“From Christianity to Judaism” Revisited: Some Critical Remarks More than Thirty Years after its Publication

My friend Professor Benjamin Kedar once told me that the great historian Shelomo Dov Goitein used to say that every one of the scholarly works that he wrote contained at least one cardinal error. This admission by a historian whose monumental research will continue to arouse admiration in coming generations expresses a feeling that is familiar to ordinary historians like myself, and I assume that it is as well to the participants of this conference. I confess that I have often had occasion to regret the flaws that I now find in my publications, not only trivial mistakes or conjectures that were refuted by sources that were unknown to me at the time of writing, but also, and mainly, errors deriving from flawed judgment, from groundless assumptions, or from ideological views that found their way into my scholarship without my being aware of it. With your permission, I would like to present some “critical thoughts” about my book From Christianity to Judaism: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro, which I have prepared for this conference and written from a distance of more than thirty years. This book was first published in Hebrew by the Magnes Press of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1983 and was largely based on my doctoral dissertation, which I completed in 1978.1 An English translation was published by Oxford University Press in the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization series in 1989. It was translated by the English scholar and polymath, Professor Raphael Loewe.2 The book was published in Portuguese in 2000 by the Imago publishing house in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.3 In contrast to the English edition, which I went over meticulously (and I frequently had to disagree with the learned and opinionated translator), the Brazilian publisher did not allow me to read the full translation in advance. The editor at the publishing house claimed that they had already published translations of books more important than mine, including books of the Bible, and they had never encountered objections from the authors (not even from those of the books of the Bible, I assume). I made corrections and additions to the English edition as well as to the manuscript of the

teachers that they took part in aseminar givenbyBaer on KolSakhal (The Voice of a Fool), though it is very doubtful whether he offered it more than once.⁸ When Is tarted studying at the Hebrew University in the early1 960s, Baer had alreadyr etired and had decided several years earlier to concentrate on the Jews of the Second Temple and Mishnaic periods.⁹ In 1965, Itook as eminar with Haim Beinart,and he actuallytaughtabout the Sephardic Diasporaafter the expulsion, mainly in the sixteenth century.Inthat seminar Iwroteapaper on Isaac Cardoso and his book, Las Excelencias de los Hebreos,several years before the publication of Yerushalmi'sm onumental study.¹⁰ In that year Ia lso discovered the wonderful Harry Friedenwald collection in the National Library,ac ollection of Jewishb ooksa bout medicine, which included dozens of books written by Jewishphysicians,not all of which werea bout medicine.T he collection of course included booksb yconversos from Spaina nd Portugal. Is till remember the excitement that seized me during the first hours Is pent in the readingr oom of that collection, an experience that left a great impression on me. Ic an recall my surprise at findingt he eulogyw ritten by the physician Fernando Cardoso (that is, Isaac Cardoso-at the time he wass tilll iving as aChristian in Madrid), on the death of the famous playwright,Lope de Vega, who was afriend of his.¹¹ Lope de Vega is known for his venomous anti-Semitic opinions.¹² YetIhad found at ext by a marrano,who was later to return to Judaism and finish his life in the ghettoo fV erona, who was ac lose friend of Lope de Vega'sa nd even lamented his death. Is at with Dr.Y ehoshuaL eibowitz, thatg reat and modest scholar, the cousin of the famous Yeshayahu Leibowitz, and translated the Spanish text into Hebrew.H ee xplainedp atientlyt hat,a ccordingt oC ardoso'sa ccount,who was present at LopedeV ega'sdeath, it could be surmised that he died of aheart attack. This was an exceptional experience for me, the triumphant feeling of astudent at the start of his path, who had discovered secrets of the heart of the greatest of Spanish playwrights.  