Marranos

Manuel Cardoso de Macedo (1585–1652) is a man of multiple worlds, as his Azorean Catholic youth, his years living as a protestant in England, his encounter with crypto-Judaism and his eventual embrace of normative Judaism in Amsterdam’s Sephardic community certainly attest. Cardoso wrote an eloquent and carefully crafted spiritual Autobiography during his time living as a Jew in Amsterdam, La Vida del buenaventurado Abraham Pelengrino. In this essay I look at the pivotal years Cardoso spent in England where he first encountered Protestant ideas and I interrogate the way some of those fundamental ideas continue to inform his self-understanding even after his embrace of Judaism. In this essay I examine his religious transformations and the ways he describes those transformations from the vantage point of the Calvinist ideas he encountered especially the concept of providence and grace. The essay asks in what ways is his religious journey fueled by particularly English Protestant sensibilities and concerns. How is his eventual embrace of Judaism informed by this encounter?

Despite their numerous similarities, Marranos in inquisitorial Spain and Recusants (and the so-called ‘Church Papists’), English Crypto-Catholics, in the wake of the English religious reforms, have rarely been studied concurrently. In this paper I will argue that secrecy was a central feature of the daily lives of both these minorities, and it helped them function as groups despite their internal diversity, experiencing a wide array of expressions of belonging. The elasticity of the groups’ religious practices clearly contributed to the rise of new forms of worship and to the creation of new ritual objects which could be validated by diasporic belief systems. As a consequence, beyond criticisms, these communities functioned as significant vectors of change in how their entire religious groups practiced their faiths. Ultimately, it appears that both Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Catholics existed as cohesive groups as much because their members shared religious practices as due to the diasporic culture of martyrdom.

Seca, fome e peste. Esta era a situação pela qual passava Lisboa naquela Páscoa de 1506. O rei, como era costume em tais casos, havia saído da cidade, e atrás dele grande parte dos nobres e dos membros da alta burguesia. Enquanto isso, várias procissões pediam a Deus que acabasse com as desgraças que assolavam a população. Neste espírito de exaltação, no domingo 19 de abril, uma semana depois da celebração da morte e ressurreição de Jesus pelos cristãos, um milagre aconteceu na igreja do convento dos dominicanos.

Apresento  neste  artigo  uma  descrição  analítica  da  autobiografia –Uma  Vida Humana(Exemplar  Humanae  Vitae)  de  Uriel  da  Costa,  um  judeu  marrano  português nascido  na  cidade  do  Porto  que  se  radicou  em  Amsterdã  em  1615  após  fuga  da  Santa Inquisição. Uriel da Costa escreveu a obra um pouco antes de se suicidar (em 1640) e nela encontramos  uma  descrição  da  sua  trajetória  intelectual  determinada  pela  sua  radical oposição  às  práticas  político-religiosas  da  comunidade judaica  sefardita  de  Amsterdã.  A autobiografia de Uriel da Costa  é um dos grandes documentos das revoltas  heréticas no Século XVII. Com a análise da trajetória de Uriel da Costa  na sua luta  ideológica contra os rabinos sefarditas e do seu suicídio, motivado pelas excomunhões (Heréns) que sofreu, desenvolvo  uma  breve  nota  historiográfica  sobre  uma  prática  ideológica  de  naturalismo deísta  que  já  sugeria  diretrizes  posteriormente  disseminadas  no  pensamento  iluminista europeu do século XVIII.

¿Cómo es leído Jacques Derrida por los hispanistas? Esa pregunta abre el libro y recorre las páginas de este gran trabajo editorial realizado por Erin Graff Zivin. ¿De qué manera el espectro, y especialmente la figura del marrano de Derrida, nos convoca a preguntarnos sobre nuestras identidades, nuestras filosofías y nuestra mirada del mundo?

En estas páginas el lector encontrará un carnaval de anécdotas, una
sucesión de pequeñas escenas históricas y textuales pertenecientes a los
archivos de la Inquisición y la Cábala; pero reconocerá además los
injertos del pensamiento contemporáneo en una lectura espejeante
donde se superponen dos series de textos. Este libro abre un diálogo
entre quienes no convivieron en un mismo presente, especialmente entre
el antiguo pensamiento sefardita y las especulaciones de Walter
Benjamin, Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida y el mismo Jorge Luis
Borges, quienes han puesto en jaque a la ontología desde supuestos
bastante “cabalistas”. Las estrategias textuales y metáforas sefarditas,
figuras de una belleza paradojal, despliegan así su vigencia: aparecen
como radiografías por adelantado del desgarro contemporáneo.

