Letter of Conversion

David de Castro Tartas was a printer in Amsterdam from 1663 to 1695 and the publisher of rabbinical writings, including prayerbooks, in Hebrew, Spanish, and Portuguese. Between 1662 and 1701 his press printed the Gazeta de Amsterdam, considered to be the first Jewish newspaper. He was one of three sons of Portuguese New Christians who fled Portugal and eventually moved to Amsterdam to live freely as Jews. De Castro Tartas worked for the printer Manasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam before setting up his own press in 1662. In 1678, he became a member of the Amsterdam Printers’ Guild, competing with other well-known Jewish printers of the time. In 1684, de Castro Tartas published a lavish edition of Mikhlol Yofi (God Shines Forth), a grammatical commentary on the Torah, Joshua, Judges, and Chronicles. With approbations from the famous Christian Hebraist Johann Buxtorf and from four professors in Leiden, it marks the first time a Jewish press sought to attract Christian subscribers by including a Latin title page and Latin approbations in a Hebrew book.

Shabbetai Tzvi was the central figure of the most momentous messianic movement in Jewish history since the fall of the Second Temple, Sabbateanism. A gifted student, as an adolescent Shabbetai Tzvi embarked on the study of kabbalah, leading a life of abstinence and solitude. His moods swung between great lows and highs (illuminations): during the latter phases he committed strange acts contrary to religious law. In 1648, he declared himself to be the Messiah. His strange behavior at first aroused compassion but he was eventually banished from his hometown of Smyrna and subsequently from other communities. He married a woman named Sarah, who was orphaned during the 1648 uprisings. In 1662, he settled in Jerusalem and later traveled to meet Nathan of Gaza, who had already seen in a vision that Shabbetai Tzvi was the Messiah. In 1665, encouraged by Nathan, Shabbetai Tzvi declared himself Messiah, quickly amassing followers throughout North Africa and Europe. It was widely believed that 1666 would be the apocalyptic year. However, in that same year Shabbetai Tzvi was arrested by the Ottoman authorities and, threatened with death, converted to Islam. He was abandoned by all but his most faithful followers, yet the Sabbatean movement continued to exist, causing controversies throughout the Jewish world.