1960); S.B. Liebman,
A Guide to Jewish References in the Mexican Colonial Era, 1521–1821
(1964); idem, The Enlightened: The Writings of Luis de Carvajal, el
Mozo (1967); L. García de Proodián, Los Judíos en américa (1966);
B. Lewin, La Inquisición en Hispanoamérica (1962); idem, Los Judíos
bajo la Inquisición en Hispanoamérica (1960).
[Cecil Roth / Yom Tov Assis (2nd ed.)]
INSDORF, ANNETTE, U.S. film scholar. Insdorf was born
in Paris, France, to Polish immigrants and raised in New York.
She earned her B.A. at Queens College in 1972 and received
her Ph.D. in English from Yale University in 1975. She is best
known for her book Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust
(1983), widely considered to be the definitive exploration of the
subject. The book catalogues the variety of films made about
the Shoah and discusses the ethical responsibilities of films that
attempt to depict the Holocaust while at the same time remaining commercially viable. For the updated third edition (2002),
she received the National Board of Review’s William K. Everson Award in Film History. Insdorf also earned great renown
for her scholarship and books on French New Wave director
Francois Truffaut and Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski
and is universally acknowledged as the authority on their work.
In 1986, the French Ministry of Culture named Insdorf Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; in 1993, she received
the Palmes Academiques; and in 1999, she was promoted to
Officer of the Arts. She served as a jury member at several film
festivals, including Telluride and Cannes. Insdorf was also the
executive producer of two short films: Shoeshine, nominated for
an Academy Award and winner of the Grand Prize at the 1987
Montreal Film Festival; and Performance Pieces, awarded Best
Fiction Short at Cannes in 1989. From 1982, Insdorf taught at
Columbia University and was chair of the Graduate Film Division from 1990 to 1995. She subsequently served as director
of Undergraduate Film Studies.
[Max Joseph (2nd ed.)]
INSTITUTE FOR THE RESEARCH OF MEDIEVAL HE
BREW POETRY, institute for compiling, examining, select-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9
Jospe, Alfred, et al. "Mendelssohn, Moses." Encyclopaedia Judaica, edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd
ed., vol. 14, Macmillan Reference USA, 2007, pp. 33-40. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2587513654/GVRL?
u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=5fab891c. Accessed 22 Jan. 2023.
mendelssohn, moses
Fanny Caecile (Zipporah) *Mendelssohn (1805–1847)
was unusually close to her brother Felix, and her marriage to
the painter Wilhelm Hensel in 1829 did not weaken this bond.
Felix relied upon her musical taste and advice, and six of her
songs which were published along with his (without identification) are stylistically indistinguishable from his work. Under her own name, she published four books of piano pieces,
two books of solo songs, and one book of part-songs. After
her death, a few more piano pieces, some songs, and a piano
trio in D major were published.
mittee and president of Commission A2 of the International
Institute of Refrigeration. He was the founder and editor of
the journal Cryogenics, an international journal of low-temperature engineering and research (1961–65). He was elected
fellow of the Royal Society in 1951. As “extramural” activities
he was especially interested in China and in the sociological
and engineering backgrounds of the Egyptian and Mexican
pyramids, publishing and lecturing widely on these topics.
[Bracha Rager (2nd ed.)]
MENDELSSOHN, KURT ALFRED GEORG (1906–1980),
British physicist. Mendelssohn was born in Berlin and educated at Berlin University. Forced to leave Germany, he came
to Oxford to work at Clarendon Laboratory in 1933 and was
the first person to liquefy helium in Britain. Subsequently F.E.
Simon, N. Kurti, and H. London came to Oxford and contributed with Mendelssohn to the establishment of the Clarendon Laboratory as an important center of low temperature
research. With the advent of World War II the low-temperature apparatus had to be dismantled and Mendelssohn turned
to various collaborative projects in medical physics. After the
war he resumed his work on low temperatures in collaboration
with a succession of gifted research students, many of whom
built up graduate schools of their own after leaving the Clarendon, thus making their mark in low-temperature centers all
over the world. In addition to his laboratory work Mendelssohn was closely involved with other low-temperature scientists at the international level. He was chairman and founding
member of the International Cryogenic Engineering Com-
MENDELSSOHN, MOSES (Moses ben Menahem, acronym RaMbeMaN, or Moses of Dessau; 1729–1786), philosopher of the German Enlightenment in the pre-Kantian period,
early Maskil, and a renowned Jewish figure in the 18t century.
Born in Dessau, son of a Torah scribe, Mendelssohn received
a traditional Jewish education under the influence of David
*Fraenkel, who was then rabbi of Dessau. When the latter was
appointed rabbi of Berlin in 1743, Mendelssohn followed him
there in order to pursue his religious studies and to acquire
a general education. He earned his livelihood with difficulty
while simultaneously studying Talmud diligently and acquiring a broad education in literature and philosophy. In addition
to his fluent knowledge of German and Hebrew, he acquired
knowledge of Latin, Greek, English, French, and Italian. His
teachers were young, broadly educated Jews, such as the Galician immigrant Israel M. Zamosc, who taught him medieval Jewish philosophy, the medical student Abraham Kisch,
who taught him Latin, and the well-born Berlin Jew, A.S.
Gumpertz, who taught him French and English and in general served as a model of a pious Jew immersed in the larger
intellectual world. During this period he met the writer and
dramatist G.E. *Lessing (1754) and a deep and lifelong friendship developed between them. In 1750 he became a teacher in
the house of Isaac Bernhard, owner of a silk factory; in 1754, he
was entrusted with the bookkeeping of the factory and eventually he became a partner in the enterprise. Throughout his life
he worked as a merchant, while carrying out his literary activities and widespread correspondence in his free time. Only in
1763 was he granted the “right of residence” in Berlin by the
king. In 1762, he married Fromet Guggenheim of Hamburg,
and they had six children (see *Mendelssohn family). In 1754
Mendelssohn began to publish – at first with the assistance of
Lessing – philosophical writings and later also literary reviews.
He also started a few literary projects (for example, the shortlived periodical Kohelet Musar) in order to enrich and change
Jewish culture and took part in the early Haskalah. In 1763, he
was awarded the first prize of the Prussian Royal Academy of
Sciences for his work Abhandlung über die Evidenz in metaphysischen Wissenschaften (“Treatise on Evidence in Metaphysical Knowledge”). However, when the academy elected
him as a member in 1771, King Frederick II refused to ratify
its decision. In 1769, he became embroiled in a dispute on the
Jewish religion, and from then on, he confined most of his
literary activity to the sphere of Judaism. His most notable
and enduring works in this area included the translation into
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
33
Bibliography: G. Grove, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn
(Eng., 1951); S. Hensel, Mendelssohn Family 1729–1847, 2 vols. (1882);
J. Horton, Chamber Music of Mendelssohn (1946); F. Mendelssohn,
Letters, ed. by G. Selden-Goth (1945); J. Petitpierre, Romance of the
Mendelssohns (1948); P. Radcliffe, Mendelssohn (Eng., 1954, 19672);
E. Werner, Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and his Age
(1963); J. Werner, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, in: Music and Letters,
28 (Oct. 1947), 303–38; P. Young, Introduction to the Music of Mendelssohn (1949); Grove, Dict, S.V.; MGG, S.V.; Riemann-Gurlitt, s.v.;
Baker, Biog Dict, S.V.
[Dika Newlin]
MENDELSSOHN, HEINRICH (1910–2002), Israeli zoologist. Mendelssohn was born in Berlin and studied zoology
there at the Humboldt University. He immigrated to Ereẓ
Israel in 1933, continuing his studies at the Hebrew University. From 1947 to 1956 he served as director of the Biological
and Pedagogical Institute of Tel Aviv, which became the department of zoology of Tel Aviv University. In 1961 he was appointed professor. Mendelssohn devoted most of his activity
to nature conservation. He served as a member of the Nature
Conservation Authority and chairman of the Israel Committee for Nature Preservation in Israel of the International Biological Program. He represented Israel on the International
Conference of Ecology. He was awarded the Israel Prize in
science in 1973.
mendelssohn, moses
German and commentary on the Pentateuch, Sefer Netivot haShalom (“Book of the Paths of Peace,” 1780–83) and his Jerusalem: oder, Ueber religiöse Macht und Judenthum (“Jerusalem,
or On Religious Power and Judaism,” 1783), the first polemical
defense of Judaism in the German language and one of the
pioneering works of modern Jewish philosophy. An active intermediary on behalf of his own people in difficult times and
a participant in their struggle for equal rights, he was at the
same time a forceful defender of the Enlightenment against the
opposition to it which gained strength toward the end of his
life. In the midst of a literary battle against one of the leading
figures of the counter-Enlightenment, he died in 1786.
Philosophy
Mendelssohn made virtually no claim to be an original thinker
in the realm of philosophy. He considered himself to be little
more than an exponent of the teachings of the Leibniz/Wolffian school, perhaps contributing a more felicitous and contemporary expression to the demonstrations of God’s existence and providence and human immortality that had been
propounded by Leibniz and Wolff and their other disciples.
Here and there, however, he modestly acknowledged that he
was providing a new version of an old argument or even saying something that had not been said before. Mendelssohn
first acquired a wide reputation for philosophical acumen
with the publication of his prize essay in 1763. The Berlin
Academy’s question was whether “the truths of metaphysics,
in general, and the first principles of natural theology and
morality, in particular,” can be shown to be as securely established as those of mathematics. Mendelssohn answered that
such principles “are capable of the same certainty” but are by
no means as easily grasped. After discussing the obstacles to
such comprehension, he went on to offer cosmological and
ontological proofs for the existence of God. He sought to give
the ontological argument an “easier turn” by reversing its usual
course and arguing first for the impossibility of God’s nonexistence and then against the notion that the most perfect being
would enjoy a merely possible existence. In his later works,
Mendelssohn continued to reformulate and refine these very
same arguments. Following Leibniz, Mendelssohn argued in
a number of writings that the combination of divine goodness
and greatness known as providence brings into being “the best
of all possible worlds.” Like his mentor, he could maintain this
position only by adducing the evidence of the afterlife. He first
examined this question in his most celebrated philosophical
work, Phädon, oder ueber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Phaedo,
or on the Immortality of the Soul, 1767; Eng tr., 1784), which
borrows its form but not its substance from Plato’s dialogue of
the same name. Mendelssohn was encouraged in this project
by his correspondence with Thomas Abbt (1738–1760), a professor at the University of Frankfurt, about the destiny of man
and the fate of the soul after death. He placed in the mouth of
his Socrates arguments that he had admittedly derived from
his own recent predecessors, including such thinkers as the
natural theologian Hermann Samuel Reimarus and the liberal
Protestant theologian Johann Joachim Spalding. Mendelssohn
developed his thesis along Leibnizian lines: things that perish
do not cease to exist; they are dissolved into their elements.
The soul must be such an element or substance, rather than a
compound, since it is the soul that imposes a unifying pattern
on the diverse and changing elements of the body. Hence it
is neither weakened by age nor destroyed by death. However,
this line of argument demonstrates only that the soul is imperishable and not that it will retain its consciousness in a future
state. This is guaranteed by the goodness of God, who could
not conceivably have created rational beings only to deprive
them after a brief interval “of the capacity for contemplation
and happiness.” Nor would God ever have aroused his rational
creatures to desire eternal life had He not allotted it to them.
It is, moreover, impossible to vindicate divine providence
without reference to a future life. In Mendelssohn’s later Sache Gottes, his reworking of the Causa Dei, Leibniz’s abridgement of his Theodicy, he spelled out most clearly his principal
difference with his philosophical mentor’s conception of the
afterlife. Unlike Leibniz, who had sought to show how most
human souls were destined for eternal damnation even in
the best of all possible worlds, Mendelssohn maintained that
all posthumous punishments would be both corrective and
temporary. Divine goodness guaranteed that every human
being was destined ultimately to enjoy “the degree of happiness appropriate for him.” Following Wolff, Mendelssohn affirmed that the fundamental moral imperative is a natural law
obliging all rational beings to promote their own perfection
and that of others. Unlike Wolff, he did not elaborate all the
ramifications of this natural law. But he clearly saw perfection
in much the same terms as Wolff, as an unending process of
physical, moral, and intellectual development, leading naturally to the increase of human happiness. In sharp contrast to
Wolff, Mendelssohn regarded liberty as an indispensable precondition of the pursuit of moral and intellectual perfection.
Only a free person, he argued, can achieve moral perfection.
