Season 2: Episode 5 - The Merchant Queen

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Hemingway says, as you get older, it is harder to have heroes, but it's sort of necessary. Now the Jewish story has been full of heroes up to this point, but today's episode takes us to a whole different level. Episode 5, The Merchant Queen. So this is a story about a Jewish woman, but her story is more than just a Jewish story. It shows how even 400 years ago, a woman could rise above her domestic station, so to speak, to become a successful business and community leader. A woman whose deeds were so outstanding that she's often compared to Queen Esther herself. She was a woman who was so universally known and respected amongst her people that she became known simply as La Señora, the Lady. Racia Mendes Nassi was born around 1510 to parents who were among the exiles that left Spain for Portugal in 1492, only to be forcibly baptized there in Portugal in 1497, as I hope you recall.

And she was 18 years old when she was chosen to be the bride of a distant relative who had become the richest spice merchant in Lisbon. His name was Francisco Mendes. Now the couple were married in perfect style in the great cathedral of Lisbon, a public Catholic wedding. And only afterwards did they celebrate a secret Jewish ceremony complete with the signing of a ketubah, because they were not actually Catholics. They were crypto-Jews, conversos, those who had been forced into their faith. so Francisco Mendes and his brother Diocco were the directors of a powerful trading company and actually a bank which had a world reputation agents across Europe and around the Mediterranean the house of Mendes as they called it began as a simple trading company but following the opening of the sea route to India by the Portuguese the Mendes brothers quickly became important spice traders and they also traded in silver Silver was a critical element needed to pay all those Asians for all these spices that the Europeans were consuming.

Actually, it's worth it to pause for a second, because you may not realize that the new world, that empire that the Spanish and the Portuguese conquered across the Atlantic after Columbus' failed attempt to find India directly, it supplied at least 75% of the world's total output of gold and silver from 1500 through 1800. The most famous mine, the Potosi mine, founded in 1545, produced itself a fabulous wealth. It became actually one of the largest cities in America and the world, had a population exceeding 200,000 people, although many of them were slave labor. So needless to say, the brothers got in good at a good time at the basement level of an important business. But, unfortunately, Francisco died only eight years after his wedding.

And he left half his fortune to Dania Grazia, his wife, and the other half to their baby daughter, Ana. This was quite remarkable and showed that even at such an early age, this competent businessman recognized the skills of his young wife to manage her affairs. Now, of course, the king of Portugal wanted that money for himself. And the baby girl was the easiest means to his ends. So Danya Gracia promptly fled for Antwerp, where the brother Diogo was already based, taking her baby daughter and her sister Brianda and a nephew named Joseph. And in fact, they got out just in time. In reality, they may have already known that there was more than one reason to leave. Because it was just at this time, on May 23rd, 1536, that the Pope ordered the establishment of a Portuguese Inquisition Inquisition, on the model of what had existed already in Spain.

Now, a little bit of the backstory, because it's important for understanding the story of Gracia Mendisnessy, that she was born and lived as a converso, a forced convert to Catholicism, or at least the child of forced converts, in Portugal, rather than Spain. Because in the early decades of the 16th century, the new Christians of Spain were a dwindling, stigmatized group of people that were looked upon as apostates, even though they professed Christianity. In fact, very few of them were active Judaizers, as the equation accused them of being. Why? Because they were the descendants of well over 100 years of persecution. All the horrible stories that we spoke about in medieval Spain, which culminated in the expulsions.

And in their day, in the 16th century, they were still ruthlessly pursued by a Spanish church and a monarchy which were at the height of their power. They had no audience for the complaint. No one was listening. They had no living sources of religious inspiration within their community to draw from, and they had almost no hope for release through any kind of action. The Portuguese, on the other hand, were in an entirely different state. They were the descendants, or the actual living members, of those who had refused to convert during the expulsion. Remember, it was convert or leave, and they left. Furthermore, their ultimate conversion in 1497 was basically a quick deception. It was cruel, but it was bloodless.

