Famous Crypto-Jews
- Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi was a 16th century international banker who created an escape network that saved thousands of Crypto-Jews from the Inquisition. She was also a patron of (Jewish) writers, and a diplomat on behalf of her people, who also attempted to start a modern state of Israel.
- Luis de Carvajal was the governor of the state of Nuevo León, a northern Mexico province in which the restriction against immigration from conversos was relaxed in order to encourage migration to the peril-fraught frontier. He was responsible for bringing a significant group of crypto-Jewish conversos living in Portugal since the Expulsion of 1492.
- Luis de Carvajal el Mozo, was the nephew of Jose Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva, the only crypto-Jew of the Spanish colonial era whose memoirs have been preserved.
- Antonio Fernandez Carvajal was a Portuguese merchant in London; "like other Marranos in London, Carvajal prayed at the Catholic chapel of the Spanish ambassador, while simultaneously playing a leading role in the secret Jewish community, which met at the clandestine synagogue at Creechurch Lane."
- Some scholars of Judaic studies believe that Miguel de Cervantes may have been a crypto-Jew or of crypto-Jewish descent.
- Rodrigo Lopez, a converso who fled from Portugal to England and became physician to Queen Elizabeth I.
Read more about this topic: Crypto-Judaism
Famous quotes containing the word famous:
“In a famous Middletown study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1924, mothers were asked to rank the qualities they most desire in their children. At the top of the list were conformity and strict obedience. More than fifty years later, when the Middletown survey was replicated, mothers placed autonomy and independence first. The healthiest parenting probably promotes a balance of these qualities in children.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)