Surnames of “Portuguese” Jews as a Tool for Analyzing Basic Aspects of Their History by Alexander Beider Reductionist Approaches Numerous publications deal with the “Marranos” and/or “Portuguese” Jews1 addressing their motivations to profess Judaism, secretly for the first and openly for the second, and peculiarities of their religious beliefs and practices. On these topics, one can find a large spectrum of explanations and opinions. Positions situated on the extreme points of this spectrum are reductionist; their proponents, led by ideologies and/or formal theoretical postulates they want to corroborate, pay attention to features that characterize the behavior of certain individuals and extrapolate them to the whole group. If a counter example exists, it is either considered to be exceptional or just ignored. One extreme possibility is to describe the relevant histo-
Numerous publications deal with the “Marranos” and/or “Portuguese” Jews1 addressing their motivations to profess Judaism… ry in three or four major stages with the following oversimplified characteristics. First, Jews in Portugal were all forced to become Christians. Once Judaism became prohibited, they had no possibility to leave the country and had no other choice than to convert. During the second stage, these New Christians and their descendants continued to live in Portugal or Spain openly as Catholics, but at home they secretly followed Judaism. These so-called Marranos married only among themselves. The third stage is that of persecution by the Inquisition whose main task was to destroy the menace Judaism posed to Christianity. Numerous autosda-fé (burning of heretics) took place in the Iberian Peninsula for people accused of Crypto-Judaism. Thousands of persons perished in fire for their faith. In the fourth stage, those who were not sentenced to death, or those whose Crypto-Judaism was not uncovered by the Inquisition, took the first opportunity to migrate to a country where Judaism was tolerated. Once they arrived at their destination, these people became openly Jewish again. The above scenario is full of heroic and tragic episodes. It associates the notion of Marranos with a halo of martyrdom and glory and provides a romantic flavor for the whole history. For Jewish history, it acquired a mythological value, being present in numerous textbooks and non-scholarly texts. For all elements of the above scenario, one can provide individual or even mass corroborations. The extreme diffiAVOTAYNU Volume XXXV, Number 1, Spring 2019
culties Jews encountered trying to leave Portugal immediately after the promulgation of the law prohibiting Judaism in that country (1496) are described in numerous works written by contemporary rabbis and modern historians. There is no doubt that certain families who lived in the Iberian Peninsula during at least the 16th and 17th centuries included genuine Crypto-Jews. For example, in 1527, a New Christian masquerading as a Judaizer, denounced the secret practice of Judaism by a group of Marranos, describing those practices. He was assassinated for his treachery. When in 1691 in Majorca three New Christians were burned alive as Crypto-Jews, they held up defiantly to the last and did not profess repentance. We know examples of Jewish religious texts composed by Iberian Marranos and even of secret circumcisions. When living in Spain, the Portugal-born physician and philosopher Fernando Cardoso held important positions and published several treatises. In 1639, he moved to Venice where he became an open Jew, changing his given name to Isaac and later, in Verona, wrote a large work defending and explaining Judaism. We can find not the slightest trace of any document showing that Cardoso was persecuted by the Inquisition before he left Spain. In his case, his strong Jewish feelings represent the only plausible motivation for his departure from Spain. Emigration of thousands of other Iberian Christians joining, or even founding, local Jewish communities during the 16th to 18th centuries has been documented. Detailed family trees of some of these migrants show an important degree of endogamy among New Christians. Yet, one can also find data concerning individuals who truly converted to Christianity. Certain Portuguese merchants (some New Christians) living in northwestern France during the 16th and 17th centuries were exemplary Catholics in all aspects of their lives and these families gradually merged with local French Catholics. From the text of a will compiled in Ferrara in 1551 by one rich merchant from Antwerp (where he was one of the leaders of the local Portuguese community), we see that his sincere Catholic faith cannot be doubted. Both parents of the Renaissance humanist scholar Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540) were New Christians. Moreover, his father and several other members of the family were executed by the Inquisition as secret Jews. He himself emigrated from Spain and spent most of his adult life in southern Netherlands (today, Belgium). Yet, despite these major elements of a biography typical for people who became “Portuguese” Jews, Vives never was attracted to Judaism. In some cases, we have no reason to believe that the New Christians accused of being Crypto-Jews really were secret Judaizers. As is usual in an atmosphere of suspicion, 7
