It’s been more than 500 years since Yosef Elyashar, a rabbi in the Spanish town of Híjar, was expelled from his home country.
Jewish historian Anita Novinsky, 94, was nominated for the “Woman Science Pioneers” award by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development for her longtime academic and field research about Inquisition.\n
A Spanish official has given what is being heralded as the country’s first formal apology for the Inquisition’s killing of Jews. On the island of Mallorca, where 37 Jews were killed in 1691 for secretly practicing Judaism, the regional president offered the apology at a May 5 memorial service in the city of Palma.
The announcement piqued the immediate interest of independent, Seattle-based filmmaker David Rabinovitch, and he started the long, torturous road of recreating the history of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, from its beginning in the early 13th century to its final gasps in the late 19th century. The result is the four-hour miniseries, \”Secret Files of the Inquisition,\” which PBS stations will air May 9 and 16, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Jewish piracy has been around since well before the Barbary pirates first preyed on ships during the Crusades. In the time of the Second Temple, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus records that Hyrcanus accussed Aristobulus of \”acts of piracy at sea.\”
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