Baer attributed this work to "an unknown author,w ho apparentlyb elonged" to Uriel da Costa's circle. On this fascinatingb ook see TalyaF ishman, Shaking the Pillarso fE xile: "Voice of aF ool," an Early Modern JewishC ritique of RabbinicC ulture (Stanford: StanfordU niversity Press,1997).  Israel Jacob Yuval, "Yitzhak Baerand the Search for Authentic Judaism," in TheJ ewishP ast Revisited: Reflections on Modern JewishHistorians, editedbyDavid N. Myers Révah, written in 1959,about Spinoza and Juan de Prado,a nd soon afterward Ir ead the articles by Révah on the crisis of faith in the Sephardic community in Amsterdam in Spinoza'st ime, and with great enthusiasm If ollowed the reports published by this diligent and tireless scholar every year in the annual of the Collèged eF rance.¹⁴ These publications contain vast amounts of information about the intellectual ferment in Amsterdam, about Uriel da Costa, and of course fascinating informationa bout Baltasar Orobio duringh is time in Spain. Id ecided to focus on this man'sl ife and literaryw orks and to find the connection between the student who studied at the Madre de Dios Collegei nA lcalá de Henares and the Jewwho disputed with the Arminian theologian, Philip van Limborch. By means of this research Iwanted to open up awindow into the world of the "Marranos" of the seventeenth centuryand that of the Sephardic community in Amsterdam, about which Ik new very little. It should be mentioned thatR évah himself also knew very little about the Amsterdam community,and not until the last decade of his life did he become acquainted with asmall part of the archive of the Sephardic community,which onlyb ecame accessible to scholars at thatt ime.¹⁵ After writingt he seminar paper on Cardoso, Iwas asked to translate part of his apologetic book on the "virtues of the Jews" from Spanish into Hebrew for the Dorot (Generations) series publishedb yt he Bialik Institute publishing housei nJ erusa- lem.¹⁶ My translation was published with my historical introduction in 1971.A tt he end of that introduction Ia dded as entences tatingt hat when Ir eceivedt he final pagep roofs of the book,Ialso receivedt he excellent book by Yosef HaiymY erushalmi, From SpanishC ourtt oI talian Ghetto,which had appeared very recently. ¹⁷ Yerushalmi'sbook made ahugeimpression on me.Iread it breathlessly. Ashort time afterward, in the spring of 1972, Ih eld my first conversation with him. He was visiting Israel at the time, and Iwent to Haifat omeet him. At the start of our meeting,Ihad the feelingthat Yerushalmi was examining me very closely. Our conversation lasted several hours, longer than had been planned, and it sowed the seeds of a friendship thatl asted for nearlyf orty years, until his death.
Without anyspecial effort,r eaders of my book will feel the clear and unequivocal influenceofY erushalmi'sbook on my studyofOrobio. Both books are occasionallym entioned as parallel works on the livesa nd thoughto ft wo PortugueseN ew Christians who werer aised in Spain and educated at universities there at the time of thatc ountry'sp olitical crisisa nd who laterr eturned to Judaism and joined one of the Jewish communities in the Western Sephardic Diaspora.
At the Hebrew University Iwas privileged to study with excellent historians,but the two teachers whose influenceo nm ew as decisive wereJ acob Katz and Shmuel Ettinger.F rom the formerIacquired tools for the sociological analysis of traditional and pre-modern societies, and from Ettinger an acquaintance with the intellectual currents of Europe in the EarlyM odern period. He is also the one who introduced me to Richard Popkin's Historyo fS cepticism, ab ook thati nfluenced me no less than that of Yerushalmi.¹⁸ Im et Popkin for the first time in Amsterdam in 1974, and my connection with him, which continued until his death, was extremelyp recious to me. Thanks to Popkin,Imet an umber of scholars in the United States and Europe who dealt with various aspectsofthe intellectual history of the EarlyEnlightenment.A long with him, and with Henry Méchoulan from Paris, we organised an international conference on MenassehBen Israel and his world.¹⁹ Imet with Popkin frequentlyuntil his final years and the conversations with him werealways challenging.
Iwas familiar with the manuscripts in the Ets Haim Library before visiting Amsterdam, thanks to the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscriptsa tt he National Library in Jerusalem, one of the central institutions for Jewish Studies throughout the world. The entire collection of manuscripts in the Ets Haim Library was microfilmed, along with most of the Hebrew manuscripts that are disperseda ll over the world.
