The Marranos of Spain: From the Late 14th to the Early 16th Century, According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources, Third Edition Paperback – June 22, 1999

B Netanyahu corrected the popular misconception that many Marranos who fled Spain during the Inquisition were secretly practicing Judaism. This was also a FALSE accusation made by the Inquisitors. In reality, most Marranos wanted to assimilate into Christianity and be considered as Gentiles. That is also precisely why (centuries earlier) the 10 Tribes of the Ancient NORTHERN Kingdom of ISRAEL were exiled by Assyria in 722 BC and totally lost their Israelite identity . . . to this day!

Very interesting but not what I was looking for. The book entails repetitive arguments from various Rabbi about the spiritual, mental and physical condition of these Jewish people caught in the expulsion and religious change to Christianity in Spain in some cases to avoid the Spanish Inquision. The references are as long as the book itself. A lot of rock throwing to keep the Marrano’s Jewish or not.

It satisfied my curiosity and research. It took me where I needed to go to understand that period of history.

The Marranos of Spain is a landmark study for this period of Spanish history and the Jews of Spain. Its importance lies within the utlized sources, which for the first time in the scholarly research of Marranos, someone is intelligent enough to integrate Hebrew sources, religous as well as secular, in order to have a better picture.However, Netanyahu's analysis leaves much to be desired. The debate about his analysis and contradictions have been discussed in Spanish Academia, and they are mainly due to some of the second or third sources he has utilized which are not reliable. Even his discussion of Jewish jurisprudence falls short when considering he's mixing two Jewish traditions (Spanish and German) in regards to forced converts, traditions that had not been merged in 15th century Europe. He tried to use all that he could to prove his thesis that the forced converts were truly sincere Christians, and in this process he purposely dismissed the psycological and socio-antropological analysis of this period. Basically what Netanyahu did was to find sources that said "black," and so black it was. He missed much on the complexity of this period.As a pioneering work for the use of Hebrew sources, Netanyahu's work is most excellent, but again, he needs to revise many of his forced conclusions.

der autor ist ein ausgewiesener experte und gelehrter auf dem gebiet und "nebenbei" der vater des ggw. israel. ministerpräsidenten. sein andereer sohn, yoni, fiel 1976 als einziger israel. militär bei der befreiungsaktion in entebbe, uganda.für interessierte ein MUSS.