1770 AD to 1790 AD, Psalm 135: Mendelssohn.

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      Summary

This generation of the 1770s and 1780s.

According to our count, this generation is the 135th generation associated with Psalm 135. It is in this Psalm 135 that we therefore find an illustration of the facts of this generation.

This generation is a pivotal generation. Since the 119th generation, a new cycle of 30 generations has opened. The present generation is halfway through this last cycle.

For the last fifteen generations of this cycle, the world turns into a world of nations.

It was then that Moses Mendelshonn, a follower of Enlightenment Judaism, appeared in the German sphere.

At the same time, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, it becomes possible to master nature.

It is then that a denial is brought by the earthquake in Lisbon, 80 years after a violent massacre of Jews in the same city …

In this generation, some realize that the survival of the Jewish people through the ages is a miracle. Beginning of awareness of a Jewish nation.

Talk

A pivotal generation

The psalm of the previous generation, that of the years 1750 and 1760, is the last of a series of fifteen psalms called « Song of Degrees ». The first « canticle of degrees » is Psalm 120 and the last Psalm 134. In fact we have seen that Psalm 119 was a double psalm which is the closing of three series of forty psalms (if we consider Psalm 119 as two half-psalms, each associated with a generation of twenty). Each series of forty psalms corresponding to one of the three periods of forty days of fasting of the Jews in the desert when leaving Egypt following the three major faults of the Jewish people in the desert.

Thus the second half-generation of Psalm 119 would normally correspond to the one hundred and twentieth generation of the night. Now we know as we have said in the generations associated with Psalm 41 and 81 that the first three periods of 40 generations of the night correspond to the three fasts of Moses in the wilderness that we can recall (this had been described in the development of Psalm 81). Thus, as we mentioned in Psalm 120:

Moses refers to three periods of fasting for forty days to support the people of Israel with God in order to prevent their extermination because of the three faults committed:

  • When the people of Israel quarrel at Refidim to obtain water (the waters of Meriba)
  • When the people of Israel, led by Aaron, erects the Golden Calf,
  • When the people of Israel were afraid to return to the promised land when the explorers returned.

The first 40-day fast corresponding to the golden calf was mentioned in Psalm 40 (corresponding to the end of the fasting of Moses linked to the golden calf). Indeed the reaction of the Maccabees to this generation puts an end to the long idolatrous wanderings of the Jews in the land of Israel which had largely marked the first generations of the night and which would lead to the destruction of the two temples of Jerusalem comparable to the two tables of the Law broken by Moses.

The second fasting of forty days, as we mentioned in Psalm 81, corresponds to the waters of Meribah and the end of the corresponding forty-day fast of Moses. At the end of this period Moses struggling against Amalek is helped by the arrival of the Muslims in the generation 81 to avoid an all-powerful Christianity that would have been fatal for the Jews. The Muslims being braked themselves in their advance so that they can not dominate the world, which would also be fatal for the Jews.

The third fast, as we mentioned in Psalm 119, is the end of the illusion that the Jewish people can exist outside the promised land. This evolution [1] is materialized by in 1453, an action of the Jews implanted in the Land of Israel who send emissaries in diaspora to push their brothers in exile to carry out their aliyah. 1453 marks the hinge between the Middle Ages and modern times.

Thus at the end of this third period of forty generations the Jewish people washed away the faults of the desert, and thus is a mature people to return to their land. This return is the object of the last 30 generations. The last wandering of the Jews before their return to their land is done in two stages. A first period of fifteen generations during which the Jews who left the pseudo promised land of Spain are distributed in the rest of the world and in particular in Northern Europe with first settlements in North America.

During this period their situation of pariah evolves slowly towards a progressive integration. This is the subject of the fifteen Psalms with the subtitle « Song of the Degrees », each of the associated generations is a step towards an emancipation of the Jews in the image of the long crossing of the desert which transformed their ancestors of slaves into free men ready to take possession of their land.