driven by mercantile economic interests, racial hatred, or other psychological reasons having nothing to do with religious zeal, some people denounced their neighbors. Similar motivations as well as political considerations could have driven members of the Inquisition courts to create false accusations. Documents show that the acknowledgement by numerous victims of their secret adherence to Judaism along with their repentance was obtained under torture. In such conditions, these people could, in theory, confess not to real facts, but to details that were invented by their torturers who were guided by their own interests. Moreover, even if accusations of performing Jewish rites had a real basis, they did not necessarily imply a secret practice of Judaism. Such aspects of the behavior of New Christians might simply have represented the unconscious persistence of cultural habits and family traditions, after they had lost their original religious meaning. We have direct testimonies about certain persons becoming attracted to Judaism because of persecutions by the Inquisition.2 The migration from the Iberian Peninsula of some New Christians clearly was triggered by non-religious factors. Some were driven by the desire to live in countries where they would feel secure from the threat of persecution by the Inquisition because of their Jewish ancestry. Others were motivated primarily by economic opportunities. This factor is particularly evident in migrants who left Portugal at the end of the 18th century when persecutions for Crypto-Judaism already had ceased. An inappropriate generalization of the elements discussed in the previous paragraph yields another oversimplified extreme position. Its proponents (including such historians as Herman P. Salomon, António José Saraiva, and Ellis Rivkin) claim that the New Christians attempted to become fully integrated into the Christian society via a sincere adoption of Christian religion and intermarriages with old Christians. Persecutions of thousands of people for Crypto-Judaism are seen as based on pseudo-religious reasons invented by the Inquisition but, in reality, motivated exclusively by socio-economic or political factors. Consequently, all descriptions of Jewish practices present in thousands of documents compiled by the Inquisition courts, often obtained under torture, are, according to such views, irrelevant for someone who wants to know the historical truth. The emigration of thousands of persons followed by many of them becoming open Jews is said to be due essentially to one of the following two extra-religious factors. The first is the desire to avoid an insecure situation (with the permanent possibility that the Inquisition could use a pseudo-religious pretext to confiscate all goods and sentence innocent persons to jail or even to death). In other words, the adherence to Judaism resulted from pressure of the Inquisition, which served as a factory that “produced” Marranos. The second factor, emphasized by other reductionist authors, is economic. The same authors also emphasize that in some places only a minority of migrants became 8
Jewish, while in other destinations migrants had no other choice than to become Jewish.3 Non-Reductionist Approach None of the oversimplified reductionist approaches discussed in the previous section is scientifically tenable. The behavior of New Christians was motivated by multiple factors. To the general ones mentioned above, we should add those of individual psychology, for example, with parents’ decisions (to be sincere Catholics or, on the contrary, to practice Judaism secretly) that can be challenged by children. For various persons, major factors determining their behavior are not the same. One can identify a spectrum of individual experiences, from convinced Jews to convinced Christians, with different degrees of determination under the influence of social, economic and political factors. Moreover, the behavior of the same individual sometimes changed at various stages of his life. Generally speaking, we rarely find in Jewish history a group of closely related communities with so large a spectrum of beliefs and types of behavior. Nevertheless, the religious factor should not be underestimated. During the 17th and 18th centuries, in Western Europe and the Americas, members of the “Portuguese” communities differed from the Christian majority primarily by their faith. Unlike Ashkenazic Jews, they were not representatives of a totally different world. It is no surprise that once the religious difference was removed by conversion to Christianity, people such as Benjamin Disraeli and David Ricardo became fully integrated into the high West European society, while the ideas of Baruch Spinoza, profoundly contrasting with those of the Orthodox Judaism of his time (including that of the