Secrecy and Deceit: the Religion of the Crypto-Jews

Philadelphia; Jewish Publication Society, 1996. Hardcover. Original Cloth. 4to. XVI, 677 pages. 27 cm. First edition. "A thorough compilation and analysis of the religious customs of the Iberian Jews who converted to Catholicism, largely under duress, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The book details crypto-Jewish culture in Spain, Portugal, and their American colonies, principally Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. Although many of the converts quickly melded into the Catholic mainstream, thousands of others and their descendents strove to preserve their Jewish culture despite the efforts of the Inquisition to suppress them. Even in its increasing divergence from normative Judaism, some Jewish customs survived among the crypto-Jews in the celebrations of life-cycle events, in weekly and annual calendars of religious observance, in prayer practices, in dietary customs, and so forth. Gitlitz culled information from Inquisition testimony, chronicles, rabbinical rulings, letters, eyewitness accounts, religious books, and other historical documents to give the most thorough and accurate picture of crypto-Jews ever assembled. Secrecy and Deceit is the winner of two prestigious national awards: the 1996 National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Studies, and the first Lucy Dawidowicz Prize in History, established by The Jewish Forward. (Publishers Description) . Subjects: Jews - Spain - History. Marranos - Religious life. Spain - Ethnic relations. Light wear to jacket, otherwise fresh and clean. Very good condition. (SEF-47-23) Xx.