NAMES ANALYSIS REPORT
You searched for:"de la Torre",
Here's what we found
There are many indicators that the name de la Torre may be of Jewish origin, emanating from the Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal.
When the Romans conquered the Jewish nation in 70 CE, much of the Jewish population was sent into exile throughout the Roman Empire. Many were sent to the Iberian Peninsula. The approximately 750,000 Jews living in Spain in the year 1492 were banished from the country by royal decree of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Jews of Portugal, were banished several years later. Reprieve from the banishment decrees was promised to those Jews who converted to Catholicism. Though some converted by choice, most of these New-Christian converts were called CONVERSOS or MARRANOS (a derogatory term for converts meaning pigs in Spanish), ANUSIM (meaning "coerced ones" in Hebrew) and CRYPTO-JEWS, as they secretly continued to practice the tenets of the Jewish faith.
Our research has found that the family name de la Torre is cited with respect to Jews & Crypto-Jews in at least 7 bibliographical, documentary, or electronic references:
A History of the Marranos, by Cecil Roth.
The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 by the infamous decree of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella was the culmination of a series of anti-Jewish persecutions throughout the 14th and 15th centuries in which thousands of Jews were massacred. Thousands of others converted in order to escape death. After the expulsion many more joined the ranks of these "new Christians" as an alternative to exile. A large number of converts, while outwardly professing Christianity, secretly continued to practice Judaism. These Marranos, as they were popularly known, were then mercilessly persecuted by the dreaded Inquisition which through tortures of forced confessions and auto-da-fes sent thousands to the stake. Many others managed to escape to countries outside the reach of the Inquisition where they created a widespread Marrano diaspora. Thousands of Marranos have survived even into our times. This seminal work by the eminent historian traces the tribulation of these secret Judaizers as well as the fate of those who succeeded in escaping to other lands where many of them rose to prominence in various fields of endeavor.
Precious Stones of the Jews in Curaçao; Curaçaon Jewry 1656-1957, by Isaac Samuel Emmanuel (1957)
Names taken from 225 tombstones of 2536 persons, 1668 - 1859, men, women and some Rabbis. Includes cemetery history and plan, biographies including family histories, chronological list of names, alphabetical list of family names + number of members + eldest tombstone year, large bibliography, general alphabetical index, 15 genealogies.
History of the Jews in Aragon, regesta and documents, 1213-1327, Hispania Judaica, v.1,by Jean Regne
A series of royal decrees by the House of Aragon.The approximately 3800 documents included in this book contain Sephardic names recorded during the period from 1213 to 1327.By this time family names were well developed.
This is the richest documentary evidence ever published on Jews of any land. The Documents and Regesta from the Archives of Aragon, originally published in numerous volumes of the Revue des Ĕtudes Juives some five decades ago and now brought together for the first time, relate the story of one of the most important and fascinating medieval communities, one which produced great scientists linguists, translators and writers, financiers and businessmen, politicians and diplomats, scholars and Rabbis. Yet, the account remains essentially the life story of ordinary men and women from all classes and all walks of life. The extensive indexes and carefully - prepared tables, maps and glossary open new avenues for further historical research on the way they lived, the laws which governed them and the extensive lore which they produced.
Jean Regne(1883-1954) was an archivist and paleographer who published several historical works but his book on the Jews of Aragon based on the registers and documents found in the Crown of Aragon Archives is certainly the most important.
Conversos on Trial, by Haim Bienart. The Hebrew University Magnes Press Ltd. 1981.
The third volume in the Hispania Judaica Series, this well written story of the converso community of Ciudad Real in Spain, based on the Inquisition trials of the mid 15th century. The book was written by Haim Beinart (1917-2010), Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an expert on this subject, and contains a list of names, sometimes also providing the names of relatives, house locations, and professions. Based on the Inquisition's records, it is a portrait of the Conversos' deep yearning for their Jewish past and the ultimate sacrifice they were prepared to offer for their continued adherence to their ancestral faith.