Amsterdam community of which he was a member before being excommunicated) were largely echoed among European Christian philosophers. Memory of Jewish Ancestry Information about surnames used by “Portuguese” Jews can shed some light on their attachment to the Jewish past of their ancestors. In this context, two categories of surnames used in these communities are directly relevant: (1) restored Jewish surnames used in medieval Iberia (“Old Jewish” surnames), and (2) double surnames in which one of the names (usually the first one) is an Old Jewish surname. For any “Portuguese” family called Cohen or Levi/Levy, the surname can correspond either to the category of restored “Old Jewish” surnames or be adopted because the family in question knew about their priestly or Levite ancestry. For the main question discussed in this section, the choice between these two alternative scenarios is of no importance. In both cases, the fact that the families in question started to use the names Cohen or Levi testify to their knowledge of important genealogical data about ancestors who lived as Jews in medieval Spain, either their surnames, or their “caste.” The surname Israel is more ambiguous. For some famiAVOTAYNU Volume XXXV, Number 1, Spring 2019
lies, it was taken to indicate the “caste” of Israelites (that is, Jews who are neither Cohanim, nor Levites). This scenario is particularly plausible for families that added Israel before their Catholic surname such as Israel Bravo or Israel Ricardo. The pattern used in their surnames is similar to that present in Cohen Henriques or Levy Ximenes. Yet, for other families, the surname Israel was adopted to emphasize their current attachment to Judaism and testifies nothing about the Jewish ancestry. For them, Israel is just synonymous for the Jewish people in its totality and not one of its three “castes.” For example, it is surely the case for plain converts to Judaism, the Iberian Old Christians who adopted this surname. Table 1 presents, for various “Portuguese” Jewish communities and for different periods, data concerning the proportion of surnames related to Jewish ancestry. This category covers (1) all restored Old Jewish surnames including Cohen and Levi (as unique names or parts of double surnames) and (2) double surnames having Israel as their first element (but not Israel as the unique surname). The last column shows the number of surnames found in sources borne by persons who, with a high degree of probability, were of Marrano origin, that is, whose ancestors or even they themselves were Catholic in some period of their life. The division by periods was determined by several independent factors. For certain places, data are available only for the periods in question. For Ancona and Genoa, Table 1 shows data for the periods when local “Portuguese” congregations were particularly active there. In other places, communities were significantly more stable. For them, the division by periods was done in a way that allows us to highlight certain peculiarities. For cities for which several rows are present in Table 1, every surname is counted only in one row, the one that corresponds to the year in which it first appears in the place in question. Data from this table reveal the influence of several independent factors of which two were particularly important, those related to chronology and to those related to politicoadministrative geography. The chronological factor is easily visible for Venice, Hamburg, Livorno, and Amsterdam (after 1616) where the percentage of surnames related to Jewish ancestry decreases with time. Such behavior is quite natural. The earlier were the dates of the Marrano migrations. The closer the Marrano migrations were to the date of conversion of their Jewish ancestors to Catholicism, the larger the chances that members of the new generations still knew the surnames their Jewish ancestors bore at the end of the 15th century, and if they were Cohanim, Levites or Israelites. In the earliest available representative list of “Portuguese” Jews, the one from mid-16th century Ancona (the first row in Table 1), we find only one undoubtedly Catholic surname retained, Barbos(i)o, the name of the physician who was one of the leaders of that community. In this case, however, not only the factor of time, but also that of politico-administrative geography may have been important. AVOTAYNU Volume XXXV, Number 1, Spring 2019
Table 1 Percentage of Surnames Related to Jewish Ancestry Percentage of surTotal names related to surPlace Period Jewish ancestry names Ancona 1545–1556 97 39 Venice 1530–1600 50 32 1601–1650 43 70 Amsterdam 1596–1615 28 54 1616–1625 46 186 1626–1670 23 473 1671–1700 10 310 1701-1800 3 377 Hamburg 1599–1620 57 35 1621–1650 35 68 1651–1700 12 58 Livorno 1593–1630 50 24 1631–1670 13 76 1671–1770 4 27 London 1650–1755 2 298 Genoa 1655–1700 0 62 Bayonne 1700–1799 2 279
