Narratives from the Sephardic Atlantic

Ronnie Perelis

Description

Identity, family, and community unite three autobiographical texts by New World crypto-Jews, or descendants of Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity in 17th-century Iberia and Spanish America. Ronnie Perelis presents the fascinating stories of three men who were caught within the matrix of inquisitorial persecution, expanding global trade, and the network of crypto-Jewish activity. Each text, reflects the unique experiences of the author and illuminates their shared, deeply rooted attachment to Iberian culture, their Atlantic peregrinations, and their hunger for spiritual enlightenment. Through these writings, Perelis focuses on the social history of transatlantic travel, the economies of trade that linked Europe to the Americas, and the physical and spiritual journeys that injected broader religious and cultural concerns into this complex historical moment.

Introduction
1. Audience and Archive: Text, Context, and the Literary Construction of Experience
2. "Hermanos en el Señor": Spiritual and Social Fraternity and Paternity in Luis de Carvajal, el mozo's Spiritual Autobiography (Mexico 1595)
3. A Prophetic Matrix: Motherhood, Sorority and a Re-imagined Sagrada Familia
4. Writing His Way into the Jewish People: Faith, Blood and Community in Manuel Cardoso de Macedo's Vida del buenaventurado Abraham Pelengrino
5. "All of us are Brothers": Race, Faith and the Limits of Brotherhood in the
Relación of Antonio de Montezinos, alias Aharon HaLevi (1644)
Afterword
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Jewish Studies
• Jewish
• 17th Century
• Modern
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Jews
• Modern history
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 21 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253024091
• Langue: English

