Faking the Truth
An Antisemitic Forgery in 16th Century Spain
The authors of the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion may have thought they were original. They may have imagined they were the first to fake and distribute a document purporting to show that Jews were bent on world domination. On the other hand, perhaps they knew that a similar forgery had been produced before. Perhaps they were hoping their lies proved as successful as the 16th century Spanish fake, Carta de los Judíos de Constantinopla, the Letter from the Jews of Constantinople.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was an antisemitic fabrication first published in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. It was soon shown to be fictional; the so-called Elders of Zion do not exist and their ‘protocols’, 24 chapters alleging to be the minutes of the Elders’ meetings, were the product of the writer’s imagination. Nevertheless, the forgery was distributed widely. A newspaper owned by Henry Ford, the inventor of the Ford motor car, published articles based on the Protocols. The Nazis adopted it, citing it to justify genocide. The forgery is still quoted by antisemites, to bolster their pretence that Jews are planning to control the world economy and media. It is regularly cited in Arab countries, as anti-Israel propaganda.
The acclaimed Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Shlomo Halevi, who was baptised, changed his name to Pablo de Santa Maria and ended up as Bishop of Burgos.
Unlike the Protocols, it took a long time for the Carta de los Judíos de Constantinopla to be exposed as a forgery. The document was written in the mid-16th century and it wasn’t until 1887 that the French scholar, Isidore Loeb, showed to be a fake. Few, if any, racists, antisemites or islamophobes today have heard of it but their hatred is still fuelled, in part, by the nonsense contained in the Carta.
The background to the Carta de los Judíos de Constantinopla was the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. To avoid expulsion, many Jews converted to Catholicism and became known as New Christians. Some of them used their Christian status as a mask, continuing to perform Jewish rituals secretly in their homes, risking their lives in doing so, hoping the Inquisition would not find out. Others adapted to their new religion with alacrity, dispensing altogether with their connection to Judaism and becoming sincere Christians. Several entered the Christian clergy, some even rising to high rank. Like the acclaimed Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Shlomo Halevi, who was baptised, changed his name to Pablo de Santa Maria and ended up as Bishop of Burgos.
There was a lot of resentment among Old Christians, those who had been born into the Christian faith, about the sudden arrival of New Christians into Spanish society. It seemed to them that, all of a sudden, people who one day had been vilified as Jews and were treated as second class citizens, were now sharing the same rights and privileges as those who had been Christians all their lives. As the New Christians began to prosper in Spain, a backlash broke out against them.
The first that most people knew about the Carta was when a book of stories and curiosities, called La Silvia Curiosa, was printed in Zaragosa. Among its curiosities were two letters. One had allegedly been sent, just before their expulsion, by the Jews of Spain to their co-religionists in Constantinople. They were asking for advice on how to deal with their dilemma; should they allow themselves to be expelled, or should they convert? The other letter was a supposed reply from Constantinople, advising them to convert, but to do so with the intention of fatally undermining Spanish society:
Concerning what you write about the fact that they are seizing your goods, well, turn you children into merchants so that, bit by bit, they may seize their goods. In connection with what you have said about their murdering you, well turn your sons into doctors and apothecaries, so that they may murder them. As regards what you say about their destroying your synagogues, turn your sons into clergymen and theologians, so that they may destroy their churches. . . . in this way you will get your revenge.
The book containing the fake letters was printed in 1580. However, the forgery was made some time earlier. The scholar, Francois Soyer, on whose research this article is based, suggests that they were written around 1550, when the controversy stirred up by the Old Christians against the new converts was reaching a crescendo. One of the accusations they hurled at the New Christians was that they were planning to take over Spain. The forged letters were cited as proof.
Those who resented the privileges enjoyed by the New Christians were particularly outraged when converts from Judaism were given senior positions in the church, often in preference to Old Christians. The letters were alluded to several times in propaganda written against the New Christians. One bishop claimed to have heard a rumour that the New Christians had sought the advice of ‘foreign synagogues’, who had told them to infiltrate the clergy, the legal and medical professions, to inflict as much harm on Spain as they could.
The controversy over the place of New Christians in Spanish society was eventually settled by the introduction of new laws, known as limpieza de sangre, or purity of blood. These days we would call them racial laws. Under these regulations, anyone applying for positions in the church, government or professions had to demonstrate that their blood was ‘pure’, in other words that they were descended from unadulterated Christian stock and that they had no trace of Jewish heritage. The laws were draconian and their impact far-reaching. Whenever it was claimed that someone did not have pure Christian blood, a stigma automatically attached to their entire family; if one member of the family had Jewish heritage than clearly the entire family did.
The introduction of the blood purity laws soon divided Spanish society along racial lines. Jews who had converted to Christianity, believing that they would be able to live normal lives in Spain, discovered that because their blood was not ‘pure’, they were still treated as second class citizens, denied the opportunity to advance their careers. The same applied to Muslims of course.
As time passed, the fake letters became a central component of Spanish propaganda against the New Christians. They were quoted in all antisemitic publications produced in the country during the 17th and 18th centuries. They even turned up in books that were not intended as antisemitic propaganda, including a 17th century treatise about the role and work of public officials and an 18th century text discussing how doctors should behave. Even when the forged letters finally disappeared from view, the idea of purity of blood continued to circulate in Spanish society.
Limpieza de sangre has had a significant impact in the evolution of modern racism. Blood purity underpins all racist discourse, even today. The anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws instituted in Germany in 1935 were based on the invented premise that a pure German bloodline existed, one that was untainted by any ‘foreign’ element. Today, racists and far right politicians regularly abuse and condemn those who are not ‘one of us.’ There is of course no scientific basis for limpieza de sangre, but that hasn’t stopped the idea from percolating down through racist channels for nearly 500 years.
The history of the Carta de los Judíos de Constantinopla and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion reminds us that racism can only justify itself through lies and forgeries. Antisemitic calumnies have been around for a very long time. And yet they disappear, The Spanish forgeries have long been forgotten. The same will happen to the Protocols one day. Sooner or later, maybe racism will vanish as well.