Returning to Judaism: The Reconversion of 'New Christians' to Their Ancestral Jewish Faith in the Ottoman Empire during the Sixteenth Century

The last century of Jewish life in the Iberian Peninsula (1391-1492) was marked by continuous persecutions leading to the conversion of a large number of Jews to Christianity. Known as 'New Christians', they escaped from the Iberian Peninsula to the Ottoman Empire, where-under Muslim dominion-they could return to their ancestral creed, reconverting to Judaism. This article examines the three waves to migration that took place during the last decade of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth century. The legal status of the newcomers with regard to the Jewish religion was to be settled by rabbinical decisions. Contemporary Jewish rabbanim were aware of the conflicting factors that had motivated migration from Portugal and their attitudes towards the newcomers reflected suspicions about the latter's ability to integrate within the existing Jewish congregations.