Old and new Christians [Review of 'The origins of the Inquisition in fifteenth-century Spain' by Benzion Netanyahu].

Abstract

TN 1391, the prosperous, confident, acculturated Jewish community in Christian Spain was rocked by a series of pogroms; thus was inaugurated a century of travails that culminated in the expulsion of 1492. Intense missionary efforts on the part of Christian authorities- including a seemingly endless public disputation between representatives of the two faiths in 1413-14 at Tortosa-combined with episodes of violence to produce a situation unprecedented in Jewish history: an officially tolerated community living side by side with a large community of newly baptized Jews. (from Introduction)