This article conducts a close reading of Derrida’s 1994 essay, “Faith and Knowledge”, devoted to the analysis of what Hegel called ‘the religion of modern times’. The reference to Hegel’s “Glauben und Wissen” is crucial here, since my reading is meant to offer a supplement to Michael Naas’ commentary on “Faith and Knowledge”, Miracle and Machine, in which Naas states that he is not going to pursue the connection between Derrida and Hegel. It was, however, Hegel who defined the ‘modern religious sentiment’ in terms of the ‘religion of the death of God’, and this definition constitutes Derrida’s point of departure. Derrida agrees with Hegel’s diagnosis, but is also critical of its Protestant–Lutheran interpretation, which founds modern religiosity on the ‘memory of the Passion’, and attempts a different reading of the ‘death of God’ motif as the ‘divine retreat’, pointing to a non-normative ‘Marrano’ kind of faith that stakes on the alternative ‘memory of the Passover’. The apparent visibility of the ‘returning religion’ Derrida witnesses at the beginning of the 90s hides for him a new dimension of the ‘original faith’, which Derrida associates with the universal messianic justice and which he ascribes to the paradoxical position of the Marranos: the secret followers of the God ‘in retreat’.

Desde finales de la Baja Edad Media se inicia en la localidad bajoextremeña de Fregenal de la Sierra un periodo de crecimiento que se prolonga hasta las últimas décadas del siglo XVI. En esa larga etapa destaca la presencia de un grupo de origen judeoconverso, cuyo sector más dinámico, enriquecido por la actividad artesanal y comercial basada en sectores destacados como el del cuero, inicia un proceso de ascenso social para incorporarse a los grupos locales de poder y en el que el mecenazgo artístico es un elemento que comienza a configurarse como factor importante para la obtención de prestigio social. En este contexto se explica la presencia de una notable actividad artística, que llega a crear un núcleo de carácter comarcal, con la presencia de artistas de varios sectores como la platería, la arquitectura, la pintura y la escultura. Dentro de esta última área, una de las obras más notables es el retablo de la iglesia parroquial de Santa Ana, para el que aquí se da a conocer su cronología, la década de los 70 de dicha
centuria, y su autor, el hasta ahora poco conocido entallador Antonio de Auñón.

The Stormy Life of Am Ha'arets, or How Jacob Won the Virgin. Jacob Frank's Words of the Lord as a Picaresque Novel The aim of this essay is to present Jacob Frank's Words of the Lord as the first (and perhaps the last) Polish picaresque novel which abounds in semi-fantastical, kabbalah-inspired stories, depicting a stormy life of a protagonist who calls himself an "am ha'arets" (a man of the land or a village idiot in Hebrew) and brags of his infinite and supranatural vitality that helps him to overcome all adversities. The essay considers a hypothesis formulated by Yirmiyahu Yovel, according to which the picaro novel emerged in 16th century Spain, in the milieu of the Marranos or conversos, i.e. the Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity, but usually retained some elements of their Judaic faith undercover. This hypothesis seems to fit perfectly well to Jacob Frank's gadki (stories) as he himself can be regarded as the paradigmatic Marrano: a willing convert to Catholicism, whose aim was to "messianize" the Christian religion from within. The essay ends with a comparison of Frank's messianic ambitions to Jacques Derrida whose messianicite operates on a similar Marrano basis.

La presente edición de la relación del Auto de la fe celebrado en Lima
a 23 de enero de 1639, que redactó el licenciado Fernando de Montesinos
para dar cuenta de uno de los procesos más cruentos que llevara a
cabo el Tribunal de la Inquisición en el virreinato del Perú, se realizó
como parte del Proyecto I+D+i «Intertextualidad y Crónica de Indias:
variedad discursiva de la escritura virreinal americana» (referenciado
como FFI2012-37235FILO) y ahora se benefi cia de la continuidad
del mismo dentro del Programa de I+D de Excelencia del Ministerio
de Economía y Competitividad, con título «En los bordes del archivo,
I: escrituras periféricas en los virreinatos de Indias» y referencia
FFI2015-63878-C2-1-P.

As shown in this paper, analysis of surnames used by
“Portuguese” (ex-Marrano) 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.

