International Congress

Presentation

The look into the past influences the way how we transport ourselves into the future. In the Portuguese case, it must be considered the fact that the Inquisition was merely extinguished in 1821, and that the Religious Liberty established by law, arrived at Portugal only in 1910. These more than three centuries of the Inquisition’s presence make it difficult to look serenely over the Jewish past and its influence and implications in our culture.

For a full citizenship, it is urgent to trigger a broad refection that help us, as citizens, to reach a knowledge level of the place, of a significant part of our ancestors, in the way we understand ourselves today. Besides the touristic valuation, a systematic cultural and academic work on the Sephardic memory, culture and patrimony in the region of Bragança, is a lever that forces us to rethink the place of this vast region over the centuries.

In this sense this congress seeks to bring together academics, local researchers, entrepreneurs, mayors, associative movements leaders, artists, among many others social agents whom represent the local and regional dynamics – in a deep articulation with academics and international institutions – around the critic reflection on the importance of the Sephardic identity and memory in the more structural configurations of our contemporaneity.

Organization

Enterprise
Município de Bragança

Production
Ideias Emergentes – Produção Cultural, CRL

Scientific Coordination
Caathedra Of Sephardic Studies “Alberto Benveniste” of the University of Lisbon

Scientific Committee
Maria de Fátima Reis (President), A. A. Marques de Almeida, Adriano Vasco Rodrigues, Elvira Mea, José Augusto Ramos, Paulo Mendes Pinto, Saul António Gomes, Susana Milão

Executive Committee
Paulo Mendes Pinto (Coordinator), Carla Vieira, Inês Nogueiro, Maria Fernanda Guimarães, Miguel Lourenço, Susana Bastos Mateus, Susana Milão, Fernando de Sousa

Executive Secretariat
Rui Lomelino de Freitas (sefardi.international.congress@gmail.com)

Programme

Lecturers

Abraham Gross

Professor Abraham Gross, Department of Jewish History Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Be'er Sheva, Israel. Ph.D. Harvard University. Main fields of research: Cultural and Intellectual History of Iberian Jewry and History of Jewish Martyrdom.

 

Andrew L. Gluck

Andrew L. Gluck has been involved in the study of Iberian medieval philosophy for many years.  He has published books and articles on Maimonides, ibn Gabirol and Leone Ebreo.  He has also been involved in the philosophy of the social sciences and consciousness studies as well as the philosophy of Karl Jaspers. His last book involved the concept of election or chosenness as regards the jewish people. His most recent interest has been in the evolution of consciousness and subjectivity from ancient times to modernity.  As a part of this study, he considers the Iberian conversos and affiliated communities to be a key to understanding this evolution to modernity.

 

António Andrade

António Manuel Lopes Andrade holds a Ph.D in Literature from the University of Aveiro and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures at the same university. As a member of the Research Centre for Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the University of Aveiro, his main interests are Portuguese Renaissance Humanism, Neo-Latin Literature, History of the Portuguese Sephardic Diaspora, and the History of Science. For the last few years he has been the Principal Investigator of the Project “Dioscorides and the Portuguese Humanism: Amato Lusitano’s Commentaries” funded by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. He is the author of, among others, the following publications: ANDRADE, António Manuel Lopes; MIGUEL MORA, Carlos de; TORRÃO, João M. N. (coords.), Humanismo e Ciência: Antiguidade e Renascimento. Aveiro, Coimbra, São Paulo: UA Editora – Universidade de Aveiro, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, Annablume, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-0941-6; ANDRADE, António Manuel Lopes, O Cato Minor de Diogo Pires e a poesia didáctica no século XVI. Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2014. https://www.incm.pt/portal/loja_detalhe.jsp?codigo=102552; ANDRADE, António Manuel Lopes et alii (eds.), Humanismo, Diáspora e Ciência (séculos XVI e XVII): estudos, catálogo, exposição. Porto, CMP-BPMP; UA-CLC, 2013. (estudos e catálogo de livro antigo decorrente de colóquio e exposição bibliográfica realizada na Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto) https://doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-0945-4; ANDRADE, António Manuel Lopes (ed.), Ágora. Estudos Clássicos em Debate, 14.1 (2012). (número especial da revista, que contém vários estudos decorrentes de um colóquio realizado em Aveiro sobre o tema “Inventários, Livros e Ciência”) http://www2.dlc.ua.pt/classicos/agora14.1.htm

