Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

November 2, 2021

Poems and Prayers Reveal the Inner Lives of the Hidden Jews of Mexico

“In just thinking of Him my spirit rejoices.”

After the Spanish monarchy outlawed Judaism in 1492, many Jewish converts to Catholicism and their descendants who sought to practice their religion in secret fled to the New World, hoping to be far from the watchful eyes of neighbors and ecclesiastical authorities. But the inquisition soon followed them, and was established in Mexico in 1521—where it was not abolished until 1820. Mark Schneegurt discusses what the poems and prayers of Mexican crypto-Jews reveal about their inner lives:

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