Ancona was a city of the Papal States in which “Portuguese” Jews could not overtly show their Catholic past. Judaism was tolerated only in people who had been born Jewish. In this situation, being an open Jew who continues to bear a surname such as Dias, Mendes, or Rodrigues could be dangerous. If it was discovered that an open Jew had been born Catholic, he or she could be sentenced to death. The same factor could also prompt Iberian migrants to abandon their former Catholic surnames when joining other communities in the territory of modern-day Italy, such as Ferrara, Venice, Pisa, and Livorno, at least during the first decades of their foundation. The earliest “Portuguese” Jews in Ferrara and Venice were often from the same families as those established in Ancona. Moreover, we know that “Portuguese” migrants to Venice and Pisa presented themselves as “Levantine” Jews, as if they had come from the Ottoman Empire (see, for example, Pullan 1983:172). The factor of politico-administrative geography was also of paramount importance for a tiny percentage of nonCatholic surnames borne in the communities of southern France. (See the last row of Table 1 that deals with Bayonne.) In Bordeaux, during the same period (18th century) non-Catholic surnames account for less than one percent of the total. Local communities ceased to hide their Judaism at the start of the 18th century, but the Jewish religion was officially authorized only in 1790. During the long period during which the members of these congregations were nominal Catholics, they could not start using surnames with a direct Jewish connotation to avoid persecution from the government and the French Church. Both factors mentioned above are important when considering surnames in Amsterdam and Hamburg. In these cities, there were no Jewish communities before the arrival of Iberian migrants. The factor of politico-administrative geography explains a significant increase in Amsterdam of 9
the proportion of surnames related to the Jewish past during the decade that followed the legal authorization of Judaism in that city (1615). During the previous period (1596– 1615), the number of persons retaining their Catholic surnames was significantly higher; the families in question primarily followed Judaism unofficially. Once members of “Portuguese” communities in these cities ceased to behave as nominal Catholics, the desire to abandon their Catholic surnames might have been influenced by several factors. Some people might have wanted to hide the family names they used earlier to make it more difficult for Inquisition agents in Amsterdam and Hamburg to identify them. Such identification could provoke persecution of their relatives remaining in the Iberian Peninsula. Others (or even the same) ex-Marranos might have wanted to distance themselves from their Catholic past by emphasizing their Jewishness via adoption of new surnames. In this context, the choice made by heads of several leading families could influence the choice made by other members of the same community. In Amsterdam, among local community leaders during the first third of the 17th century, we find bearers of the following restored Iberian medieval surnames (original Catholic surnames in parentheses): Abarbanel (Thomas), Aboab (Rodrigues Cardoso), de Casseres (Carvalho), Curiel (Ramires), Farar (Lopes Rosa), Franco (Mendes Medeiros), Gabbai (Rodrigues), Habilho (Fernandes), Nehemias (Nunes Torres), and Senior (Saraiva). Cohen Lobatto (Gomez Lobatto) and Israel Belmonte (Nunes Belmonte) placed in the first position the indication of their membership in one of the three Jewish “castes.” Ben Israel (Dias Soeiro) and Jessurun (de Pina) took new surnames with direct Jewish connotation. Only a few leaders kept their Catholic surnames, Lopes Home(m), Nunes de Mattos, Osorio and Querido. Certain Jewish surnames restored by ex-Marranos in their new homes belong to families with famous members in medieval Iberia such as Abarbanel, Aboab, Benveniste, Franco, Senior, Valensi and Zacuto. The total number of the restored surnames is about one hundred. For many of them, no bearer in medieval Iberia was particularly famous. Most of these surnames are known in Castile or Aragon, that is, in the territory of modern day Spain, e.g., Aben Atar, Aben Farax, Aben Habibi, Barchilon, Barzilay, Ben Menahem, Brudo, Bueno, Fydanque, Gaon, Hadida, Lumbroso, Nasci, Oeb, Sema, and Toledano. Yet, for a large group of restored surnames no references are known in Spain, while bearers of these surnames or their variants appear in Portugal before 1492. Among the examples of such Portuguese Jewish surnames are (their “Portuguese” variants, if different, are in parentheses): Abengali (Abengaly), Aliofareiro (Aliofreiro, Aljofreiro), Arari, Bichacho, Coimbrão (Coimbra), Ergas, Espiriel (Esperiel), Guedelha, Mocate (Mocata), Sagache and Usque. This factor indicates that the families in question were no less attached to their Jewish past than descendants of Jews who, after their expulsion from Spain 10
