Orden de las Oraciones, Amsterdam 5532 (1692) 
סדר תפלות מדי חדש בחדש - Marranos - Liturgy - Spanish
- Sold Winning Bid: $450.00 Reserve Price Met
- 11 Bid(s) View Bid History
- Lot Number 50482
- Title (English) Orden de las Oraciones
- Note Marranos - Liturgy - Spanish
- City Amsterdam
- Publisher David de Castro Tartas
- Publication Date 1692
- Estimated Price - Low 1,000
- Estimated Price - High 2,000
- Item # 1631604
- End Date
- Start Date
Physical Description
504, [16] pp.., octavo, 145:95 mm., light age and use staining, nice margins, lacking title (provided in facsimile). A good copy not bound.
Detail Description
Title Orden de las oraciones cotidianas . . . Con las de Hanucah, Purim, y Ayuno del Solo, y . . . pesah sebuoth, y sucoth (daily order of worship . . . those of Hanukkah, Purim, and personal fast days and . . . Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot), Printed by David de Castro Tartas, Amsterdam: 1692
Year round prayerbook following the customs of Sefard with Spanish translation on facing page. Written for the use of the Marrranos in Amsterdam.
with added table of contents and calendar for the years 5453-5455, 5462 (1692-1694, 1701)
Most of the crypto-Jewish fugitives who fled from the Iberian Inquisitions and who established the new Spanish-Portuguese community in Amsterdam at the turn of the 16th century were ignorant of Hebrew. They recited their prayers in Spanish, and by 1604, publishing houses in Amsterdam began to issue prayerbooks in that language. These volumes served the Spanish speaking Jews for the entire liturgical year, for all but the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (for which separate mahzorim were printed).
The career of the printer of the Orden, David de Castro Tartas is representative of the audience of Jews for whom he printed. His parents were “New Christians” who escaped from Portugal to the city of Tartas in southern France, only to relocate shortly thereafter to Amsterdam where they once again started living as Jews. David began his career in the oldest Jewish printing house in Amsterdam, that of Manasseh Ben Israel. Although he did not serve in any official capacity within Amsterdam’s Jewish community, Tartas nevertheless fulfilled an important role as the printer of prayerbooks, homilies, epithalamia and other occasional works. With Tartas’ departure in 1698, the early period of Hebrew printing in Amsterdam ended. The use of tortoise shell as a form of luxury bookbinding gained great popularity in the seventeenth century.
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.
Reference
EJ