And that mass conversion was followed by more than three decades which were free from the Inquisition. That's quite a bit of time to consolidate a thriving crypto-Jewish way of life, an underground existence where one could outwardly profess Catholicism, but inwardly thrive as a Jew. and we're going to have to make an intensive examination of this crypto consciousness because the Hebrews of the Portuguese nation or La Nación as they come to be known and the challenge that will pose both the Christian and Jewish religiosity are going to be significant in coming episodes but before this can happen we have to get their story the heck out of the Iberian Peninsula and for that we're going to follow Grazia Mendes Nasi So, for decades, the Mendez family had maintained conversor traditions while outwardly conforming to Catholicism.

But, as I said, this became far more difficult and dangerous in Gracia's day. Therefore, so they relocated to Antwerp. And it seems, by the way, this was a temporary move. They were buying time to find a more secure place to transfer the family fortune out of the reach of the Catholic monarchs. but even in Antwerp, it proved that they weren't safe. Because soon, charges of Judaizing, the ultimate sin in the eyes of both the monarchs and the Inquisition, were brought against her dead husband, Francisco. And it seems pretty clear that the aim was to relieve his heirs of his significant fortune. Unfrightened, Gracie succeeded herself in having the charges withdrawn. How? Well, it was quite simple. She just offered a very large loan, with a certain non-refundable portion, read bribe, to the Emperor Charles V, who at the time was both King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, and perennially strapped for cash.

So, it was there in Antwerp that Gracia began to use her status as a professing Catholic, and her enormous wealth, and her extensive business connections, to set up an underground railway for Converso's attempting to escape the Inquisition in Portugal and Spain. Ships of the Mendez House began to take on escapees with their normal cargo. The standard route was from Lisbon to London, London to Antwerp, and Antwerp onwards. It's a strange story, but Grassi's chief agent in England was a cousin of hers known as Le Toljou, with one I. We don't know his name. So when the Spice ships would arrive from Portugal to a port in England He would go on board just to check the cargo and to see if there were any conversos hidden on board He would then update them on whether it was safe to continue the trip to Antwerp Now you have to remember, of course, that all the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, and it would be more than a hundred years before they were officially allowed to return at all.

The fact that this tall Jew with one eye was able to act as an agent for the House of Mendes was because he was, of course, a converso, and the fact that he was helping others to escape was extremely dangerous. But as I said, Antwerp was only a temporary haven. The rise of the Spanish Empire from the New World had made this port city the richest in the world, and that's really why it was a haven. It was the sugar capital of Europe. Hundreds of ships passed through each day, thousands of carts each week. The ideal transit point for smuggling of any type. But it was still part of the Spanish Empire. And despite its cosmopolitan nature and a strong policy of tolerance, which made it a haven for many conversos who lived there, it was still under the rule of Catholic Spain, and therefore of the Inquisition.

So the ultimate goal of most of the conversos was to move on to at least Italy, if not their dream of the Ottoman Empire, where the Muslims proved far more tolerant of the escaping Jews. And so, Daniel Gracia and her husband's brother, Diogo, set up a network of agents through their company who could give the escapees information on what rows they could take, which ones had to be avoided, what inns were safe to stay in, and where they could find help or advice. And perhaps their most famous agent, aside from the told Jew with the one eye, is one we actually discussed in a previous episode in a very different capacity. Daniel Bomberg, I hope you'll recall, was a Venetian printer, and in fact, he was the printer who revolutionized the Hebrew book.

Now, I mentioned in the previous episode that his printing house employed conversos. But it turns out he not only employed them, but he served as a clearinghouse which secretly received property sent by the Mendes company for those conversos who ultimately settled in Italy. And so Dania Gracia thought she settled into life in Antwerp, but her peace was shattered almost immediately. Aggressive suitors began to seek her young daughter's hand, and when she began to refuse, she found that they came with imperial support. The real prize, of course, was the money. The inheritance that this young child held, which any successful man would have to share with his royal advocate. Once again, proving her mettle, Grazia managed to hold up every offer until she could flee the imperial territory to Venice in 1544.

