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- Convenor:
-
José Tavim
(Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical)
- Location:
- Sala 42, Piso 0
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
We intend to analyse the influence exerted by the life trajectories and experiences of New Christians and Jews living, respectively, in the Portuguese Empire and in the Diaspora (though connected with Portugal and her world), in the multidimensional phenomenon of identity construction.
Long Abstract:
Today we have a considerable number of studies regarding the participation or inclusion of the Jews and the New Christians, in partnership or not, in the social and economic circuits in the Iberian Peninsula and her imperial world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Recently, David B. Ruderman considered that some analysis of the economic strategy of the Iberian Jews in the Diaspora, with direct and indirect involvement in the Portuguese and Spanish imperial trade, fails to include such participation in the social and cultural environment of the Jewish communities in Amsterdam, Hamburg, the south of France and Italy.
The objective of this panel is to provide an interpretation focused in a new dimension: to reveal through different analysis the consequences of the active involvement of these Jews in the commerce of the Portuguese Empire before the institutional changes introduced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which according to Sarah Abrevaya Steyn had serious disruptive repercussions in these old trade networks. Therefore it is our aim to reveal their internal social and economic dynamics in a private and business level, either as individuals or integrated in commercial networks and specific communities until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Perhaps one of the main reasons for their survival as a particular social group, maintaining an identity based in common values, religious uses, cultural practices and Romance languages throughout the centuries, may have been the way they participated in this colonial trade.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2013, -Paper short abstract:
This paper will describe and analyze the oppositions between a local and a global identity pertaining the Portuguese Jewish Diaspora in the context of rabbi Moisés Rafael de Aguilar's efforts to attract and integrate conversos to the official Jewish communities.
Paper long abstract:
In 1663, rabbi Moisés Rafael de Aguilar, from Amsterdam, received a letter sent by an anonymous group of Portuguese men living in Bayonne, in Southern France. The correspondence they exchanged, debating on the validity of circumcision, sheds light on the methods used by the Sephardic rabbinical authorities to attract non-openly Jewish conversos, as were those of Bayonne, to the fold. Nevertheless, the set of letters exchanged also indicates, if not the arguments, at least the wish of those conversos to create an alternate Jewish orthodoxy, particular to those who did not want to officially integrate the rules of the rabbinical Judaism of Amsterdam. The same kind of behavior can be identified among conversos living in Dutch Brazil (1630-1654). While there was a rabbinical constituted community in Recife, some local Judaizers chose to remain on the side, maintaining their own ceremonies. This paper will describe and analyze these oppositions between a local and a global (rabbinical) identity pertaining the Portuguese Jewish Diaspora in the context of the rabbis' efforts to attract and integrate conversos to the official and Orthodox communities.
Paper short abstract:
We will discuss the auto-representation and presentation of the Portuguese-Jewish community in Bayonne, France, at the 17-18th centuries. We will analyze transformations in the terminology used in official and private correspondence to identify this community, and compare with the cases of Salé and Amsterdam.
Paper long abstract:
An intriguing question regarding the Identity construction process of the Western-Sephardic Diaspora deals with the terminology used for its auto-representation and Presentation. Was this group identified, and self-identified, as a Portuguese group or a Jewish group? What were the reasons for periodical transformations in the terminology used for its identification?
In 16th-18th century's correspondence one may find a wide range of definitions for the Western-Sephardim. Earlier definitions involved the country of origin, professional affiliation and linkage to the Christian faith: "new Christian merchants of the Portuguese nation". Later on, the Christian identity was replaced by a Jewish one: "Portuguese of the Hebrew nation". Yet, the term "Portuguese" remained and was used in parallel to the term "Jews", for example, in the cases of Salé, Morocco and Amsterdam, Holland (Tavim, 2011).
The Portuguese-Jewish community in Bayonne, France, offers a challenging test case. Sources from the Late 16th and early 17th centuries identify the community members almost strictly as "Portuguese merchants" while sources from mid 17th century and on to the 18th century, use the terms: "Portuguese" and "Jews", in parallel, or combined: "Jews formerly known as Portuguese merchants".
In this paper, we will analyze the terminology used for the community's presentation and auto-representation at the 17-18th centuries, in the context of the evolution of its identity. Through official and personal correspondence, we will examine periodical transformations in that terminology and discuss their contexts (economy, demography, political and legal situation). Furthermore, we will compare between this case and the cases of the communities in Salé and Amsterdam.
Paper short abstract:
We intend to discuss 17th Century circulation of imperial and prophetical projects tracing the relations and connections among messianic members of the Portuguese-Jewish Community in Amsterdam, English millenarians, and Portuguese Restoration supporters and Fifth Empire believers.
Paper long abstract:
We intend to discuss the 17th Century circulation of imperial projects based on Fifth Monarchy ideas, i.e., the prophetical-political formulations derived from the interpretations of Book of Daniel's dreams. The main purpose is to trace the debates, relations and connections amongst messianic members of the Portuguese Jewish Community in Amsterdam; English and American millenarians; and Portuguese Fifth Empire believers, divided into sebastianists and joanists. In this millenarian network, the Portuguese Jewish Community emerges as a possible axis which articulated messianic hopes but also colonial interests of different spaces. One example was the trajectory of the short treatise Esperança de Israel. It was written by Menasseh Ben Israel, printed in Spanish and Latin (1650) and short after translated into English and published in London, with great interest, by the Fifth-monarchist Livewell Chapman. Added to its impact in England, several authors indicated a connection between the rabi´s text and the letter "Esperanças de Portugal" (1659), by Antonio Vieira, who met Menasseh when in a diplomatic mission to support the Braganzas and the restored Portuguese Empire. If ones assumes the Esperança de Israel's linkages (with Vieira and brigantines and also with protestants millenarians) as a plausible way to understand the diffusion of 17th Century messianic ideas, it is possible to draw a picture approximating Portuguese imperial propositions and English Fifth-Monarchists projects, by understanding aspects of some New-christians and New-Jews trajectories and theirs connections in Europe and in the Americas.