This completed phase is the reconquest of the promised land which is the goal of the next fifteen generations which begins with the present generation.

Psalm 119 materialized the shift from the Middle Ages to modern times. In these modern times, the present generation is that of the shift towards the emancipation of peoples with the consequent emancipation of Jews in the main countries affected by the spirit of enlightenment. This is obviously not the end of the tribulations of the Jewish people. If the attacks with a religious background are destined to disappear, a more insidious anti-Semitism will remain until leading to the catastrophes of the twentieth century demonstrating that the time of the wandering must end.

But this generation is indeed a pivotal generation, which in the line of the Age of Enlightenment, is that of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, the French Revolution and the Edict of Tolerance of Joseph II which are three events that seal the emancipation of the Jewish people. This emancipation, associated with an anti-Semitism that does not disappear, facilitates the return to the promised land which will be the long and difficult result of the next fifteen generations, the last of the night.

Thus, this pivotal role of this generation is found in the construction of the psalm. Indeed, the shift between the world before and the world after is materialized by the fact that the psalm of this generation is almost a fusion of the psalm of the previous generation, the generation 134 and that of the next generation, the generation 136.

Towards a world of nations

This pivotal generation is the one that sees the world swing from nations ruled by royal dynasties to nations that will be governed directly by their people or at least by their elected representatives.

1890heyenbrock

This political shift is also the starting point for these new nations of the industrial revolution accompanied by a revolution of ideas, which is the result of the Age of Enlightenment.

Religious dogmas, mainly Catholic dogmas, could have been a brake on this industrial revolution and ideas. By reintegrating religious beliefs into the private sphere, the Enlightenment allows the emergence of the modern world which unfortunately will fail to be the best of all worlds.

John Locke

Thus [2] the political thoughts of John Locke and Montesquieu influence American insurgents whose belief that America is a sovereign state. The struggle against English power first made economic considerations, such as the Boston Tea Party of 1773, where settlers sank English boats laden with tea, which England wanted to impose on America. The struggle then turns into a war of independence.

Thus [2] the political thoughts of John Locke and Montesquieu influence American insurgents whose belief that America is a sovereign state. The struggle against English power first made economic considerations, such as the Boston Tea Party of 1773, where settlers sank English boats laden with tea, which England wanted to impose on America. The struggle then turns into a war of independence.

At the same time Thomas Jefferson writes the declaration of independence of the future United States which is voted on July 4, 1776. In Saratoga in 1777, then in King’s Mountain, in 1780, the English are defeated. The Franco-American victory of Yorktown in October 1781 is decisive. In 1782, the British Parliament opened negotiations and in September 1783 a treaty was signed in Paris between the belligerents: the United States is recognized as sovereign and independent. It is the first people who wants to be governed by the principles of the Enlightenment. Others will want to imitate it.

A Judaism of Enlightenment

In this generation, Moses Mendelssohn, whose notoriety is recognized both in the Jewish community and in German philosophical circles, has a decisive influence on the future of European Jewry.

He is for a middle position between Jewish orthodoxy and the Christian will of conversion, he translates in German the Pentateuch and other religious works to put them within reach of all German Jews.

Without denying his origins and heritage, he advocated a more modern and open Judaism imbued with Aufklärung, the German version of the lights. Refusing assimilation, it will later be blamed for having widely opened this way to the Jews of Germany and Europe. In fact, with one exception, all his descendants will convert to Christianity.

But for the generation that interests us, Mendelssohn proves to be a brave and effective defender of the Jewish cause with a strong desire for integration, not assimilation, of his co-religionists in civil society.

The French Revolution, which closes this generation, completes these events that will allow the emergence of modern nations and the emancipation of the Jews.

This shift due to the spirit of the Enlightenment was largely relayed by the Freemasons, who were more easily than others do not take into account religious dogmas to advocate a religious tolerance that equals everyone regardless of his beliefs.