(1492), decided to move to neighboring Portugal. For one hundred restored Jewish surnames, the earliest known references mainly correspond only to one of the following six cities, (1) Ancona and Ferrara (1540–1570), that is, two or three generations after the mass conversion of ex-Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Portugal (in 1497), (2) Venice (1570–1630) and Pisa (1595–1613), (3) Amsterdam and Hamburg (first third of the 17th century, that is, four or five generations after the conversion of their Jewish ancestors). Among the restored surnames for which their earliest known references appear more recently are Rosales 1668 (Livorno from Portugal, Christian surname Bocarro Frances), Berahel 1666 (London, Christian surname Lopes de Liz), Ajuelos 1648 (Amsterdam, Christian surname Soares) and, perhaps also, Abengaly 1662 (Hamburg). Among the most recent earliest references in London to double surnames with the first part Jewish are: Cohen (D)espinosa 1721, Levy Munoz 1714, Cohen de Matos 1713, Israel Correa 1689. In Amsterdam, we find: Baruch de Castro 1695 (born in Burgos, Spain), Levi Soares 1702 (born in 1666 in Paris), Levi Gomes 1692-1693 (siblings born in 1658 and 1662 in Madrid), and Levi da Silva 1690 (born in 1664 in Paris). Well before the years in question we find in various “Portuguese” centers numerous references to both parts of these surnames, but not to these precise combinations. All these persons were born in Spain, Portugal and France, countries where Judaism was prohibited. Consequently, the first (Jewish) parts of their double surnames were clearly added after their migration to Amsterdam (or in some intermediary point of their migration route). The above examples show that even at the end of the 17th century (that is, two hundred years after the conversion of their ancestors) some migrants still were aware of their Levite or Cohen origin or the Jewish surname borne by their ancestors. One can also imagine an alternative scenario according to which such knowledge would be indirect. These new migrants might have close relatives who migrated to Amsterdam one or two generations before them. These earlier migrants could know about their ancestors either directly, or, in turn, from earlier generations of their relatives who came to Amsterdam or other “Portuguese” communities before that time. In other words, we have a chain of generations affected by the mass conversion in 1497 and Marrano migrations from Portugal, Spain, Flanders, or France during the 16th to 18th centuries. Representatives of different generations of the same large families joined “Portuguese” communities of Western Europe at various periods of time. Knowledge of the family roots was transmitted through this chain. This transmission was partly direct, from parents to children in the same countries. It could also be indirect, between more remote relatives, from old residents to new migrants. As is clear from the collected data, long after the mass conversion of 1497, some Iberian New Christians preserved a partial memory about past generations and/or had AVOTAYNU Volume XXXV, Number 1, Spring 2019
knowledge about relatives, close or distant, living in various Western European countries as Jews or as Christians. A manuscript written in mid-17th century Amsterdam by Isaac de Pinto corroborates these theoretical conclusions. The author provides numerous details about his direct New Christian ancestors up to four generations before him and of numerous other relatives. Some of these details could be validated by independent sources. The author was clearly unaware of the surnames his Jewish ancestors (who lived before the Catholic ancestors whose names he knows) bore before their conversion. The detailed character of the genealogical data present in his text suggests that if such information were accessible to him he would have included it. Of particular interest is his explicit mention of his relationship of uncertain nature to another Portuguese refugee, João da Rocha Pinto, who became Zacharia Cohen in Hamburg. Archival community records indicate that on the basis of this distant relationship, Isaac de Pinto attempted to obtain recognition of family’s supposed priestly (Cohen) status from the Amsterdam rabbinate. This attempt was unsuccessful. The family called Pinto, when nominally Christian, just added the preposition de before their Catholic surname. Note that the rabbinate refused the recognition despite this family being one of the wealthiest and highly influential in the community. The information presented in this section shows the importance of close ties in families descending from Jews who converted to Catholicism at the end of the 15th century. These ties were maintained in the Iberian Peninsula inside of these New Christian families. They continued to be strong when certain branches of the large families migrated and became openly Jewish in major “Portuguese” centers such as Venice, Amsterdam or Hamburg. This conclusion is based on analysis of Jewish surnames adopted by some families in their host countries. It implies that if a family acquires a surname of this kind, the surname in question is either the one used by Jewish ancestors before their conversion to Christianity or it reveals the Jewish caste to which these ancestors belonged. Yet, in