In 1973 -1974 for the first time Iwas able to devote an entire year to work in libraries and archivesinEurope. Ilived in Amsterdam most of the time and worked in the wonderful municipal archives, as well as in the Biblioteca Rosenthaliana, of course, but especiallyinthe Ets Haim Library.Jorge Luis Borgeswrote that he imagined paradise as akind of library(Yo,que me figuraba el Paraíso/ Bajo la especie de una biblioteca).²⁰ What the Argentinian author imagined became an actual experience for me in the Ets Haim Library. During thaty ear, Iwas almostthe onlyscholar who worked in that enchantedl ibrary, and, since the members of the congregation asked me to fill in for the librarian who left in the middle of the winter,Icould enter it every dayo ft he week without the strict restrictions that werea lways imposed on visitors.Ialso went to London and Oxford that year.Iexamined manuscriptsand, in the BritishLibrary,IperusedOrobio'smedicalwork on bloodletting.²¹ This made me realise thath eh ad been part of as cientific dispute with about ad ozen other physicians. Iwenttothe municipal archive in Antwerp, and Iworked in the Royal Archives and Royal Library in Brussels. Ia lso went to the Benedictine monastery of Monserrat, near Barcelona, and in its library Ifound acopyofAlonso de Zepeda'sbook on Raymundus Lull.²² Is pent two weeks in Paris and examined the manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationaleand IstayedinMadrid for amonth workinginthe Historical Archive and in the National Library,with anumber of excursions to Cuenca,inorder to read the relevant Inquisition files. ForanIsraeli graduatestudent for whom European libraries and archivesw erei naccessible, this was af abulous year full of surprises and discoveries.
Yerushalmi'sbook served as amodel and also set high standards for me, which I doubt thatImet.B ut the influenceo fY erushalmi'sb ook alsoh ad negative consequences:Iwas caught up in Yerushalmi'smodel and did not succeed in freeingm yself from it,asisnecessary for critical research. One of the serious flaws in my book is that it is writtene ntirelyf rom the perspective of JewishH istory,which, for historians like me who grew up in what is usually called the Jerusalem School, means: the History of the Jewish People.Iwrote my book as if the story of the New Christians was only ac hapter in the history of the Jewish people. Ih aven od oubt that this story is also part of Jewish history,but it belongst oother histories as well. The passage From Christianityt oJ udaism or From SpanishC ourt to Italian Ghetto,w as of course awell-traveled path; however,other options existed: they were no less available and, as it happens,equallywell-traveled.Isaac Orobio'sJewish identity was not embedded in him at birth, and he might not necessarilyh avec lungt oi to fh is own free will. It was acquired and constructed as aresultofcomplex and interwoven historical and cultural interactions. Other New Christian intellectuals-physicians,j urists, and philosophers like Juan de Pradoand Orobio de Castro-chose other options rather thanreturningtoJ udaism. While Iwas aware of the other options and did not completelyi gnore their existence, Id id not consider them with the proper seriousness. Orobio de Castro'sp ath to Judaism was not marked out,n or was it,ofc ourse, inevitable.
