Jews, Converts, New Christians, Marranos : the dillemas of faith, identity and existence of the Jewish community in Portugal after enforced conversion of 1497

The article presents processes, which took place within the Jewish communities in Portugal in effect of the forced conversion to Christianity in 1497. Special attention was paid to the proper defi nition and classifi cation of certain behaviors characteristic to those processes and which had impact on the development of their self identity. Differences between the notions of marranos, converts and New Christians are discussed as well. Author’s aim was to present the marranos as a complex the phenomenon, which should not be limited to crypto-Judaic practices.

Jewish conversions to Catholicism on the Iberian Peninsula and the phenomenon of marranos connected with it extend to early middle ages. Yet neither the voluntary, nor forced Spanish conversions, nor the earlier conversions in Portugal should be identifi ed with the forced conversion of Jews, which happened in 1497 in Lisbon, to which is devoted the present article. The fi rst part of the article analyses the terminology of these events, in particular to the question of the proper and wrongful use of such terms as Marranos, New Christians, Crypto Jews, and Converts. The dilemmas connected with the phenomena of the marranos were connected with human dramas, outside danger, as well as the diffi culty of defi ning ones identity and integrity with a certain social group. Since one of the possible divisions within this group was determined by a decision to migrate, the Author has shortly described the causes of migration and entailing situation of the émigrés, who often returned to Judaism. Crypto Judaism is an incredibly original, multi aspect phenomenon, which cannot be presented in a schematic, shallow and one dimensional, concrete defi nition, what has been stressed in the article.