For virtue is the result of struggle, self-overcoming, and sacrifice, and these must be freely chosen. Intellectual perfection,
too, can be attained only by one who is free to err. So, in place
of Wolff ’s tutelary state, Mendelssohn developed a contractarian political philosophy that left individuals largely free to
define their own goals. Insisting above all on the inalienable
liberty of conscience, he decried any state attempt to impose
specific religious behavior or to discriminate against members
of any minority faith.
In time Mendelssohn himself came to see weaknesses in
the philosophical structure that he had once upheld unquestioningly. Confronted, toward the end of his life, by the irrationalism of F.H. Jacobi and by the new critical philosophy of
Immanuel Kant, whom he called the “all-crusher,” he felt compelled to acknowledge the insufficiency of rationalist metaphysics. In his fullest exposition of the philosophy to which
he owed his allegiance, Morgenstunden, oder Vorlesungen ueber das Dasein Gottes (“Morning Hours, or Lectures on the
Existence of God,” 1785), he sorrowfully ceased to reaffirm its
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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
mendelssohn, moses
irrefutable truth. Yet, whatever speculative reason might seem
to teach, he now argued, common sense still sufficed to orient people and guide them along the path to the most important truths. Just what Mendelssohn meant by common sense
has been a subject of much dispute, both among his contemporaries such as Thomas Wizenmann and Kant himself and
among modern scholars. But, however he conceived of this
faculty, it is clear that he did not believe that it would necessarily remain humanity’s last resort. For, in the “cyclical course
of things,” providence would no doubt cause new thinkers to
arise who would restore metaphysics to its former glory.
The Dispute with Lavater
Mendelssohn’s longstanding effort to keep his Jewishness out
of the public eye was brought to an end by Johann Caspar
Lavater (1741–1801), a Swiss scholar and Lutheran clergyman
renowned for his writings on human physiognomy, who challenged him to clarify his religious position. As a young man,
Lavater had met Mendelssohn in Berlin (1763) and had been
deeply impressed by his tolerant attitude toward Christianity,
his appreciation of its moral value, and his general philosophic
approach. In the summer of 1769, he translated into German a section of La Palingénésie philosophique by the Calvinist Charles Bonnet (1720–1793), professor of philosophy and
psychology in Geneva, which to his mind had satisfactorily
proved the truth of Christianity. Activated by his strong millenarian belief in the necessity of the Jews’ conversion, Lavater
dedicated this translation to Mendelssohn. He called upon
him either to refute it publicly or “to do what wisdom, love of
truth, and honor require, and what Socrates would have done
had he read the treatise and found it irrefutable.” Profoundly
distressed by this challenge, Mendelssohn felt compelled to
respond to Lavater in public, which he did in a polite and
restrained but forceful manner (Schreiben an den Herrn Diaconus Lavater zu Zürich, 1770). Eschewing the two alternatives presented to him by his adversary, Mendelssohn instead
explained why his religion and his philosophy as well as his
marginal position in the world militated against his participation in interreligious polemics. The Torah, he maintained, was
given solely to the people of Israel, who are therefore the only
ones bound by it; all other men are only obliged to abide by
the law of nature and the religion of the patriarchs embodied
in the “*Noachide Laws.” A religion that does not conceive of
itself as the exclusive path to salvation, Judaism is devoid of
any missionary tendencies, discouraging even those who seek
to convert. In general, said Mendelssohn, one should not challenge other people’s fundamental religious conceptions, even
if they are based on error, as long as they serve as the basis for
social morality and do not undermine natural law. Finally, as
a Jew in a country like Prussia where the Jews enjoyed only a
limited amount of freedom, Mendelssohn felt that it was advisable to abstain from religious disputes with the dominant
creed. “I am a member of an oppressed people,” he said. Mendelssohn thus avoided dealing with the fundamental questions
posed by Lavater; he did not publicly attack Christianity nor
did he provide a comprehensive philosophical rationale for
his adherence to Judaism.
Far from putting an immediate end to the matter, Mendelssohn’s missive evoked a new response from Lavater, in
which he simultaneously apologized for his intrusiveness and
persisted in his conversionary efforts. Mendelssohn, however,
once again refused to take the bait and did his best to bring
the dispute to an amicable conclusion. Only in his Gegenbetrachtungen über Bonnets Palingénésie (“Counter-reflections
on Bonnet’s Palingénésie”), which remained unpublished until the middle of the 19t century, and in private letters, some
of which were addressed to Bonnet himself, did he lay bare
his objections to Christianity and articulate a defense of Judaism. The general debate that swirled around the controversy between Lavater and Mendelssohn continued until the
beginning of 1771 and resulted in the publication of a large
number of booklets and pamphlets, most of them sympathetic to Mendelssohn. This confrontation nevertheless upset Mendelssohn to such an extent that for over seven years
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
35
Critic of German Literature
During the period in which his first philosophical writings
appeared, Mendelssohn also began to publish critical articles
in the Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freien
Künste (1757–60), a periodical edited by the bookseller and
publisher Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811), his closest friend after
Lessing. While his first reviews were mainly concerned with
philosophical works, he also took up literary criticism which
was published in Nicolai’s second periodical Briefe die neueste
Literatur betreffend, behind which Mendelssohn was a moving spirit. At this time German literature, which was still in an
early stage of its development, was struggling for recognition
and a position in the cultural life of Germany which was dominated by Latin and French. Nicolai, Lessing, J.G. Herder, and
others accomplished a kind of cultural revolution by adopting
German as the language in which to express their innovative
ideas. Mendelssohn became a natural ally of these writers, who
did not identify with the academic and intellectual establishment, which, in turn, looked upon them, “Nicolai’s sect,” with
contempt and suspicion. Like them, Mendelssohn was not a
member of the establishment; like them, he sought to renovate his spiritual world and was distinguished for his universal
humanist aspirations, which, like them, he chose to express
in German. Mendelssohn found himself so much at ease in
this cultural milieu that he embarked upon an offensive war
in support of the use of the German language, even venturing
to criticize King Frederick II himself for the publication of a
book of poems in French. “Will the Germans never be aware
of their own value? Will they forever exchange their gold (i.e.,
their basic thinking) for their neighbors’ tinsel?” (i.e., French
literature). The aesthetic writings of Mendelssohn attest to the
supreme value which he attributed to beauty and above all to
poetry. Mendelssohn’s philosophic style in German was recognized by all, including Lessing, Herder, and Kant, as one of
the best of his time, but his talent for poetic expression was
limited, a fact which he admitted himself.
mendelssohn, moses
he suffered from a disease that prevented him from pursuing
his philosophic studies.
Activities in the Realm of Jewish Culture
In the middle 1750s, at around the same time that his first
German-language publications were seeing the light of day,
Mendelssohn produced his earliest writings in Hebrew. They
consisted of anonymous contributions to Kohelet Musar
(“Preacher of Morals”), a periodical he co-edited with Tobias Bock. Although the two men managed to publish only
two eight-page issues, their effort nevertheless constituted a
revolutionary turning point in the development of Jewish culture. It marked the first occasion on which Jewish intellectuals attempted to introduce into their own culture an innovative form of publication then quite popular and influential in
Germany, England, and elsewhere, the “moral weekly.” Here
some of the ideas of the moderate Enlightenment were first
presented to Jewish readers in the Hebrew language known to
the community’s educated elite and couched in terms familiar
to them. Above all, the publication by two laymen of a periodical aimed at the moral improvement of the Jewish population amounted to an unprecedented subversive measure in
a world in which the rabbinical elite was acknowledged to be
the absolute authority in such matters. The weekly called on
the Jews to fill their lungs with the air of natural life, to observe
freely the beauty of nature, to nurture their sense of aesthetics
and harmony. It proclaimed their right to delight in a world
that is, as Leibniz taught, the best of all possible worlds created by God. Man, “God’s finest creature,” is at the center of
nature, and it is unthinkable that the Jew, of all people, should
repress his humanistic traits. Man can discover the majesty
of the Almighty and His powers by observing the creation of
the great architect of the world. Kohelet Musar’s transmission
of such messages appear to have made no significant impression on the Jewish society of the 1750s but it did pave the way
for the publication, decades later, of a much more influential
successor, the maskilic journal Ha-*Me’assef.
In the decades following this abortive effort Mendelssohn’s writings in the Hebrew language were limited in number. In 1761 he published a commentary on Maimonides’ Millot
ha-Higgayon (“Logical Terms”) and in 1769 or 1770 he published a commentary on the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. The
former volume consisted of a republication of Maimonides’
introduction to logic and philosophical primer together with
an introduction and commentary designed not only to clarify
Maimonides’ work but to bridge the distance between medieval Jewish philosophy and the regnant philosophy of Mendelssohn’s own day. The latter utilized the text of Ecclesiastes
to expound in a popular form an essentially Wolffian teaching
with regard to two principal tenets of natural religion, providence and immortality of the soul. At the end of the introduction to this commentary, Mendelssohn announced that if
it were well received he would attempt to write similar works
on Job, Proverbs, and Psalms but he never carried this plan
to completion.
What Mendelssohn did instead was to translate books of
the Bible into German. As early as 1770, in a letter to Michaelis,
he had mentioned the publication of a German translation of
Psalms, which would act as a counterbalance to the translations and commentaries written in the spirit of Christianity.
After laboring on this work for 13 years, he finally published
it in 1783. The principal work among his biblical translations
was, however, the version of the Pentateuch that accompanied
the Bi’ur, a commentary that he and a group of his associates,
including Naphtali Herz *Wessely and Herz *Homberg, collectively composed (Bi’ur, 1780–83; see *Bible: Translations,
German). This translation began, by Mendelssohn’s own account, as a project for the instruction of his sons, yet he soon
recognized its general utility. In his overall introduction to it
he explained that it was designed to provide the younger generation of Jewish students with an alternative to the extant
Yiddish translations, which failed to do justice to the beauties of the original, and the available Christian translations,
which strayed too far from the Masoretic text and traditional
rabbinic interpretations of it. Elsewhere, in a private letter to
his non-Jewish friend August Hennings, Mendelssohn described the translation as a “first step toward culture” for his
nation. The German text of the translation was written, in accordance with the custom that prevailed among German Jews,
in Hebrew characters, and the commentary, Bi’ur, in Hebrew.
In addition to serving, as David Sorkin has put it, as “a usable
digest of the medieval literalist tradition,” the commentary
provided Mendelssohn with a venue for the articulation of
the theological views that he was soon to spell out more systematically in Jerusalem.
Despite its declared conservative aims, the translation
project faced opposition from the very moment that Mendelssohn and his collaborator Solomon Dubno published a sample
of their work, entitled Alim li-Terufah (1778). Rumors of the
protestations of R. Ezekiel *Landau of Prague and actual reports of the opposition of R. Raphael Kohen of Altona soon
reached Mendelssohn along with the news of a plan to excommunicate him and a campaign to organize a united rabbinical front against the Bi’ur. Averse to any direct confrontation
with his adversaries and fully committed to the principle of
free speech, Mendelssohn sought to deter any action by Rabbi
Kohen not by silencing him but through behind-the-scenes
maneuvers. He prevailed upon his friend August Hennings
to arrange for subscriptions to the Bi’ur to be taken out in the
name of the Danish king, Christian VII, Rabbi Kohen’s sovereign. Hennings’ success in this endeavor greatly enhanced the
prestige of the maskilic literary project and earned it a measure
of immunity from its opponents’ machinations.
Immediately after its publication the Bi’ur was adopted
as a textbook for biblical instruction at the Freischule (free
school) co-founded by the brothers-in-law David *Friedlaender and Daniel Itzig. While Mendelssohn was not directly
involved in the founding of this school, he nevertheless supported it and also contributed to its revolutionary new textbook, the Lesebuch fuer jüdische Kinder (“Reader for Jewish
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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
mendelssohn, moses
Children”), in which he published a translation of Maimonides’ 13 Articles of Faith. The last of Mendelssohn’s biblical translations to appear in print was his translation of the
Song of Songs with commentary, which was published posthumously (1788).
