Crypto-Judaism
Sign in to saveCrypto-Judaism is the secretive adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith. Practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (from the Greek word kryptos – , 'hidden').
~35 min read
Encyclopedic overview
22 sectionsContents
- Spain
- Before the Spanish Inquisition
- Portugal
- Rest of Europe
- Neofiti
- Susiti
- Middle East and North Africa
- India
- Latin America
- Early Mexico – 16th century
- Northeastern Mexico (Nuevo León) (1590s to early 17th century)
- Former New Spain territories in the U.S. Southwest, 17th–18th centuries
- Colombia
- Bolivia
- Elsewhere in Latin America
- In Jewish rabbinical law
- Maimonides
- Notable crypto-Jews
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Crypto-Judaism is the secretive adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith. Practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (from the Greek word kryptos – , 'hidden').
The term is especially applied historically to Spanish and Portuguese Jews who outwardly professed Catholicism, also known as Conversos, Marranos, or the Anusim. The phenomenon is especially associated with medieval Spain, following the Massacre of 1391 and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. After 1492 in Spain and 1497 in Portugal, officially they no longer existed. The Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition were established to monitor converted Jews and Muslims and their descendants for their continued adherence to Christian faith and practice, with severe penalties for those convicted of secretly continuing to practice their original beliefs. This would have involved the Inquisition paying close attention to the households of suspected converted Jews, since most of the families still practicing Judaism would have done so through the food. Information about secretly observant Jews largely survives in Inquisition cases against individuals.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Crypto-Judaism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.