George Washington, one of the main actors of American independence or the drafting of the American constitution was Freemason. Many were also Freemasons among those who worked for the French Revolution or the German reform that will lead to the emancipation of Jews in Germany as well.

This is why the psalm of this generation is initialized by a reminder of the terms used in the preceding psalm to describe the actions of the Freemasons in the implementation of the ideas of the Enlightenment:

  1. Hallelujah, praise the name of the Lord, praise, you servants of the Lord,
  2. Who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.

However, if the end of pariah condition for Jews is commendable, the fate of the Jewish people is not exile. Moreover, the following generations will show that the temptation to merge within nations is doomed to failure.

This is why the psalmist recalls in the pursuit of the psalm the destiny of the Jewish people, the chosen people, who are to return to their land:

  1. Praise God for the Lord is good; sing to His name because it is pleasant.
  2. For God chose Jacob for Himself, Israel for His treasure.

The mastery of nature

Behind the Enlightenment, there is hope for man to control nature definitively.

Thus in 1752, thanks to Benjamin Franklin, one of the co-founders of the declaration of independence of the United States, the first lightning rods are installed in Philadelphia. Isaac Newton had a few generations ago defined the rules of universal gravitation. Previously everything was explained by the divine will, the Enlightenment rationalizes our universe and therefore hopes to master it eventually.

Lisbon

It was then that, in the previous generation, in 1755, a new natural event occurred which turned people’s minds upside down: the Lisbon earthquake which shook a land attached to obscurantism. An event which does not fail to upset the reflection of the Enlightenment’s expressions from the present generation.

Yet a few decades ago, in the 1670s, Spain and Portugal had the opportunity to turn the page of obscurantism:

  • Suddenly [3], , at the court of Portugal, as in the entourage of the Pope, an attempt was made to break the power of the Inquisition. At the head of this opposition was a Jesuit father, Antonio Vieira, very skilful and very fine, who showed a marked predilection to the Jews and Marranos. While in Amsterdam, he attended the sermons of Jewish preachers and had friendly relations with Manasseh ben Israel and Aboab. The Inquisition condemned him to remain locked up (…) and deprived him of the right to vote and to preach.
  • Once released, Vieira thought of taking revenge for the Holy Office; he found active and intelligent auxiliaries in the members of his order. To undermine the influence of the Holy Office with the Pope, he went to Rome, on the other hand the provincial of the Jesuits at Malabar, Balthazar, submitted to the regent of Portugal, Don Pedro, a plan to reconquer the Indies and whose success, according to him, depended on the assistance of Marranian capital. The conclusion was that it was necessary to spare people who could become so useful (…)
  • In Rome, the efforts of Antonio Vieira and the Jesuit Order against the Inquisition were successful. Pope Clement X, by a brief of October 3, 1674, stayed the action of the Inquisition courts in Portugal. He forbade them to pronounce the death penalty or the galleys or the confiscation of goods against the Marranos. He ordered them to submit to the General Office of the Inquisition in Rome all the ongoing trials against imprisoned Marranos. At the same time he authorized the « new Christians » to send delegates to Rome to present their grievances against the Holy Office.
  • The Jesuits triumphed for the moment. But the people, pushed by secret agents of the Holy Office, shouted in the streets of Lisbon: « Death to the Jews and to the Marranos! » « . And when the Pope, by a new bull, removed the inquisitors from their functions and ordered them to hand over to the nuncio the keys of the prisons of the Holy Office, they refused to obey.
  • Fearing that the Pope would also intervene in Spain, the inquisitors of that country decided to strike a heavy blow to intimidate him. Spain was headed by the young and weak King Charles II. They led him to believe that he could not offer a spectacle more attractive to his wife, Marie-Louise of Orleans, niece of Louis XIV, than by having a considerable number of heretics burned before his eyes.
  • The sovereign immediately resolved to organize a major autodafé in honor of the queen. On his order, the Grand Inquisitor, Diego de Saramiento, invited all the courts of Spain to send the heretics already convicted to Madrid. A month before the date set for the execution, heralds solemnly announced this feast to the inhabitants of the capital.
  • For several weeks they worked with feverish activity to erect platforms for the court, the nobility, the clergy and the people.
  • The day so impatiently awaited finally arrived (June 30, 1680). For a long time we had not seen so many victims of the Inquisition gathered. One hundred and eighteen people of all ages, including seventy Marranes! […] Eighteen Marranos who had publicly proclaimed their attachment to the Jewish faith were set on fire. Among them, a widow of sixty, with her two daughters and her son-in-law, and two other women, the youngest of whom was thirty years old. All died with admirable firmness. The Marquise de Villars recounts that she did not have the courage to witness this appalling execution and that the mere account of the atrocities committed caused her deep horror. […]