Activities for the Improvement of the Civic Status of the
Jews
Prior to the controversy with Lavater, Mendelssohn had not
campaigned for the improvement of the civic status of the
Jews, but from the 1770s onward he became something of an
activist on their behalf. He willingly replied to anyone who
came to him for counsel or guidance, endeavoring to assist
within the limits of his means any Jew who had been overtaken
by misfortune or who had become embroiled in difficulties
with the authorities. He also came to the aid of beleaguered
Jewish communities, taking advantage of his reputation in order to request help from various renowned personages whom
he had befriended. After receiving an appeal for help from the
tiny Jewish community of Switzerland in 1775, he enlisted none
other than Lavater in a successful effort to forestall imminent
anti-Jewish measures. When the community of Dresden was
threatened by an expulsion order in 1777, he prevailed upon
one of the leading officials of Saxony, who ranked among his
admirers, to prevent any action against it. In the same year his
brief on behalf of the community of Königsberg enabled it to
refute the accusation that the Aleinu prayer was anti-Christian and led to the abrogation of the royal edict requiring the
presence of a government-appointed “supervisor” in the city’s
synagogue during the recitation of prayers. Yet Mendelssohn
did not always see eye to eye with the people who requested his
assistance. In 1772, when the duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
issued an order to his Jewish subjects prohibiting the religious
custom of immediate burial and requiring a three-day waiting period before interment, the local community called upon
Mendelssohn to intercede on its behalf. He dutifully composed
a memorandum to the duke in which he recommended that
the Jews be permitted to maintain their existing custom as long
as they obtained medical certification of death prior to burial.
At the same time, he maintained in his correspondence with
the Jews of Mecklenburg-Schwerin that their resistance to the
duke was unwarranted, since the three-day waiting period was
reasonable, prudent, and not without ancient precedent and
talmudic justification. While his memorandum inspired the
duke to replace his earlier edict with a regulation along the
lines of his suggestion, his letter to the community met with
the disapproval of the local rabbi. More importantly, it also
aroused the ire of Jacob *Emden, who accused Mendelssohn
of being too ready to relinquish the requirements of Jewish
law and to adopt the ways of the Gentiles. Even in the face of
Emden’s dire warnings that he was increasingly being regarded
as someone who was edging toward heresy, however, Mendelssohn did not retreat from his position on this matter.
Mendelssohn’s involvement in the public debate on the
civic status of the Jews commenced with a request emanating
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
from France. Cerf Berr, the leading figure in Alsatian Jewry,
asked Mendelssohn in 1780 to write a memorandum on the
question of the rights of the Jews to be submitted to the French
Council of State. Believing that it was Gentiles – enlightened
Christians who sought an improved society – who should
raise this question, Mendelssohn turned to Ch.W. von *Dohm,
who participated in the composition of the memorandum and
shortly thereafter wrote his Ueber die buergerliche Verbesserung
der Juden (Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of
the Jews, 1781), which became the classic work in the struggle
for Jewish emancipation. Despite his broad sympathy with the
aims of this volume, Mendelssohn was not completely satisfied
with it in every aspect. He expressed his reservations in his
introduction to a German translation of the apologetic tract
composed a century earlier by *Manasseh Ben Israel, Vindiciae
Judaeorum (1782). Contesting Dohm’s negative appraisal of the
Jews’ economic role, Mendelssohn insisted upon the productivity and usefulness of Jewish merchants and middlemen. He
rejected Dohm’s recommendation to preserve a limited judicial autonomy for the Jewish community and especially his
argument that the community ought to retain the right of excommunication. According to Mendelssohn, the exercise of
religious coercion of any kind was utterly unwarranted and
incompatible with the spirit of “true, divine religion.”
The views of Dohm and Mendelssohn aroused criticism and controversies. Among the critics was J.D. Michaelis
(1717–1791), a theologian and professor of Semitic languages,
who decades earlier, in his review of Lessing’s play The Jews
(1754), had denied that a Jew could exemplify a noble person.
Now Michaelis argued that the Jews’ anticipation of the arrival of the messiah and their return to Zion together with
their burdensome laws made it impossible for them to identify
completely with their host country or to fulfill civic obligations, such as military service. Mendelssohn retorted that the
Jews’ messianic hopes would have no influence whatsoever on
their conduct as citizens and that they had in any event been
expressly forbidden by the Talmud even to think of returning
to Palestine on their own initiative. He brushed off concerns
that the Jews would be unable to serve in the military by noting that they, no less than the Christians before them, would
know “how to modify their convictions and to adjust them
to their civic duty.”
Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem
Among the reactions to Mendelssohn’s introduction was
a pamphlet, published anonymously in 1782, entitled Das
Forschen nach Licht und Recht in einem Schreiben an Herrn
Moses Mendelssohn auf Veranlassung seiner merkwürdigen
Vorrede zu Menasseh Ben Israel (The Search for Light and Right,
an Epistle to Moses Mendelssohn occasioned by his Remarkable
Preface to Menasseh ben Israel). Now known to have been authored by a minor writer by the name of August Friedrich
Cranz, the pamphlet accused Mendelssohn of having undermined the authority of Judaism with his blanket denial of the
legitimacy of any form of religious coercion. “Clearly,” Cranz
37
mendelssohn, moses
wrote, “ecclesiastical law armed with coercive power has always been one of the cornerstones of the Jewish religion of
your fathers… How then can you, good Mr. Mendelssohn,
profess attachment to the religion of your forefathers, while
you are shaking its fabric, by impugning the ecclesiastical code
established by Moses in consequence of divine revelation?”
On this occasion, Mendelssohn felt that it was his duty to answer his critic and wrote his Jerusalem primarily in order to
do so. But the book ranged far beyond an answer to Cranz to
articulate a full-blown philosophy of Judaism, the first to be
developed in modern times.
JUDAISM. Drawing a fundamental distinction between the
supernatural revelation of a religion and supernatural legislation, Mendelssohn identified Judaism exclusively with the
latter. The former, he argued, does not truly exist, since God
makes known the basic truths of religion – the existence and
unity of God, divine providence, and the immortality of the
soul – not by disclosing them miraculously to any particular
group of people but by granting all men the degree of reason
required to grasp them. Revelation could not, in any case, convince any man of the validity of something his reason could
not understand. Nor would a just God ever have vouchsafed
the truths indispensable to human happiness to some peoples
and not to others. What distinguished the people of Israel was
not their religion, with which they had presumably been imbued already prior to the Sinaitic revelation, but the unique
laws, statutes and commandments that were given to them on
that occasion. That God spoke at Sinai is for Mendelssohn a
vérité de fait, an established historical fact, because it was indubitably witnessed by the entire people of Israel. The best statement of the quintessence of the legislation He then revealed,
according to Mendelssohn, was the one uttered by Hillel the
Elder: “Love thy neighbor as thyself. This is the text of the law;
all the rest is commentary.” But in Jerusalem Mendelssohn devoted his energies much less to an elucidation of the humanitarian dimension of biblical law than to a somewhat tentative
explanation of the purpose for the rituals it prescribed.
Although humankind possessed from the outset the
capacity to grasp on its own the fundamental truths of natural religion, Mendelssohn wrote, it eventually descended
into idolatry. To account for this corruption of religion he
resorted to what was, in Alexander Altmann’s opinion, “the
least substantiated of all theories he ever advanced.” The primary cause of the religious deterioration of humankind was,
according to this theory, hieroglyphic script. Men initially
employed hieroglyphic signs derived from images of animals
to symbolize the deity. In the course of time, however, they
fell victim to their own misunderstanding and the manipulations of unscrupulous priestly hypocrites and came to regard these signs themselves as deities, to worship them and
even to offer human sacrifices to them. In response to this
debasement of humankind, Mendelssohn maintained, God
ordained the ceremonial law of the Pentateuch. Through its
eschewal of all imagery and its concentration on actions this
law avoided the hazards of hieroglyphic script. Its main purpose, however, was not prophylactic but positive – to connect vital knowledge with required practices. The ceremonial
laws “guide the inquiring intelligence to divine truths, partly
to eternal and partly to historical truths” upon which Judaism is founded. God gave the commandments only to Israel,
but He did not do so, according to Mendelssohn, for its sake
alone. Israel was to be a priestly nation, a nation that “through
its laws, actions, vicissitudes, and changes was continually to
call attention to sound and unadulterated ideas of God and
His attributes. It was incessantly to teach, to proclaim, and to
endeavor to preserve these ideas among the nations, by means
of its mere existence, as it were.”
At the conclusion of Jerusalem Mendelssohn indicated
how his account of Judaism was meant to dispel the objections
raised by “the Searcher after Light and Right.” Composed of
religious doctrines acquired by purely rational means and a
revealed legislation designed to remind its practitioners of
these truths as well as their own people’s historical record,
Judaism cannot be conceived as a religion authorizing temporal punishments for unbelievers or those who adhere to
false doctrines. While it is true that the original constitution
of Israel provided for a polity in which religion and state were
identical and in which a “religious villain” was a criminal, this
“Mosaic constitution” existed only once and has disappeared
from the face of the earth. Since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, religious offenses have ceased to be offenses
against the state and the Jewish religion “knows of no punishment, no other penalty than the one the remorseful sin-
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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
STATE AND RELIGION. In the first part of Jerusalem Mendelssohn expounded a political theory clarifying the grounds for
his opposition to religious coercion. His account of “the origin of the rights of coercion” belonging to the state restricted
such rights to the sphere of transferable goods. This does
not encompass convictions, inalienable by their very nature.
Hence the state can never acquire the right to make any religious demands upon its citizens, and its grant of even the
smallest privilege or exclusive right to members of any particular religion is entirely devoid of legitimacy. Mendelssohn
nevertheless advised the state not to intervene directly but to
“see to it from afar” that such subversive doctrines as “atheism and Epicureanism” are not propagated in its midst. And
he declared churches no more entitled than states to resort to
coercion in matters of faith, since “a religious action is religious only to the degree to which it is performed voluntarily
and with proper intent.” Only after having thus reiterated and
amplified his opposition to religious coercion of any kind did
Mendelssohn refer to the claim of The Search for Light and
Right that his own adherence to Judaism was incompatible
with his liberal principles. Once he had restated Cranz’s argument, he acknowledged that it cut him to the heart but did
not hasten to refute it. He first explained more systematically
and in greater detail than ever before why he remained convinced of the veracity of Judaism and what he considered to
be its nature and purpose.
mendelssohn, moses
ner voluntarily imposes on himself.” Contemporary Judaism
could thus be seen to be fully in accord with Mendelssohn’s
own liberal principles, even if the original “Mosaic constitution” was not.
Jerusalem evoked little response in the Jewish community. Rabbis and maskilim alike paid only very limited attention to it. In the years following its publication Mendelssohn
learned to his dismay that he would find few supporters for
the positions he took in Jerusalem. Enlightened thinkers who
shared his appreciation of natural religion were alienated by
his reaffirmation of revelation and his insistence on the obligatory character of the ceremonial law. The orthodox rejected his
absolute denial of the right of religious institutions to wield coercive authority, and the earliest representatives of what Isaiah
Berlin called the “Counter-Enlightenment” assailed the very
rationalism in which his arguments were rooted.
Appreciation and Influence
The Leibniz/Wolffian philosophy that Mendelssohn spent a
lifetime defending did not long survive his own demise. Its
foundations were undermined by Immanuel Kant – a fact
that Mendelssohn recognized toward the end of his life. Nor
did the philosophy of Judaism that Mendelssohn outlined in
the Bi’ur, Jerusalem, and elsewhere provide a satisfactory understanding of their religion for more than a few of the inquiring minds of the coming generations. Nor, finally, did
Mendelssohn’s efforts to win equal rights for European Jews
yield any immediate results. On the other hand, there is no
doubt that Mendelssohn’s contribution to Jewish thought
served as a reference point, focus, and challenge to later thinkers. From the standpoint of the history of modern Jewish philosophy, or the history of biblical translation and exegesis,
Mendelssohn’s thinking with regard to the age of emancipation and secularization are of great importance. Thus on topics such as the place of the Jewish community in the modern
state, the validity of halakhah, the belief in divine revelation,
the relations between religion and community, the question
of coercion in religious matters, and the status of the commandments, Mendelssohn not only asked questions, but also
proposed answers that were of great significance for modern
Jewish thought. Finally, his Bi’ur played an incalculably large
role in fostering the development of the Haskalah in Eastern Europe.
Already in his own time Mendelssohn became a legend
and in the centuries after his death he became a symbolic hero
or villain to Jews of very different stripes. In the 19t century
Jewish historians in Germany proudly placed Mendelssohn at
the threshold of a new era in the history of the Jews, cementing his image as the founding father of the Haskalah and the
patron saint of Germany Jewry. They placed special emphasis
on his role as the first harbinger of a favorable turning point in
Gentile-Jewish relations in the European states. The deep ties
of friendship between Mendelssohn and Lessing were represented as the ideal model of the longed-for future, a symbol
of the respectable status and legal equality finally obtained by
German Jewry nearly a century after Mendelssohn’s death.
