476 benjamin ravid
Balkans, and north africa were being consolidated in the hands of the
ottoman empire, and as a result ottoman subjects, including ottoman
Jews, an undetermined number of whom were of iberian origin, came to
play an increasingly significant role in Mediterranean commerce.
Venice constituted an especially attractive destination for judaizing
new christians desiring to leave the iberian peninsula. since it was a
major port with ships frequently leaving for the ottoman empire, it served
as a convenient point of embarkation for those wishing to depart for the
ottoman east. also, the Jewish community, segregated in the ghetto,
offered an opportunity for new christians to learn more about Judaism
and even to revert or to convert to Judaism. above all, although in 1547
an inquisition, presided over by the papal nuncio with the participation
of the patriarch and the three members of the lay magistracy of the tre
savii sopra Heresia representing the government, was revived in Venice,
its purpose was primarily to deal with the growth of Protestant heresy
rather than with judaizing new christians as had been the case on the
iberian peninsula. Furthermore, it generally did not actively search for
new christians who, upon arriving in Venice, went directly to the ghetto
and there assumed Judaism and henceforth lived unambiguously as Jews,
especially if they were active as international maritime merchants.69 Yet it
did not tolerate those who lived outside the ghetto and passed themselves
off as christians while secretly judaizing and maintaining close contacts
with Jews in the ghetto who on occasion were relatives, both because such
conduct was an affront to christianity and also because it was feared that
they might lead simple Venetian christians astray.
commencing in 1573, the Portuguese-born Jewish entrepreneur dan-
iel rodriga sought from the Venetian government privileges not only
for Levantine (eastern) Jewish merchants but also for new christian
merchants living on the iberian peninsula, whom he called Ponentine
(western) Jews.70 the designation “Ponentine Jews” constituted a neutral
circumlocution, indeed euphemism, possibly formulated by rodriga and
accepted by the Venetian government in order to avoid anything that
69 For an introduction to the inquisition in Venice and its treatment of Jews and juda-
izing new christians, see P. c. ioly Zorattini, “Jews, crypto-Jews and the inquisition,” in
davis and ravid, The Jews of Early Modern Venice, pp. 97–116.
70 on rodriga and the Jewish merchants of Venice to the end of the republic, see B.
ravid, “an introduction to the charters of the Jewish Merchants of Venice,” in e. Horowitz
and M. orfali, eds., The Mediterranean and the Jews II: Society, Culture and Economy in Early
Modern Times (ramat Gan, 2002), pp. 207–46, photo-reproduced in ravid, Studies on the
Jews of Venice.