Sermons and the Construct of a Jewish Identity: The Hamburg Sephardic Community in the 1620s

Abstract

Trinta discursos o darazes} Thirty Discourses or Derashot, by Samuel Yahya, was published in Hamburg in 1629 and it is, in all likelihood, the earliest collection of vernacular sermons published by the Portuguese Jews in Western Europe. Unlike Hebrew sermons from the same period, which have been the subject of recent important studies, Trinta discursos as well as other Spanish and Portuguese sermons from the seventeenth century, have received only limited attention. Scholars have mentioned them in studies of the Western Sephardic communities, but most have relied on the titles and brief descriptions given in catalogues or by bibliographers only.2 These sermons are of great significance for the history of the Western Sephardic communities, as they reveal aspects of how Judaism was introduced to Qx-conversos in their own native tongue. The present essay focuses on selected topics explained in this collection of sermons and is divided into two parts. Part I introduces the book entitled Trinta discursos and examines two sermons: sermon #10, which explains to the listeners the doctrine of chosenness, or divine election, and the reasons for the exile of the people of Israel, and sermon #28, which deals with the issue of Jewish identity and whether someone born a Jew can on his own reject Judaism. Both sermons make evident the importance that preaching must have had in the return of ex-conversos to traditional Judaism