From Christianity to Judaism

A biography of Isaac Orobio de Castro (1620-1687), a crypto-Jew from Portugal, educated in Spain, arrested there by the Inquisition and tortured. He subsequently emigrated to France where he was a professor of medicine at the University of Toulouse before openly professing his Judaism and going to Amsterdam where he joined the Portuguese Jewish community. Details the experiences of the Inquisition suffered by the de Castro family in 17th century Spain, including imprisonment, trials, and confiscation of property. See ch. 4 (p. 79-92), "Imprisoned by the Seville Inquisition", for a description of the trials endured and the "auto-da-fé" of 1656. Discusses the discrimination experienced by Isaac Orobio de Castro, impeding his academic advancement, as a result of the "purity of blood" statutes. Describes, also, Orobio's disputations with other prominent Christian theologians of the time.