In 1492 the Spanish monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella of Columbus fame) established the Spanish Inquisition. They gave Spanish Jews a simple choice: either leave Spain or be tied to a stake and burned alive. Thousands of Jews fled Spain to Southern France, Italy, and Portugal (then called the Kingdom of Galicia).
Five years later, in 1497, Portugal's Inquisition began. Jews there were forced to convert en masse to Catholicism. For almost fifty years, Portuguese "conversos" enjoyed the same sort of relationship with the Portuguese royal court that they had with the Moors. They were treated fairly tolerantly. Many rose to high positions in the government. Converso physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians flourished. In public they baptized their children, attended mass, celebrated Christian holidays, and in secret they tried to pass on Jewish traditions to their children--with only limited success.
No one was burned at the stake in Portugal until 1540. When the Portuguese Inquisition literally heated up, handfuls of Jews began to leave. Some went to the Portuguese colony, Brazil. Some went to England, where Henry VIII's split from Rome fleetingly promised sanctuary for Jews as well as Protestants.
Then, in 1568 the Dutch declared war against Spain, which had acquired the Northern European region through inheritance from the Holy Roman Emperors. The Dutch were largely Protestant by that time, while Spain was Catholic and the power behind the Pope in Rome. In 1581, the Union of Utrecht (a declaration of independence from Spain) established "religious peace" (that is, tolerance) as the law of Holland. While aimed at protecting their Protestant Reform Church from the Catholic Inquisition, the Dutch declaration also protected Jews.
Unlike most of Europe where Jews were confined in ghettos, the Dutch permitted Jews to live where they wanted. At the time, Amsterdam was expanding. New canals and neighborhoods were being built, including one which attracted wealthy Jewish merchants because of its access to the port and Admiralty offices. This became the Jewish Quarter, a neighborhood where elegant mansions and warehouses stood side by side.
By "the Golden Age," the Jewish Quarter was one of the city's most fashionable districts. A large, opulent synagogue had been built (not the 18th-century Portuguese Synagogue, which still serves an active congregation, but a converted warehouse). Every Sabbath, Dutch Protestants--curious about "exotic" Jewish rituals--mingled with worshippers in the synagogue's galleries.
Being a New Jew in Amsterdam in the 1660s was probably something like being a New Seventh Day Adventist in Oklahoma in the 1890s. None of them really knew how to behave "properly." The community's elders had to "import" rabbinical expertise from Venice. Men had to learn to read Hebrew, pray in Hebrew, perform unfamiliar rites, and even had to be circumcised. Women had to change the way they dressed, performed their ablutions, and cooked. While they had once stood shoulder to shoulder with their husbands in Lisbon cathedral during mass, they were banished from the synagogue's floor into a screen balcony during services. For many, the change was too great. Some converted back to Christianity. Some even returned to Portugal.
Many barriers isolated Amsterdam's Jews from the rest of European Jewry: language (they spoke Portuguese, not Yiddish), theology, and most importantly economics. In most of Europe, Jews had endured centuries of persecution, dotted with interludes of tolerance when their special skills were needed in areas such as banking and medicine. Portuguese conversos had been relatively secure as long as they hid their faith. While Northern European and Italian ghettos were often prosperous, by the 17th century they were also over-crowded, and the number of poor among them was increasing. Even in Amsterdam the Ashkenazi Jews were far less prosperous than the Portuguese. The wealthy Sephardim segregated them in a separate synagogue (in part, of course, religious differences separated the two communities, not just social class).
By 1664, when my story begins, Eastern European Jews had already caught the fever of Zionism, under the influence of an Anatolian Jew and self-proclaimed Messiah, named Shabbetai Zevi. Many liquidated their property and were preparing to go meet him in the Holy Land. In Amsterdam, the Jewish community was split. For the Sephardim, Amsterdam was the New Jerusalem. They had every reason to stay. But the poorer Ashkenazi and their rabbis found the lure of the false messiah enticing.
Then came the year 1666. Even Christians wondered if the number might signify the End of Days. And Zevi turned apostate: he converted to Islam.
My heroine, Ruta Massa, was raised a Catholic. She always knew her ancestors were forced converts, but not that her parents were "Secret Jews" (any more than my grandfather knew his parents were hiding their origins and ethnicity from him and his siblings). Ruta honors her parents' wishes, flees Lisbon for Amsterdam, and converts to Judaism with them. She learns to speak Dutch and to perform her duty as a pious Jewish woman.
It doesn't take long for her to realize "the laws" that govern her new life really aren't that different from the ones with which she grew up. No better. No worse for a young woman. As she says, "It doesn't really matter whether a woman wears a plain, peasant dress or a queen's silk dress; it's still a skirt." The Posthumous Wife is about Ruta's struggle for self-actualization in a world dominated by 5,000 years of patriarchal tradition--Jewish, Christian, and even older traditions than those.
Even today, many men claim to be Sons of Abraham. No one ever asks whether Abraham had any daughters.