But one rebuffs royalty at their own risk. The emperor retaliated. now accusing Gracia and her sister, Rionda, who had fled with her, of apostasy. Remember, professing Catholics, secret Jews. This, in turn, allowed him to actually seize the property they'd left behind in Antwerp and prevent them from collecting the debts which were owed to them, which were quite extensive. Enter a new character to our story, though not new, we mentioned his name, Gracia's nephew, Joseph, who'd fled Portugal together with her and was increasingly her right-hand man in all business affairs. He stayed behind in Antwerp, determined to save the family fortune by any means necessary. And through a combination of business, bribery, and shadowy dealings, he did so.

He was able to retrieve much of their embargoed property before he too fled for Venice in early 1546. But there would be no rest for Grazi in Venice either. I didn't mention it, but Diogo had died while Gracia was still in Antwerp, and he had named Gracia as his sole heir. Once again, he, like his brother, recognized her business acumen. However, this decision did not sit well with Gracia's sister Brianda, who had escaped together from Portugal and had married Diogo soon upon arrival. Awkward family situation. Brianda now demanded half of her husband's fortune. And when Grassi refused, she went straight to the Venetian authorities and told them that Grassi was a secret Jew planning to escape to the Turks with all of her wealth.

Now you have to know that the city of Venice had been engaged in a long trade and actual physical war with the Ottomans for decades at this point, and they were not about to have their enemies enriched at their own expense. But before the authorities could act on Brianda's information, Grazia fled once again, together with her nephew Yosef and her daughter Anna. And this time she sought refuge in Ferrara, another northern Italian city not far from Venice, and of course another port town. Ferrara already had a well-established Sephardi colony, one which included many conversos from Portugal who had reverted to the open practice of Judaism. Why? Well, because Ercole II, Duke of the city, was a mercantilist.

And he agreed to Gracia's interpretation of the terms of Diogo Mendes' will and received his new wealthy residence in 1549 with open arms. He did it because, in the budding mercantilist philosophy of the day, the wealth and trade connections which Gracia Mendes offered far outweighed any concerns over Catholic doctrine or inquisitional pressures. Now, I've used the word twice, so mercantilism probably deserves a definition at this point. It is a system of national agriculture, national industry, national trade, and national fiscal policy. The emphasis, as I hope you heard, is on national, because we are at the beginning stages of the rise of the nation-state. and that rise is bound up with an intense struggle by this nascent state to define itself as an independent economic unit and to establish strong unified economic bodies in place of a loose network of organizations and states which it inherited out of the Middle Ages.

Now, the true story of the rise of mercantile estate still lies ahead but nonetheless, you have to understand that we're going to see European leaders pursuing a mercantilist policy which involves consolidating absolute power in their own hands, and will further seize that wealthy Jews will be a primary tool in order to dominate trade. And by favoring these Jews, they will consistently ignore religious objections, entrench economic interests, on the contrary, they want to break those interests, and even popular unrest. And we're just at the beginning of the American Bliss Age, don't get too excited. But nevertheless, if the Portuguese new Christians, ex-conversos, and outright Jews, are already moving into the positions of importance in international trade that will define their role for the next 100 years as so-called port Jews, this will have a tremendous impact on the Jewish story.

So I want you to place a marker here. You heard it here first, it's not going to go away. And of course, Gracia Mendez Nasi is chief amongst them. So it was in Ferrara that Gracia and her family were finally able for the first time to openly declare themselves as Jews. It was also here, of course, that she began openly supporting the Jewish community. It was rumored that Dania Gracia fed 80 poor Jews at her table every day. And it was at this point that people began to call her La Senora, the lady. and in addition to feeding the people not to mention managing the family business Gracia also lent her wealth and energy to a burst of literary and printing activity that took place in Ferrara at this point the most important work produced in this period was the Ferrara Bible printed in 1553 it was a Spanish translation of the Hebrew Bible produced by Abraham Uske I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong he himself was a converso who had not so long ago fled Portugal and returned to his faith.