Above all, this friendship represented in the eyes of German
Jewish historians and thinkers the beginnings of a moderate
integration of the Jews into German life, a social absorption
that stopped short of complete assimilation. For Mendelssohn, as the chroniclers of his life and times correctly noted,
knew how to parry all attempts to bring him over to Christianity. The writings of these historians and thinkers, for whom
Mendelssohn was a cultural hero of enormous proportions,
reflected the predominant image of Mendelssohn in the cultural memory of German Jewry. Mendelssohn was the Jew
with whom it was easy to identify, the Jew who brought honor
to Judaism, who proved that a modern Jew can simultaneously
be a loyal German citizen at home in the German language
and German culture and maintain his ties to the Jewish community and Jewish culture. In the eyes of many he was the prototype of the age of Jewish emancipation and integration into
the middle class and served as a kind of entrance ticket into
the state and society. Thus the historical Mendelssohn became
a very precious resource to German Jews, who for many years
had again and again to prove in the public arena their fitness to
be accepted and to be treated no differently from members of
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
39
The “Pantheism Controversy”
Mendelssohn’s most consequential brush with the CounterEnlightenment resulted not from the publication of Jerusalem
but from his plan to produce an essay on the character of his
lifelong friend, G.E. Lessing, who had died in 1781. Lessing,
whose early support had been so crucial to Mendelssohn, had
always been an interlocutor whom he cherished, even when
they disagreed over matters of great importance, such as the
views he had expressed in his Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (The Education of the Human Race) on the nature
of revelation and human progress. Lessing, for his part, had
composed shortly before his death his famous play in support
of religious toleration, Nathan the Wise, whose eponymous
hero was unmistakably patterned after Mendelssohn himself.
Upon learning in 1783 from one of his friends, Elise Reimarus, that Mendelssohn was on the brink of returning Lessing’s literary favor by writing an essay extolling his deceased
friend’s character, Friedrich Jacobi, one of the avatars of the
Counter-Enlightenment, claimed that Lessing had admitted
to him during the last years of his life that he had been a Spinozist. What Jacobi wished to do was not so much to expose
Lessing’s clandestine heresy as to point to Lessing’s intellectual
evolution as evidence supporting his own general thesis that
reason necessarily leads to nihilism. What he succeeded in
doing was to deflect Mendelssohn from his original purpose
and to force him to interpret Lessing’s alleged Spinozism in
a way that warded off any distressingly close association between the thought of the Enlightenment and the philosophy of
a man reviled almost everywhere as an atheist. Mendelssohn’s
arduous efforts to do this in the face of Jacobi’s relentless attacks sapped his remaining strength. A few days after he sent
to his publisher his last work on this subject, An die Freunde
Lessings (“To Lessing’s Friends,” 1786), he died.
mendelssohn hensel, fanny caecilie
the majority. Mendelssohn became the ideal representative of
those who dreamed of German-Jewish relations in far-reaching terms of “symbiosis.”
At the very same time that this Mendelssohn myth grew
and flourished, the spokesmen of the more conservative camp
in modern Jewish society developed a counter-myth. The
members of this camp vigorously repudiated the ideas of
change and transition in the fate of the Jews that were linked to
the historical Mendelssohn and denied the necessity for breaking out of the confines of the traditional, religious Jewish way
of life. They looked with alarm on the processes of modernization and dreaded a general collapse of the structure of Jewish life. The increasing focus on studies outside the realm of
Torah, particularly philosophy, seemed to them to be the gateway to apostasy. In these people’s eyes Mendelssohn loomed
as a demonic historical figure, a destructive force responsible
for all the crises of the modern era: assimilation, the demolition of the traditional community, the loss of faith, religious
permissiveness, and the weakening of the authority of the rabbinical elite. They painted a picture of the past diametrically
opposed to that of enlightened, liberal Jewry.
Over the years, both Mendelssohn’s admirers and detractors have seen him through a similar lens: both the myth and
the counter-myth assigned him the proportions of a giant possessing enormous power to set the wheels of Jewish history in
motion. They identified him for better or worse as the man who
represented, symbolized, and sparked all the forces of change
of the modern era: Haskalah, religious reform, secularization,
assimilation, and integration and the rest of the terms that
generally describe the processes of modernization that have
influenced the Jews over the course of the past two and a half
centuries. In recent decades, however, modern scholarship on
Mendelssohn has taken a more objective, balanced, and nuanced approach that has consisted of efforts to demythologize
him without overlooking his importance. Mendelssohn is no
longer considered to have been the founder of the Haskalah
movement, which was actually initiated by the members of a
younger generation, the most prominent among them being
Isaac *Euchel. Scholars now view him less in emblematic terms
than as a man whose life was highly complex and full of frustrations, conflicts, dreams, and disappointments.
Modernity (2002); D. Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious
Enlightenment (1996).
[Alfred Jospe and Leni Yahil / Allan Arkush and
Shmuel Feiner (2nd ed.)]
Bibliography: H.M.Z. Meyer, Moses Mendelssohn Bibliographie (1965); Shunami, Bibl., no. 5, 3953–57; A. Altmann, Moses
Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (1973); A. Arkush, Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment (1994); E. Breuer, The Limits of the Enlightenment: Jews, Germans and the Enlightenment Study of Scripture
(1996); S. Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment (2004); S. Feiner, Moses
Mendelssohn (Heb., 2005); J. Hess, Germans Jews and the Claims of
MENDELSSOHN HENSEL, FANNY CAECILIE (1805–
1847), pianist and composer. Born in Hamburg, the eldest
of four children of Lea and Abraham Mendelssohn, she was
part of a close family circle that included many intellectuals,
including her grandfather, Moses *Mendelssohn. Along with
her siblings, Fanny was secretly converted to Christianity by
her father, Abraham, in 1816. He and his wife were baptized
in 1822. The name “Bartholdy,” which came from a family real
estate holding, was then added to their surname to establish
them as Christian and distinct from their Jewish extended
family. The Mendelssohn Bartholdys distanced themselves
from Judaism, but continued relationships with Jewish relatives. For them, Protestant Christianity reflected the highest
levels of civilization, morality, enlightenment ideals, and toleration. Despite their conversions and dedication to German
culture, the family experienced antisemitism at many levels.
Fanny was well educated. In 1820 she and her brother
Felix *Mendelssohn, also a child prodigy, were admitted to
the Sing-Akademie in Berlin under C.F. Zelter. While Fanny
Mendelssohn displayed extraordinary musical talents, her
professional ambitions were not encouraged. Although she
and Felix both studied composition with Zelter, Fanny was
always told that her future was to be a wife and mother. Felix, with whom she had a complex relationship, delighted in
her musical compositions but discouraged their publication.
Fanny advised Felix on his compositions and greatly aided
him on various projects. The siblings had an important musical collaboration throughout their lives that has only recently
been recognized.
Fanny met the artist Wilhem Hensel, the son of a Lutheran pastor, when she was 15. Despite her mother’s objections, they married in 1829 and had one child, Sebastian, in
1832. Her husband encouraged not only her piano playing but
her composition and conducting.
Fanny composed lieder, cantatas, and instrumental works
for her own family and friends’ entertainment. According to
the fashion in Berlin, she held musical salons, Sonntagsmusik,
at her family home, where she performed, conducted, and
gave life to some of her own music. Over the years, her series
grew in reputation and Berlin society, nobility, and famous
personalities such as Franz Liszt attended and admired the
skills of Frau Hensel.
In 1846, Mendelssohn composed her masterpiece, the
Trio in D Minor for Piano, Violin and Cello, and in that same
year, with Felix’s blessing, she published Sechs Lieder, Opus 1
(1846) and Vier Lieder fuer das Pianoforte, Opus 2 (1846). The
following year she continued to release compositions, some of
her Gartenlieder: Sechs Gesange fuer Sopran, Alto, Tenor und
Bass, Opus 3 (1847), Six Melodies for Piano, Opus 4, no. 1–3
and Opus 5, no. 4–6 (1847). Additional works were published
40
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14
Collected Works and Translations of Works
The Jubiläumsausgabe of Mendelssohn’s collected works
(Stuttgart, 1971–2004) now includes 24 volumes. English
translations include Jerusalem and other Jewish Writings (by A.
Jospe, 1969), Moses Mendelssohn: Selections from his Writings
(E. Jospe, 1975), Jerusalem (by A. Arkush, 1983), Philosophical
Writings (D. Dahlstrom, 1997).
Hay, Jeff T. "yeshiva." In The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of World Religions,
edited by Linda Holler, 333-334. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Gale
eBooks (accessed January 21, 2023). https://link-gale
com.libproxy.utdallas.edu/apps/doc/CX3205600400/GVRL?
u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=720ce98b.
Yahweh
The God of Judaism as revealed to the
Prophet Moses on Mount Sinai during the
era of the exodus. Yahweh is an elaboration of the four Hebrew language letters
YHWH, also known as the Tetragrammaton. The Orthodox Jewish tradition considers the name too holy to be pronounced
out loud or even written, as do many individual Jews in other traditions. In writing, it is often depicted as Y**H. In synagogue and other rituals, meanwhile, other
names of God are used, such as Elohim,
which means simply “god,” and Adonai, or
“my Lord.” The precise meaning of the
name is unclear, with many scholars believing that it refers to “He who brings
into existence” or even simply “I am.” “Jehovah” is a Christian variation of the
name.
SEE ALSO: Elohim; Exodus; Jehovah
Yasukuni Shrine
A major Shinto shrine in Tokyo, Japan,
and a source of controversy in recent years.
Yasukuni Shrine was built in 1869, during
Japan’s era of State Shinto. It’s purpose
was to commemorate the war deaths of
those who sacrificed themselves for Japan
in the years from 1853 to 1945, which are
thought to number around 2.5 million and
who include many women and children as
well as men. The shrine is thought to hold
the kami, which might be translated as
“spirits” in this context, of all of those
people. It also contains records of their
names in a Book of Souls. The Yasukuni
The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of World Religions
Shrine, whose name means “peaceful
country,” has therefore come to be a kind
of national shrine to some believers.
Among those revered at the shrine are one
thousand Japanese soldiers convicted as
war criminals after World War II; among
them are fourteen “class A” war criminals
who were executed for their actions.
Until 1945 and the end of State Shinto,
the Yasukuni Shrine was a governmentsponsored institution. Since then it has
been supported privately. Some 8 million
people visit the shrine every year, mostly
to pay respects to the ancestors whose
souls are still thought capable of intervening in everyday life. In recent years, Japanese prime ministers and other important
politicians have made regular visits to the
shrine, and some have even tried to restore its official status. This has given rise
to controversy, since to many non-Japanese
these visits imply a restoration of a “nationalized” form of worship and a rejection of Japan’s World War II crimes.
SEE ALSO: Ise shrines; kami; State Shinto
yeshiva
In its broadest sense, a Jewish school emphasizing study of the Torah. The yeshivas, or yeshivot in Hebrew, are most commonly associated with Orthodox and other
traditionalist forms of Judaism and are ostensibly designed to train and ordain rabbis. Other students tend to receive their
Jewish educations in other institutions. Yeshivot were derived from the so-called bet
333
yin-yang
The traditional symbol of yin and yang, or Taijitu. © ROYALTY FREE/CORBIS
Midrash (“house of study”) of the Talmudic period of the first millennium.
Yeshiva students are all male and range
in age from the midteens to the midtwenties. Their study generally takes the form
of the examination, in small groups, of a
particular Talmudic text. Then the students
will hear a rabbi’s lecture on that text, followed by further examination and discussion. Although yeshiva methods have been
criticized for their narrowness, at the heart
of these methods is the encouragement of
students to become active participants in
the centuries-old Talmudic tradition.