theory, interpretation of the factual information available to us could be totally different if we consider that some ex-Marranos who adopted surnames used by medieval Iberian Jews were just impostors. Certain authors who wrote about the “Portuguese” communities of Western Europe are proponents of this theory. For example, Herman P. Salomon (1975:21) asserts this scenario for certain branches of the Aboab family, namely Faleiro from Antwerp who became openly Jewish in Hamburg at the beginning of the 17th century. A prominent Venetian rabbi, Samuel Aboab (1610–1694), was from that family. Salomon claims that the members of the Faleiro family had no genealogical connection with the ancient Aboab family. According to him, they adopted the famous Sephardic name simply as a symbol of their newly acquired Jewishness. Another author, James C. Boyajian (1979:151) asserts a massive phenomenon. According to him, “many other converts, anxious to AVOTAYNU Volume XXXV, Number 1, Spring 2019
better assimilate to their new identity, succumbed to the temptation to adopt so renowned a name as Aboab or Senior.” In principle, these ideas could be correct. Yet, in order not to be purely speculative, they should be supported by valid arguments. Salomon just points to the absence of a direct family relationship between the Faleiro and another “Portuguese” family called Aboab for which genealogical information has been published. Boyajian adds to that a comparison of a similar kind between two Senior clans. The surname Abo(h)ab is known in Spain since the 13th century. During the 13th to 15th centuries, it became widespread in Iberian communities. One can imagine that between the mass conversion of Jews in Portugal in 1497 and the beginning of the 17th century numerous New Christian branches of descendants would have formed. In such a situation, the absence of a direct link between two “Portuguese” Jewish families called Aboab living circa 1600 does not preclude their being remote relatives. Although Cohen or Levite origin is transmitted only from father to sons and also is subject to certain other constraints, Jewish tradition postulates no legal restriction on the transmission or adoption of surnames. In such a context, knowledge about some ancestors, from either the paternal or the maternal sides, being related to one of the medieval Iberian Jewish families called Aboab, might have been sufficient for ex-Marranos in Amsterdam, Hamburg or Venice to adopt this surname. A scenario according to which, among the leaders of the newly established Jewish congregations of Hamburg and Amsterdam, some bearers of surnames such as Aboab or Senior were no more than impostors, appears implausible. It would imply that the heads of the leading families decided to distribute, perhaps at random, some medieval surnames among themselves. Several arguments strongly invalidate this possibility that is close in its spirit to a kind of conspiracy theory. Such behavior would not be worthy of these dignified men, respected for their economic and spiritual contribution to the communal life. During the initial development of these “Portuguese” communities, their religious leaders were often Sephardic rabbis invited from the Ottoman Empire or North Africa. The presence of such individuals, direct heirs of medieval Iberian Jewish traditions, created a context highly unfavorable for potential impostors. The case of de Pinto discussed above shows that wealth and the high community rank were not sufficient to grant, in the case of his family, links to Cohanim. Yet, the addition of the name Cohen or Levi before the formerly used Catholic surname (or instead of it) was a common phenomenon, known during the entire 17th century and even at the beginning of the 18th century. Such choices could be done only because of knowledge about the castes to which the Jewish ancestors belonged. The very idea of adopting a surname such as Aboab or Senior “as a symbol of their newly acquired Jewishness” 11
goes against common sense. People guided by a desire to emphasize their Jewishness with newly adopted surnames had many better choices. They could opt for names with such general associations as, for example, Yessurun (a poetic name for the Jewish people), Israel, Ben Abraham, Bar David and more. They could also take names in honor of famous medieval Sephardic religious scholars such as Ben Maimon/Maimonides/ Rambam, (A)ben Esra, (A)ben Gabirol, or (A)ben Nahman / Nahmanides / Ramban. All the above choices, except for Yessurun and Israel were never done, yet, they would be much more logical than taking names whose bearers were not as famous. Consider, for example, the surname Senior. Its most renowned Jewish bearer in the pre-expulsion Iberia was Abraham Senior. Surely, this influential member of the Castilian Royal administration and the kingdom’s most important tax farmer was one of the leading figures of Castilian Jewry during the second half of the 15th century. Yet, his public voluntary conversion in 1492, preferred by him and certain members of his family to emigration from