A collection of documents heretofore untapped by scholars anywhere, providing the records of the Portuguese Inquisition in Brazil in the 17th Century, is being acquired on microfilm here by the American Jewish Archives, which has its headquarters on the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, according to an announcement by Prof. Jacob R. Marcus, director of the Archives.
Acquisition of the microfilmed documents, said Prof. Marcus, was made possible by a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Irwin S. Rhodes of this city. Mr. Rhodes, an attorney, and his wife, head the Archives’ legal documents section. Dr. Marcus made arrangement in Lisbon last year to acquire the documents.
According to Dr. Marcus, the documents are rich in reports in the files of the Inquisition relating to the persecutions of Jews and “Judaizers” who had emigrated in the 17th Century to Brazil, then a Portuguese territory. In some cases, the complete Inquisition Court dockets are available, showing that Jews were burned to death.
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