IbelieveImanagedtoprovethat he was alreadyanactive Judaiser in Spain, performing certain commandments that indicate strong, even exceptional commitment to Judaism, commitment aboveand beyond the ordinary,almost passivecommitment shown by most of the conversos of his time, even thosew ho belonged to ag roup of loyal Judaisers. His father,M anuel Álvares, was also an active Judaiser,a nd Isaac (Baltasar)w as circumcised as an adolescent at his father'si nitiative.²³ Orobio took part in Jewish prayers and ceremoniesfrom his youth and he also served as the leader of agroup of PortugueseN ew Christian Judaisers in various cities in Andalusia.²⁴ Judging by rather clear indications,which Ip ointed out in my book, he even wore ritual fringes, acustom thatwas extremelyrare among Iberian NewChristians.²⁵ According to his testimonyb efore the Inquisition in Seville, he observedJ ewish customs for no less than twenty-four years! Similarly,Itook note of the subversive element that was expressed in some of his actions and is hinted at,for example, in the long poem that he wrotei n1 637, at the ageo ft wenty or twenty-one, about the epidemic of plague that brokeo ut in Málagai nt hat year: La Causa inmensa, yc ausa no causada, Por delitos humanos ofendida,… Rigorosa permite, que influencia Castigue tanto error con pestilencia.²⁶  Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism, 7.  Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism,79-92.  See Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Sección Inquisición, leg.2987 1 ,fol. 2v: "testificación […] de un Armenio que en traje de tal andaua vendiendo ropa por las calles (de Cádiz) yenuna de ellas este Reo le metió en una casa puerta yapartándolo asolas le preguntócon todo secreto si era judío porque el trajeque trayaera muy semejante alos judíos ya viéndole dicho el Armenio que eraCath-ólicoChristiano, este Reo le respondió: no rezeles ni temas que yo soy Hebreo ysigoelmismo camino yp ara que lo creas alzando la ropilla le mostroc osido as uj ubón una señal redondac omo de terziopelo or aso verde yq ue le dio tres reales… pidiéndoleyencargándole que no dixese nada a nadie…";c f. Kaplan In this poem, which is shot through with Catholic symbols,Orobio included several subversive lines containing as ubtle but rather clear hint of his hidden Jewishf aith, his belief in "the cause of causes" freeofall Catholicsymbolism, and,incontrast,the "errors" of Christianity,about which he would write at length years later in the anti-Christian polemical works that he composed in Amsterdam. Similarly,Ipointed to certain books he kept separatelyf rom the other bookso nh is shelves, that is, the books he consulted frequently. Among others, these included Flos Sanctorum [The Flower of the Saints] by Alonso de Villegas Selvago,awork that was very popular among the conversos at that time, because it describes the liveso ft he saints who wereactive before the advent of Jesus, which is to say, the heroes of biblical Judaism, from the patriarchs to the prophets.²⁷ Under the regimeo fI nquisition censorship, this book,a long with others like it,b ecame as ourcef rom which New Christians drew religious inspiration, as can be learned from quite abit of testimonybefore Inquisition tribunals and from works writtena fter their authors openlyr eturned to Judaism.
Ialsopaid attention in my book to the occasions when he went out of his wayto emphasise his loyalty to Christianity.For example, in amedical debate on the appropriate part of the bodytowhich bleeding should, when necessary,beapplied, which occurred between 1652 and 1653,Orobio was the onlyo ne among the twelve participating physicians who concluded his words with ad edication to the HolyT rinity and the Virgin Mary.²⁸ Iargued that these words and similar expressions in his writingsw erep art of the Christian veil in which he envelopedh imself so thath is Christianity would not be in doubt.