Usque examines the trials and misfortunes of the Jewish people in an effort to both comfort and encourage Anusim (i.e. forced or coerced converts to Christianity). For Usque, “history” serves a divine purpose. And in the context of his audience, the Anusim, it serves to alleviate their pain, to convince them of the reasons for their current predicament, and to convince them that an immanent redemption was soon to be realized. To achieve this, they should return openly to Judaism.

Los conversos hispanos, en gran parte de origen lusitano en la España de los siglos XVI y XVII, carecen de apego al territorio. Tal es la imagen dominante en la sociedad hispana, marcada por los estatutos de limpieza de sangre y la actividad inquisitorial, y frecuentemente retomada por la historiografía. Por cierto, impulsada por sus actividades comerciales y favorecida por sus extensas redes familiares, su movilidad geográfica es intensa. Sin embargo, cabe destacarse que sus desplazamientos alternan con períodos de estabilidad y permiten la génesis de anclajes territoriales. Asi es como las prácticas judaizantes y la organisación de comunidades marranas, que funcionan a modo de las sociedades secretas de Simmel, dan lugar a nuevas formas territoriales, concretas como imaginarias que integran a los conversos en la diáspora sefardí. Por lo tanto, esta ponencia se propone examinar la territorialidad marrana a través de sus diversos anclajes y de sus ‘territorios circulatorios’ y del registro imaginario asi creado.

Wymagamy od intymistów, oprócz szczerości, by opowiadali historię swojego życia w sposób otwarty, klarowny i jawny. Ten warunek nie jest spełniony, jeśli autorzy z jakichś względów nie piszą o sobie wprost i zamiast tego prowadzą gry z przyjętymi konwencjami wyznawania.

Podstawowym celem tej książki jest scharakteryzowanie rozmaitych przetworzeń tradycyjnego paradygmatu gatunkowego autobiografii. Materiał empiryczny stanowią teksty Kazimierza Brandysa, Stanisława Lema, Romana Zimanda, Artura Sandauera, Philipa Rotha i Paula Karla Feyerabenda. Autor analizuje je w odniesieniu do współczesnych studiów nad intymistyką, stawiając pytania zarówno o metody dystansowania się od utrwalonych schematów narracyjno-kompozycyjnych, jak i pozaestetyczne przyczyny podejmowania gier z autobiografią. Ponieważ większość bohaterów zamieszczonych w książce analiz − pisarzy, krytyków, intelektualistów − to Polacy żydowskiego pochodzenia publikujący w okresie PRL, Artur Hellich przedstawia ich utwory jako świadectwa istnienia oryginalnego zjawiska w powojennej polskiej literaturze dokumentu osobistego.

The 13th century Papal Inquisition was only one step in a process of continual stages of historic abhorrence against the Jewish people; a history which can be traced back to antiquity. In 1492 when the Jewish population in Spain was expelled, the Inquisition in Spain had already been in effect for over a decade. Soon after the expulsion, the intensity in which the Church pursued secretly practicing Jews (Marranos) and New Christians (Conversos) accused of heretical crimes, increased. However, a most unique and scathful punishment, in accordance with early Christian concepts, was to not put the heretic to death—but to publicly humiliate him within his community; thus making him and his family perpetual victims of societal ridicule. In Iberia, implementation of this manner of punishment was through the mandated wearing of a garment known as the san benito. As a subject not previously explored, the origin, historical usage, and significant consequence of this penitential garment of shame is examined here.

How did Jews set the boundaries between orthodoxy and heresy?

This article argues that they did so in constant contact and negotiation with the ambient majority religious groups. It compares three cases of Karaite-Rabbanite tension—in Fatimid Jerusalem, Christian Iberia and Mamluk Egypt, and republican Amsterdam, based on published and unpublished sources.

In the end, this article is a polemic against the kind of internalist Jewish history-writing done so magisterially by the likes of Gershom Scholem. Scholem's interpretation of Jewish heresy, and especially of Sabbatianism, presumed an airtight seal around the Jewish community. But not only did Jews accused of heresy absorb ideas from Islam and/or Christianity; the rabbis who accused them of heresy couldn't help but articulate their accusations in terms they shared with the ambient religions.

