Physical Description

[2], 242 (of 470, [1]) pp., octavo, 177:110 mm., damp and age staining, wide margins, bound in modern cloth over boards.

Detail Description

Initial half of attractive and rare comprehensive Spanish edition of the Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur Mahzor. The beautiful title-page is comprised of Roman columns wrapped in olive branches. Orden begins with selihot, has prayers and pizmonim, thephilah, deroshasah, musaf, and comprehensive services for Rosh haShannah. Orden de Ros Asahan y Kypur, entirely in Spanish, was written for conversos returning to Judaism.

Marranos were Jews living in Iberia who were forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages yet continued to practice Judaism in secret. "Marrano" is now often considered offensive and "crypto-Jew" is preferred in scholarly works. Marranos did not arrive in Amsterdam until around 1590, some 11 years after the Union of Utrecht (1579) and the birth of the United Provinces of the Netherlands as a Protestant state. They had to wait until 1615 before Jewish settlement was officially authorized, but the Marranos in Amsterdam differed from those in other Protestant countries in that they openly practiced Judaism almost from the moment of their arrival. Thanks to the Marranos, Amsterdam became one of the greatest Jewish centers in the world in the 17th century; it had some of the finest academies and produced some of the greatest Jewish thinkers.

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