SEE ALSO: madrasas; Orthodox Judaism;
Talmud
yin-yang
A central idea in Chinese thought and religion but which is most common in Dao334
ism. Yin-yang represents the balance of
opposite but complementary forces. This
balance of opposites is thought to be necessary for the preservation of both cosmic
and earthly order. Yin is generally thought
of as female, or as dark, cold, the earth, or
the moon. It is also associated with passivity and acceptance, and its common animal symbol is the tiger. Yang forces are
male and active, and are connected to the
sun, light, heat, and the skies. Its animal
symbol is the dragon. Even though such
forces are thought to be in opposition,
they are not necessarily the source of tension, as they are commonly thought to be
in Western philosophy. Instead they
complement one another, and to bring
both into balance is necessary for complete wholeness. In the famous symbol of
the yin-yang, opposites are represented by
a black and a white sylized half circle, both
The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of World Religions
PERSPECTIVE
published: 21 June 2017
doi: 10.3389/fgene.2017.00087
The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic
Jews, and Yiddish
Ranajit Das 1 , Paul Wexler 2 , Mehdi Pirooznia 3 and Eran Elhaik 4*
Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences, Manipal University, Manipal, India, 2 Department of Linguistics, Tel Aviv University,
Tel-Aviv, Israel, 3 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States,
4
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
1
Edited by:
Stéphane Joost,
École Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne, Switzerland
Reviewed by:
Pavel Flegontov,
University of Ostrava, Czechia
Lounès Chikhi,
Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS), France
Erika Hagelberg,
University of Oslo, Norway
*Correspondence:
Eran Elhaik
e.elhaik@sheffield.ac.uk
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Evolutionary and Population Genetics,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Genetics
Received: 02 October 2016
Accepted: 07 June 2017
Published: 21 June 2017
Citation:
Das R, Wexler P, Pirooznia M and
Elhaik E (2017) The Origins of
Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and
Yiddish. Front. Genet. 8:87.
doi: 10.3389/fgene.2017.00087
Frontiers in Genetics | www.frontiersin.org
Recently, the geographical origins of Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) and their native language
Yiddish were investigated by applying the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) to a
cohort of exclusively Yiddish-speaking and multilingual AJs. GPS localized most AJs
along major ancient trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to primeval villages
with names that resemble the word “Ashkenaz.” These findings were compatible with
the hypothesis of an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish and
at odds with the Rhineland hypothesis advocating a Levantine origin for AJs and German
origins for Yiddish. We discuss how these findings advance three ongoing debates
concerning (1) the historical meaning of the term “Ashkenaz;” (2) the genetic structure
of AJs and their geographical origins as inferred from multiple studies employing both
modern and ancient DNA and original ancient DNA analyses; and (3) the development of
Yiddish. We provide additional validation to the non-Levantine origin of AJs using ancient
DNA from the Near East and the Levant. Due to the rising popularity of geo-localization
tools to address questions of origin, we briefly discuss the advantages and limitations of
popular tools with focus on the GPS approach. Our results reinforce the non-Levantine
origins of AJs.
Keywords: Yiddish, Ashkenazic Jews, Ashkenaz, geographic population structure (GPS), Archaeogenetics,
Rhineland hypothesis, ancient DNA
BACKGROUND
The geographical origin of the Biblical “Ashkenaz,” Ashkenazic Jews (AJs), and Yiddish, are among
the longest standing questions in history, genetics, and linguistics.
Uncertainties concerning the meaning of “Ashkenaz” arose in the Eleventh century when the
term shifted from a designation of the Iranian Scythians to become that of Slavs and Germans and
finally of “German” (Ashkenazic) Jews in the Eleventh to Thirteenth centuries (Wexler, 1993). The
first known discussion of the origin of German Jews and Yiddish surfaced in the writings of the
Hebrew grammarian Elia Baxur in the first half of the Sixteenth century (Wexler, 1993).
It is well established that history is also reflected in the DNA through relationships
between genetics, geography, and language (e.g., Cavalli-Sforza, 1997; Weinreich, 2008). Max
Weinreich, the doyen of the field of modern Yiddish linguistics, has already emphasized the
truism that the history of Yiddish mirrors the history of its speakers. These relationships
prompted Das et al. (2016) to address the question of Yiddish origin by analyzing
the genomes of Yiddish-speaking AJs, multilingual AJs, and Sephardic Jews using the
Geographical Population Structure (GPS), which localizes genomes to where they experienced
the last major admixture event. GPS traced nearly all AJs to major ancient trade
routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to four primeval villages whose names resemble
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Das et al.
The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish
descendants (Genesis 10:3) and as a reference to the kingdom
of Ashkenaz, prophesied to be called together with Ararat
and Minnai to wage war against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27). In
addition to tracing AJs to the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz
and uncovering the villages whose names may derive from
“Ashkenaz,” the partial Iranian origin of AJs, inferred by Das
et al. (2016), was further supported by the genetic similarity of
AJs to Sephardic Mountain Jews and Iranian Jews as well as their
similarity to Near Eastern populations and simulated “native”
Turkish and Caucasus populations.
There are good grounds, therefore, for inferring that Jews who
considered themselves Ashkenazic adopted this name and spoke
of their lands as Ashkenaz, since they perceived themselves as of
Iranian origin. That we find varied evidence of the knowledge
of Iranian language among Moroccan and Andalusian Jews and
Karaites prior to the Eleventh century is a compelling point
“Ashkenaz:” İşkenaz (or Eşkenaz), Eşkenez (or Eşkens), Aşhanas,
and Aschuz. Evaluated in light of the Rhineland and IranoTurko-Slavic hypotheses (Das et al., 2016, Table 1) the findings
supported the latter, implying that Yiddish was created by SlavoIranian Jewish merchants plying the Silk Roads. We discuss
these findings from historical, genetic, and linguistic perspectives
and calculate the genetic similarity of AJs and Middle Eastern
populations to ancient genomes from Anatolia, Iran, and the
Levant. We lastly review briefly the advantages and limitation of
bio-localization tools and their application in genetic research.
THE HISTORICAL MEANING OF
ASHKENAZ
“Ashkenaz” is one of the most disputed Biblical placenames.
It appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name of one of Noah’s
TABLE 1 | Major open questions regarding the origin of the term “Ashkenaz,” AJs, and Yiddish as explained by two competing hypotheses.
Open questions
Rhineland hypothesis
Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis
Evidence in favor of the Irano-Turko-Slavic
hypothesis
The term “Ashkenaz”
Originally affiliated with the people living
north of Biblical Israel (Aptroot, 2016) or
north of the Black Sea (Wexler, 1991).
Used in Hebrew and Yiddish sources from
the Eleventh century onward to denote a
region in what is now roughly Southern
Germany (Wexler, 1991; Aptroot, 2016).
Judaean living in Judaea until 70 A.D. who
were exiled by the Romans (King, 2001)
and remained in relative isolation from
neighboring non-Jewish communities
during and after the Diaspora (Hammer
et al., 2000; Ostrer, 2001). This scenario
has no historical (Sand, 2009) nor genetic
support (Figure 1B) (e.g., Elhaik, 2013,
2016; Xue et al., 2017).
After the arrival of Palestinian Jews to
Roman lands, Jewish merchants and
soldiers arrived to German lands with the
Roman army and settled there (King,
2001). This scenario has no historical
support (Wexler, 1993; Sand, 2009).
Denotes an Iranian people “near Armenia,”
presumably Scythians known as aškuza,
ašguza, or išguza in Assyrian inscriptions of the
early Seventh century B.C. (Wexler, 2012,
2016).
GPS analysis uncovered four primeval villages
in northeastern Turkey whose names resemble
“Ashkenaz,” at least one of which predates any
major Jewish settlement in Germany (Das
et al., 2016). “Ashkenaz” is thereby a
placename associated with the Near East and
its inhabitants both Jews and non-Jews.
AJs exhibit high genetic similarity to
populations living in Turkey and the Caucasus
(Das et al., 2016). All bio-location analyses
predicted AJs to Turkey (Figure 1A). Ancient
DNA analyses provide strong evidence of the
Iranian Neolithic ancestry of AJs (Figure 1B)
(Lazaridis et al., 2016).
Jews from the Khazar Empire and the former
Iranian Empire plying the old Roman trade
routes (Rabinowitz, 1945, 1948) and Silk
Roads began to settle in the mixed
Germano-Sorbian lands during the first
Millennium (Sand, 2009; Wexler, 2011).
Yiddish’s emergence in
the 9th century
Between the Ninth and Tenth centuries,
French- and Italian-speaking Jewish
immigrants adopted and adapted the local
German dialects (Weinreich, 2008).
Upon arrival to German lands, Western and
Eastern Slavic went through a relexification to
German, creating what became known as
Yiddish (Wexler, 2012).
Growth of Eastern
European Jewry
A small group of German Jews migrated
to Eastern Europe and reproduced via a
so-called “demographic miracle”
(Ben-Sasson, 1976; Atzmon et al., 2010;
Ostrer, 2012), which resulted in an
unnatural growth rate (1.7–2% annually)
(van Straten and Snel, 2006; van Straten,
2007) over half a millennium acting only on
Jews residing in Eastern Europe. This
explanation is unsupported by the data.
During the half millennium (740–1,250 CE),
Khazar and Iranian lands harbored the largest
Eurasian Jewish centers. Ashkenazic, Khazar,
and Iranian Jews then sent offshoots into the
Slavic lands (Baron, 1957; Sand, 2009).
The ancestral origin of
Ashkenazic Jews
The arrival of Jews to
German lands
A minority of Judaean emigrants and a majority
of Irano-Turko-Slavic converts to Judaism
(Wexler, 2012).
Ashkenazic Jews were predicted to a Near
Eastern hub of ancient trade routes that
connected Europe, Asia, and the northern
Caucasus (Das et al., 2016). The findings imply
that migration to Europe took place initially
through trade routes going west and later
through Khazar lands.
Xue et al.’s (2017) inferred “admixture time” of
960–1,416 AD corresponds to a time period
during which AJ have experienced major
demographic changes. At that time, AJs were
speculated to have absorbed Slavic people,
developed Slavic Yiddish, and intensified the
migration to Europe (Das et al., 2016).
Most of the Ashkenazic Jews were predicted to
Northeastern Turkey and the remaining
individuals clustered along a gradient going
from Turkey to Eastern European lands (Das
et al., 2016). This is in agreement with the
recorded conversions of populations living
along the southern shores of the Black Sea to
Judaism (Baron, 1937). A German origin of AJs
is unsupported by the data (Figure 1A).
The genetic evidence produced by Das et al. (2016) is shown in the last column.
Frontiers in Genetics | www.frontiersin.org
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Das et al.
The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish
FIGURE 1 | The localization of AJs and their ancient admixture proportions compared to neighboring populations. (A) Geographical predictions of individuals analyzed
in three separate studies employing different tools: Elhaik (2013, Figure 4) (blue), Behar et al. (2013, Figure 2B) (red), and Das et al. (2016, Figure 4) (dark green for AJs
who have four AJ grandparents and light green for the rest) are shown. Color matching mean and standard deviation (bars) of the longitude and latitude are shown for
each cohort. Since we were unsuccessful in obtaining the data points of Behar et al. (2013, Figure 2B) from the corresponding author, we procured 78% of the data
points from their figure. Due to the low quality of their figure we were unable to reliably extract the remaining data points. (B) Supervised ADMIXTURE results. For
brevity, subpopulations were collapsed. The x axis represents individuals. Each individual is represented by a vertical stacked column of color-coded admixture
proportions that reflect genetic contributions from ancient Hunter-Gatherer, Anatolian, Levantine, and Iranian individuals.
of reference to assess the shared Iranian origins of Sephardic
and Ashkenazic Jews (Wexler, 1996). Moreover, Iranian-speaking
Jews in the Caucasus (the so-called Juhuris) and Turkic-speaking
Jews in the Crimea prior to World War II called themselves
“Ashkenazim” (Weinreich, 2008).
The Rhineland hypothesis cannot explain why a name that
denotes “Scythians” and was associated with the Near East
became associated with German lands in the Eleventh to
Thirteenth centuries (Wexler, 1993). Aptroot (2016) suggested
that Jewish immigrants in Europe transferred Biblical names
onto the regions in which they settled. This is unconvincing.
Biblical names were used as place names only when they had
similar sounds. Not only Germany and Ashkenaz do not share
Frontiers in Genetics | www.frontiersin.org
similar sounds, but Germany was already named “Germana,” or
“Germamja” in the Iranian (“Babylonian”) Talmud (completed in
the Fifth century A.D.) and, not surprisingly, was associated with
Noah’s grandson Gomer (Talmud, Yoma 10a). Name adoption
also occurred when the exact place names were in doubt as
in the case of Sefarad (Spain). This is not the case here, as
Aptroot too notes, since “Ashkenaz” had a known and clear
geographical affiliation (Table 1). Finally, Germany was known
to French scholars like the RaDaK (1160–1235) as “Almania”
(Sp. Alemania, Fr. Allemagne), after the Almani tribes, a term
that was also adopted by Arab scholars. Had the French scholar
Rashi (1040?-1105), interpreted aškenaz as “Germany,” it would
have been known to the RaDaK who used Rashi’s symbols.
