77. The Conversos (Jewish History Lab)

Brief discussion of the 1391 pogroms, the Tortosa disputation, and the growth of the converso population in Spain.
Recommended reading:
David Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews unmpress.com/b...
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[@responsesfromCL]

As a student of Jewish history I really love your lectures and have watched perhaps 50 of them. One particular area of interest, since my son married a Peruvian woman, is the history of the conversos especially the conquistadors. At 14:50 you made a statement that converting for Jews was like getting a Christian drivers license. Conversos were always watched closely for backsliding which was called Judaizing. No conversos were allowed into New Spain although many bribed their way over, especially from Portugal. However, so many were found to be still practicing (Cryptos) that an edict proclaimed that no New Christian who had even so much as a great grandfather who was Jewish could stay, they had to sail back to Europe immediately or the Inquisition would prosecute. Bloodlines were more important than professed observance. I have my own theory that the reason so many crypto Jew descendants have been found in New Mexico is that was as far away from the Inquisitors and nosy neighbors as one could get.Keep up the good work!

[@jonneiss7562]

We trace ourselves back to Spain. But we kept our identity and fled. Back in that era there was a language called "Ladino." It was a mix of Spanish and Hebrew, in the same way that Yiddish is a mix of German and Hebrew. Ladino also had bits of Arabic and probably a bunch of languages from the Mid East. To this day, Sephardic musicians like Israeli singer Yasmin Levy, sing songs in Ladino. here she is, on the Jools Holland show, singing "La Alegria" (serious, amazing pipes on this singer)... kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4CqoXdqo5qtbZI

[@giovanniivodagostino6746]

Thank you for this video. Interesting fact is that many conversos made a big career in the catholic church and became saints like Teresa of Avilla who even become proclaimend "doctor of the church" by pope John paul II. Another more or less famous converso was Luis de Leon who jojned the order of Saint Augustine. The high success of the conversos brought envy and jealousy to the so called old christians and it's one of many reasons for the beginning of the Inquistion.

[@jesusalvarez-cedron6581]

??????

[@zafirjoe18]

In Brussels the small Jewish community was burned at stake in 1360’s following a host desecration libel . The Cathedral still have stained glass Windows depicting the libel , adorning the church. Until the 1950’s there was still a procession every year leaving the church to commemorate this libel. The Jewish community in Brussels tried to have them removed, promising to replace them on their own cost , but since it was a gift to the cathedral by Charles the V , and because of the Halacha of Esau...., the capital of the EU still hosts these images of hate .

[@zafirjoe18]

Unlike the disputation of Barcelona, the one in Tortosa didn’t afford the Rabbis freedom of expression. Part of the disputation was recorded in Shevet Yehuda by R’ Shlomo Ibn Vierga . Can be found in Sefer Otzar Vikuchim from Eisenstein

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Eisenstein's work is certainly underutilized

[@John_Lucky]

I just found out about the 14th century "Brother Haggadah" that originated in Barcelona, which is owned today by the British library, and it's association with my family roots.

[@richardpage7323]

Aragon and the 1390s, and the expulsion a century later and the war and civil war in Spain, and the Ottoman wars, and the purge in Egypt, are the reasons why there are so many holes in my mom's family tree prior to 1500, but we know they were important in Aragon and Andalucia from at least the Roman period. My grandfathers resentment towards other Jews who maybe didn't help or were conversos and were cruel, the catholic church and Sebastiano Ximenes VI c.1605 and Ferdinand Ximenes was still palpable in his stories almost 400-200 years afterwards. These areas you're discussing were the home of Baruch HaLevi and the Dara and HoDara ancestors, who all had serious violence done to the structure and finances of our family through this period that the catholic church and Spain have never come to terms with. My ancestors survived, but what they had to do to survive would be looked down on, the generational trauma it inflicted wasn't easy growing up with. The Aragonese imposed a very brutal way to have to live, and then an exile very difficult to endure. Made my grandfather very bitter and ready to embrace an American identity that tried to hide a lot of this from us. It taught me that sometimes you need to look at where the light shines and try to shine your light on it also because no one else will do it for you. When Pere IV died, grandfathers family according to him were doctors so the whole "poison the wells" and economic disaster the Aragonese inflicted must have been pretty awful. Thank you for highlighting this because it was a bitter end to the Golden age period.

[@zafirjoe18]

Yehoshua Halarki also called the מגדף M’aestro G’eronimo D’e Santé Fé . Was the one that forced the Jewish Rabbis from all over Spain to the disputation in Tortosa. It is said that after he held a drasha in a synagogue many would convert .

[@richardpage7323]

Convert, flee or die in in the streets or a dungeon under torture or have the Vatican steal the kids isn't a great choice.

