From Christianity to Judaism

This book explores the life and work of Issac Orobio de Castro, a converso who returned to Judaism openly and became one of the Sephardic Jewish leaders in Western Europe in the seventeenth century.  His personal fate and work embody the fate of the whole community with its problems, internal conflicts, aspirations and dreams. The study of his image brings to the surface the problematics of the Marranos who re-embraced the doctrine of their forefathers and established a model community in Amsterdam, one of the important cultural centers of the time. Orobio's way of blending in with the normative Judaism in the time of Spinoza's excommunication, his ideological and spiritual doubts, his constant arguments with those who break through the fence from within and with his Christian surroundings from outside - all represent the vitality of a particular community, which was called to the test and stood many trials at the turning point of the history of Jewish people in the modern era.