This autodafé produced the desired effect on the Roman curia, because Pope Innocent XI ceased to oppose the functioning of the inquisition tribunals in Portugal. The missed opportunity by Portugal and Spain to join the race of nations towards the Enlightenment is confirmed in the following decades:

  • The eighteenth century [4] began with a real extermination of new Christians. Not a single year passed without at least one burning. In 1704, in one of these ceremonies, 60 people were sentenced for Judaism. At the end of this year began the reign of John V (1689-1750), a regular and a passionate of the autodafés. In 1713, a sermon by Inquisitor Francisco Pedroso entitled « Dogmatic exhortation against Jewish perfidy » was printed and was a great success.
  • Several new Christians from Braganza – a region inhabited by a « Jewish » majority – were then burned. The imprisonment of suspects was so numerous that they brought Luis de Cunha, the ambassador of John V to the court of Louis XV, to write, during the minority of King Jose I: « When your highness occupies the throne, it will find many villages and hamlets almost depopulated … If your Highness asks the cause of this ruin, I do not know if anyone will dare to answer him with the freedom of which I have the honor to use. It was the Inquisition who, by imprisoning some for the crime of Judaism and forcing others to leave the kingdom with their wealth for fear of confiscation if they were imprisoned, drove the new Christians with their industries

At the dawn of the earthquake in Lisbon, a last mass-produced autodafé takes place in Madrid:

  • Between 1721 and 1727 [5], the Jew was expelled to Madrid, where, more exactly, the Judaism marran: eight hundred and twenty people were arrested, seventy-five burned. Last mass burn and ultimate sign of weakness more than real political force.

While the Western world for several generations is moving towards a world of tolerances, at the dawn of this event and for four generations Portugal and Spain have on the contrary increased religious intolerance by reviving an Inquisition in countries where there were no more Jews, but only « new Christians » who desperately tried to keep some elements of their Jewish roots, as shown by the last autodafe of the 1720s.

80 years after the failure of Antonio Vieira’s attempt to normalize and the restoration of an even more blind Inquisition, the city of Lisbon is razed. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, which had not been able to erase their past mistakes, the city of Lisbon is shaven by what can be considered divine wrath. Indeed it comes at the end of the fourth generation after the original fault. This without salutary expiation during the eighty years that separated the fault of the sanction since until the eve of this generation, the Portuguese continued in their ways. Thus in 1755, November 1, holy day for the inquisitors, an earthquake put an end to what remained of supremacy of Portugal and Spain:

