"An engaging introduction to the tortuous plight faced by exiled conversos in Amsterdam and their methods of response. Choicet; In this skillful and well-argued book Miriam Bodian explores the communal history of the Portuguese Jews... who settled in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century." --Sixteenth Century Journa

Drawing on family and communal records, diaries, memoirs, and literary works, among other sources, Miriam Bodian tells the moving story of how Portuguese "new Christian" immigrants in 17th-century Amsterdam fashioned a close and cohesive community that recreated a Jewish...

Miriam Bodian's study of crypto-Jewish martyrdom in Iberian lands depicts a new type of martyr that emerged in the late 16th century--a defiant, educated judaizing martyr who engaged in disputes with inquisitors. By examining closely the Inquisition dossiers of four men who were tried in the Iberian peninsula or Spanish America and who developed judaizing theologies that drew from currents of Reformation thinking that emphasized the authority of Scripture and the religious autonomy of individual interpreters of Scripture, Miriam Bodian reveals unexpected connections between Reformation...