Aron Sterk

I saw this posted as a positive thing by a Sephardi history group. Is the disneyfied enactment of fake Jewish religious ceremonies respectful of the Jewish past or present?

This is intriguing. This is the 1793 (inscribed 'FREIXO DE NVMAN - 1793') shaft of the 'pelourinho' (a column indicating the power of the local council) of the town of Freixo de Numão in the North of Portugal near Vila Nova de Foz Côa. The 'tree' is ostensibly a stylized ash-tree (freixo) but the similarity to the ancient depiction of the menorag is remarkable. Freixo was a centre of Jewish settle...

The Association of Friends of the New Jewish Museum in Lisbon are posting some interesting videos of what, judging by the incongruous and ersatz music, they think of as the shtetls of Portugal. Here Trancoso:

http://brasilhis.usal.es/

Michael Waas giving his excellent talk on the Portuguese Dönme - just before disappearing to the praia.

In this revealing article the author states that "My primary desire was to find out the truth, and distinguish fact from fiction" So I am not sure why Mr Piven thought it was necessary to disparagingly 'name and shame'(?) members of this group for advise that was, in fact, correct.Nevertheless congratulations to him on his Spanish citizenship. The account of his 'Quixotic' quest shows a) that the ...

It can be understood how people may wish to claim a Sephardi identity that is more than possible descent, and it has been pointed out critically that much of the 'evidence' can be plausibly explained in other ways than continuing crypto-Judaism. This excellent (but previously unknown to me) article turns the spotlight on why academic (and even more 'lay expert') discourse has also so uncritically ...

Notification of the death of Prof. Yirmiyahu Yovel whose work will be known to many in this group. בד״הObituary: Prof. Yirmiyahu Yovelby Shalom BergerH-Judaic mourns the passing of Prof. Yirmiyahu Yovel (1935-2018), emeritus professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University, winner of the Israel Prize, and one of Israel's best known public intellectuals, who died following a long battle with cancer...

Baron Antonio Lopes Suasso of Avernas le Gras and his wife lady Rachel da Costa (daughter of Catherine the miniaturist) were rather grand. Here she is with her daughter either Leonora or Catherine. On the column beside her are the Lopes Suasso coat of arms.

Another Catherine da Costa miniature. This one is in the Jewish Museum Amsterdam and shows her nephew Alvaro (Jacob) Lopes Suasso - the second son of Francisco Lopes Suasso (2nd Baron d'Avernas le Gras) and Leonora da Costa. Surprisingly he is dressed as a huntsman. Siegfried Sassoon wasn't the first Sephardi 'Fox-hunting Man'

Porto's latest description of their take on the citizenship process for descendants of Portuguese Jews will be of interest, both for the rules of application and for the interpretation they have put on the history:

An etching of Jonathan's Coffee House dated 1763 and 'inscrib'd to Jacob Henriques'. Henriques was a Jewish financier who proposed various lottery schemes in 18th century London. The diarist Horace Walpole called him a 'visionary Jew who long pestered the public with his reveries'. It is possible that the well-dressed older figure on the left holding a book - 'Old Transfer ... in the form of a Jew...

I would be interested in any comments on this unusual ketubah. The marriage is between Emanuel Mendes da Costa and his cousin Leah Prado. Two things are unusual a) the date (Erev Pesach) and b) the dowry arrangement is reserved to a legal deed. Any one familiar with ketubot seen anything similar or can comment on this?Incidentally the couple were already married two years earlier in St Benet's chu...

This opportunity to do research in the Cecil Roth collection of Leeds University may interest some in this group:

Anna Norsa (b. 1712), was the first Jew to appear on the English stage. Her debut was in the revival of Gay's 'Beggar's Opera' at Covent Garden in December 1732 playing Polly Peachum. She was the daughter of Isaac Norsa (buried in the Novo in 1748). In 1736 she was taken up by Robert Walpole, brother of Horace, became his mistress and went to live with him in Hoghton Hall, Norfolk when he became E...

Among a host of dubious crypto-traditions we have had the nonsense of Sephardi dreidels, but it is interesting to see the process of how these imagined traditions are created. The poster of this picture in Belmonte claims oil lamps like this are 'for many the last link with their ancestral Judaism', but then acknowledges that such lamps are common objects in Portuguese culture. In other words a co...

“... then it struck me that the connection I had felt to the Crypto-Jews—that needful hope in their existence—was shared very strongly by those gathered here. We were explorers of the same historical—but by this point thoroughly American—deception.”

For those who can access Academia, a paper by Carsten Wilke on the neologism "Marrano".For those who can't access it prof. Wilke demonstrates that the word (previously a little attested insult) was first taken from its mention in the work of Antonio Llorente (who mentions it was an insult used by Jews against conversos) by the German Jewish historian Jost in 1832 and the German romantic novelist L...

So 295 approvals out of 3,838 applications in 2015 has risen to 1,800 out of 12,000. This may be an increase of x6, but the rate of approval has slowed from 7.6% to 6.7% What the article does not clarify is whether 12,000 is the number of applications made to the Jewish communities or the number of those passed to the government for ratification.

Announcement of the death of the notable French Jewish historian Gérard Nahon ברוך דיין האמת

I find it interesting the way much of the discourse and practice around so-called anousssim echoes that of the Inquisition. It was the custom of the Inquisition before conducting individual enquiries to read out a list of Jewish beliefs and practices. This served two purposes 1) it alerted people of what to accuse their neighbours of and 2) it let the accused know what to confess for a light sente...

A remarkable Sephardi ketuba from Bucharest, 1831.

Catherine (Rachel) Mendes da Costa (1678?-1756) makes the Telegraph letters page. The miniature is a self-portrait of Catherine based on that of Sofonisba Anguissola. It is painted in tempera and watercolour on ivory.

http://www.museumvleeshuis.be/nl/pagina/wie-zijn-de-duartes

I was wondering if anyone has seen scholarly work on these 'armários secretos' in Portugal? A number of things seem problematic to me about the claim they are 'hechals' (synagogue cabinets for the Torah scrolls), not least that they are fairly obvious and damning evidence of Judaism. But also that there seems to be no evidence of doors or any fittings and there is no evidence of Hebrew scrolls in ...