  • The earthquake [6] struck on the morning of the Catholic All Saints Day, November 1st. Contemporary sources indicate that three separate shocks occurred over a period of about ten minutes, causing large cracks (up to 5 meters) and devastating the city. The survivors rushed to the open space and assumed that the wharves were there, and witnessed the ebb of the sea, leaving bare seabed littered with wrecks of ships and lost goods. Several tens of minutes after the earthquake, a huge tsunami with waves from 5 to 10 meters in height submerged the port and the city center before reaching the Tagus River. It was followed by two new waves. The areas spared by the tsunami were hit by fires (chimney falls that spread the fire of domestic fires) that raged for five days.
  • Lisbon was not the only Portuguese city affected by the disaster: the destruction affected the entire south of the country, especially the Algarve.
  • Of the 275,000 inhabitants of Lisbon, approximately 60,000 were killed. Other regions were greatly affected. The main ports (Cadiz, Seville, La Coruña) of Andalusia and Galicia were so destroyed that the world maritime trade was disrupted. Traffic with the Americas will now operate with the ports of Northern Europe (France, the Netherlands, Great Britain).
  • This resulted in the loss of Spain’s maritime supremacy in the Atlantic. 85% of the buildings in Lisbon were destroyed. Several buildings relatively untouched by the earthquake were destroyed by the ensuing fires. A brand new opera house, baptized with the premonitory name of Opera Phoenix, was reduced to ashes. The Royal Palace, right on the banks of the Tagus River and in the current location of Terreiro do Paço Square, was also destroyed. Inside, the 70,000 volumes of the Royal Library were lost, as were hundreds of works of art including paintings by Titian, Rubens and Correggio. Extremely valuable royal archives disappeared, and with them the detailed account of the great explorations carried out by Vasco da Gama and other navigators.
  • The earthquake also destroyed the main religious buildings in Lisbon, in particular the Cathedral of Santa Maria, the Basilicas of São Paulo, Santa Catarina, São Vicente de Fora, and finally the Church of Mercy. The Royal All Saints Hospital, the largest hospital in the world at the time, was consumed by fire along with several hundred of its patients. The tomb of national hero Nuno Alvares Pereira was also lost. Current visitors to Lisbon can still walk to the ruins of the Carmelite Convent, which were preserved as a reminder of the disaster to Lisbonites.

In fact the main ravages of the earthquake are consecutive to the tsunami that followed, so it is well by the water that Portugal and Spain were punished four generations after their mistakes. Eighty years after the people of Lisbon shouted « Death to the Jews and Marranos » in the streets of Lisbon in response to the ways of reason, their descendants were submerged by the waves.

This earthquake had not only economic and human consequences, in full enlightenment, the almost complete destruction of one of the capitals of the West could only nourish the reflection of the philosophers of this generation:

  • The earthquake [7] shook more than cities and buildings. Lisbon was (and remains) the capital of a deeply Catholic country, which was renowned for the faith of its inhabitants and the vigor of evangelization in its colonies. The disaster also came on the day of an essential Catholic holiday and destroyed most of the most important churches. Theology and philosophy of the eighteenth century could hardly explain such a manifestation of divine wrath.
  • The earthquake had a strong influence on many European thinkers of the Enlightenment. Several of them mentioned or referred to this event in their writings, notably Voltaire in Candide or in his poem on the Lisbon disaster. The arbitrary character with which people died or survived was emphasized by Voltaire in criticizing the best of all possible worlds that opposed him to Leibniz.

It is this divine power expressed in Lisbon that calls into question the hopes of the Enlightenment, as expressed in this generation, to domesticate the nature that is evoked in the following of this psalm:

  1. For I know that God is great, and our Lord is more than all powers.
  2. All that the Lord wished, He did in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all the depths.
  3. He raises the clouds from the edge of the earth; He made lightning for the rain; He finds wind [to send] out of His treasuries.

The psalmist reaffirming the mastery of the elements whose lightning, though recently mastered by Benjamin Franklin, indicates that the divine presence has not disappeared. As it punished the firstborn of Egypt 80 years after the Egyptians attacked the first born of the Jews exiled on their land, God attacks the Portuguese 80 years after they have fought a new once against Jews exiled on their lands.

This is what the psalmist summarizes as follows from the psalm:

  1. He struck down the firstborn of Egypt, from man to beast.
  2. He sent signs and wonders in the midst of Egypt, upon Pharaoh and upon all his servants.