But is thatexplanation sufficient?Isitconvincing?W ere all the paintingsonde-cidedlyC hristian themest hat decorated the walls of his homei nC ádiz, pictures of the Virgin Mary,ofJ esus and John the Baptist,ofM ary Magdalene, of Saint Thomas and so on, meant onlyasc amouflage? Wast he painting of Jacob wrestlingwith the angel the onlyo ne thate xpressed authentic and true inner belief?²⁹ Andd id it necessarilyhavet he meaning for him that we attribute to it?W hat can be learned from the fact that,when he livedinSanlúcar de Barrameda, he marriedIsabel Pérez de la Peña,awoman who did not belong to the nação and who was the daughter of Old Christians not from converso stock?³⁰ Did not willingness to marry awoman who was not from the converso ethnic group indicate assimilation in Andalusian Christian society,orw illingness to break through the social barriers that separated New Christians from Old Christians, and perhaps even the desire to merge into Christian society? And perhaps one oughtt oc reditB altasar Orobio'sc onfession before the SevilleI nquisition in January1 656, when he claimed that for five years he had ceased to ob-serveJ ewish ceremonies,h aving been convincedb yt he writingso fP ablo de Santa María, who restored him to Christian faith?I st herea ny connection between this turnabout,ifitindeed occurred, and his marriage to Isabel?³¹ Do the threequestions he asked Rabbi Mosseh Refael d'Aguilar duringhis first days in Amsterdam about the meaning of el Burguense'sbiblical exegesis not show thathewas still in doubt about the Christological interpretations of the author of Scrutinium Scripturarum and was unable to freeh imself of the influenceo ft he apostatef rom Burgos?³² His unequivocal words to Juan de Prado appear to contradict such ap ossibility,b ut perhaps he did not write the full truth then?I nh is letter to Prado he showed extraordinary expertiseinthe biographies of converts from Judaism such as Pablo de SantaMaría and his descendants as well as Sixtus of Sienna.³³ What does this interest in theirl ives testify to?I si tn ot possible thatt hese converts became for him, at ac ertain stage, perhaps after he married aChristian woman, apositive referencegroup?Evenifmatters are far from being unequivocal, there wass till good reason to ask these questions. When Ireread my text with the perspective of years, it appears to me thatIrefrained from asking all the relevant questions because Iw as caught up in ac ertain conception. Ia voided problematising this subjecta nd others, though this is the supreme duty of the historian, and todayIdeeplyr egret it.
Once again, Iemphasise: Orobio'spath from ChristianitytoJ udaism was neither necessary nor marked out in advance. Why, whenh ed ecided to leave Spain,did he choose to live in Bayonne and Toulouse in France, for two years?³⁴ If the desire to live afull Jewish life was what impelledhim to leave Spain, whydid he stayinFrance for such al ong time, where he was forced to live as aC atholic at least in the public sphere? It is known that in Bayonne he attended churchi nt he parisho fS aint-Etienne d'Arribe Labourda nd even served as godfather at the baptism of ab aby,a membero ft he nation portugaise,w ho receivedt he name of Baltasar.³⁵ Further,  Kaplan,From Christianity to Judaism,[85][86][87]From Christianity to Judaism,[114][115] there is no doubt that his stayinToulouse, wherehetaught at the university,required regular attendanceo fC atholic religious ceremonies.
It is known that,a mong the nation portugaise in southwestern France at that time, there werequiteafew individuals who observed Jewish ceremonies and attended Jewish prayers in privatea nd that the Christians around them knew of this. They also maintained close connections with the community in Amsterdam.³⁶ But Orobio did not stay in Bayonne. Rather,h ec ontinued on to his post in Toulouse and to the connections he managed to cultivatewith de Condé, and de Conti, accordingtowhat he wrote to Prado in 1664.³⁷ While he was in France, not onlydid he take part in public disputes (ydisputé en quantos actos públicos se hizieron en mi tiempo en Tolosa), he was also proud of his success in intellectual circles (me oyan con gusto yaun con aplauso)a nd among his closest friends were archbishops, bishops, and consummatelyl earned men (también Arzobispos,O bispos yhombres consumados en las sciencias fueron mis íntimos amigos).³⁸ What does this show about his sojourni nT oulouse and about his chosen life as aChristian, at least in the visiblesphere, when he had the rather simple alternativeo fr eachingA msterdam as quicklya sp ossiblei n order to become aJ ew openly? The trip from southwestern France to Amsterdam at that time took am atter of days,acouple of weeks at most,a nd this was all that separated him from open and full affiliation with the Jewish people. What stopped him from making that trip?
