Results of The Disputation
The Pope claimed that he had a victory, and he gave instructions by which all books of the Talmud would be handed over to his functionaries for censorship. This order brought some comfort, indeed, there was fear that there would be a general burning of the Talmud.
Compulsory conversions of the Jews continued, though they were not given official encouragement. However, Jews who were coerced into becoming Christian could, if they wished, return to their own religion. Vincent Ferrer passed through the communities and compelled the Jews to hear his sermons, then took his campaign north to France in 1416; that year a new king, Alfonso V, took to the throne in Aragon, and subsequently reversed all the anti-Jewish legislation of the Ferrer epoch, protecting the Jews and conversos firmly from the start of his reign and rejecting all attacks on them.
Most of the damage caused as a result of the disputation was to morale. Aragon Jewry suffered a hard blow and many of its dignitaries and wealthy converted. The feeling was that the Jews had gotten the worst of it in the confrontation with Geronimo. The Christian propaganda implanted rumors of the Jewish emissaries’ defeat.
After the fact, Isaac Abrabanel criticized the weakness of the arguments brought forward by the Jewish religious leaders, but it appears that under their duress, their ability to succeed was more limited.
Read more about this topic: Disputation Of Tortosa
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