[Attention:  The attachments contain correct download links to the accompanying presentation in both pptx and ppsx (presentation & show)] in English and Greek [Ελληνικά]
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Jewish Thessaloniki is unique because the most cataclysmic and momentous event in its 2,000 year history is its (near total) obliteration. Unfathomable events of human annihilation took place within a space of a few months in 1943 CE. These events have been only superficially researched as to the interplay of circumstances and powers that allowed them to take place, to the degree and speed they occurred. Documentary evidence shows the bureaucratic efficiency of the perpetrators. The events of the Holocaust of the Jews of Thessaloniki should be correlated with the history of the Community before AND after the destruction. The question is twofold: if more human beings could have been saved and, irrespective of the outcome, what was the moral standing of the surroundings of the Community? The latter, for objective purposes, can only be surmised and deduced by the behavior, attitude, actions, reactions and / or omissions of the non–Jewish community, as a whole and as individuals, BEFORE and AFTER the Holocaust. Unfortunately the general Holocaust mathematical equation has two parts: The first equality states that it only takes a few evil persons to assassinate [too] many. The second equality states that many righteous humans may save, at most, a finite number of fellow beings. Darfur waits our actions. . .

By drawing on documents from European archives, this article addresses everyday aspects of diplomacy in sixteenth-century Constantinople. It focuses on how various go-betweens mediated political, cultural, religious and linguistic boundaries in the encounters between Ottoman grandees and European diplomats. By doing so, it shifts the focus from the office of the ambassador to a large number of informal diplomatic actors (Jewish brokers, dragomans, renegades, go-betweens, etc.) with different areas of competence, functioning in diverse networks of contact and exchange. Moreover, it accentuates the importance of Constantinople as a space of encounter between diverse ethnic and religious communities as well as a Mediterranean-wide center of diplomacy and espionage. The essay calls for a reevaluation of Eurocentric views that associate the birth and development of modern diplomacy only with Christian Europe and revises the historiography on Ottoman diplomacy by concentrating on vernacular diplomacy rather than the rigid theoretical framework drawn by the Islamic Law

Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2018.

O objetivo central deste trabalho é discutir a memória religiosa criptojudaica no século XVIII no espaço da Bahia de Todos os Santos, lugar importante do Atlântico Português em função da projeção agrária-comercial. A análise da comunidade centra-se nos processos de 14 mulheres cristãs-novas enredadas no Tribunal da Inquisição de Lisboa, sobre as quais recaíram acusações da prática da religião dos ancestrais cuja proibição remontava à unificação católica iniciada duzentos anos antes. A partir delas a pesquisa se expande para a rede de relações. Tem-se como resultado, neste particular, a circulação de pessoas e de ideias e materialidades religiosas entre os lados do Atlântico.

Para contar la historia de la fundación de Trinidad, Santa Bárbara y conocer los orígenes de sus fundadores, hay que remontarse a la historia de la conquista y colonización de Guatemala y Honduras, abarcaremos este tema en la primera parte de este documento. Incluimos Guatemala puesto que los fundadores de Trinidad llegaron de Chiquimula de la Sierra; así se llamó inicialmente la Chiquimula de hoy, en Guatemala. La historia de Trinidad y la tradición oral dicen que quienes la fundaron fueron españoles, criollos y peninsulares e igualmente que una buena parte de ellos eran judío-sefarditas.

Seguidamente nos referiremos a Chiquimula de la Sierra. Mencionaremos cuando se fundó.
Esclareceremos su historia pues está directamente relacionada con la fundación de Trinidad, Santa Bárbara. Hablaremos de las poblaciones españolas que se radicaron en estos territorios actualmente pertenecientes a Guatemala y Honduras. Presentaremos hechos históricos que se dieron con los personajes de la conquista y la colonización de Mesoamérica.
Finalmente, indicaremos el último desplazamiento que nos interesa de los españoles sefarditas en estas tierras, de Chiquimula de la Sierra hacia la hoy ciudad Santa Bárbara y luego a la de Trinidad, el cuándo y el cómo llegaron. Quedando así establecido el vínculo de los orígenes sefarditas de sus conquistadores y colonos fundadores, que levantan Chiquimula, en Guatemala y 270 años después… Trinidad, Santa Bárbara, en Honduras y entre esas familias, la familia Paz.

ENGLISH 
Cecil Roth, one of the most prominent Jewish historians, and the debate arisen about his works on the history of the Jews; Roth’s works within the “official” Israeli historiography. 

ITALIAN 
Cecil Roth, uno dei più noti storici ebrei, e le discussioni intorno alle sue opere sulla storia del "popolo eletto". I lavori di Roth nell'ambito della storia "ufficiale" di Israele.