Spain, would not contribute to providing to the surname Senior an elevated status in the Jewish history sufficient for it to be chosen at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries by ex-Marranos to emphasize symbolically their attachment to Judaism. Only a conjecture about the existence of genealogical links makes the choice of surnames such as Senior or Aboab logical. The same conjecture also explains the fact that for many restored ancient Jewish surnames no famous medieval bearers are known. Conclusion As shown in this paper, analysis of surnames used by “Portuguese” Jews allows us to shed some light on the controversial question about what knowledge members of these communities had about their Jewish ancestors who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before the mass conversions at the end of the 15th century. The data provided shows that even four to five generations after the conversions some New Christian descendants still knew the Jewish family names of their ancestors and/or of themselves being Cohanim, Levites, or Israelites. This memory could be either direct, or indirect, i.e., provided by relatives. For both transmission methods, strong family ties among these New Christians were of paramount importance. Works Cited This article is an extract from the author’s soon-to-bepublished book, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Italy, France, and “Portuguese” Communities:Including Surnames of Jews from continental Italy, non-Ashkenazic communities in France, and Sephardic Jews in Western Europe (after the 1490s) and the America. Complete references and numerous additional details will appear in the book.—Ed. Boyajian, James C. 1979. The New Christians reconsidered: evidence from Lisbon’s Portuguese bankers, 149712
1647. Studia Rosenthaliana. Vol. 13, 2, pp. 129-156. Hillgarth, Jocelyn Nigel. 2000. The Mirror of Spain, 1500-1700: The Formation of a Myth. Ann Arbor: The University of the Michigan Press. Pullan, Brian S. 1983. The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550-1670. Oxford: Blackwell. Rivkin, Ellis. 1957. The utilization of non-Jewish sources for the reconstruction of Jewish history. The Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 48, 2, pp. 183-203. Salomon, Herman P. 1975. The “De Pinto” manuscript: a 17th century Marrano family history. Studia Rosenthaliana. Vol. 9, 1, pp. 1-62. Salomon, Herman P. 1982. Fernão Álvarez Melo: 15691632. Portrait of a New Christian. Lisbon: Gulbenkian. Saraiva, António José. 2001. The Marrano Factory: the Portuguese Inquisition and its New Christians 1536-1765. Leiden-Boston: Brill. Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. 1971. From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto. Isaac Cardoso: A Study in SeventeenthCentury Marranism and Jewish Apologetics. New York: Columbia University Press Notes 1. “Portuguese” Jews are former inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula or territories belonging to the Spanish or Portuguese crowns who, after migration to the territories where Judaism was tolerated, became openly Jewish, as well as their descendants. 2. David Abenatar Melo (died circa 1646) notes that the Inquisition and its prisons were “the school where he was taught the knowledge of God” (Yerushalmi 1971:40). Gaspar Mendes del Arroyo alias Abraham Idana, who migrated from Spain to Amsterdam (died 1690) writes that many who entered the Inquisitions’ prisons as Christians, left them, after the torments they had received there, as Jews (Hillgarth 2000:179). 3. For example, Salomon (1982:36-37) speculatively states that “most expatriates at Antwerp, Rouen, Nantes, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and other places in France never ‘returned’ to Judaism.” When speaking about Amsterdam, he reminds readers that Catholicism was prohibited there, and asserts that the Dutch Reformed Church became reluctant to accept Iberian Catholics, while a refusal to join the synagogue often meant ostracism and isolation in a strange environment. Surely, his arguments make sense. Yet, they are purely ad hoc because one would need to invent other arguments to explain the existence of large Crypto-Jewish or Jewish communities in southwestern France (Bordeaux, Bayonne) and Italy (Ancona, Ferrara, Venice, Livorno) where Catholicism was the religion of the Christian majority that would have preferred to see these Iberian immigrants remain Catholic rather than become Jewish.
Alexander Beider holds one doctoral degree in Applied Mathematics and another in Jewish Studies. He uses onomastics and linguistics as tools to unravel the history of the Jewish people. He has written a series of reference books dealing with the etymology of Ashkenazic and Sephardic surnames and Ashkenazic given names, all published by Avotaynu, Inc. (1993–2017). His book Origins of Yiddish Dialects, published by Oxford University Press (2015), sheds light on the early stages of the development of Yiddish. Beider was born in Moscow and currently lives in Paris. AVOTAYNU Volume XXXV, Number 1, Spring 2019