As already indicated, the last phase of the psalms is related to the mourning of 30 days after the death of Moses at the head of the destinies of his people. His will, he declares in Deuteronomy:

  • And Moses [8] went, and he spoke the following words to all Israel.
  • He said to them, « Today I am one hundred and twenty years old. I can no longer go or come, and the Lord said to me, « You shall not cross this Jordan. »
  • The Lord, your God He will cross before you; He will destroy these nations from before you so that you will possess them. Joshua he will cross before you, as the Lord has spoken.
  • And the Lord will do to them, as He did to the Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, and to their land, [all of] which He destroyed.
  • And [when] the Lord delivers them before you, you shall do to them according to all the commandment that I have commanded you.
  • Be strong and courageous! Neither fear, nor be dismayed of them, for the Lord, your God He is the One Who goes with you. He will neither fail you, nor forsake you. »

The psalmist recalls this promise in the rest of the psalm, no longer in the future as in Deuteronomy, but this time in the past. Indeed, God, despite what we have been able to suffer the Jews since the flow of the night, did not abandon his people and finally destroyed all his enemies and will also destroy the enemies of subsequent generations as he was able to destroy in Lisbon Churches overburdened with venerated statues of gold and silver.

This is what the rest of the psalm recalls:

  1. He struck down great nations and slew mighty kings.
  2. Sihon the king of the Amorites and Og the king of the Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan.
  3. And He gave their land as an inheritance, an inheritance to Israel His people.
  4. O Lord, Your name is eternal; O Lord, Your remembrance is throughout all generations.
  5. For the Lord will judge His people and relent for His servants.
  6. The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the handiwork of man.
  7. They have a mouth but do not speak; they have eyes but do not see.
  8. They have ears but do not listen; neither is there any breath in their mouth.
  9. Like them will be those who make them, all who trust in them.

The Jewish Nation

Although the Lisbon earthquake took place in 1755, this observation is ideally made to this generation of the 1770s and 1780s. Indeed, philosophers note that despite appearances of disqualifications, the Jewish people show a gift miraculous survival as noted by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). If the latter does not feel drawn to Judaism because of the cruelty of his God and the principle of the election, he remains admiring in front of the survival of the chosen people through the ages:

  • A truly astonishing [9] and truly unique spectacle is to see an expatriate people having no place or land for nearly two thousand years, a people mixed with foreigners, perhaps no longer having a single offspring of the first. races, a scattered people, dispersed on the earth, enslaved persecuted, despised by all nations, yet retain its characteristics, its laws, its manners, its patriotic love of the first social union, when all the links seem broken. The Jews give us an amazing spectacle; the laws of Numa, Lycurgus, and Solon are dead; those of Moses, still more ancient, still live. Athens, Sparta, Rome perished and no longer left children on earth; Zion destroyed did not lose his.
  • They mingle with all peoples, and never mingle with them; they have no more chiefs, and are always people; they have no country, and are still citizens.

If Jean Jacques Rousseau did not fail to share some negative visions about the Jews with his contemporaries, he nevertheless considered that their possible defects were due to their particular conditions in the Christian world, see also within the Muslim world. Thus, he is one of the first non-Jews to consider that Jews should have their own nation:

  • Those [10] of us who are in a position to converse with Jews are hardly more advanced. The unfortunate people feel at our discretion! The tyranny we exercise towards them makes them fearful! […] In the Sorbonne, it is clear as the day that the predictions of the Messiah relate to Jesus Christ. Among the rabbis of Amsterdam, it is equally clear that they have not the slightest connection. I will never believe that I have heard the reasons of the Jews, that they have a free State, schools, universities where they can speak and play safely. Only then can we know what they have to say.