He prepared two versions of the work for very different markets Basically Catholic Spanish speakers and Jews who no longer had a mastery of their own sacred tongue And the stature which Gracia Nasi had already attained in Ferrara only a few years after her arrival, is clear from the fact that the version intended for Jewish use was dedicated to her. Now, the Ferrara Bible was an important piece in a general literary movement. It was part of the rise of a vernacular literature in the common spoken tongue, which was published in order to allow Jews who lacked the mastery of Hebrew access to their tradition. In a sense, it was the art scroll of its day. In particular, the audience was conversos, Jews who had fled persecution and were to some degree on their way back into the fold.

But not every crypto-Jew who escaped the Iberian Peninsula reverted immediately to Judaism, and not everyone who did even knew why. So in an attempt to address these issues, a relative of Avraham Uske, Samuel, published the Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel in the very same year as the Ferrara Bible, and he of course did it in Portuguese. The Consolations is a history work in a certain degree. It's a review of the trials and suffering of the Jewish people from biblical times right down through his own day, together with Uzk's understanding of the theological causes of all this grief. And its primary purpose was to frame the challenges and persecutions of the Jewish people, especially those of the conversos, as part of a greater divine plan and destiny.

It was meant to give meaning to suffering. Not only that, it was meant to convince. He wanted to convince crypto-Jews not only of the reasons of their current state, he wanted to deliver the message that redemption is imminent, and not only imminent, that in order to achieve it, they must return openly to Judaism. In his vision, the suffering of the converses in Spain and Portugal was the signal which marked the beginning of the end of Israel's tribulations. oh it's a little painful to say it 400 years later so it's a bit of a mystery by the way where Samuel Usk acquired his learning now keep in mind he led life as a secret Jew until he escaped from Portugal but it is clear that he was a man of significant culture versed in the Bible in the Apocrypha, the Talmud, the Midrash even the Rambam shows up he also seems to have picked up the current strains of Jewish mysticism which please God will speak of in the coming episode in a trip to the land of Israel before he settled in Ferrara.

The constellation even shows a familiarity with classic authors like Plato and Ovid, and while Portuguese was his native tongue, it's clear he understood Hebrew, Spanish, Latin, and even Greek. And this last linguistic element gives the clue that leads many historians to believe he studied for the priesthood while still in his native land. This was not actually an uncommon path for crypto-Jews, and one that we're going to see again in the person of Uriel de Costa. But for Samuelsk, the situation of the convergios is not an anomaly. It is not a historical aberration. It actually reflects a recurring pattern in Jewish history. He sees assimilation as the primary sin of our people. Whenever Jews adopt the ways of the nations, they experience the same type of punishment in his eyes.

the very people and lifestyle they seek to emulate become the source of their oppression. That's a thought that deserves some reflection. Now, there's a longer discussion that we're going to have to have at some point in coming episodes about the impact of the converso experience on Jewish consciousness as a whole. And it will be far-reaching. It will extend into the Reform movement. It will extend into the Sabbatean movement. it will extend into the birth of secular culture. But for now, the consolations is a strong voice of a very particular type. Because for Uzk, the conversos were the Jews who had sinned, but they were Jews nonetheless. Jews who must return to the God of Israel. And as he writes in his conclusion, But you shall be called priests of the Lord, and ministers of our God shall be your name.

And you shall not be occupied in vile things. Rather, you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and you shall delight in their splendor. And speaking of wealth and splendor, of course, the consolation for the tribulations of Israel was also dedicated to Dania Gracia, whose wealth and splendor certainly contributed to its publication. He calls her the heart within the body of our Portuguese nation. And remember that, the nacio, the nation of people unto themselves. He also, by the way, gives us our literary testimony to Gracia's underground railroad activities. There's a long passage in the consolation which describes her efforts to aid converso's fleeing Portugal to resettle them in Italy or Ottoman Empire.