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The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish
Therefore, Wexler’s proposal that Rashi used aškenaz in the
meaning of “Slavic” and that the term aškenaz assumed the
solitary meaning “German lands” only after the Eleventh century
in Western Europe as a result of the rise of Yiddish, is more
reasonable (Wexler, 2011). This is also supported by Das et al.’s
major findings of the only known primeval villages whose names
derive from the word “Ashkenaz” located in the ancient lands
of Ashkenaz. Our inference is therefore supported by historical,
linguistic, and genetic evidence, which has more weight as a
simple origin that can be easily explained than a more complex
scenario that involves multiple translocations.
AJs clustered away from Levantine individuals and adjacent
to Neolithic Anatolians and Late Neolithic and Bronze Age
Europeans. To evaluate these findings, we inferred the ancient
ancestries of AJs using the admixture analysis described in
Marshall et al. (2016). Briefly, we analyzed 18,757 autosomal
SNPs genotyped in 46 Palestinians, 45 Bedouins, 16 Syrians,
and eight Lebanese (Li et al., 2008) alongside 467 AJs [367 AJs
previously analyzed and 100 individuals with AJ mother) (Das
et al., 2016) that overlapped with both the GenoChip (Elhaik
et al., 2013) and ancient DNA data (Lazaridis et al., 2016). We
then carried out a supervised ADMIXTURE analysis (Alexander
and Lange, 2011) using three East European Hunter Gatherers
from Russia (EHGs) alongside six Epipaleolithic Levantines, 24
Neolithic Anatolians, and six Neolithic Iranians as reference
populations (Table S0). Remarkably, AJs exhibit a dominant
g and residual Levantine (3f
Iranian (88%)
%) ancestries, as opposed
g and 68%,
g respectively) and Palestinians (18%
g
to Bedouins (14%
g
and 58%, respectively). Only two AJs exhibit Levantine ancestries
typical to Levantine populations (Figure 1B). Repeating the
analysis with qpAdm (AdmixTools, version 4.1) (Patterson et al.,
2012), we found that AJs admixture could be modeled using
either three- (Neolithic Anatolians [46%], Neolithic Iranians
[32%], and EHGs [22%]) or two-way (Neolithic Iranians [71%]
and EHGs [29%]) migration waves (Supplementary Text).
These findings should be reevaluated when Medieval DNA
would become available. Overall, the combined results are in
a strong agreement with the predictions of the Irano-TurkoSlavic hypothesis (Table 1) and rule out an ancient Levantine
origin for AJs, which is predominant among modern-day
Levantine populations (e.g., Bedouins and Palestinians). This is
not surprising since Jews differed in cultural practices and norms
(Sand, 2011) and tended to adopt local customs (Falk, 2006).
Very little Palestinian Jewish culture survived outside of Palestine
(Sand, 2009). For example, the folklore and folkways of the Jews
in northern Europe is distinctly pre-Christian German (Patai,
1983) and Slavic in origin, which disappeared among the latter
(Wexler, 1993, 2012).
THE GENETIC STRUCTURE OF
ASHKENAZIC JEWS
AJs were localized to modern-day Turkey and found to be
genetically closest to Turkic, southern Caucasian, and Iranian
populations, suggesting a common origin in Iranian “Ashkenaz”
lands (Das et al., 2016). These findings were more compatible
with an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin
for Yiddish than with the Rhineland hypothesis, which lacks
historical, genetic, and linguistic support (Table 1) (van Straten,
2004; Elhaik, 2013). The findings have also highlighted the strong
social-cultural and genetic bonds of Ashkenazic and Iranian
Judaism and their shared Iranian origins (Das et al., 2016).
Thus far, all analyses aimed to geo-localize AJs (Behar et al.,
2013, Figure 2B; Elhaik, 2013, Figure 4; Das et al., 2016, Figure 4)
identified Turkey as the predominant origin of AJs, although they
used different approaches and datasets, in support of the IranoTurko-Slavic hypothesis (Figure 1A, Table 1). The existence of
both major Southern European and Near Eastern ancestries in
AJ genomes are also strong indictors of the Irano-Turko-Slavic
hypothesis provided the Greco-Roman history of the region
southern to the Black Sea (Baron, 1937; Kraemer, 2010). Recently,
Xue et al. (2017) applied GLOBETROTTER to a dataset of 2,540
AJs genotyped over 252,358 SNPs. The inferred ancestry profile
for AJs was 5% Western Europe, 10% Eastern Europe, 30%
Levant, and 55% Southern Europe (a Near East ancestry was not
considered by the authors). Elhaik (2013) portrayed a similar
profile for European Jews, consisting of 25–30% Middle East
and large Near Eastern–Caucasus (32–38%) and West European
(30%) ancestries. Remarkably, Xue et al. (2017) also inferred
an “admixture time” of 960–1,416 AD (≈24–40 generations
ago), which corresponds to the time AJs experienced major
geographical shifts as the Judaized Khazar kingdom diminished
and their trading networks collapsed forcing them to relocate
to Europe (Das et al., 2016). The lower boundary of that date
corresponds to the time Slavic Yiddish originated, to the best of
our knowledge.
The non-Levantine origin of AJs is further supported by
an ancient DNA analysis of six Natufians and a Levantine
Neolithic (Lazaridis et al., 2016), some of the most likely Judaean
progenitors (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2002; Frendo, 2004). In
a principle component analysis (PCA), the ancient Levantines
clustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians and
Bedouins and marginally overlapped with Arabian Jews, whereas
Frontiers in Genetics | www.frontiersin.org
THE LINGUISTIC DEBATE CONCERNING
FORMATION OF YIDDISH
The hypothesis that Yiddish has a German origin ignores
the mechanics of relexification, the linguistic process which
produced Yiddish and other “Old Jewish” languages (i.e., those
created by the Ninth to Tenth century). Understanding how
relexification operates is essential to understanding the evolution
of languages. This argument has a similar context to that of the
evolution of powered flight. Rejecting the theory of evolution
may lead one to conclude that birds and bats are close relatives.
By disregarding the literature on relexification and Jewish history
in the early Middle Ages, authors (e.g., Aptroot, 2016; Flegontov
et al., 2016) reach conclusions that have weak historical support.
The advantage of a geo-localization analysis is that it allows us
to infer the geographical origin of the speakers of Yiddish, where
they resided and with whom they intermingled, independently
of historical controversies, which provides a data driven view
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The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish
We advocate for implementing a more evolutionary
understanding in linguistics. That includes giving more attention
to the linguistic process that alter languages (e.g., relexification)
and acquiring more competence in other languages and histories.
When studying the origin of Ashkenazic Jews and Yiddish, such
knowledge should include the history of the Silk Roads and
Irano-Turkish languages.
on the question of geographical origins. This allows an objective
review of potential linguistic influences on Yiddish (Table 1),
which exposes the dangers in adopting a “linguistic creationism”
view in linguistics.
The historical evidence in favor of an Irano-Turko-Slavic
origin for Yiddish is paramount (e.g., Wexler, 1993, 2010). Jews
played a major role on the Silk Roads in the Ninth to Eleventh
century. In the mid-Ninth century, in roughly the same years,
Jewish merchants in both Mainz and at Xi’an received special
trading privileges from the Holy Roman Empire and the Tang
dynasty court (Robert, 2014). These roads linked Xi’an to Mainz
and Andalusia, and further to sub-Saharan Africa and across
to the Arabian Peninsula and India-Pakistan. The Silk Roads
provided the motivation for Jewish settlement in Afro-Eurasia
in the Ninth to Eleventh centuries since the Jews played a
dominant role on these routes as a neutral trading guild with
no political agendas (Gil, 1974; Cansdale, 1996, 1998). Hence,
the Jewish traders had contact with a wealth of languages in the
areas that they traversed (Hadj-Sadok, 1949; Khordadhbeh, 1889;
Hansen, 2012; Wexler TBD), which they brought back to their
communities nested in major trading hubs (Rabinowitz, 1945,
1948; Das et al., 2016). The central Eurasian Silk Roads were
controlled by Iranian polities, which provided opportunities for
Iranian-speaking Jews, who constituted the overwhelming bulk
of the world’s Jews from the time of Christ to the Eleventh century
(Baron, 1952). It should not come as a surprise to find that
Yiddish (and other Old Jewish languages) contains components
and rules from a large variety of languages, all of them spoken
on the Silk Roads (Khordadhbeh, 1889; Wexler, 2011, 2012,
2017).
In addition to language contacts, the Silk Roads also provided
the motivation for widespread conversion to Judaism by
populations eager to participate in the extremely lucrative trade,
which had become a Jewish quasi-monopoly along the trade
routes (Rabinowitz, 1945, 1948; Baron, 1957). These conversions
are discussed in Jewish literature between the Sixth and Eleventh
centuries, both in Europe and Iraq (Sand, 2009; Kraemer, 2010).
Yiddish and other Old Jewish languages were all created by
the peripatetic merchants as secret languages that would isolate
them from their customers and non-Jewish trading partners
(Hadj-Sadok, 1949; Gil, 1974; Khordadhbeh, 1889; Cansdale,
1998; Robert, 2014). The study of Yiddish genesis, thereby,
necessitates the study of all the Old Jewish languages of this time
period.
There is also a quantifiable amount of Iranian and Turkic
elements in Yiddish. The Babylonian Talmud, completed by the
Sixth century A.D., is rich in Iranian linguistic, legalistic, and
religious influences. From the Talmud, a large Iranian vocabulary
has entered Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic, and from there spread
to Yiddish. This corpus has been known since the 1930s and is
common knowledge to Talmud scholars (Telegdi, 1933). In the
Khazar Empire, the Eurasian Jews, plying the Silk Roads, became
speakers of Slavic—an important language because of the trading
activities of the Rus’ (pre-Ukrainians) with whom the Jews were
undoubtedly allied on the routes linking Baghdad and Bavaria.
This is evident by the existence of newly invented Hebroidism,
inspired by Slavic patterns of discourse in Yiddish (Wexler, 2010).
Frontiers in Genetics | www.frontiersin.org
INFERENCE OF GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGINS
Deciphering the origin of human populations is not a new
challenge for geneticists, yet only in the past decade highthroughput genetic data were harnessed to answer these
questions. Here, we briefly discuss the differences between the
available tools based on identity by distance. Existing PCA or
PCA-like approaches (e.g., Novembre et al., 2008; Yang et al.,
2012) can localize Europeans to countries (understood as the
last place where major admixture event took place or the place
where the four ancestors of “unmixed” individuals came from)
with less than 50% accuracy (Yang et al., 2012). The limitations of
PCA (discussed in Novembre and Stephens, 2008) appear to be
inherent in the framework where continental populations plotted
along the two primary PCs cluster in the vertices of a trianglelike shape and the remaining populations cluster along or within
the edges (e.g., Elhaik et al., 2013). There is therefore reason
to question the applicability of ambitious PCA-based methods
(Yang et al., 2012, 2014) aiming to infer multiple ancestral
locations outside of Europe. Overall, accurate localization of
worldwide individuals remains a significant challenge (Elhaik
et al., 2014).
The GPS framework assumes that humans are mixed and
that their genetic variation (admixture) can be modeled by the
proportion of genotypes assigned to any number of fixed regional
putative ancestral populations (Elhaik et al., 2014). GPS employs
a supervised ADMIXTURE analysis where the admixture
components are fixed, which allows evaluating both the test
individuals and reference populations against the same putative
ancestral populations. GPS infers the geographical coordinates
of an individual by matching their admixture proportions
with those of reference populations. Reference populations are
populations known to reside in a certain geographical region
for a substantial period of time in a time frame of hundreds
to a thousand years and can be predicted to their geographical
locations while absent from the reference population panel (Das
et al., 2016). The final geographic location of a test individual is
determined by converting the genetic distance of the individual to
m reference populations into geographic distances (Elhaik et al.,
2014). Intuitively, the reference populations can be thought of
as “pulling” the individual in their direction with a strength
proportional to their genetic similarity until a consensus is
reached (Figure S1). Interpreting the results, particularly when
the predicted location differs from the contemporary location of
the studied population, demands cautious.
