ABSTRACT
An observer of Latin American life is nonplused by the medieval notions about Jews that circulate in Spanish-speaking lands. While liberals with whom foreign academics are most likely to come into contact receive Jews warmly, even affectionately, nativists encysted at the core of national life denounce Jews as guilty of deicide and as subversives. Semitophiles add fuel to nativist fire by ascribing to Jews magical powers that rival the imaginings of S. Ansky. Historians have supplied a variety of reasons why so much energy and treasure should have been spent in prosecuting supposed judaizers in lands where there were few judeo-conversos and fewer who aspired to return to the condition of Jew. Among the motivations for periodic attacks against conversos, triumphalism ranks high. Military victories over the Moslems first, then the Amerindians, engendered in Spaniards a triumphal spirit that persuaded them of their divine mission to bring the entire world to Christ.
