Dr. Ronnie Perelis, Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Abraham and Jelena (Rachel) Alcalay Associate Professor of Sephardic Studies and director of the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International Affairs at Yeshiva University, received a $299,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to translate two early modern Jewish texts by Luis Carvajal and Yoseph Ha-Kohen. Dr. Perelis was awarded the grant with his collaborator, Dr. Flora Cassen, associate professor of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies and of History at Washington University.
Drs. Perelis and Cassen will create a two-volume translation with the intent to bridge Jewish, colonial, Latin American and European studies. Dr. Perelis will focus on the religious anthology of Joseph Lumbroso, a 16th-century Mexican Crypto-Jewish poet and religious thinker, otherwise known as Luis de Carvajal, the younger. The anthology is a spiritual diary that shows how a converso (someone forcibly converted to Christianity), reconstructed Jewish beliefs and traditions in Mexico. In 1596, Carvajal, his mother and sisters were killed for secretly practicing Judaism. The anthology was stored in the Mexican National Archive with other foundational texts of Mexican history and remained there until its mysterious theft in 1932.
Dr. Cassen’s work will focus on Yoseph ha-Kohen’s “The Book of New India,” a Hebrew translation of Lopez de Gómara's Spanish history of the New World. Ha-Kohen's version intentionally mistranslates parts of Gómara’s text and contains critiques of Spanish imperialism and colonialism not found in the original, reflecting the author’s multiple expulsions from Spain and Italy for being Jewish.
“This grant will enable Dr. Cassen and I to bring these unique works that reflect the complexity and intellectual creativity of Jews living in the Atlantic world to a wider audience,” said Dr. Perelis. “Luis de Carvajal produced a work of spiritual audacity where he charts his journey to the Americas and his search after the divine in biblically inspired prose and poetry.”
The goal of the project is to bring the manuscripts to a wider audience, both scholarly and popular, and the two professors will benefit from the support of worldwide collaborators with expertise in some of the more obscure facets of the texts.
“It is the honor of a lifetime to translate Carvajal’s words into English and allow new readers to explore the writings of this fascinating American religious thinker and poet,” added Dr. Perelis. “We are so grateful to the NEH for their belief in the potential of this project to deepen our understanding of the past and to build bridges between languages, religions and cultures.”
For more information about the project, visit www.yu.edu/schneier/translating-the-americas and www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/auto-da-fe-mexico-city