Population structure is affected by biological and
demographic processes like genetic drift, which can act rapidly
on small, relatively isolated populations, as opposed to large
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The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish
non-isolated populations, and migration, which occurs more
frequently (Jobling et al., 2013). Understanding the geographyadmixture relationships necessitates knowing how relative
isolation and migration history affected the allele frequencies
of populations. Unfortunately, oftentimes we lack information
about both processes. GPS addresses this problem by analyzing
the relative proportions of admixture in a global network of
reference populations that provide us with different “snapshots”
of historical admixture events. These global admixture events
occurred at different times through different biological and
demographic processes, and their long-lasting effect is related
to our ability to associate an individual with their matching
admixture event.
In relatively isolated populations the admixture event is likely
old, and GPS would localize a test individual with their parental
population more accurately. By contrast, if the admixture event
was recent and the population did not maintain relative isolation,
GPS prediction would be erroneous (Figure S2). This is the
case of Caribbean populations, whose admixture proportions
still reflect the massive Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries’
mixture events involving Native Americans, West Europeans,
and Africans (Elhaik et al., 2014). While the original level
of isolation remains unknown, these two scenarios can be
distinguished by comparing the admixture proportions of the
test individual and adjacent populations. If this similarity is high,
we can conclude that we have inferred the likely location of the
admixture event that shaped the admixture proportion of the test
individual. If the opposite is true, the individual is either mixed
and thereby violates the assumptions of the GPS model or the
parental populations do not exist either in GPS’s reference panel
or in reality. Most of the time (83%) GPS predicted unmixed
individuals to their true locations with most of the remaining
individuals predicted to neighboring countries (Elhaik et al.,
2014).
To understand how migration modifies the admixture
proportions of the migratory and host populations, we can
consider two simple cases of point or massive migration
followed by assimilation and a third case of migration followed
by isolation. Point migration events have little effect on the
admixture proportions of the host population, particularly when
it absorbs a paucity of migrants, in which case the migrants’
admixture proportions would resemble those of the host
population within a few generations and their resting place would
represent that of the host population. Massive demographic
movements, such as large-scale invasion or migration that
affect a large part of the population are rare and create
temporal shifts in the admixture proportions of the host
population. The host population would temporarily appear as
a two-way mixed population, reflecting the components of
the host and invading populations (e.g., European and Native
American, in the case of Puerto Ricans) until the admixture
proportions would homogenize population-wise. If this process
is completed, the admixture signature of this region may be
altered and the geographical placement of the host population
would represent again the last place where the admixture
event took place for both the host and invading populations.
GPS would, thereby, predict the host population’s location for
Frontiers in Genetics | www.frontiersin.org
both populations. Populations that migrate from A to B and
maintain genetic isolation would be predicted to point A in
the leave-one-out population analysis. While human migrations
are not uncommon, maintaining a perfect genetic isolation
over a long period of time is very difficult (e.g., Veeramah
et al., 2011; Behar et al., 2012; Elhaik, 2016; Hellenthal et al.,
2016), and GPS predictions for the vast majority of worldwide
populations indicate that these cases are indeed exceptional
(Elhaik et al., 2014). Despite of its advantages, GPS has several
limitations. First, it yields the most accurate predictions for
unmixed individuals. Second, using migratory or highly mixed
populations (both are detectable through the leave-one-out
population analysis) as reference populations may bias the
predictions. Further developments are necessary to overcome
these limitations and make GPS applicable to mixed population
groups (e.g., African Americans).
CONCLUSION
The meaning of the term “Ashkenaz” and the geographical
origins of AJs and Yiddish are some of the longest standing
questions in history, genetics, and linguistics. In our previous
work we have identified “ancient Ashkenaz,” a region in
northeastern Turkey that harbors four primeval villages whose
names resemble Ashkenaz. Here, we elaborate on the meaning
of this term and argue that it acquired its modern meaning only
after a critical mass of Ashkenazic Jews arrived in Germany.
We show that all bio-localization analyses have localized AJs
to Turkey and that the non-Levantine origins of AJs are
supported by ancient genome analyses. Overall, these findings
are compatible with the hypothesis of an Irano-Turko-Slavic
origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish and contradict the
predictions of Rhineland hypothesis that lacks historical, genetic,
and linguistic support (Table 1).
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
EE conceived the paper. MP processed the ancient DNA data. RD
and EE carried out the analyses. EE co-wrote it with PW and RD.
All authors approved the paper.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EE was partially supported by The Royal Society International
Exchanges Award to EE and Michael Neely (IE140020), MRC
Confidence in Concept Scheme award 2014-University of
Sheffield to EE (Ref: MC_PC_14115), and a National Science
Foundation grant DEB-1456634 to Tatiana Tatarinova and EE.
We thank the many public participants for donating their DNA
sequences for scientific studies and The Genographic Project’s
public database for providing us with their data.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found
online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.
2017.00087/full#supplementary-material
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The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish
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Gil, M. (1974). The Rādhānite merchants and the land of Rādhān. J. Econ. Soc. Hist.
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Wexler, P. (2010). “Do Jewish Ashkenazim (i.e. “Scythians”) originate in
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Frontiers in Genetics | www.frontiersin.org
Conflict of Interest Statement: EE is a consultant for DNA Diagnostic Centre.
The other authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of
any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential
conflict of interest.
The reviewer PF declared a past co-authorship with one of the authors to
the handling Editor, who ensured that the process nevertheless met the standards
of a fair and objective review.
Copyright © 2017 Das, Wexler, Pirooznia and Elhaik. This is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the
original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this
journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution
or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
8
June 2017 | Volume 8 | Article 87
1312 | Hasidism
Melton, J. Gordon. "Hasidism." In Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices,
2nd ed., edited by J. Gordon Melton and Martin Baumann, 1312-1314. Vol. 3. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Gale eBooks (accessed January 21, 2023). https://link-gale-com.libproxy.utdallas.edu/apps/doc/CX1766500719/
GVRL?u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=ecabfc19.
The whole population of the regions through which
he passed accepted him as the messenger of God. People traveled from distant places to hear Harris and be
baptized, and as a result his message penetrated deep
into the interior. He sent out disciples to carry his
message and methods far and wide. On the Ghanaian
coast, Harris confronted traditional priests, many of
whom were converted. Opposition from Catholic missionaries caused him to return to Cote d’Ivoire, where
he was accused of intimidation and fraud, arrested,
and beaten; he was deported from Cote d’Ivoire toward the end of 1914. Over the next 10 years, Harrist
believers were systematically suppressed and village
prayer houses destroyed. Harris returned to Liberia and
lived in relative obscurity until his death in 1929.
Harris never intended to form a separate church,
and he directed people to existing (especially Catholic
and Methodist) churches, but he also encouraged converts to build their own prayer houses where there were
no churches; in those houses they were to worship, led
by a minister and 12 apostles chosen by the village
community. Tens of thousands of his followers formed
these village churches in Cote d’Ivoire and the Gold
Coast. Thousands of Harris’s followers soon found
themselves at odds with Methodist financial policy,
their prohibition of polygyny, and the Methodist liturgy, so different from the African hymn-singing and
dancing practiced by Harris. These followers organized
themselves into the Harrist Church (Église Harriste),
apparently after receiving the prophet’s approval to
do so just before Harris died in 1929. As symbols of
his prophetic authority, Harris gave John Ahui a cane
cross and a Bible, and Ahui was thereafter designated
Harris’s successor.
The Harrist movement was severely persecuted
by the French administration, and for many years its
adherents had to meet secretly. Many coastal Ivorians,
however, increasingly identified it with the nationalist
struggle, and it began to grow rapidly. Sometime after
1931, Ahui began preaching as Harris had done and
organizing churches, but he was still severely restricted.
After about 1945, people who had been baptized by
Harris began leaving mission churches to join or to
establish Harrist churches. The Harrist Church in Cote
d’Ivoire was officially constituted in 1955, and Ahui
became its preacher bishop, and later pope. In 1964,
the church was officially recognized as one of four
national religions, the others being Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism. Since 1972, the church
has tried to modernize and has a renewed emphasis on
healing and the eradication of witchcraft.
In 1990, the church had an estimated 176,000
members, one of the four largest churches in the Ivory
Coast. Ahui died in 1992 and was succeeded by Supreme Preacher Cessi Koutouan Jacob as spiritual head
of the church.
Église Harriste
BP 337
Bingerville
Cote d’Ivoire
http://www.egliseharriste-ongapa.ci (in French)
Allan H. Anderson
See also: African Initiated (Independent) Churches;
Methodist Church.
References
Haliburton, Gordon M. The Prophet Harris: A
Study of an African Prophet and his Mass
Movement in the Ivory Coast and the Gold
Coast, 1913–1915. London: Longman,
1971.
Hastings, Adrian. The Church in Africa, 1450–1930.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
Walker, Sheila S. The Religious Revolution in the
Ivory Coast: The Prophet Harris and the Harrist
Church. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
Hasidism
Hasidism is a form of Orthodox Judaism that emphasizes mystical experience, the direct encounter with
the divine. Although it draws upon various Jewish mystical texts from centuries past, Hasidism began with
the career of Israel Baal Shem Tov (born Israel ben
Eliezer, referred to by the acronym the Besht; 1698–
1760). A Baal Shem is one who possesses the secret
mystical knowledge of the names of God and who
works miracles out of that knowledge. It is reported
that as a young man the Besht studied with a mystical
© 2011 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.
Hasidism | 1313
Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews, members of a devout sect, celebrate Purim at a synagogue in the Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem, March 27, 2005. (Gil Cohen Magen/Corbis)
teacher, or tzaddik, from a secret order called the Tzadikim Nistarim, in which he became a leader. He also
became familiar with the Kabbalah, one of the older
Jewish mystical teachings, and in 1724 began a 10year period of withdrawal to study the Bible and the
Kabbalah. He also claimed to have been in regular
contact with Ahiya of Shilo, a prophet who lived during the reign of the ancient King David. His retreat
was climaxed in 1736, when he received a revelation
concerning his future career.
Israel Baal Shem Tov settled in Mezshbozsh, Poland, and began to teach Hasidism. He taught that each
individual could have a living experience of faith, and
he encouraged people to cleave to God in their daily
life. The sense of oneness with God would lead to joy,
which would in turn be expressed in ecstatic dance
and prayer. An approach to Judaism that emphasized
devotion and piety over law and learning had an im-
mediate appeal to many in the impoverished communities of Polish Jewry, and the movement spread to
Jewish communities throughout the Slavic countries.
The Hasidic movement was organized around a set
of teachers (called rebbes or tzaddiks) who were known
for their mystical, psychic, miracle-working powers as
much as their learning. Tzaddiks became associated
with a particular Jewish community, and their followers flocked to these centers to be with the tzaddik on
special occasions and for extended periods of study
and prayer. Tzaddiks emerged throughout Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and other
nearby countries.
Leadership within the movement was generally
passed from father to son or nephew, and different
Hasidic groups came to be known both by the town
in which the tzaddik lived and by his family name.
Two Hasidic groups stand out for their distinctiveness.
© 2011 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.
1314 | Healing Tao
Bratslav Hasidism developed around Nachman of Bratslav (1772–1810). At the time of his untimely death,
he was heard to have said, “My light will glow till the
days of the Messiah.” His followers interpreted the
remark to mean that he would have no successor, and
the community he called together has continued without a rebbe to lead them. The Lubavitcher rebbe survived the Holocaust and moved to the United States,
where he and his successors have spearheaded the
growth of a global new Hasidism. Lubavitch Hasidim
has also become known for the millennial expectations
that have grown up around their recently deceased
rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994).
Hasidism was almost destroyed by the Holocaust.
Nazi forces overran much of the Hasidim’s homeland
in Eastern Europe, and only a small percentage survived. The rebbes that escaped migrated primarily to
the United States and Palestine. Among the survivors
was Yoel Teitelbaum (1887–1979), the rebbe for Satmar Hasidism, a group well known for their opposition to Zionism and the establishment of the state of
Israel. Today, most Hasidic groups have their headquarters in the United States (many in Brooklyn, New
York) and Israel.
In the 1960s, a new generation of teachers from
the Hasidic tradition appeared as leaders of a variety
of neo-Hasidic groups. The movement was partially
inspired by the writings of theologian Martin Buber
(1878–1965). Rabbi and musician Shlomo Carlebach
(1926–1994) was a popular figure of this new generation of mystically oriented Jews. The most successful
of the new Hasidic groups, however, appears to be the
Kabbalah Learning Centre, founded in 1922 by Rabbi
Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1955), but now headed by Rabbi
Philip S. Berg, the author of many books on the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism.
J. Gordon Melton
See also: Kabbalah Learning Centre; Lubavitch
Hasidism; Orthodox Judaism; Satmar Hasidism.
