not the sames as Moors/descendents of Ham/khem/kush/canaan but european converts The Marranos: The Secret Jews The Marranos were those compulsorily converted Jews and their descendants who outwardly became Christians but secretly conti nued to meet in the synagogue, celebrated feast days and observed the Jewish Sabbath. The name marrano may be derived [12] from the old Castilian marrano (swine) or perhaps from the Arabic mahran (forbidden). In 1350, Spain began a series of conversion drives to convert all Jews in Spain to Christianity (See the sec- tion entitled, "The Spanish Inquisition"), and in unprecedented numbers, and with little resis- tance, the Jews converted. 15 This rush to mass conversion, an event, unparalleled in Jewish history, is perhaps best summed up by Cecil Roth : "It was not difficult for insincere, tempo- rizing Jews to become insincere temporizing Christians 16 " The "Marranos," also called conversos (the converted), or nefiti (the neophytes), or "New Christians," were simply charged with not being Catholic. The same applied to the Muslims, who were expelled in like manner and in greater numbers than the Jews. 17 Some fifty thousand Jews chose to convert rather than leave their land and their riches. 18 Contrary to popular notions, those who left were not refugees searching for religious freedom, but entrepreneurs looking for economic opportunities. When they fled, they brought few Torah scrolls and even fewer copies of the Jewish holy book Talmud with them. When asked what he thought most Marranos knew of Ju daism after their flight from Spain and Por- tugal, Roth answered in one word - "Nothing." 19 The majority fled south and eastward to North Africa and to centers like Salonika, Constantinople, Aleppo and Damascus; 20 while others sought and found refuge in the Nether- lands where they “established synagogues, schools, cemeteries and a high level of wealth and culture." 21 Most escaped "with considerable sums of money." 22 Though scattered throughout the globe by political, [13] economic and religious circumstances, they would reunite later in an unholy coalition of kidnappers and slave makers
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 14:31:27 +0000
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