Marranos. El otro del otro es el cuarto libro de la filósofa italiana Donatella Di Cesare, Catedrática de la Sapienza-Università di Roma, publicado en la colección «Clásicos del mañana» de la Editorial Gedisa, después de la aparición de Heidegger y los judíos. Los Cuadernos negros (2017), Terrorismo (2017) y Tortura (2018)  de la misma autora.
Este texto de Di Cesare es una exploración inquieta e inquietante. Su indagación no promete al lector dar, al final del recorrido, con una terra incognita que se revelará reconfortantemente segura o con un tesoro hundido en las profundidades abisales del pasado, sino que se mueve en prodigiosos meandros que aguardan aun, en cada una de sus discontinuidades, una chispa de redención metafísico-política.

Castroreale is a Sicilian centre in Valdemone. It was one of the most populated
communities of this large area. In the 15th century, it hosted a Jewish community
formed, in particular, by physicians, artisans and merchants of cloth. All were in
commercial relations with Messina and its urban patriciate. Castroreale was also
home to a significant number of neophytes, who were persecuted by the Inquisition
in the first decades of the 16th century.

JUDAIZERS AND MALSINES: CRYPTO -JEWISH NETWORKS DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract: The Seventeenth Century involved the beginning of a new enemy for the Inquisition, the Portuguese crypto-jew, who was unfairly known as “marrano” in the society of their time. During the first years of Spanish Inquisition, the Judaism was absolutely doomed in Spain, after this new character appears in scene, with a new network, it grew again. In this article, we try to show the Portuguese New Christian society of Cordoba during the Early Modern Age. We will show with different examples the variety of Portuguese’s community and commercials interests for the Andalusian geographical area.

Key words: Inquisition, judaizers, malsín, marranos, networks.

Hunted by the inquisition ever since the 1550s, the Greek-Italian Antitrinitarian theologian, Jacobus Palaeologus, was executed in Rome in 1585. The prolific author, most of whose works remained unprinted, spent an adventurous life be-tween the Levant, Italy, and Eastern Europe, ever trying to persuade rulers and poli-ticians of a project intended to reconcile religions and empires: Palaeologus pro-posed to reduce Christianity to a strict monotheism acceptable to Christians, Mus-lims, and Jews alike. According to Palaeologus, Christianity can be practiced in three equally legitimate modes, the Gentile Christian mode, the Turkish Christian mode (which is Islam), and the Jewish Christian mode. The third category comprises both the Oriental churches originating from primitive Jewish Christianity, and Jews – provided they concede to Jesus the epithet “the Anointed” just as the Muslims do (which excludes “infidel” Jews). Each Christian may change from one mode to an-other, and even be circumcised and practice Jewish law, without risking eternal sal-vation. While Palaeologus’s theology eventually happened to influence Transylvanian Unitarianism, its original context was the Levant with its frequent conversions and reconversions of Christians to and from Islam, and with the massive arrival of Marrano refugees to Salonica and Constantinople. Part of the newcomers were reluctant to completely renounce Christianity, but saw themselves compelled to convert to Judaism in order to obtain a reliable status in the Ottoman Empire. It seems that Palaeologus’s theory responded exactly to this dilemma. He must have been familiar with the precarious situation of the Portuguese conversos since his university studies in Ferrara around 1550. Reports to the Roman Inquisition on Palaeologus’s activities in Chios and Constantinople claimed that he was a protégé of influential Marrano circles in Salonica and Constantinople including the Mendes-Nasi family. However, Palaeologus’s preserved writings reveal that his knowledge about Judaism was shallow, and that he shared many of the anti-Jewish stereotypes common among Christian contemporaries.

R. Joseph Albo (1380–1444) lived at the beginning of the 15th century, at a time when the Jewish community in Spain was under extraordinary pressure from Christianity and suffered from internal religious controversies and widespread conversions. This article argues that in writing the Book of Principles (1425) Albo attempted to unite the Jewish community by strengthening the traditional values of observing Torah and mitzvot. First, it explains that the key to understanding Albo’s principles lies in the concept of Divine Religion. This criterion guides Albo in determining three categories: “principles,” “roots,” and “branches.” Second, it lays forth Albo’s complex position regarding the issue of inadvertent heresy. According to Albo, inadvertent heresy can be contained only with regard to the “roots” and “branches,” but not the “principles.” Albo distinguishes between general heresy against Divine Religion, which is considered heresy, and heresy against a specific dogma, which is considered “only” a sin. Third, it explains how this conception of heresy is related to Albo’s concept of the remnant of the soul, which depends on observance of mitzvot along with the religious intention of doing God’s will. This clarifies the inherent innovation of Albo’s doctrine, according to which the concepts of faith and heresy should be assessed only in accordance with their implications for the observance of the Divine Religion. Albo ultimately rejects Christianity, while passing over internal theological controversies that were damaging Judaism from within. In this way, Albo stands out as a creative thinker who formulated a rabbinical response to the challenges of his generation, using philosophical concepts and Christian methods while emptying them of their original meaning.

