Jews in the Courts of the Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, with papal permission, principally to monitor the religious sincerity of Conversos, those Jews converted to Christianity suspected of continuing to practice Judaism secretly. Unlike Jews who remained openly in their faith (expelled in 1492), Conversos fell under the jurisdiction of the Church as baptized Christians. The Inquisition set up an elaborate system of denunciations, investigations, interrogations under torture, and trials, whose public conclusion could be an auto-da-fé (act of faith), where the condemned were reconciled or handed over to the secular arm to be burned. As first grand inquisitor, Tomás de Torquemada gave the institution its formidable organization. Extended to the American colonies and Portugal, the Inquisition pursued its activity against "Judaizers" for several centuries and was definitively abolished only in the nineteenth century, leaving a lasting imprint on Sephardic memory.

स्रोत और संसाधन

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