Marranos is one of the terms used in relation to Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted or were forced by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns to convert to Christianity during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy or were suspected of it, referred to as Crypto-Jews. "Crypto-Jew" is the term increasingly preferred in scholarly works, instead of Marrano.
Marranos: A secret Passover Seder in Spain during the times of Inquisition. An 1893 painting by Moshe Maimon.
First Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Shearith Israel (1656–1833), in Manhattan, New York City
Execution of Mariana de Carabajal in Mexico, 1601.
Spanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the few centuries following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. They should therefore be distinguished both from the descendants of those expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal.
Painting of the Amsterdam Esnoga—considered the mother synagogue by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews—by Emanuel de Witte (ab. 1680).
Burning of Crypto-Jews in Lisbon, Portugal, 1497
Spanish Synagogue
Synagogue of Livorno