One maysurmise that he and his father,who had settled in France earlier,were delayedb yv arious personal reasons. Economic considerations most likelyp layeda decisive role for the father,M anuel Álvares, who had livedi nF rance for manyy ears before his son and the rest of his familyarrived.³⁹ But from the standpoint of the Jewish religion and of rabbinic Law, teaching at the University of Toulouse could not justify postponing ar esumed adherencet oJ udaism. Orobio de Castro knew this very well, even before arriving in Amsterdam. He did not have to be well versed in the writingso fM aimonides' Mishneh Torah to understand the significance of the delay, from free choice and not out of duress, in "the lands of idolatry."⁴⁰ Another subject that Iought to have reexamined is the tolerant and universalistic attitude toward the salvation of the soul, which laybehind boththe questions Orobio addressed to Rabbi Mosseh Refaeld'Aguilar and the dispute between Prado and Or- obio. This entire topic deserves thorough revision in light of the interesting work of various scholars, especiallyt he historian Stuart Schwartz, who demonstrated convincingly that the saying "Each person can be savedi nh is or her own religion" (Cada uno se puede salvare ns ul ey)w as quitec ommon among men and women of various social strata in the Iberian world as well as in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.⁴¹ Prado and the converso sceptics werel ess radical thanw et hought, consideringt he culturalm ilieu in which they werea ctive.O nt his matter Iw as far more moderate and cautious than others, who tried to find the sourceo fi ndividualism among the conversos,a long with modern rational thought,d eism, enlightenment,a nd much else. Let me citeS chwartz'se xcellent book, AllC an Be Saved: the idea that such deism and skepticism might be ap eculiarlyC onverso phenomenon, born of their experienceo fd oubt,d ebate, dissimulation, and pressuresu pon their belief systems has been contested … Even as cholar of the Sephardic community in Holland likeY osef Kaplan notest hat such ideas werea lso circulatingw idelya mong the Christian population as welli n the seventeenth century.⁴² It seems to me that,a fter the breast-beating Ih aves hared with you, the time has come for me to respond, at least ab it,t ot he principled criticism that others have leveled against my writing,a nd which Ir eject.The most essentialo bjection raised against me relates to the question of "return to the bosom of Judaism." How could Ih avec laimed,they object,that Orobio and other NewC hristians who became Jewish in the seventeenth century returned to Judaism?H ow could they return to an identity they had never had?H ow could they return to something which not even their parents or grandparents possessed?Iallegedlya pplied the Talmudicm axim, "an Israelite, although he sinned, is stillanIsraelite" (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 44a) to ac omplex historical situation. However,i ts eems to me that,i nt his case, I was not the one who fell into at rap: my critics did as well. In the communities of the Western Sephardic Diasporainthe seventeenth century the Jews considered conversos who adhered to Judaism to be people returningt ot he bosom of either the TorahorIsrael. Iwas not the one who invented this definition.Were they not regarded as "the seed of Israel who returnedtothe bosom of the Torah," they would have been treated as proselytes.H owever,t he conversos who became Jewish weren ever regarded as proselytes and the processo fj oiningt he Sephardic communities did not requirec onversion. Moreover,t he communities also accepted the claims of those who said they weredescended from kohanim (priests) or Levites. Formale conversos,the process of joining the community included circumcision, after which the circumcised man receivedaJewishname; this process did not include the ritual immersion thati sr equired by the conversion ceremony. The adherent,a fter recovering from the operation for afew weeks,would come to the synagogue, wrap himself in a prayer shawl for the first time in his life, put on phylacteries, and publiclyrecitethe Hagomel blessingfor recovering from danger.For women conversos,the act of joining the community was validated by the announcement of their Jewish names in the synagogue. Most surprisingly,they refrained from meticulously examining the mother's origins.Infact,Idid encounter instancest oward the end of the seventeenth century in which investigations werem ade regarding the origins of the adherent.H owever, the informations upplied by some of the witnesses did not refer at all to the Jewish origins of the mother but to the adherent'smembership in the nação. Apparentlythis testimonyw as accepted. Fore xample, it seems that in the Sephardic community of Amsterdam, IsabelP érez was never asked about her origins,t hough, as noted, she came from af amilyo fO ld Christians. Upon joining the Jewish people, she received the name Esther,which was very common among the women in these communities, because of the special status of Queen Esther among the "Marranos" (for Esther "did not tell of her nation or her birth"). Nor werethe two sons and the daughter she bore to her husband, Isaac Orobio, regarded as converts: they,t oo, were accepted as returning to the bosom of Judaism and no obstacles were raised to theirbecomingJewish.
