The Lost Minyan

by David M. Gitlitz

Between 1391 and 1492 a substantial number of Spain's Jewish community, once the largest in Europe, converted to Catholicism either voluntarily or through physical or psychological coercion. While some converts publicly attended mass and privately observed the Sabbath, others were determined to abandon their Jewish past entirely but found it difficult to close the door on their heritage. In 1478 the Papacy approved Spain's request to establish an Inquisition. Its goals were to induce individuals to recant their heretical beliefs and behaviors and exclusively adhere to orthodox Christian practices and to encourage individuals to do so by making the punishment of sinners a public, exemplary event. Prior to the Inquisition, conversos continued to behave as if they were still Jews with relatively little danger; after 1480 to Judaize incurred mortal risk. The Lost Minyan , an intricately woven tapestry of historical fiction, profiles ten Crypto-Jewish families coping with the trauma of living between worlds, neither wholly Catholic nor wholly Jewish. Struggling to hide their secrets from neighbors, servants, children, and even spouses, they try to resolve the tension between their need for and fear of community. Attempting to navigate the mandates of the Church and their own idiosyncratic version of Jewish customs, they wonder on which law to peg their hopes of eternal salvation; and they wonder how to safely pass their Crypto-Jewish identity on to the next generation. While the details and conversations of these lives are fictional, they draw from historical fact as documented in eyewitness accounts, contemporary chronicles, and the dossiers of Inquisition trials in the archives of Spain and Mexico.

332 pages, Hardcover

First published December 16, 2010

Reviews

[Patricia O'Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In ten separate, but not unrelated, vignettes, David Gitlitz explores through fiction how the Spanish and Mexican Inquisitions tore apart families in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Telling their stories through narrative, court interviews, and letters, Gitlitz illustrates how families like the Arias Dávilas, the San Juans, the Rojas, and the Torres struggled with the conflicted identity of being both Jewish and Christian, how they learned to keep their loyalty to the laws of Moses secret from the servants and even from each other, and how, when interrogated and tortured by the Inquisition, they sometimes turned on each other.
From a historical perspective this is a fascinating read of the inner workings of the Inquisition in Spain and Mexico. Gitlitz thoroughly documents the primary sources used for his research and provides a generous introduction to the stories and an author’s note on each one at the end of the volume. Each tale is told with a storyteller’s enthusiasm and a historian’s attention to detail. However, I did sometimes find myself bogged down with the sameness of names in the stories and the redundancy of the information about the Inquisition they presented. Of course, the early modern Spanish tradition of naming children after their parents and grandparents is not a detail an author committed to historical accuracy can alter, but it took an especial effort to keep the characters straight. As for my second concern, I think that the repetition of information makes this volume a great educational tool, but I’m not sure it will entertain the casual reader.