The Imaginary Synagogue: Anti-Jewish Literature in the Portuguese Early Modern World (16th-18th Centuries)

Download or read book The Imaginary Synagogue: Anti-Jewish Literature in the Portuguese Early Modern World (16th-18th Centuries) written by Bruno Feitler and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book scrutinizes literary works based on Judaism, Jews and their descendants, written or printed by the Portuguese, from the forced conversion of Jews in 1497, until the ending of the distinction between New and Old Christians in 1773. It tries to understand what motivated this vast literary production, its different currents, and how they evolved. Additionally, it studies the image of New Christians and seeks the reasons for the perpetuation of this perception of Jewish descendants in the Early Modern Portuguese world. The Imaginary Synagogue seeks to identify which Jews and which ‘synagogue’ those authors constructed in their texts and their reasons for doing so, and offers conclusions on the self-affirmed Catholic importance of this literary current.