Extrait

NARRATIVES FROM THE SEPHARDIC ATLANTIC
INDIANA SERIES IN SEPHARDI AND MIZRAHI STUDIES
Harvey E. Goldberg and Matthias Lehmann, editors
NARRATIVES FROM THE SEPHARDIC ATLANTIC
Blood and Faith
Ronnie Perelis
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Ronnie Perelis
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Perelis, Ronnie, author.
Title: Narratives from the Sephardic Atlantic : blood and faith / Ronnie Perelis.
Description: First edition. | Bloomington and Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, 2017. | Series: Indiana series in Sephardi and Mizrahi studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016045755 (print) | LCCN 2016046921 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253024015 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253024091 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Crypto-Jews-Spain-Biography. | Carvajal, Luis de, 1567?-1596. | Mello, Jo o Manuel Cardoso de. | Montezinos, Antonio de, active 17th century.
Classification: LCC DS135.S8 A165 2017 (print) | LCC DS135.S8 (ebook) | DDC 970.004/924009246-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045755
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
To Tammy, for your love and faith
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Audience and Archive: Text, Context, and the Literary Construction of Experience
2 Hermanos en el Se or : Spiritual and Social Fraternity and Paternity in Luis de Carvajal the Younger s Spiritual Autobiography (New Spain, 1595)
3 A Prophetic Matrix: Motherhood, Sorority, and a Reimagined Sagrada Familia
4 Writing His Way into the Jewish People: Faith, Blood, and Community in Manuel Cardoso de Macedo s Vida del buenaventurado Abraham Pelengrino
5 All of Us Are Brothers : Race, Faith, and the Limits of Brotherhood in the Relaci n of Antonio de Montezinos, alias Aharon Levi (1644)
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
W HILE A VISITING professor at Brandeis University, the social historian, Silvia Arrom, invited me to lunch. She also offered to look over my manuscript beforehand. I welcomed a set of new eyes to help reorient the project. When we met, she handed me a copy with copious notes and one big idea. She saw Benedict Anderson s Imagined Communities written all over my analyses of spiritual discovery and textual encounters. It took a social historian to see the centrality of the networks of family and community to the life stories of the religious adventurers and dreamers I studied. By the end of our lunch I saw how Carvajal s, Macedo s, and Montezinos s stories were linked together by the double bond of sociobiological and spiritual family. It was also clear to me at that moment that looking at their self-narratives through the lens of family would both contextualize them within their historical moment and tell us something new about religion, family, and the construction of identity in the early modern world. That was a very productive lunch!
And so it goes that this project has benefited from spiritual fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters whose erudition and generosity have enriched almost every page of Narratives from the Sephardic Atlantic . Kathleen Ross guided me through the earliest stages of this project with an eye for detail, patience, and respect for my intuitions. She was a keen reader and sensitive listener who did not let me hide behind vague and shiny ideas. At the earliest stages of my research, Yosef Kaplan was a steady guide as I explored the contours of the Western Sephardic Diaspora. I was a graduate student he had never met, writing to him from afar, and yet he always returned my emails with detailed comments and useful leads. His encouragement and guidance have enriched this project in countless ways, and I continue to learn from his scholarship and gentileza .
Colleagues near and far have offered careful notes, challenging critiques, and suggestions that helped transform my drafts into this book: Jonathan Schorsch, Claude Dov Stuckzynski, Will Stenhouse, Debra Kaplan, James Amelang, Richard Kagan, Holly Snider, Emily Colbert Cairns, Hilit Surowitz-Israel, Steve Fine, Laura Leibman, and Adam Zachary Newton. The anonymous readers at the University of Indiana Press provided me with penetrating questions and useful suggestions. The editorial staff at Indiana University Press and, in particular, Matthias Lehmann and Harvey Goldberg, have guided this book with grace to its publication.
An earlier version of chapter 3 appeared as Blood and Spirit: Paternity, fraternity and religious self-fashioning in Luis de Carvajal s spiritual autobiography in Estudios Interdisciplinarios de Am rica Latina y el Caribe (Vol. 23, No. 1, July 2012). I wish to thank Prof. Raanan Rein and the editors of EIAL for their comments. The chapters on Carvajal also benefited from comments made by the participants in the Foro de Estudios Inquisitoriales at the Colegio de M xico where I presented my research on May 12, 2015. In particular I would like to thank Gabriel Torres Puga and Jes s del Prado Plumed for their warm hospitality and subtle insights into the case of the Carvajal family. My reading of Montezinos s narrative began as a paper delivered at the First Lavy Symposium, Atlantic Jewry in an Age of Mercantilism, held at Johns Hopkins University in the spring of 2005. The comments and questions of the participants were invaluable as that paper turned into These Indians are Jews! : Lost Tribes, Crypto-Jews and Jewish Self-Fashioning in Antonio de Montezinos Relaci n of 1644 in Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800 (JHU 2008). The essay benefited greatly from Richard Kagan s and Philip Morgan s careful eye and judicious editing.
Numerous friends answered my email queries both practical and theoretical and asked sharp and provocative questions during conferences: Stan Mirvis, Jes s del Prado Plumed, Carsten Wilke, Francesca Bregoli, Miriam Bodian, Julia R. Lieberman, Matt Goldish, David Graizbord, Asher Salah, Joel Hecker, Erin Graff Zivin, Alan Brill, Jos Alberto Tavim, and Sarah J. Pearce. This book is richer because of their collegiality and generosity of spirit and honesty.
From my first semester at Yeshiva University I encountered a vibrant intellectual community. My students at the Revel Graduate School, Yeshiva College, and Stern College enriched my thinking and challenged my assumptions. I was blessed to be able to share my love of the texts at the center of this book with my students and to see the experiences of Carvajal, Cardoso, and Montezinos from new perspectives. My colleagues welcomed me and proved to be strong allies and friends. David Berger and Mordechai Cohen, at the helm of the Bernard Revel Graduate School, offered unwavering support for this project. The deans of both YC and Stern have worked hard to create an environment where scholarship and passionate teaching are valued and supported. Dr. Herbert Dobrinsky continues to lead the Sephardic Studies program at YU with passion and conviction. This book benefited from his hard work supporting Sephardic history and culture at YU for over fifty years. Steve Fine has been an indispensable friend and mentor during my years at YU; thank you for the tea and conversation.
The following grants gave me the opportunity to explore archives and libraries, consult experts, and pursue my research with greater ease: the Coca-Cola Travel grant (1997 and 2001); the Mark Uveeler Special Doctoral Scholarship from the Memorial Foundation (2003-4); the Maurice Amado Research Grant (2003); Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant (2001); and the Siman Sephardic Summer Research Grant (1997). I appreciated the warm invitation of the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounter at Ben Gurion University for the summers of 2014 and 2015. The Dr. Kenneth Chelst Book Grant gave me the ability to work with two of my talented students, Daniel Atwood and Elisha Fine, on the revision of the manuscript. The librarians at several institutions provided invaluable assistance in tracking down materials: the librarians at Yeshiva University, especially the intrepid librarians of the Inter-library loan department; the National Library in Madrid; the National Library of Israel; the University of Pennsylvania; the Center for Advanced Jewish Studies in Philadelphia; and the Jewish Theological Seminary s rare book room, where an under-supervised summer job reviewing their collection of Spanish and Portuguese books led the way to this book.
The cover of this book is graced with a dreamlike vision of fathers and sons by the Mexican artist Eduardo Cohen. His widow Esther Shabot generously offered the image and was happy that her late husband s painting was connected to work exploring themes close to his heart.
My siblings and siblings-in-law have supported me in this ongoing project. I have learned so much about brot