The Lost Minyan
In ten separate, but not unrelated, vignettes, David Gitlitz explores through fiction how the Spanish and Mexican Inquisitions tore apart families in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Telling their stories through narrative, court interviews, and letters, Gitlitz illustrates how families like the Arias Dávilas, the San Juans, the Rojas, and the Torres struggled with the conflicted identity of being both Jewish and Christian, how they learned to keep their loyalty to the laws of Moses secret from the servants and even from each other, and how, when interrogated and tortured by the Inquisition, they sometimes turned on each other.
From a historical perspective this is a fascinating read of the inner workings of the Inquisition in Spain and Mexico. Gitlitz thoroughly documents the primary sources used for his research and provides a generous introduction to the stories and an author’s note on each one at the end of the volume. Each tale is told with a storyteller’s enthusiasm and a historian’s attention to detail. However, I did sometimes find myself bogged down with the sameness of names in the stories and the redundancy of the information about the Inquisition they presented. Of course, the early modern Spanish tradition of naming children after their parents and grandparents is not a detail an author committed to historical accuracy can alter, but it took an especial effort to keep the characters straight. As for my second concern, I think that the repetition of information makes this volume a great educational tool, but I’m not sure it will entertain the casual reader.
