Saul Levi Morteira, Spinoza's Enlightened Rabbi: A Critical Edition of Obstaculos y oposiciones contra la religion christiana

FAIN: FA-57726-14

Gregory Blair Kaplan
University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Knoxville, TN 37916-3801)

My project sheds new light on the intersection between Dutch Christian Hebraism and Jewish apologetic writing, and situates Saul Levi Morteira (c. 1596-1660), the rabbi and teacher of Baruch Spinoza (1632-77), as a bridge between rabbinic thought in the nascent Dutch Republic and the political concepts of Spinoza. The project consists of a translation and scholarly introduction to an unedited work composed in Spanish by Morteira around 1630, Obstáculos y oposiciones contra la religión christiana en Amsterdam (Arguments Against the Christian Religion in Amsterdam). I examine this work as a rabbinic manifestation of the respublica Hebraeorum (Hebrew republic) genre that reflects Morteira's awareness of (and possible participation in) early seventeenth century philosophical dialogues, and that speaks to his religious agenda by expressing a democratic motif that influenced the radical thought of Spinoza.

Associated Products

Arguments against the Christian Religion in Amsterdam by Saul Levi Morteira, Spinoza's Rabbi (Book)
Title: Arguments against the Christian Religion in Amsterdam by Saul Levi Morteira, Spinoza's Rabbi
Author: Gregory B. Kaplan
Editor: Gregory B. Kaplan
Abstract: This is the first book to offer a translation into English-as well as a critical study-of a Spanish treatise written around 1650 by Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira, whose most renowned congregant was Baruch Spinoza. Aimed at encouraging the practice of halachic Judaism among the Amsterdam-based descendants of conversos, Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity, the book stages a dialogue between two conversos that ultimately leads to a vision of a Jewish homeland-an outcome that Morteira thought was only possible through his program for rejudaisation.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://http://en.aup.nl/books/9789462980105-arguments-against-the-christian-religion-in-amsterdam-by-saul-levi-morteira-spinoza-s-rabbi.html
Secondary URL: http://http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/A/bo26265718.html
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Type: Single author monograph
Type: Translation
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9789462980105
Translator: Gregory B. Kaplan
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

From Monarchy to Democracy: Ets Haim's Converso Legacy (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: From Monarchy to Democracy: Ets Haim's Converso Legacy
Abstract: The Ets Haim library is the world’s largest repository of books written by descendants of Iberian Jews forced to convert to Christianity who fled inquisitorial persecution during the 1500s and returned to Judaism in new homelands. A number of these converso refugees settled in Amsterdam in the 1590s, whereupon they established a Jewish community that thrived during the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age. This talk will focus on works by Amsterdam's conversos housed at Ets Haim, in particular on texts espousing political ideas that contributed to the early-modern European and American shift from monarchy to democracy.
Author: Gregory B. Kaplan
Date: 11/24/2016
Location: Portuguese Synagogue, Amsterdam
Primary URL: http://http://aihr.uva.nl/news-and-events/content/symposia/2016/11/tradition-and-modernity-in-ets-haim.html
Primary URL Description: University of Amsterdam Press Release
Secondary URL: http://http://tntoday.utk.edu/2016/11/15/uts-kaplan-travels-amsterdam-400th-anniversary-ets-haim-library/
Secondary URL Description: University of Tennessee Press Release

Reviving the Hebrew Republic in Obstáculos y oposiciones contra la religión cristiana en Amsterdam (Arguments against the Christian Religion in Amsterdam). (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Reviving the Hebrew Republic in Obstáculos y oposiciones contra la religión cristiana en Amsterdam (Arguments against the Christian Religion in Amsterdam).
Author: Gregory B. Kaplan
Abstract: This talk focuses on the Hebrew Republic theme in a polemical work composed around 1650 by Morteira.
Date: 05/14/15
Conference Name: 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan U, Kalamazoo, MI

Saul Levi Morteira’s Obstáculos y oposiciones contra la religión cristiana en Amsterdam as a converso text (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Saul Levi Morteira’s Obstáculos y oposiciones contra la religión cristiana en Amsterdam as a converso text
Author: Gregory B. Kaplan
Abstract: This talk focuses on features of a polemical work by Morteira that may be understood in a converso context.
Date: 05/12/14
Conference Name: 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan U, Kalamazoo, MI

---