Inquisition, juifs et noveaux-chrétiens au Brésil: Le Nordeste XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (review)

This book investigates the identity of the first official Jewish community in America, founded in the northeast of Brazil, occupied by the Dutch (1630–54). So it was an amazing paradox: in a Catholic context, a Calvinist government allowed the foundation of a Jewish community. Through inquisitorial documents, Feitler, PhD in History at the École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales, examined the identity of the Jewish group in Pernambuco and Paraiba respecting the Braudelian longue durée. Even though it deals with the Inquisition, Feitler did not study the Roman archive yet. In 1998 the opening of the Archive of the Holy Office helped scholars to complete their research and so an increasing number of studies on the Inquisition and on the Index of forbidden books was published. Recently, he published an essay with the outcome of his research there, in the Proceedings of the Congress, held in December 2001, on The Inquisition and the Jews (2003).

In Brazil the Inquisition was under the control of the central court in Lisbon despite in 1621 Philip III demanded a Brazilian Inquisition to restore religion in front of the many cases of Crypto-Judaism. With the pastoral visits the Church tried to eliminate the Jewish religion in Brazil.

The book is interesting and persuasive, maybe too interested in details and amounts on the institutions and procedures. It is an astonishing archivistic research, but sometimes a deeper analysis of historical and political context would have helped to comprehend the history of those communities. For instance, the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War and the rising Dutch trade of sugar, as Jonathan Israel highlighted, could have better explained the choice of Jews in Brazil. Moreover, the interest of Jewish communities compelled to flee from Portugal under the Spanish throne and to seek a safer place in Holland and in Brazil seems important to the consideration of the question of identity. To this issue, Feitler reserves a key role: he supposed a kind of Jewish proselytism in order to wake up the new Christians in the light of Jewish faith despite hostile destinies. In 1636 some Jews living in Amsterdam asked to found a colony in northwest Brazil, already conquered by the Dutch Company of the Indies. Two communities were founded, and a synagogue was built. The Dutch government ordered to attend private ceremonies and forbade the building of other synagogues. Feitler found inquisitorial documents and trials on this new conversion from Christianity to Judaism and on those he founded his hypothesis on Jewish proselytism. But even if it is fascinating and it is only mentioned, the evidence of Jewish proselytism is weakened by the same sources he chose to prove it: in fact inquisitorial sources depended on the questions that ardent inquisitors asked for gaining support to their thesis on Jewish cruelty for legitimating their work.

But when in 1654 the Dutch lost their Brazilian colonies, a new phenomenon of reconversion took place: abjuration and reconciliation, in a climate of arousing suspicions, changed the picture rapidly and radically. This phenomenon was undermining faith. Feitler explores the very different reasons of those conversions: only a minority followed an inner need. The principle those communities upheld was that of pacific convivence so the main part respect their Crypto-Judaism that was also preserved by strict endogamic relations. They yearned for a quiet maintenance of their standard of living. As Feitler pointed out, the existence of a Jewish Portuguese nation should have implied the acceptance of a different religion, while this was denied. Despite the return of Portuguese domination and of the In-quisition, only in 1725 with the new bishop did the climate change with denunciations and trials against the new Christians. Those trials showed how the new Christians were well integrated in the society, but Feitler investigated education and endogamy, and...