Hebrew without Hebrews: Converso Hebraist Alfonso de Zamora and the Spanish Inquisition
Congregation Kol Ami
8201 High School Road
Elkins Park, PA 19027
Alfonso de Zamora (ca. 1474–1545) was a teacher of Hebrew at the leading humanist university of Alcalá de Henares in Spain. Among his various writings, he compiled a clandestine text meant as a guidebook to help other conversos face inquisitorial interrogations. The talk will discuss Zamora’s particular struggles and demonstrate, more generally, the complex lives of conversos in early modern Spain.
Featuring
Jesús de Prado Plumed
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and Universidada Complutense de Madrid
Jesus de Prado Plumed is a full time instructor in medieval Jewish history at the Universidad Hebraica de Mexico. A 2011- 2012 doctorial fellow of The Rothschild Foundation, Jesus has several forthcoming publications on the life and writings of Alfonso de Zamora, a converso Hebrew scribe in the Iberian Peninsula. Jesus’s work at the center will focus on the manuscript source for Alfonso’s life and work.
