Re: Greetings Gustave,
I'm confused...
Indeed you are. As the excerpt below illustrates, anti-Judaism is not, never was, the preserve of Orthodox Christianity.
The expulsion of the Jews
See also: History of the Jews in Spain
Ferdinand and Isabella appointed Tomás de Torquemada in 1481 to investigate and punish conversos: Jews and Muslims who claimed to have converted to Christianity but continued to practice their former religion in secret. Conversos were common in Spain. Some disguised Jews had been ordained as priests and even bishops. Detractors called converted Jews Marranos, a pejorative word that can also be translated as "pigs".
The Inquisition began by targeting conversos in Seville, and tribunals were established in quick succession at Cordoba, Jaen, and Ciudad Real, followed by Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. Between 1486-1492, 25 auto-de-fes (trials) were held in Toledo alone; there would eventually be over 464 auto-de-fes targeting converso Jews between 1481 and 1826. In total, more than 13,000 conversos were tried from 1480-1492. The Inquisition against the conversos culminated in the expulsion of all of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
In this context, the concept of limpieza de sangre ("cleansing of blood") evolved, as those with Jewish ancestors were viewed with suspicion by the "Old Christians".
Muslim Spain had proved a safe haven for Jews, and quickly became the center of Jewish intellectual life and Jews remained largely on the Muslim side during Reconquista. Several months after the fall of Granada an edict of expulsion was issued against the Jews of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella on March 31, 1492. It ordered all Jews of whatever age to leave the kingdom by the last day of July, but permitted them to remove their property provided it was not in gold, silver, or money. The reason alleged for this action in the preamble of the edict was the relapse of so many conversos, owing to the proximity of unconverted Jews who seduced them from Christianity and kept alive in them the knowledge and practises of Judaism. No other motive is assigned, and there is no doubt that the religious motive was the main one. It is claimed that Don Isaac Abravanel, who had previously ransomed 480 Jewish Moriscos of Malaga from the Catholic monarchs by a payment of 20,000 doubloons, now offered them 600,000 crowns for the revocation of the edict. It is also said that Ferdinand hesitated, but was prevented from accepting the offer by Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, who dashed into the royal presence and, throwing a crucifix down before the king and queen, asked whether, like Judas, they would betray their Lord for money (See: Warren Carroll's thoroughly documented Isabel: the Catholic Queen). Whatever may be the truth of this story, there were no signs of relaxation shown by the court, and the Jews of Spain made preparations for exile. Over 200,000 Jews were eventually expelled, many of whom fled to Turkey or North Africa, but most went to other Christian countries, and thousands died during the expulsion. A significant number fled to Rome where the pope provided patronage and protection. The expulsion from Spain led to the creation of the Sephardic Jewish community, and was viewed as such a betrayal that Sephardic Jews were forbidden by tradition from ever resettling in Spain (which would have been impossible in any case until 1858, when the Edict of Expulsion was finally repealed).
With the expulsion of the Jews, the Inquisition had free reign, as its authority extended only to Christians, not Jews or Muslims, and every Jew in the King's states had been baptised (New Christians) or expelled. If they continued to practice the Jewish religion, they were sinful relapses ("fallen again").
One of the enduring myths of the Inquisition is that it targeted practising Jews. However, several Jewish historians have pointed out that this was not the case:
"It appears to be a fact as well as a theory that Jews who never ceased professing Judaism were, on the whole, left undisturbed. In the fourteen years of the activity of the Spanish Inquisition, from its establishment in 1478 to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, we hear of only one persecution directed against a Jewish community, where the Jewry of Huesca was accused in 1489 of having admitted conversos (pseudo-converts from Judaism to Christianity) to the Jewish fold. It was precisely the inability of the inquisitorial courts to check Jewish influence on the conversos that served as a decisive argument for the Catholic monarchs in banishing Jews from Spain..." (Baron, Dr. Salo Wittmayer, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, New York, 1937, Volume 2, p.58).
"The task of the Inquisition was not to Persecute Jews but to cleanse the Church of unorthodoxy. The Inquisition was not concerned with infidels outside the Church but with heretics within it" (Sokolsky, George E., We Jews, New York, 1935, p.53).
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