References
Bokser, Ben Zion. The Jewish Mystical Tradition.
New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981.
Buber, Martin. The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism.
New York: Horizon Press, 1960.
Fishkoff, Sue. The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of
Chabad-Lubavitch. New York: Schocken, 2005.
Idel, Moshe. Hasidism. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 2007.
Rabinowicz, Tzvi. The Encyclopedia of Hasidism.
Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996.
Rabinowitz, H. A. A Guide to Hasidism. New York:
Thomas Yoseloff, 1960.
Healing Tao
The Healing Tao is among the best known popular
Daoist groups in the West. It teaches a regulated system of inner alchemy and is famous for popularizing
ritual sexual practices. It was founded by Mantak Chia
(b. 1944), a Thai-born Chinese, who was trained in
Hong Kong and has a background in both Eastern and
Western medicine, as well as traditional Daoist practices. He claims his teachings are a body of esoteric
knowledge, previously hidden from the world but now
being made available and accessible to the general
public.
Chia is said to have begun self-cultivation at the
very young age of six with Buddhist meditation training, martial arts, tai chi, and kundalini yoga. Of his
many teachers, the most influential was from the Lungmen sect of Quanzhen Daoism. This teacher, called One
Cloud, gave him transmission and a mandate to teach
and heal.
Chia systematized his knowledge, and in 1974 he
established the first of his schools in Thailand (called
the Natural Healing Center). In 1979, he moved to
New York and opened the Taoist Esoteric Yoga Center.
This center, which became the Healing Tao Center,
attracted Euro-American students who helped him organize a national seminar circuit. In 1994, Mantak and
his wife, Maneween (whom he subsequently divorced),
moved back to Thailand to establish an international
Healing Tao Center in Chiang Mai, which caters to
wealthy Europeans and Americans.
Meanwhile, Chia’s principal student, Michael
Winn, runs a Healing Tao University each summer in
upstate New York that bills itself as the “largest summer ‘Chi’ retreat program in the world.” This program
© 2011 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.
"Crypto-Jews." In Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 315. Vol. 5.
Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Gale eBooks (accessed January 21, 2023). https://link-galecom.libproxy.utdallas.edu/apps/doc/CX2587504738/GVRL?u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=1e5bd24f.
experience for centuries to come. The heightened religiosity
of the age resulted in the sharpening of the system of antiJewish discrimination and of Jewish humiliation, culminating in the legislation of the Fourth *Lateran Council of 1215.
The chronicles of *Solomon b. Samson, *Eliezer b. Nathan
of Mainz, *Ephraim b. Jacob of Bonn, *Eleazar b. Judah of
Worms, and many other whose names are not known, described the events of the Crusades, the scenes of the massacres, and the martyrs. They are also to be regarded as basic
sources from which statistical accounts of the Crusades must
start. Through capturing these events they magnified their
significance, but thereby furnished an ideal of conduct which
was constantly recalled to mind whenever severe persecutions
befell the Jews.
Bibliography: Graetz, Hist, index; Baron, Social2, index;
A.M. Habermann, Sefer Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Ẓ arefat (1946); Prawer,
Ẓ albanim; Germ Jud, 1 (1963); S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in
the 13t Century (19662), index; Roth, England; H. Liebeschuetz, in: jjs,
10 (1959), 97–111 incl. bibl. notes; S. Runciman, History of the Crusades,
(3 vols., 1951–54); J. Katz, in: Sefer… Y. Baer (1961); idem, Exclusiveness
and Tolerance (1969), 67–92; Baer in: Sefer Assaf, 110–26; S.D. Goitein, Mikhtavim me-Ereẓ Yisrael mi-Tekufat ha-Ẓ albanim; NeubauerStern, Hebraeische Berichte ueber die Judenverfolgung waehrend der
Kreuzzuege (1892); Salfeld, Martyrol; N. Golb, in: paajr, 34 (1966),
1–63; M.N. Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela; Hacker, in:
Zion (1966); M. Benvenisti, Crusaders in the Holy Land (1970). Add.
Bibliography: J. Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1988).
[Simon R. Schwarzfuchs]
CRYPTOJEWS, persons who while secretly remaining faithful to Judaism practiced another religion which they or their
ancestors were forced to accept. Groups of Crypto-Jews came
into existence after the forced conversions under the *Visigoths in Spain (7t century) and the *Almohads in North
Africa and Spain (12t century). Other such groups were the
neofiti in southern Italy from the end of the 13t to the 16t century, the *Conversos or *Marranos (Heb. *anusim) in Spain
after the persecutions of 1391 and the expulsion of 1492, as
well as in Portugal after 1497. In Majorca these Jewish converts were known as the *Chuetas. A group coerced to adopt
Islam were the *Jadīd al-Islām in *Meshed, Persia, in the 19t
century. A different type of Crypto-Jew were the members of
the *Doenmeh sect in Turkey and Salonika.
CRYSTAL, BILLY (1947– ), U.S. actor. Born in New York,
Crystal studied film and television direction under Martin Scorsese at New York University. He became known to
television viewers as Jodie Dallas, the young homosexual in
Soap, the satiric take-off on the soap opera genre (1977). In
fact, Crystal made history by playing television’s first openly
gay character.
As a stand-up comedian on the comedy circuit, Crystal
became famous for his Fernando Lamas and Sammy Davis Jr.
impersonations. In 1984 he joined the cast of Saturday Night
Live. Although he spent only one year with the show, he was
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 5
Csupo, Gabor
one of the most popular members of the cast and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Individual Performance.
Crystal graduated to feature film work and built up a
steady following with roles in This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Running Scared (1986), The Princess Bride (1987), Throw Momma
from the Train (1987), and Memories of Me (1988), which Crystal co-scripted and co-produced with Alan *King. Crystal then
catapulted to star status in the hugely popular When Harry
Met Sally (1989), and he followed this with the equally successful City Slickers (1990). His next film was Mr. Saturday Night
(1992), which he also directed. Subsequent films included City
Slickers II, which he wrote (1994); Forget Paris, which he wrote
and directed (1995); Father’s Day (1997); Deconstructing Harry
(1997); My Giant (1998); Analyze This (1999); America’s Sweethearts, which he wrote (2001); and Analyze That (2002).
Crystal was the host of the annual Academy Award presentations in Hollywood from 1990 to 1993 as well as in 1997,
1998, 2000, and 2004. Widely acclaimed for his writing and
performing talents, Crystal has won five Emmys and five
American Comedy Awards, among many other honors and
nominations. Crystal wrote Absolutely Mahvelous (with Dick
Schaap, 1986), and the children’s book I Already Know I Love
You (2004).
[Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
CSERGŐ, HUGO (1877–1944), Hungarian author and journalist. Csergő, who headed the Budapest social welfare department, was also a prominent Jewish community official.
His works include Versek (“Poems,” 1904) and the drama, Az
elsó hajnal (“The First Dawn,” 1923), but he is best remembered as editor of the anthology, Száz év magyar zsidó kőltői
(“Hungarian Jewish Poets of the Last Century,” 1943). He died
following deportation.
CSERMELY, GYULA (1869–1939), Hungarian author.
Csermely abandoned his law practice to write novels, plays,
and short stories. Many of these have Jewish settings and deal
with the conflict of the generations and the damaging effects
of assimilation. They include Ami két Miatyánk között van
(“Between Two ‘Lord’s Prayers,’ ” 1925), Juda ben Tábbaj kulcsa (“The Key of Judah ben Tabbai,” 1927), and Szent védekezés
(“Holy Defense,” 1938).
CSUPO, GABOR (1952– ), U.S. cartoon animator; founders/co-chair with Arlene Klasky, of Klasky Csupo. Csupo,
born in Budapest, Hungary, learned animation at Pannonia
Studio. He escaped Communist Hungary in 1975 and made
his way to Stockholm, where he met Arlene Klasky. A graduate of California Institute of the Arts, Klasky worked as a
designer for record labels such as A&M Records, served as
a magazine and advertising art director, and then moved to
special effects and graphics for film. The couple relocated to
Los Angeles and formed Klasky Csupo, Inc. in 1982. In 1988,
James L. Brooks awarded the company the job of animating
The Simpsons for Fox’s The Tracey Ulman Show. Klasky Csupo,
315
artha
Hay, Jeff T. "Ashkenazim." The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of World Religions, edited by Linda Holler,
Greenhaven Press, 2007, p. 42. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3205600041/GVRL?
u=txshracd2602&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=ba0c14fe. Accessed 21 Jan. 2023.
days. The ark disappeared following the
conquest of Jerusalem, and the destruction
of the Temple, by the Babylonians in 587
B.C. Its precise fate is unknown; some claim
that it was taken by the Babylonians, others that it remains buried in Jerusalem’s
Temple Mount. Some Ethiopian Christians
maintain that it was taken to a temple in
their city of Axum and remains there still.
SEE ALSO: Exodus; Judaism; Temple
artha
A Sanskrit word meaning “goal” or “advantage.” For Hindus, artha is one of the
four goals of life, along with kama
(pleasure or artistic expression), dharma
(duty), and moksha (release). Artha is often understood to imply such matters as
the accumulation of wealth or possessions
or the establishment of an important position in the world, and such matters are
thought to be completely legitimate according to Hindu ethics (provided they do
not interfere with dharma or moksha). In
the fourth century B . C . Kautilya, a
brahmin-caste adviser to an Indian emperor, published the Artha-Shastra, classical India’s great text of political philosophy. The Artha-Shastra focused on the
attainment and maintenance of political
power, recognizing the occasional need for
deceit and war but also arguing that it is
an emperor’s duty to ensure the safety of
his subjects.
SEE ALSO: dharma; Hinduism; four stages
of life
Ashkenazim
One of two major groups of European
Jews. The Ashkenazim were Jews whose
origins were in eastern or central Europe
(the term means “German”). The other
major group, the Sephardim, were from
42
areas under Muslim control during parts
of the Middle Ages, notably Spain. From
their original base in the Rhineland, the
border area of France and Germany, the
Ashkenazim spread to Poland and Russia
during the late Middle Ages and in the
centuries afterward. Due to their large Jewish populations, Poland and Russia became
the center of Ashkenazi culture, complete
with their own ceremonies and interpretations of Jewish texts. The group even spoke
their own language: Yiddish, a mixture of
Hebrew and German with certain Slavic
components. Most Jewish immigrants to
the United States and other Englishspeaking countries are descendants of Ashkenazim, and in modern Israel, Ashkenazim maintain a distinct Jewish identity.
SEE ALSO: Judaism; Sephardim
Ashoka
(r. 269–232 B.C.)
An Indian emperor of the Mauryan dynasty, which controlled most of northern
India from 362 to 184 B.C. Ashoka’s conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism, as
well as his attempts to instill Buddhist
principles within his government, helped
to transform Buddhism from one of many
Indian sects to the status of a major religion.
Born and raised a member of the
Hindu kshatriya, or warrior caste, Ashoka
converted to Buddhism following a bloody
battle at Kalinga in eastern India, according to tradition. His victory in the battle
allowed him to consolidate his kingdom,
but it came at the price of thousands of
deaths. Regretting this loss of life, Ashoka
turned to Buddhist teachings, particularly
those emphasizing kindness, generosity,
and nonviolence, or ahimsa. As part of his
effort to teach by example, Ashoka erected
hundreds of stone pillars across India on
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Haskalah - Oxford Reference
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Print ISBN-13: 9780192800947
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Haskalah
(Heb., ‘enlightenment’).
The Enlightenment movement of the late 18th and 19th cents. in Judaism. Those who espoused the Haskalah were known as Maskilim.
Related to the secular Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn is generally considered to be the ‘father of the Haskalah’.
Prominent Haskalah thinkers included Naphtale Herz Wessely, the educationalist, who believed that Jewish children ‘were not all created
to become Talmudists’, and David Friedlaender who rejoiced in the decline of the yeshivot. Throughout Europe, rich Jews rejected
Yiddish and taught their children the language of their host nation.
In their desire for acceptance and emancipation, the Maskilim were particularly patriotic towards their host countries, and the messianic
hope was weakened. Members of the Assembly of Jewish Notables, set up by Napoleon in 1806, described themselves as ‘Frenchmen of
the Mosaic religion’. The diaspora was no longer seen as a punishment for Israel's wickedness, but the result of historical and
geographical factors. Judaism was understood as a spiritual and moral creed, and from this thinking grew the Reform movement with its
updated Prayer Book and its rejection of the absolute claims of halakhah.
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