Framing Peninsular Crypto‐Jews as Part of the Sephardic Diaspora

ABSTRACT

When we talk about the Sephardic diaspora, we often talk about Iberian conversos who leave the Peninsula, supposedly to live openly as Jews in places like Algiers, Venice, Amsterdam or the Ottoman Empire. But what about those conversos who continued to identify in some way as Jews but who remained in Spain and Portugal? To what extent can we talk about them as part of the Sephardic diaspora as we understand it today? In this essay, I examine the inquisitorial and rabbinic discourses of Iberian conversos through the lens of Khachig Tölölyan's definition of diasporic culture. I argue that Jewish‐identifying Iberian conversos meet his criteria, allowing for a more nuanced understanding the Iberian converso experience that goes beyond the voices of the Rabbinate on one side, and the Inquisition on the other. In so doing, I challenge the record of scholarship that does not consider Jewish‐identifying Iberian conversos as part of the Sephardic diaspora. This approach enables us to take a new look at the relationship between conversos and Jews in the Iberian Peninsula and throughout the Sephardic diaspora.