He even actually describes how she used her network of commercial agents in Portugal and Northern Europe to gather information and transmit funds. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to out her on that one, but nevertheless. So, though it was in Ferrara that Dona Gracia came into her own as a leader of the Jewish people, it was not until she moved to Istanbul in 1552 that she was truly tested. Encona is a port city south of Ferrara on the Italian coast. And though it was part of the papal states, throughout the 16th century, Jews and even new Christians, converges, crypto-Jews, were permitted to settle there and actually given safety from persecution until the year Pope Paul IV took power in 1555. Now a bit of context.

As the 16th century progressed and the Protestant Reformation spread out across Europe forcing a multipolar Christianity on the continent and don't forget, it's an explosive situation which we have not touched the death of until we get to the Thirty Years' War in the middle of the 17th century. But as it progresses, the atmosphere in counter-Reformation Italy became increasingly hostile as intolerance for anything or anyone non-Catholic grew. And that's bad news for the Jews. And in fact, the legal status and even the physical state of the Jewish communities of Italy began to deteriorate much earlier in the century. In 1541, the Jews were expelled from Naples, and by 1569, they were expelled from the Papal States altogether.

But the real turning point of the status of the Jews in Italy came in 1553, when in the course of a nine-day period, agents of the Inquisition searched out and confiscated every copy of the Talmud in Italy. Every single one. And then, on Rosh Hashanah 5314, that's September 1553, with an act reminiscent of the great tragedy of the Paris book burning of 1242, they were burnt together with countless other Jewish books in the Campo de Fiore, a plaza in the heart of Rome. The next step came in 1555, with the passage of Pope Paul IV's infamous papal bull, cum nimis absurdum and if my Spanish is bad, I'm sure my Latin is worse. The bull actually takes the same from the first words since it is absurd and utterly inconvenient that the Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal slavery should have any rights whatsoever and the bull actually revoked all the rights of the Jews within the papal states.

It brought back the funny yellow Jewish hat or kerchief, if you're a woman. it compelled the Jews of Rome to attend conversionary sermons on Shabbat and perhaps most significantly the bull brought into being the ghetto of Rome It forced the 2 Jews of Rome a community that had been living in the city since before Christianity even existed into a small portion of the city and locked them in every night. Similar quarters sprang up throughout the Italian cities in the next century, because they were a keystone in the overall policy of this new counter-reformation papacy. Why? Because enclosure and segregation would protect the Catholic community from Jewish contamination, and since Jews could now be more easily identified and controlled in a restricted neighborhood, the mass conversionary program of the papacy might be more effective.

Now, there's a longer discussion that needs to be had about the ghettos, because it wasn't all bad, and in fact, in many ways, it will serve the purposes of cultural consolidation for the Jews themselves. But for now, as part of this tide of crusading energy, in 1555, the Pope revoked the protected status of the Jews of Ancona. And furthermore, he sent an emissary there with a declaration, baptism or death. And while many Jews succumbed to his pressure, 25 of the conversos refused. They were quickly tried, convicted of heresy, hanged and their bodies were publicly burned. Now, La Senora Dania Gracia Mendez Nassi had not devoted her life and resources to helping her people escape persecution in Portugal and Spain, only to see them executed in Italy.

Furthermore, it was personal. Four of her company's agents were among those arrested. First, she went together with other influential Jews in Istanbul to persuade the Sultan to intervene diplomatically. He was, after all, not someone to be messed with. And indeed, the Sultan sent an envoy with a letter demanding the release of the arrested Jews, whom he claimed to be under Turkish protection. The Pope, however, refused, agreeing only to turn over their confiscated property. So, having failed at diplomacy, Danya Gracia turned to war, at least economically speaking. She convened a meeting of prominent Jewish merchants and rabbis in Istanbul with the goal of reaching an agreement to boycott any merchant who sent his goods to the port of Ancona.