In conclusion,permit me to share apersonal experience from twoyears agowith you. My brother-in-law, who is an attorneyi nA msterdam, told me thath eh ad become acquainted with aj udge named Richard Orobio de Castro. My brother-in-law told the judge about me, and he replied that he had read my book and would be pleasedtomeet me. On one of my trips to Amsterdam, in the winter of 2014,Icalled up the judge,who invited me to his home, at Herengracht 8. From the little thatwas known to me about the present dayPortuguese Jewishcommunity,itwas clear to me that the judge had no connection with the Jewish life of the city.I nm yo wn mind I concluded that his ancestors had probablyconverted, as did manyofthe Portuguese Jews of Holland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.H owever,Iwasw rong. Not one of the judge'sancestors had converted to Christianity. However,in1908, his grandfather,Herman Arthur Orobio de Castro, the son of Dr.SamuelOrobio de Castro and Esther Henriques de Castro, had married Jacoba Louise van Loenen Martinet,the daughter of the Calvinist theologian and predicant Johannes vanL oenen Martinet. The judge'sf ather was borno ft his intermarriagei n1 909 and his name was Arthur CaesarJ ohannes Sebastian Christian Maximilian Orobio de Castro. He was am usic teacher and pianist who alsom arried aC alvinist woman in 1936,a sd id the judge himself in 1965. He receivedm ew ith restrained courtesy.Idrank tea with him in the living room of his large and splendid home, which was on one of the lovelyc anals of the city wheret he wealthyr esidents of Amsterdam usedt ol ive. Our conversation lasted for about an hour.The judge had prepared papers, files, articles he had clipped from the newspapers,a nd, of course, my book, which he said thath eh ad read. "Iwasn'tt erriblyi nterested in the theological disputes,but Iwas very curious about the story of his life." Ia sked him whether he was in touch with Portuguese Jews. He answered that he had no connection with the Jewishc ommunity: Wijz ijn geintegreerd (weh avei ntegrated) he said, without further explanation. Among the papers thatheshowed me, Ialsofound abooklet written during the Nazi occupation by Arie de Froe, aD utch physician and anthropologist,i nwhich he sought to prove that PortugueseJ ews were not Semites,a nd their origins were purelyI berian. Iw as familiar with that publication from my time as the librarian of the Ets Haim Library. The author'spurpose wastosavethe PortugueseJews from the tragic fate that struck the Jews of Holland duringt he Holocaust.⁴³ Most likelyt his booklet was significant for the members of the Judge'sown family, but Irefrained from asking questions that might embarrass me, perhaps,more than him. My host gave me acopy of the Orobio de Castro family tree, which was in his possession, going back to IsaacO robio de Castro'sf ather and mother at the end of the sixteenth century.
There is, of course, no connection between the vicissitudes of this familyi nr ecent generations and the history of Isaac Orobio and the "Marranos" of the seventeenth century.H owever,t he quiet assimilation, far from anyd rama and free of anyt heological explanations or religious intentions of anyk ind,m ade me ponder further the identity of New Christians in the EarlyM odern period. The vast majority of them integratedinto Iberian society despite the Inquisition and the purity of blood regulations. In the end, the argument that Spinoza advanced in the third chapter of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,d irected mainlya gainst members of his former community,was wrong. Hatred was not what kept them Jewish.⁴⁴ Most of them managed to overcome it and assimilate. The case of the great painter,DiegodeV elázquez illustrates this very well. He managed to counterfeit his genealogycompletely, afact that was not discovered duringhis lifetime. Historians onlydiscovered his ruse at the end of the twentieth century,which, of course, was too late to prevent him and his familyfrom evadingthe purity of blood regulationsand assimilating into Spanish society.⁴⁵ In fact,the vast majorityofIberian conversos did assimilate into Christian society quietlyand undramatically, like the members of the Orobio de Castro family in Holland duringt he twentieth century.The stubborn and bitter dispute waged by Isaac Orobio and other former "Marranos" against Christianityand scepticism must be understood against the background of this reality:i nl arge part this was an existential dispute, which took place within the nação.