 

Arthur Kiron

Arthur Kiron is the Schottenstein-Jesselson Curator of Judaica Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at Penn. He is the Director of the Jesselson-Kaplan American Genizah Project and is the editor of Constellations of Atlantic Jewish History: The Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica (2014), which received the Arline Custer Memorial Award. Among his publications related to this conference are:  “Heralds of Duty: The Sephardic Italian Jewish Theological Seminary of Sabato Morais” Jewish Quarterly Review vol. 105, no. 2 (Spring 2015), 206-49; “An Atlantic Jewish Republic of Letters?” Jewish History vol. 20, nos. 1-2 (2006), 171-211; La Casa Editrice Belforte e L’Arte Della Stampa in Ladino/The Belforte Publishing House and the Art of Ladino Printing (Livorno: Salomone Belforte and Co., 2005); “Mythologizing 1654,” Jewish Quarterly Review vol. 94, no. 4 (Fall 2004), 583-94. “Varieties of Haskalah: Sabato Morais’ Program of Sephardic Rabbinic Humanism in Victorian America,” [in Reconfiguring Jewish Culture from Al-Andalus to the Haskalah, eds. Adam Sutcliffe and Ross Brann (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), pp. 121-45].

 

Claude (Dov) B. Stuczynski

Claude (Dov) B. Stuczynski is an Associate Professor at the Department of General  History (Bar-Ilan University) and board member of the Center for the Study of Conversions and Interreligious Encounters (CSOC) at Ben-Gurion University. Having written a number of Contributions in various languages, his two main fields of research are: The Portuguese Converso phenomenon and the first encounters between Europeans and Amerindians.
He is mainly interested in the relationship between religion and politics in Medieval and Early Modern periods. Actually he prepares a study of the theological-political dimension of the Converso phenomenon (what he calls: “The Marrano Paulinian Moment”).
Among his contributions are the following: Between Religion and Religiosity among the New Christians of Bragança in the 16th Century, (in Hebrew); The New Christians in Portugal in the XXth Century (Hebrew edition: The Israeli Historical Society, French forthcoming edition);- “On Behalf of the Nation”. New Christian Apologetics in the Iberian World. He published a numbers of articles, reviews, and entries, contributing in Adriano Prosperi’s and John Tedeschi’s Dizionario Storico dell’Inquisizione, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 4 vols. (Italian). He is co-editor with David Graizbord of a special issue of the Journal “Jewish History” dedicated to Early Modern Portuguese New Christian Identities.

 

Elvira Mea

ELVIRA CUNHA AVEZEDO MEA was born in Oporto, on March 21, 1948. She graduated in History (1972). And she received her doctorate in Modern and Contemporary History (1990), by the Universidade do Porto. Currently she exercising the functions of a full professor.
She is Vice-President of the Center for African Studies at the university of Oporto, where she runs a line of research in that area and coordinates the History Seminar of the Master of African Studies. In the scope of Modern History she directs the Seminary of Religious Structures on the Master in Local and Regional Studies of the History Department.
With a historical research linked mainly to Judaism, New Christians, Inquisition and Marranism in the social, cultural and mentalities, she is the author of dozens of works published in several languages.

 

Fernando de Sousa

Fernando de Sousa is a professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Porto. He holds a PhD in History by the Faculty of Letters of that University (1980), he is President of the Direction and Scientific Coordinator of the Center for Population, Economy and Society Studies (CEPESE).
He was a member of the North Atlantic Assembly and Rapporteur of the Commission of Education and Culture (1983-1986) and member of the Assembly of the Republic (1983-1985 and 1991-1999), and integrated the National Defense Commission and the Commission of Education, Science and Culture and presided the Parliamentary Heritage Committee of the Assembly of the Republic (1992-1999) and the IX EUREKA Interparliamentary Conference (1997-1998).
His curriculum accounts close to a hundred articles and scientific books within the scope of Contemporary History of Portugal, especially in its institutional and political aspects.

 

Heide Warncke

Heide Warncke was born in Hamburg and studied Semitic Languages at the University of Amsterdam. After finishing her study she became Project leader for the catalogueing of the old printed Hebraica and Judaica at the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the Jewish Special Collections at the University of Amsterdam. As a library specialist she has also been working for several smaller Jewish Libraries in Holland. She started working at the Ets Haim – Livraria Montezinos Library (part of the Jewish Cultural Quarter) in Amsterdam in 2012 and has recently been appointed curator of Ets Haim. Currently she is doing a Ph.D. research on the subject ‘The relation between manuscript and printed book in the early modern, west-sephardic environement’.