Il volume ricostruisce in maniera puntuale la presenza e le attività svolte dall'operosa comunità ebraica messinese fra Quattro e Cinquecento, seguendone le vicende ben dopo l'editto di espulsione. Se ne evidenziano, in particolare, non solo il radicamento nel territorio urbano e l'impegno in attività "tradizionali" ma anche codici di comportamento che, almeno all'interno delle mura della Messana Urbs presentano caratteri di continuità, più che di contrapposizione, con le élites di "gentili" che amministrano l'universitas. Ne viene fuori un interessante spaccato che sottolinea, anche con una proficua comparazione con altre realtà urbane del Regnum Siciliae e del restante contesto mediterraneo, il ruolo di una comunità che, nella città dello Stretto, appare, al contempo, attenta e gelosa custode delle proprie tradizioni ma perfettamente inserita nel contesto urbano sia sotto il profilo delle attività commerciali che delle relazioni sociali.

Aussi paradoxal que cela puisse paraître, les prisons ont été des espaces d’autonomie, voire de liberté, pour les minorités religieuses clandestines des XVIe-XVIIIe siècles. Récusants catholiques dans l’Angleterre protestante, crypto-protestants français après la révocation de l’édit de Nantes, morisques et marranes qui pratiquaient l’islam ou le judaïsme dans l’Espagne inquisitoriale, en ont fait des lieux de résistance, de culte et de sociabilité. Ils y ont laissé des graffiti, rédigé des lettres ou des livres, propagé des rumeurs et dissimulé des objets. L’expérience de l’incarcération et la figure du détenu ont alors acquis une fonction centrale dans la construction de ces communautés, dont la résistance à la répression passait par le sentiment du sacré et l’usage du secret.
Natalia Muchnik propose à travers cette exploration vivante des prisons d’Ancien Régime, et du sort des minorités religieuses en leur sein, une étude novatrice des lieux d’enfermement.

One of the most difficult topics to study regarding the history of the Portuguese New Christians is the decline in the number of Judaism cases tried by the Inquisition. Related to that issue, the alleged end of crypto-Judaism in Portugal is also polemical, since both in and outside of the academic world, twentieth-century “Marranos” are said to have maintained not only a specific identity but also habits and ceremonies. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how the descendants of Jews forcibly converted in 1497 were seen and treated in both daily life and during the exceptional experience of a trial for heresy after the Pombaline reforms. This study is based on two previously unnoticed cases of Judaism tried by the Portuguese Inquisition after the apparently in-depth institutional reforms took place between 1765 and 1774.

The article discusses the idea of Europe within a section of European Jewry. My aim is to investigate the relationship between the Jewish identity and the perception of Europe through two interpretative guideline: Edgar Morin’s cultural one, and Gustave d’Eichthal’s institutional one. As a matter of fact, continental Jewry claims a multiple and interstitial identification with Europe, which eventually seems to coincide with a cultural and elective supranational territory that exceeds asphyxiating nationalistic identifications.

This essay has two parts. In the first, I focus on the dangers of what
Zygmunt Bauman called allosemitism. I draw on recent Polish history and paint
a dynamic portrait of diasporic life in contemporary Poland, which has become
divided into two opposite and often warring camps: the one convinced that those
who claim Jewish descent should embrace “pure Jewish identity,” understood in religious
terms, versus the other, which still leans towards assimilation and experiments
with a mixed form of allegiance and “identitarian concessions.” In the second part,
I analyze the case of Jacques Derrida as the paradigmatic example of the “impure”
Jewish (non)identity, which I endorse and propose as the way out of the dilemmas
confronting diasporic Jews today, who are caught in the net of the dominant identitarian
categories.

Main concern of this article is to grasp the interpretative matrix of Hannah Arendt’s doctorate, which, I claim, is the central organising net for her other writings. I call this matrix “cryptotheological defence of the secular world”. In order to show its functionality, I have to determine the character of Arendt’s discourse in relation to theology and philosophy on the basis of her doctoral thesis from 1929. The main attention will be focused on the figure of the neighbour as a singular and the concept of natality. I will show how the critique of theology, often very ironic, serves Arendt to contest the paradigm of the political theology.