Posts by Aron Sterk
224 posts
It would seem that these are two of the only surviving 'sambenitos' in Spain. These were boards placed in the church recording the judgment of the Inquisition court against an individual.
It seems a good deal of effort has gone into the design of the new centre in Bragança. But why oh why could the same effort have not gone into the English translations? Would it have been too much trouble to get an English speaker to edit them?
This may be of interest to some in this group:Apply: PhD Scholarship – Mediterranean HistoryUniversity of HaifaThe Haifa Center for Mediterranean History (HCMH) is offering a three-year PhD scholarship for a project relating to the pre-modern history of the Mediterranean, starting in October 2017.HCMH, which began its work this year, promotes the historical study of the pre-modern Mediterranean at...
LADINO AGAIN?The question of what Jews called the language they spoke in the Balkans has been discussed often here, but really only in terms of academic disputes with anecdotal evidence. So I thought this empirical evidence from Tracy Harris's 'Death of a Language: The History of Judeo-Spanish' (1994) would be of interest:When 91 native speakers in New York, Israel and LA were asked (in 1978-85) w...
http://www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2017/05/14/italy-watch-restoration-of-windows-in-venice-synagogues/%E2%80%9D
We have had a debate here recently about the meaning of "marrano" and offline we have discussed a certain scholar's claim that the word is an academic term which "people have recently discovered to mean 'pig'". So I wanted to post here definitions from two dictionaries that show that the term has a current pejorative meaning in contemporary Spanish and Portuguese that is in no way related to any s...
I am hoping to be presenting at the conference on 'Jewish Country Houses' in Oxford next March organised by Dr. Abigail Green (biographer of Sir Moses Montefiore). These are some of the Mendes - Da Costa country house:
Great news for Bevis Marks. Good luck with phase 2!
The fascinating and rather surprising story of Sarah La Preta a slave to a Sephardi Jewish family in late 19th century Ottoman Palestine.
GRAVE ROBBERS AT BEVIS MARKS CEMETERYGrave robbers who stole newly buried bodies for clandestine sale to anatomy doctors and students was rife in the 18th and early 19th century. Various devices were proposed to counter this designed to make it hard to dig up the body or to keep it safe until it was no longer of use to anatomists because of advanced decay. The picture is of a Scottish 'mort stone'...
A NOTE ON THE LONDON FINTA/IMPOSTAAn indication of the annual income of the richer members of the community can be gained from the community’s own tax assessments. The community collected an income tax called the imposta from its richer members (the yehidim) who were entitled to vote and hold office in the Synagogue. The rate of the imposta varied, being set at 2s for every £100 on normal business...
A note on 'Sepharad': the question of to where the term 'Sepharad' refers came up recently. It has become an orthodox opinion that it refers only to Al-Andalus. This is true in the way it is used in the early middle ages, however the first identification of Sepharad with Spain is in the Targum Jonathan on Obadiah where 'Sepharad' is translated as 'Ispamia'. As Targum Jonathan dates from the 1st c....
The reliability of genetic tests aside, I can see a number of people posting DNA results, here and elsewhere, purporting to show that they are in some sense 'Sephardi' or 'Jewish' regardless of any of the traditional markers of identity; belief, community, family culture and history, etc. And regardless of the fact that their genetic make-up is majority *non*-Jewish. There seems a certain irony in...
The attached article presently being shared by an organisation promoting the cause of the descendants of anousim claims that the the Torre Tavira in Cádiz has a 'crypto-Jewish' symbol a hanukkia. Elementary research would show that this form was not used at that period but only much later, rather obviating it as a symbol of (crypto-)Judaism. It seems to me that the promotion of such obvious pseudo...
Maybe this is connected to endogamy ...Thomas Patch was an 18th c. English painter based in Florence who specialised in views of the Arno and caricatures of English aristos passing through Florence on the Grand Tour. This painting from about 1760 is "The Duke of Roxburgh and Miss Tabitha Mendez"John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburgh is seen steeling himself to propose to the rich but unlovely dwarf Tabith...
http://visao.sapo.pt/opiniao/bolsa-de-especialistas/2017-03-18-Porque-estudar-os-sefarditas-
I have a rather odd ketuba from 1760/5520 - the couple were married on the 14 Nisan. This has to be unusual. how often might this happen and what might the implications be? Any insights would be welcome ...
Contemporary politics aside, this article by Francois Soyer raises an interesting question for anyone using Inquisition testimony for the Converso history. To what extent is the testimony reliable? Two scholars who were immersed in Inquisition records took radically opposed stands on this; the French scholar Israel Révah argued that the Inquisition never made mistakes (« L'Inquisition ne se trompe...
Eu formei este grupo para compartilhar informação e materiais que eu compilei sobre a Liturgia e Costumes dos judeus portugueses de Londres, Amsterdã, e America do Norte para judeus lusófonos. Toda o material tem seus direitos reservados mas pode ser utilizado para uso pessoal. Fique à vontade para adicionar quem quiser ou compartilhar este grupo.
The original Hebrew and translation of two contemporary accounts of the expulsion from Spain as abridged in the Marcus excerpt posted below. NB the numbers given like all medieval figures need to be taken with a generous pinch of salt.
This sort of thing makes one despair. Why try to do history research with integrity when an expert in Tourism (!) can just make it up ...
Can anyone with better eyesight or imaging software help transcribe the Hebrew inscription on these gravestones? The English reads:1) "Here Lies Interred the Earthly Remains of Mr Abraham of Moses Mendes da Costa who lived justly and Religiously the term of fourscore years being born in October 1683 and died the 11th January 1763Peace be to His Memory"2) S(epultura) do Bomaventurado Mose Mendes da...
https://www.facebook.com/westernsephardic/posts/646789288835675