Antonio de Montezinos

Antonio de Montezinos, Aaron Levi (* 1604 in Vila Flor (Portugal ), † 1648 in Recife ( Dutch Brazil) ) was a marranischer traveler and allegedly discovered the lost tribes of Israel overseas.

Life

Antonio de Montezinos was born in 1604 in a Converso family in Vilaflor ( Northern Portugal ). Between 1639 and 1644 he traveled in South America, specifically New Granada. From 1639 to 1641 he worked for one and a half years in the dungeons of the Inquisition of Cartagena de Indias (today Colombia) imprisoned. In 1644 he returned to Europe. He probably occurred openly in Amsterdam to Judaism and took the name of Aaron Levi. Before a committee of the local Sephardic community, he testified under oath that he had encountered in South America members of the ten lost tribes of Israel.

As he had in 1639 crossed the Cordilleras, he heard a talk of the Indians of a secret people. Only when he then sat on suspicion of Judaisierens in prison, the realization came that there must be in this Indians to a Hebrew him. After his release from prison in February 1641, he had therefore visited the Indians again. This had led him to a group of locals who identified themselves as descendants of the lost Israeli tribe of Reuben. The Indians have the Shema recited and recognized him as one of her brothers. Montezinos had been encouraged by them is his discovery, which was a sign of the messianic fulfillment, to make known the Jewish Diaspora.

The narration was recorded in Amsterdam with great interest. After six months of stay in the Netherlands, Montezinos returned to South America. He moved to Recife ( Brazil today ), where the oldest Jewish community in South America was. When he died two years later in Pernambuco ( 1648), he should have reiterated on his deathbed, the truth of his story.

The Hope of Israel

The information on Montezinos based primarily on recordings of Manasseh ben Israel. He was personally present by its own account in the survey of the Marrano travelers. He wrote his remarks on the title Relación de Aarón Levi, also known as Antonio de Montezinos and tied the story in his book The Hope of Israel a. The book was published in 1650 in Amsterdam in Spanish and Latin, and a little later in English ( The Hope of Israel, London 1650).

Even before going through Menasseh ben Israel circulated the story in millenarian circles of England. The Scottish theologian John Dury had received the manuscript during one of his stays in Amsterdam, and leave it to Thomas Thorowgood (1595-1669) for the font Jewes in America or Probabilities did the Americans are of Race did. The thesis of the Jewish origins of the Indians had already been agreed, and now found renewed impetus to the Puritans. The thesis was another reason for its missionary work in New England. Now that the possibility existed alongside the Jews of Europe and the lost tribes in America to convert to Christianity, was the possibility that the end times and the return of the Messiah could become a reality after the adoption of millenialists.

The hope of Israel was intended as a response to the speculation of the Puritans. Also for the Jews finding the ten lost tribes was a prerequisite for the return of the Messiah. As a second condition for the fulfillment of the hope of Israel was the Jewish messianism, the dispersion of the Jews throughout the world. This requirement was not met as long as the Jews did not settle in England and practice their religion could. For this reason, dedicated Menasseh ben Israel, the first edition of the Hope of Israel, the English Parliament (dedicated by the author to the high court, the Parliament of England, and to the Councell of State ). In fact, Menasseh was invited as a consequence to England, where he successfully negotiated with Cromwell on the resettlement of the Jews.

The theory that the Indians descended from the Jews, was able to hold the part until the 19th century, but lost with the extinction of millenarianism increasingly important and extinguished completely with the advent of scientific ethology.

Expenditure of Relación de Aarón Levi, aka Antonio de Montezinos (selection)

  • Migweh Israel. Esto es, Esperança de Israel. Amsterdam 1650 ( Spanish ) online
  • Miqweh Israel. Hoc est Spes Isaelis. Amsterdam 1650 ( Menasseh ben Israel of Latin )
  • The Hope of Israel. London 1650, 1651, 1652 ( English by Moses Wall )
  • De Hoop van Israel. Amsterdam 1666 ( Dutch)
  • Miqveh Yisra'el. Amsterdam ( 1691 Yiddish, Hebrew, 1698 )
  • The hope of Israel, Oxford, 1987, ISBN 0-19-710054-6
  • Henri Méchoulan, Gérard Nahon ( eds. ): Menasseh ben Israel: Espérance d' Israël. Paris 1979, ISBN 2-7116-0557-4
  • Elijah Hayyim Lindo: The Narrative of Aharon Levi, also known as Antonio de Montezinos. In: Tanya Storch ( ed.), Religions and missionaries around the Pacific, 1500-1900. Aldershot 2006. ISBN 978-0-7546-0667-3
  • Edward Winslow: The Glorious Progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England. London 1649.
  • Thomas Thorowgood: Jewes in America or Probabilities did the Americans are of Race did. London in 1650. ( With The relation of Master Antonie Monterinos, translated out of the French Copie sent by Manasseh ben Israel )
  • Hamon L' Estrange: Americans no Jewes, or Improbabilities did the Americans are of race did. London, 1652.
  • Gottlieb spy: Elevatio relationis Montezinianae de repertis in America tribubus Israeliticis. Basel 1661
  • Israelita revertens armatus versus ne fictus to? Kurtzer but thorough report of the toes tribes of Israel. 1666

Literature (selection )

  • Rachel Rubinstein: Members of the Tribe. Native America in the Jewish Imagination. Detroit 2010. ISBN 978-0-8143-3434-8
  • Ronnie Perelis: "These Indians are Jews! " Lost Tribes, Crypto - Jews, and Jewish Self- Fashioning in Antonio de Montezino 's Relacion. In: Richard L. Kagen, Philip D. Morgan ( eds. ): Atlantic Diasporas. Jews, Conversos, and Crypto - Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800. Baltimore 2009, pp. 195-211. ISBN 978-0-8018-9035-2
  • Jonathan Schorsch: Swimming the Christian Atlantic. Judeoconversos, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the seventeenth century. Leiden 2009. ISBN 978-90-04-17040-7
  • Benjamin Schmidt: The Hope of the Netherlands: Menasseh ben Israel and the Dutch Idea of America. In: Paolo Bernardini, Norman Fiering ( eds. ): The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1400-1800. New York 2001, pp. 86 - 106 ISBN 1-57181-153-2
  • Richard H. Popkin: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Indian Theory. In: Yosef Kaplan, Henry Méchoulan, Richard Henry Popkin ( eds. ): Menasseh Ben Israel and his world. Leiden 1989. Pp. 63-82. ISBN 90-04-09114-9
  • Lee Eldridge Huddleston: orgins of the American Indians. European Concepts, 1492-1729. Austin 1967.
  • Heinrich Graetz: History of the Jews. Volume 10, pp. 90-92.
Viceroyalty of New Granada Cartagena, Colombia Sephardi Jews Reuben (Bible) Oliver Cromwell Encyclopaedia Judaica
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