Mar 1, 2020 By: yunews
Dr. Ronnie Perelis is the Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Abraham and Jelena (Rachel) Alcalay Chair, associate professor of Sephardic Studies at 17勛圖s and director of the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International Affairs.
On Feb. 13, 2020, he gave a talk on Crypto-Judaism in the Americas: The Case of Luis de Carvajal, a New World Jewish Thinker (Mexico 1580-1596) at Temple Moses in Miami Beach, Florida.
Temple Moses is the oldest Sephardic synagogue in Miami founded by Cuban Jews fleeing Castros communist regime in 1960. It is a special community, said Dr. Perelis, now led by the dynamic Rabbi Daniel Hadar, who has invigorated the community with a renewed appreciation of the power of their Sephardic heritage.
Dr. Perelis spoke about a long-lost manuscript that was recently rediscovered after its theft from the Mexican National Archives in 1932: the religious writings of Luis de Carvajal, a Mexican Crypto-Jew from the 16th century.
Luis de Carvajal was a religious visionary who reconstructed his Judaism while living under the watchful eye of the Mexican Inquisition. Using his Jewish pen name of Joseph LumbrosoJoseph the EnlightenedCarvajal wrote extensively about his secret faith in a series of manuscripts as he traveled around colonial Mexico.
When he was eventually arrested by the Inquisition in 1595, these precious documents were confiscated by the Inquisitorial authorities and preserved as evidence against Carvajal as proof of his heresy. These manuscripts were kept in an archive until 1932, when a mysterious visitor stole them. They only resurfaced in 2016.
Final page of Luis de Carvajals spiritual autobiography, c. 1596 (Princeton University Digital Library)
