Manuscript, lengthy letter by R. Immanuel Aboab, on the behavior of Jewish merchants who waited too long to leave the Iberian Peninsula. [Amsterdam, late 17th to early 18th century]. Portuguese. Scribal copy.

The present manuscript is the only one known to be written in Portuguese, the dominant spoken language among the former Marranos in Amsterdam. Written in Amsterdam (based on watermarks) but evidently translated from a Spanish original dated ca. 1626-1627.

The letter discusses Marranos who, for financial or other reasons, refused to leave the Iberian Peninsula and continued to live under the Inquisition. The letter also discusses those Marranos who, though having immigrated to a country with greater freedom for open practice of Judaism – France, Flanders, Italy or the Ottoman Empire – did not join the existing Jewish communities, did not openly return to Judaism, or in some cases returned to Spain. The letter includes discussion of the Marranos with respect to their honest and dishonest business practices, fashion, gambling, their success in their new lands, and more. R. Imanuel Aboab begs the Marranos to return fully to Judaism and join communities in Europe, such as Amsterdam, Venice, Livorno or the Ottoman Empire.

Pages numbered with catchwords; erasures and corrections.

R. Imanuel Aboab (ca. 1555-1628) was born in Porto, Portugal to a distinguished family of Spanish exiles whose members included R. Yitzchak Aboab, author of Menorat HaMaor, and R. Yitzchak Aboab of Castile. He was orphaned as a child and was raised in the home of his grandfather Avraham, and in 1585 he moved to Italy in order to openly return to Judaism. He wandered from city to city in Italy, including Pisa, Reggio Emilia, Ferrara and Venice, and in the course of his travels he participated in theological debates with Christian scholars, managing a vast correspondence on ethics and Biblical exegesis. He served as rabbi of the Spanish-Portuguese community of Venice. He authored his Nomologia between 1615-1625; in 1628 he immigrated to Eretz Israel, following his daughter Gracia, who had established yeshivas in Safed and Jerusalem, and he passed away there.

Cecil Roth published Immanuel Aboab's letter in Spanish, which is extant in a small number of manuscripts that circulated among the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of converso origin.

For further information, see:

• Cecil Roth, Immanuel Aboab's Proselytization of the Marranos. From an Unpublished Letter, Jewish Quarterly Review, XXIII, 2 (1932), pp. 121-162.

• Moises Orfali, Imanuel Aboab's Nomologia or discursos legales: The Struggle over the Authority of the Law, Jerusalem 1997 (Hebrew).

Provenance: Mozes Heiman Gans collection, no. 14.

[44] leaves. 20.5 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains, including light dampstains. Creases. Tears and minor holes to margins, not affecting text. Pen inscriptions inside front board (new). Old parchment binding, with wear and defects.

Bookplate of Mozes Heiman Gans.

We thank Prof. Harm den Boer, Basel, for his assistance in preparing this description.