Renee Levine Melammed

A very interesting book that looks at trials of conversas, Jewish women who underwent forced conversion to Catholicism in late 15th-century Castile. The issue addressed by the Inquisition was whether the women were "judaizing"; in other words, did their outward Catholic observance hide their clandestine practice of Judaism?

The period addressed is post-Expulsion, after which there were no practicing Jews who could provide an example, and also in which access to supplies such as kosher meat and religious texts was cut off. But because women's role in Judaism is home-based (unlike men, for whom congregate settings of study and synagogue are primary), the conversa more easily continued, and transmitted, rituals.

Nevertheless, there remained the possibility that servants, or observant New Christians, or someone who just didn't like you, might denounce you. Melammed provides numerous examples of trials, and discusses the procedures by which an accused might defend herself. They were not what we would call fair. The accused was not provided with a list of prosecution witnesses, but had to guess, and provide reasons why the witnesses were not credible. In some case, the accused was successful, but more often not.

One difficulty with the book is that, because the evidence of judaizing was mostly the same in every case (wearing clean clothes on the Jewish Sabbath, burning a piece of dough when baking challah, etc.), it sometimes seems repetitious, as case after case is described in the same terms. So the most interesting chapter for me was that titled "The Inquisition and the Midwife", which concentrated on one case only, and showed clearly the Church's fear, not merely of judaizing, but of judaizing women and women's knowledge and power particularly.

I think the answer to the question raised in the title of Melammed's book is "both", depending on one's point of view. To the Catholic Church, these women were heretics; having once renounced their faith and converted to Catholicsm, any backsliding would be seen as heretical. But to fellow Jews, they were indeed "daughters of Israel", strong in their beliefs.… (más)