[@zafirjoe18]

@@richardpage7323 the stealing of the kids under the age of twelve happened in mass in Portugal in 1497. A convert Jewish priest to Catholicism who’s name was Sem Tov gave the great idea to the king Manuel I , that if the children were taken the parents would follow. 2000 of these children ended up on an uninhabitable island called São Tomé and perished. The B’aal Tzeror Hamor ,Rabbi Avraham Saba lost two sons this way. Yes this is love shining forth from the church !!. שִׂ֤ישִׂי וְשִׂמְחִי֙ בַּת־אֱד֔וֹם (יושבתי) [יוֹשֶׁ֖בֶת] בְּאֶ֣רֶץ ע֑וּץ גַּם־עָלַ֙יִךְ֙ תַּעֲבׇר־כּ֔וֹס תִּשְׁכְּרִ֖י וְתִתְעָרִֽי׃ {ס} Rejoice and exult, Fair Edom, Who dwell in the land of Uz! To you, too, the cup shall pass, You shall get drunk and expose your nakedness. (Lamentations 4:21) see Targum Yerushalmi

[@richardpage7323]

@@zafirjoe18 let's hope Spain and the church come to terms with this and restore to us what they can, for how much they took.

[@richardpage7323]

@@zafirjoe18 a friend of mine in Portugal is the descendant of one of those kids. I think my ancestors went there and went straight to Amsterdam because by about 1655-1703 several were in the new world. And Abraham Judah was there about 1750 from shipping logs in the archives.

[@zafirjoe18]

@@richardpage7323 “lets hope Spain and the church come to terms with this “ The people of Spain definitely possible, but minus the church. They will never come to terms with the jews . The second Vatican Council was done out of political correctness after the atrocities of the second world wars . But they don’t sincerely mean any of it. It would go against all the church doctrines of the church fathers. The cathedral of Saint Michael in Brussels, the capital of the EU still holds the stained glass windows depicting a libel of the desecration of the [un]holy host .Of which the result being the demise of what was left of the entire Jewish Brussels community . They were dragged through the street and burned alive in 1370. Millions of tourists visiting this cathedral are exposed to this ugly form of hate until this day. This to the forever shame of the loving church. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZ2zlpJ4n6eZbas

[@matthewsainsbury1801]

i also learnt that the grimm reeper got hisimage during the black death alot of monumental events happened in the 1300s even the knights templar where brought down on friday 13 1307 since then it gave rise to the notion of the fear and phobia concerning that date as bad luck our some kind of hex

[@m.c.fromnyc2187]

Very interesting!

[@zafirjoe18]

The disputation of Tortosa was also a tactic of the church to keep the Rabbis from their communities for a long period, all the while the missionaries were pounding the Jews back home to convert.

[@Markver1]

Word of the day: Paroxysm meaning: spasm

[@charlesedwards5333]

he knows more words than anyone

[@zafirjoe18]

One of the Rabbis representing the Jews in the disputation of Tortosa was R’ Yosef Elbo בעל ספר העקרים . Interesting he doesn’t count the belief in Mashiach as tenant of faith arguing on the Rambams י״ג עיקרים.

[@FrontierThesisYU]

7:08 Didn't van Eyk die in 1441?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Look it up?

[@danielpalmer643]

I'm learning a lot about language use from this series. I had no idea that 'Anti-Semitism' is problematic for affirming 'Semitism' (which I didn't know was an object of discourse) but 'Antisemitism' is okay (to say). Now it turns out that 'Murano' means swine! Don't tell Nissan, they'll feel embarrassed

[@AbdonPhirathon]

It’s marrano, not murano.

[@danielpalmer643]

@@AbdonPhirathon Thanks! Good to know

[@aromero385]

The Church didn't permit Christians lend money to their fellows christians?......But I may say, most of the inmense stretch of lands were in hands of a few very rich christians guys !!, for whom a lot of poor christians peasants worked for food and lodging.

[@historicalminds6812]

Did the more prominent Jewish conversos keep to themselves or intermarry with old Christians?

[@amandacarvalhodegenhardt8364]

some of them intermarried with noble old christians.

[@richardpage7323]

If it's possible many of them did both simultaneously

[@Markver1]

As you pointed out in the Van Eyck painting, a portion of the Jewish population were willing converts to Yeshua the Messiah. Why would they do that? Ultimately that’s between them and GOD. I can speculate that it may have been a simple matter of convenience and a go with the flow mentatlity. An easy thing to do if your faith in the beliefs that were handed down to you were shakey to begin with. Even today young Jewish adults walk away from the traditions of their fathers to lead a secular life without the burdensome restrictions put on them by the man-derived Takanot and Ma’asim of the elders of the community. Another reason many may have been converted was simply to preserve life. The elephant in the room however is that when a portion of the Jews heard the good news of the coming Kingdom of GOD they accepted Yeshua as their promised Messiah. Many may presume that every conversion was a ‘forced’ conversion because reality is a little distasteful.