 

Inês Nogueiro

She was born in Bragança
2000, Degree in Biology / Geology at UTAD - Vila Real.
2008, Master's Degree in Human Evolution (Population Genetics) at FCTUC - Coimbra.
2015, PhD in Biology (Genetics of Human Populations /Jewish Populations) at FCUP and IPATIMUP - OPorto.
From 2016 until the present time she is a visiting researcher at the I3S (Institute of Research and Innovation in Health), from the group of Genetics of Populations and Evolution.
She has several publications in international journals with scientific arbitration and has participated in several national and international congresses.

 

Javier Castaño

I studied history and Jewish studies in Madrid, Jerusalem, and Harvard. Currently, I am a senior researcher in Jewish History at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid, and head of the research cluster “Jews and Moslems in the Mediterranean Social Network: Sources and Contexts.” Between 2006 and 2015 I was editor-in-chief of the journal Sefarad.
My research has focused on the analysis of diverse aspects of the social, economic, and religious history of the Iberian Jews during the late middle ages, and in the early modern Mediterranean Diaspora. Currently, I am leading the project Ginze Sefarad, for the edition and analysis of late medieval historical documents and halakhic texts in Hebrew writing, and I have dealt with the processes of conversion of Iberian Jews.
I have taught post-graduate courses at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (2009), and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2014). In addition, I was a Research Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in Philadelphia (2010-11), and at the University of Oxford (2015).
Some of my recent publications: (2017), “’Cleanse Me from My Sin:’ the Social and Cultural Vicissitudes of a Converso Family in Fifteenth-Century Castile,” in P. Macejko & Th. Dunkelgrün (eds.), Bastards and Believers. Converts and Conversion between Judaism and Christianity(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). (2017), “Entangled Dowries of Converts in Transition in Early Modern Navarre,” in A. Bar-Levav & C. D. Stuczynski (eds.), The Path to Modernity (Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel). (2015) “The Peninsula as a Borderless Space: Towards a Mobility ‘Turn’ in the Study of 15th Century Iberian Jewries,” in Ph. Buc, M. Keil & J. Tolan (eds.), Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe: The Historiographical Legacy of Bernhard Blumenkranz(Turnhout: Brepols), 315-332. (2014) ed., ¿Una Sefarad inventada? Los problemas de interpretación de la cultura material de los judíos en España (Córdoba: Editorial El Almendro).

 

Jorge Martins

Jorge Martins his a PhD in History from the Faculdade de Letras of the University of Lisbon. Author of school textbooks, some works of fiction and essays on contemporary history, local history and Jewish and inquisitorial studies. On this last subject, he gave several conferences and published several studies, namely the following books: Portugal e os Judeus, 3 vols., 2006; Breve História dos Judeus em Portugal, 2009; A República e os Judeus, 2010; Maria Gomes, Cristã-nova, 117 anos: a mais idosa vítima da Inquisição, 2012; Manteigas, Minha Pátria: os cristãos-novos de Manteigas, vol. II, 2015; A Inquisição em Ourém, 2016; O Judaísmo em Belmonte no Tempo da Inquisição, 2016.

 

Maria Antonieta Garcia

PhD in Sociology on the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas of Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Associate Professor at the Universidade da Beira Interior (Retired) has developed her research in Judaism and Identities.
She published, among others, the books: A Comunidade Judaica da Covilhã- Descobertas e Inquisição - Covilhã, UBI, 2013. Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, Médica, Republicana, Sufragista…, Lisboa, Editora Fonte da Palavra, 2011. Carolina Beatriz Ângelo – Guarda(dora) da Liberdade, Câmara Municipal da Guarda, 2009; Inquisição e Independência – Um Motim no Fundão, 2006; Fios – Para um Roteiro Judaico da Covilhã, UBI, 2001; Guarda – História e Cultura Judaica, Museu e C.M. da Guarda, 1999. (Comisaria Científica del Catálogo de la Exposición); Judaísmo no Feminino, Lisboa, ISER, UNL,1999; Denúncias em Nome da Fé, Lisboa, ISER, UNL, 1996; Os Judeus de Belmonte: Os Caminhos da Memória, Lisboa, ISER, UNL, 1993.
Coordinator and author of Euforia Breve. Memórias da Primeira República na Guarda, 2011.
Co-author of the books (among others): Coimbra Judaica, CM de Coimbra, 2009; Dicionário do Judaísmo Português, Presença, 2009; Aula Ibérica, ed. Universidad de Salamanca, 2007; El Legado de Sefarad, Salamanca, Amarú ed.y Norbert Rehrmann, 2003; Guarda – A Formosa, C.M. da Guarda, 2000; Testemunhos do Judaísmo em Portugal, Ministério da Cultura, 1997; Judeus e Árabes na Península Ibérica, Comissão Nacional da UNESCO, CNC, 1994.
She has participated in conferences, national and international congresses.

