Book, History of the Jews in Portugal[LS]

In the middle of the 19th century, when the archives of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal still remained secret, and Alexandre Herculano was just beginning to unmask the 'negotiations' of the monarch, D. João III, with the Vatican, a German rabbi embarked on an adventure surprising: devastating the history of Jews in Portugal, from the formation of the Portuguese monarchy until the 19th century. This work remains to this day the most faithful portrait of a long trajectory of Sephardic Jews, from tolerance to the final catastrophe, which was their forced conversion to the Christian religion. The knowledge that Meyer Kayserling reveals about the functioning of the Court of the 'Holy' Office of the Inquisition, about the drama experienced by the converts, the financial 'maneuvers' of the Portuguese monarchs with the Pope and with merchants and businessmen, about the exodus and the pilgrimages of the Jews, without soil, without a homeland, without identity, and the silence of the world before the festive autos-da-fé, where the euphoric population went to watch the destruction of defenseless lives, are described with rare bibliographical knowledge and sensitive erudition . This second edition of Meyer Kayserling's work is expanded with notes, illustrations and an updated bibliography.