A History of the Jews in Christian Spain,Volume 2, by Yitzhak Baer.
Traces the economic, social, legal and political life of the Spanish Jewish community from the 11th century re-conquest of Iberia from Muslim rule to the expulsion of 1492. Based on many years of study in the Spanish archives by a Professor from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.
Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews, by David Gitlitz
Despite the increased attention given to Hispano-Jewish topics, and the "conversos" or Crypto-Jews in particular, this is the first thorough compilation of their customs and practices. The author has culled from Inquisition documents and other sources to paint a portrait of the richness and diversity of Crypto-Jewish practices in Spain, Portugal, and the New World. The history of Spanish Jews, or Sephardim, stretches back to biblical times. The Jews of Spain and Portugal made formative contributions to all Hispanic cultures, the impact of which is first being measured and recognized today. The Sephardim experienced a Golden Age in Iberia between 900-1100, during which they acted as the intermediaries between the rival political and cultural worlds of Islam and Christianity. This Golden Age ended with the Reconquest of Spain by Catholic overlords, though for another 300 years the Jews continued to contribute to Iberian life. In 1391 and again in 1492, intense and violent social pressures were put upon the Jews to join the larger Christian community. Many Jews converted, often unwillingly. In 1492 the remaining Jews were exiled from Spain. The converted Jews (Conversos) became an underclass in Spanish society. Many of them clung tenaciously to Jewish practices in the face of torture and death at the hands of the Inquisition. Having lost contact with other Jews, these people developed a religion which was an admixture of Catholic and Jewish rituals. David Gitlitz examines these practices in detail and attempts to answer the question of whether the Conversos were in fact Jewish. Gitlitz's research is exhaustive. He has combed through thousands of Inquistion records, showing that a sense of "Jewishness" if not Jewish practice remained a core value of many Spaniards' lives well into the 1700s. Gitlitz is convincing in showing that the Inquisition unwittingly aided crypto-Jews in perpetuating themselves by publishing Edicts of Faith. Essentially checklists for informers, they described the behavior of "Judaizers" (sometimes the practices listed were absurd or simply erroneous). These, ironically, were used by Judaizers as guides to religious behavior. It is revealing that as the Inquisition faded, crypto-Judaism waned, though never totally vanished. Gitlitz's knowledge and research on the subject is encyclopedic. The book is written in a "textbook" style which makes it somewhat technical and dry, though it is enlivened by excerpts from Inquisition records, which Gitlitz has apparently chosen for their interest, irony, unintended comedy, or spiritedness. It is difficult to imagine that human beings would face the tortures of the rack for not eating pork. That these same tortured people could summon the will to laugh at their executioners is something wondrous. The book includes the names of the Sephardim (and sometimes their residences too).
Judios Conversos (Jewish Converts) by Mario Javier Saban. Distal, Buenos Aires, 1990. The ancestors of the Argentinian Jewish families.
This best-selling work traces the immigration of Conversos from Portugal to Argentina and Brazil. It contains many Sephardic names and family trees within its 3 volumes. Many of the individuals listed appeared before the Inquisition and were secret Jews. Some later converted and intermarried. Many of the names listed here represent the famous names of Jewish/Sephardic Argentina. Over 100 pages of genealogies, well detailed, are provided.
Around the 12th century, surnames started to become common in Iberia. In Spain, where Arab-Jewish influence was significant, these new names retained their old original structure, so that many of the Jewish surnames were of Hebrew derivation. Others were directly related to geographical locations and were acquired due to the forced wanderings caused by exile and persecution. Other family names were a result of conversion, when the family accepted the name of their Christian sponsor. In many cases, the Portuguese Jews bear surnames of pure Iberian/Christian origin. Many names have been changed in the course of migration from country to country. In yet other cases "aliases", or totally new names, were adopted due to fear of persecution by the Inquisition.