[@AbdonPhirathon]

Oh, great. Another buffoon who doesn’t know scripture. Don’t you think it’s quite ridiculous that if the Torah and the Holy Scriptures were passed down to us, we wouldn’t be able to discern who the true Messiah would be? And that Christians somehow did get it, but it flew past Jews’ heads? I hope you see how ridiculous this sounds. Let’s address the painting for what it was, a propaganda tool, and nothing more. Very few converted to Christianity over a belief in Jesus as the messiah. The few that had converted did so to obtain positions of prestige, not over faith. Then there was a small, but sizeable group that converted to preserve their lives, and their properties. Any Jew at the time was knowledgeable enough about the scriptures to know that Christianity was antithetical to Judaism, and thus could not be an evolution from it. Had that not been the case, Judaism would have died a very long time ago. The early church has misquoted, misrepresented, and misattributed verses that would serve to substantiate their baseless claims of G-d becoming human and messiah, which is both preposterous, as well as blasphemous. None of this would have convinced any Jew of its ludicrous claims. Christianity is nothing more than polytheism dressed up with monotheistic beliefs, and a whole lot of paganism and idolatry sprinkled throughout the NT. Stop making yourself sound like a fool.

[@SAYNOTOCENSORSHIP-z6z]

Many many ethnic Jews in Europe converted to other faiths.

[@Markver1]

Conversion to christianity how ever distasteful it was for Jews to accept Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel in the first century was, by the 4th-5th century codification of catholicism with it’s amalgamation of eastern and western pagan gods worship, it is understandable why any devout Jew who reads or hears the Tanak spoken would instantly reject this upstart religion. To a Jew looking at the practices and imagery of gentile christians it was easy to see that this was a reheated pagan mess. What started as an apparent spinoff of ‘Judaism’ (it actually was a return to Torah principles) became hijacked by pagans and reformed as a means of population control and parasitic graft. All of the festivals and holy (set-apart) days in christianity and catholicism are wholly of pagan origins or, are lightly warmed over festivals of GOD from the Torah. Take the painting in the video for example. Notice the man on the bottom left wearing a ‘pope’ hat? He is actually an incorporation of the high priest of the pagan cult of dagon the fish-god. That’s why in America for a time every school served fish on fridays in the cafeteria while not understanding it’s origin.

[@zafirjoe18]

The Jews of the first century were after the Rabbis as Josephus testifies: 3. Now for the Pharisees, they live meanly, and despise delicacies in diet; and they follow the contract of reason: and what that prescribes to them as good for them they do: and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason’s dictates for practice. They also pay a respect to such as are in years: nor are they so bold as to contradict them in any thing which they have introduced. And when they determine that all things are done by fate,2 they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit: since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament; whereby what he wills is done; but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them: and that under the earth there will be rewards, or punishments; according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life: and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison; but that the former shall have power to revive and live again. On account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people: and whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform them according to their direction. Insomuch, that the cities give great attestations to them, on account of their intire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives, and their discourses also. 4. But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this; that souls die with the bodies. Nor do they regard the observation of any thing besides what the law enjoins them. For they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent. But this doctrine is received but by a few: yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves. For when they become magistrates; as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be; they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees: because the multitude would not otherwise bear them. Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 18

[@Markver1]

It tends to be never be acknowledged that Yeshua of Nazareth is a Jew of the line of David. And that his students and adherents were devout Jews even until their deaths. Many were martyred for their faith. Killed by Jew and gentile authorities. In the first century history of the teaching and preaching by Yeshua and his disciples they taught from the Tanak. There was no christian bible or new testament. There was no conversion to a new religion. At best you could argue that it was a new sect of Judaism. Yeshua preached repentance. Which means to turn away from your path of sin and turn back to the path that leads to GOD (Torah given by GOD not the Takanot and Ma’asim of men). Baptism is no different from the mikveh in that it symbalizes cleansing and washing away of sin. Full immersion, not the sprinkling of water as some do.

[@zafirjoe18]

“ Not the Takanot of men” In the book of the tax collector it says “ the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses do as the say......”.

[@Markver1]

@@zafirjoe18 It actually says in the Hebrew gospels, “..do as Moses says”. It doesn’t read, “..do as they (Pharisees) say”. Shalom!

[@zafirjoe18]

@@Markver1 there is no such thing as a Hebrew gospel . They are all written in Greek. Some argue that maybe originally the tax collector wrote it in Hebrew or Aramaic ( which I can relate to since his style is that of a poor imitation of a midrash especially when he quotes the so called fulfilment citations, which would correspond with how the midrash would say הדא היא דכתיב. Anyone with a little background in rabbinic literature understands that would not constitute a fulfilment citation rather reflects more a sermon given by a preacher to drive home a point). In any case the “ Hebrew gospel “is a very late composition retranslating the Greek to Hebrew , meant to proselytise Jews . Therefore it has no credibility whatsoever.

[@zafirjoe18]

“Not the Takanot of men” What is a sabbath day’s journey in acts 2:1 mean , if not for the Takanot of men.

[@Markver1]

@@zafirjoe18 I understand why you say that. But, there are many contemporary citations attesting to the fact that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew and many did their best to translate it. You don’t have to take my word for it. It is not hidden knowledge. A simple internet search and you can find this in five minutes of reading. Shalom!