He is not alone in thinking that Jews must have their country. The Russians will go further by creating the first Jewish liberation army in Jerusalem. At dawn [11] of this generation, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Husseini family, actually the name of the former dominant family that the new family, the al-Ghudayya, had decided to borrow. The newly named family will be one of the most powerful families in Jerusalem until the 21st century. Under their rule the Jews of Jerusalem suffered many abuses inciting two hundred Jewish families from Jerusalem. From 1730, Ottoman power collapsed in the Holy Land, Zahir, a Bedouin Sheikh then dominates an important area in the north that he administers from Acre. Joining an Egyptian general he conquered almost all of Palestine failing in Jerusalem. The Russians already at war with the Ottomans and interested only in Jerusalem joined forces with Zahir against the Ottomans for the capture of the city. The Ottomans were forced to peace:

  • In the treaty signed in 1774, Catherine and her partner Prince Potemkin forced the Ottomans to accept that the Russians protect the (Christian) Orthodox – in the end, Russia’s growing obsession with Jerusalem would lead to a European war.
  • Potemkin, one of the most philosemite rulers in Russian history, was a Zionist Christian who believed that the liberation of Jerusalem was part of his Greek (recovery from Constantinople) project. In 1787, he created the « Israelovski » regiment of Jewish cavalry, destined to take Jerusalem. A witness, the Prince de Ligne, made fun of these loafers, whom he called « monkeys on horseback. » Potemkin died before he could carry out his plan.

Even if the Israelovsky regiment will not fight to retake Jerusalem, the direction for the Jewish people for the last fifteen generations of the night is designated: the return to Zion.

This is what the end of the psalm of this generation expresses:

  1. The house of Israel, bless the Lord; the house of Aaron, bless the Lord.
  2. The house of the Levites, bless the Lord; those who fear the Lord, bless the Lord.
  3. Blessed is the Lord from Zion, He Who dwells in Jerusalem. Hallelujah!

[1] According to www.histoiredesjuifs.com, « chronology » section.

[2] From: (led by) Jean Delumeau: « The history of the world from 1492 to 1789 ». Chapter: « The birth of the United States of America ». (French: « L’histoire du monde de 1492 à 1789 ». Chapitre : « La naissance des Etats Unis d’Amérique ». (p. 502 à 507) )

[3] Heinrich Graetz: « History of the Jews, volume 5 ». Chapter: « Clement X and the Marranos of Portugal ». (French: « Histoire des Juifs, volume 5 ». Chapitre : « Clément X et les marranes du Portugal ». (p. 214 à 218) )

[4] (Collective directed by) Henry Méchoulan: « The Jews of Spain, history of a diaspora, 1492-1992 ». Chapter of Anita Novinsky: « Jews and New Christians of Portugal ». (French: « Les Juifs d’Espagne, histoire d’une diaspora, 1492-1992 ». Chapitre « Juifs et nouveaux chrétiens du Portugal ». (p. 91) ).

[5] Riccardo Calimani: « The Jewish Wandering ». (French: « L’Errance juive ». (p. 356) )

[6] Source : www.wikepedia.org

[7] Source : www.wikepedia.org

[8] Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 31, verses 1 to 6.

[9] Léon Poliakov: « History of Antisemitism, 2 – The Age of Science ». Chapter: « The Age of Enlightenment ». (French: « Histoire de l’Antisémitisme, 2 – L’âge de la science ». Chapitre : « Le Siècle des Lumières ». (p. 44) )

[10] Léon Poliakov: « History of Antisemitism, 2 – The Age of Science ». Chapter: « The Age of Enlightenment » (quote from a passage from « L’Émile ou De l’éducation » by Jean-Jacques Rousseau). (French: « Histoire de l’Antisémitisme, 2 – L’âge de la science ». Chapitre : « Le Siècle des Lumières ». (p. 42) (citation d’un passage de «L’Émile ou De l’éducation » de Jean-Jacques Rousseau) )

[11] From: Simon Sebag Montefiore: « Jerusalem: Biography ». Chapter: « Families ». The passage on Potemkin comes from the note on page 373. (French: « Jérusalem : Biographie ». Chapitre : « Les familles ». Le passage sur Potemkine est issu de la note de la page 373. )