Jewish Cultures in the Sephardic Diaspora - Dialogues on Judaism between Jews who Returned to the 'Lands of Idolatry' and Hispanic Crypto-Jews

Abstract

Geographical mobility was one of the Sephardic Diaspora’s most prominent characteristics during the XVIIth century. In this context, a lesser known phenomenon is that of people who returned to Spain or to their American colony, after having resided for some time in one of the Jewish Sephardic Diaspora communities. Upon their return to the lands of idolatry, many of them maintained close relationships and conducted fascinating cultural exchanges with new Christians of Jewish origin who had never left the boundaries of the Iberian kingdoms and, therefore, had never directly encountered normative Judaism. This article studies these meetings and analyzes the different intercultural dialogues conducted between two worlds that were both so close and so far apart simultaneously.