They rather encouraged people to shift their business to nearby Pizal. Now, unfortunately, the rabbinic leadership was split in their support of Gracia's effort. Though everyone recognized the injustice of what had occurred in Ancona, many of the rabbis feared that a boycott would simply further enrage an already rabid pope. and there was also the more practical question of how the community of Pizarro would actually benefit at the expense of the Jews of Ancona so without the backing of their authority because the rabbis could at least attempt to compel the Jews to listen, the boycott proved short-lived and therefore ineffective it was nevertheless an unprecedented move forget the fact that for a woman who was not of a major royal European house to challenge the Pope was absolutely unheard of.

Think about the fact that by using her financial power and communal standing to organize and mobilize a significant portion of the Jewish world, Daniel Gracia opened up a horizon for national action which had not been seen in all the long centuries of exile. So, the final chapter of Gracia Mendez Nassi's story takes place in the Ottoman Empire, that haven and refuge for so many of the exiles of Spain and Portugal. As I said, she arrived in Istanbul in the spring of 1553, having long since succeeded in transferring a substantial part of the family fortune to the Ottoman capital, and though she took up residence in the fashionable European quarter of Galata, living in grand style, La Senora remained deeply committed to Jewish life.

She once again assumed the role of leadership, dispensing charity, aging fugitives, supporting scholars, hospitals, synagogues, throughout the Ottoman Empire. She actually established both a yeshiva and a synagogue in Istanbul. The first was the yeshiva of the giveret, which is simply Hebrew for la señora, the lady, and the synagogue of the senora. I'm not sure why one was in Hebrew, the other in Spanish. Grasso continued to manage the family's commercial and shipping activities from Istanbul. and she maintained agents who acted on her behalf in every major commercial center of Europe. But politics were never far away. Soon after the arrival, Rasas' nephew, Joseph Nasi, used his vast wealth to enter the service of the Sultan Suleiman I, also known as the Magnificent.

He's the one, by the way, if you've ever been to Jerusalem, who built the walls of the old city. And when a power struggle broke out between contenders for the throne, Joseph backed Selim II, and indeed, he went on to become Sultan. Good move, Joseph! And he was richly rewarded for the support, becoming a high-ranking minister in the government and diplomat. And Joseph's wealth, his wisdom, and his vast network of international agents gave him a tremendous influence over Ottoman foreign policy. He may have indeed been the most powerful Jew of exile. Always debate who it was. but perhaps his grace achievement was the role he played in encouraging the Netherlands to revolt against the Ottomans' arch-rival Spain.

It was ultimately for this and many other services that the Sultan made Joseph Duke of Naxos and Count of Andros. But her nephew's commercial and political successes are not what placed the capstone on Gracia Mendez Nasi's incredible story. In the 1560s, together with her now all-powerful nephew, Gracie became deeply engaged in yet another visionary project. It was an effort downright messianic in its goals, and frankly Zionist in its pragmatic approach. Joseph obtained a privilege from the Sultan, which granted him the ruins of Tiveria, that ancient city in the land of Israel on the shores of the Galilee. together with seven surrounding villages. And Dania Gracia supplied huge amounts of capital in order to create a textile industry.

Together, she and her nephew attempted to build a self-sufficient Jewish settlement on the site of the ancient city as a refuge for conversos fleeing from Spain and Portugal. They say that a mansion was prepared for the Giveret on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. However, tradition has it that she died before she reached the home of her dreams. Nevertheless, in a lifetime which broke boundaries of every type, Dania Gracia Mendez Nasi opened up a horizon of undreamed possibility for the Jewish people. She indeed is one of the harbinger of the redemption to come. I just want to thank a few people. I want to thank you and invite you to join the hard-working people who give their money to make this show possible.

If you want to, you can send me an email at rovmikefoyer at gmail.com. You can go to my Facebook page at rovmike at Facebook and find the information. Or you can go right now to www.patreon.com and find my M. Foyer page to make a little per-podcast donation. I also want to thank the folks at the Land of Israel Network for giving me a platform through which I can reach so many people. I want to thank the Pardes Institute. that's p-a-r-d-e-s dot org dot i-l for allowing me to reach the hearts and minds of so many Jews I want to thank Suom Yaakov because it's my home and I want to thank you for listening I'm Rav Mike Foyer and this is The Jewish Story