Marranos on the Moradas : : Secret Jews and Penitentes in the Southwestern United States from 1590 to 1890 / / Norman Simms.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Academic Studies Press Backlist eBook-Package 2008-2013
• VerfasserIn: Simms, Norman,
• Place / Publishing House: Boston, MA : : Academic Studies Press, , [2009]; ©2009
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Series: Judaism and Jewish Life
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (520 p.)

Two groups were persecuted over the course of four hundred years in what is now the southwestern United States, each dissimulating and disguising who they truly were. Both now declare their true identities, yet raise hostility. The Penitentes are a lay Catholic brotherhood that practices bloody rites of self-flagellation and crucifixion, but claim this is a misrepresentation and that they are a community and a charitable organization. Marranos, an ambiguous and complicated population of Sephardic descendants, claim to be anousim. Both peoples have a complex, shared history. This book disentangles the web, redefines the terms, and creates new contexts in which these groups are viewed with respect and sympathy without idealizing or slandering them. Simms uses rabbinics, literary analyses, psychohistory, and cultural anthropology to consolidate a history of mentalities.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter I. What Did the Penitentes Really Do? -- Chapter II. Marranos, Penitentes, and the Baroque Anamorphoses in Action -- Chapter III. The Machinery of Secrets and the Machinations of Silence: Conspiracies, Contraptions and Ludibria -- Chapter IV. Crosscurrents and Undercurrents -- Chapter V. Penitentes and the Crazy Things They Do: Or, How to Be Jewish and Christian at the Same Time -- Chapter VI. Festivals of Blood Here and Bloody Trials There: Playing Roles and Rolling Along -- Chapter VII. Reaching Towards a Conclusion and Some New Questions -- Chapter VIII. Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Index