From Christianity to Judaism: Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) - Hardcover

Kaplan, Yosef

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0197100600 ISBN 13: 9780197100608

Publisher: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1989

Synopsis

Translated from the Hebrew, this is a biography of Isaac Orobio de Castro, born Baltazar Alvares, a crypto-Jew from Portugal who was one of the most prominent intellectual figures of the Sephardi Diaspora in the 17th century. After studying medicine and theology in Spain and having pursued a medical career, he was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition for practising Judaism, tortured, tried and imprisoned. He subsequently emigrated to France and became a professor of medicine at Toulouse before openly professing his Judaism and going to Amsterdam in 1662, where he joined the thriving Portuguese Jewish community. Amsterdam was then a city of great cultural creativity and religious pluralism. Here Orobio became a spokesman and apologist for the Jewish community and engaged in controversy with Juan de Prado and Baruch Spinoza, who were both excommunicated by the Portuguese Jewish community, as well as with Christian theologians including Philip Van Limborch. This biography considers the life and the thoughts of Orobio, who became one of the foremost spokesmen of Sephardic Judaism in western Europe at this time.

The text also sheds light on the life of a unique Jewish community of former Christians who had openly turned to Judaism. It focuses on the particular dilemmas of the converts, their attempts to establish boundaries between their Christian past and their new identity and their ability to create new forms of Jewish life and expression.

About this title

About the Author:

Yosef Kaplan is the Bernard Cherrick Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published extensively on the history of the Marranos and the Western Sephardi diaspora, including From Christianity to Judaism (Oxford, 1989), The Western Sephardi Diaspora (Tel Aviv,
1994), and Les Nouveux juifs d'Amsterdam (Paris, 1998).

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew

About this edition

• Publisher: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0197100600
• ISBN 13: 9780197100608
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 601