 

Marina Pignatelli

Marina Pignatelli, doctorate in Social Sciences in the specialty of Anthropology and Master in Anthropological Sciences by the University of Lisbon, ISCSP, where she teaches. She completed postgraduate studies in Ethnology of Religions (UNL-FCSH) and Sephardic Studies (Sephardic Studies Chair), as well as free courses in Judaism (CNC), Symbolism (Casa Alorna Foundation), Tanatology, Parapsychology and Religion (UCP - Lisbon Faculty of Theology), Peacekeeping and Conflict Resolution (UNITAR), Civil Crisis Management (IDN) and Intangible Cultural Heritage (DGPA.UAb). She has devoted himself to the study of Jewish reality in Portugal since 1991 and has finished a postdoctoral study on the Jews of Mozambique. She is an integrated researcher at CRIA - Center in Research Network in Anthropology and member of the board of the Portuguese Association of Anthropology.

 

Myriam Silvera

Myriam Silvera teaches “History and Culture of the Jews In Modern Age” at the University of Roma “Tor Vergata”. She is also responsible of two university programs in the Union of Italian Jewish Communities: a BA in Jewish Studies, and a Master in Jewish Culture and Communication. She takes part to the Directorial Board of the periodical “La Rassegna Mensile di Israel”. Her main interest is in the XVII century religious history, including marrano's history and intellectual relation between Jews and Huguenots. She works on the manuscript literary production by the Amsterdam Jews in spanish and in portuguese. She published, among others, “Jacques Basnage, corrispondenza da Rotterdam” mainly in French, and edited for the first time the famous manuscript by Isaac Orobio de Castro “Prevenciones Divinas” (Olschki 2014).

 

Sandra Neves da Silva

She is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the New University of Lisbon, addressing her dissertation on the life course and written work of the Christian-Manuel Bocarro Frances e Rosales (c.1588-1662?). He is a member of Sefarad: Society for the Study for Sephardic Studies (Ben-Zvi Institute and Hebrew University of Jerusalem), having presented several communications in national and international colloquia and published several articles in Portugal and abroad. She is a trainer and scientific coordinator of Post-Graduation "Artistic Expression and Communication" (Criap Institute) and professional genealogist at Lux Historical Consulting, of which she is a founder.

 

Saul Gomes

Graduated in History, by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, in 1985.
In 1989 obtained the title of Master in Medieval History by the same faculty.
In 2000, he studied in the Medieval History specialty, at the University of Coimbra, where he held his public examinations, defending the dissertation entitled "In Limine Conscriptionis", in the Monastery of Santa Cruz de Coimbra. XIV).
Since 1987, he has taught at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra, where, since 2009, he has been Associate Professor with aggregation.
He is a corresponding member of the Portuguese Academy of History, collaborator of the Center for the Study of Religious History of the Portuguese Catholic University and researcher at the Center for History of Society and Culture of the University of Coimbra.
In 1999 he was awarded the Gulbenkian Science Prize for his work: "Intimacy and Charm, The Cistercian Monastery of Santa Maria de Cós.

 

Yosef Kaplan

Yosef Kaplan is Bernard Cherrick Emeritus Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University. His main publications include: From Christianity to Judaism (1989); Les nouveaux-juifs d'Amsterdam (1999); An Alternative Path to Judaism ( 2000). He has edited more than 20 books, and his most recent publications are : Dutch Jews as Perceived by Themselves and by Others (2001); The Dutch Intersection. The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History ( 2008). He has written many articles on Iberian Jewry in the late Middle Ages, the Iberian conversos, the Sephardi Diaspora, and the Early Enlightenment in Jewish Society. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and chairman of the Academy's Humanities Section.

 

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