ABSTRACT
Sermoneta described in exquisite detail how the fact of being a neqfita perpetually moulded the convert's daily preoccupations, and occupations. This included, as a second study has shown, the virtually unbreakable links binding neqfiti to their relatives. 2 Often, it was the sheer impossibility of relinquishing these links that sustained them, especially with respect to business activities or when property was owned or inherited in common. Even bonds of affect survived conversion, particularly those between mother and child. No wonder neqfiti habitually ignored the laws forbidding their entry into the ghetto, an act the Jewish comunitii protested no less vigorously than did officials of the Church. Excessive contact between neqfiti and Jews led to accusations that Jews had violated ecclesiastical norms. Of greater Jewish concern was that such contact often led to claims by neqfiti that a particular Jew desired, was on the verge of, or even had requested conversion; frequently this desire was expressed in an offhand remark, especially when the voice was that of a child. 3
This perpetual liminality of neqfita-identity was not the aim of Pope Paul IV Caraffa when he urged the Church to undertake ever more serious burdens with respect to conversion, which was at the core of his policy of segregation, whatever other aims he may have had in mind, and no matter how much he realized that the ancient medieval equilibrium betweenJews and Christians, with the former rubbing elbows continuously with the latter, could no longer work. Lutheranism, the fear of blood libels and repercussions, the preservation of conversions already achieved, a war against the Spanish, not only the hot one Paul IV himself foolishly waged, but an ideological one, continuing that of Paul III and Cardinal Pier Paolo Pariseo in the 1530s, who had argued that real conversion, complete and abiding, was possible - not impossible, as so many in the Iberian Peninsula were saying and, hence, necessi-
tatingthesevereInquisition-allofthesewereonhismind.Butconversionforits ownsakeandasagoaluntoitselfwasthetruefocusofhisthoughts.Perhapsmillenarianism,too,encouragingconversionallthemore;therearereasonstosuspect asmuch.Anextraordinarytextfromrightbeforetheenclosureintheghettoshows CarafTahimselfavidtoplacehishandsonabookofapparentlymagical,potentiallymessianic,andthereforekabbalistic,symbolism.Butthistextisanisolate,thetranscriptofafirstexaminationbeforecriminalcourtspursuanttoacomplaintoftheft madebythebook'sJewishowner;andafterwards,alas,wehearnomore.4
