Isaac de Castro Tartas

Isaac de Castro was born to fugitive Portuguese New Christians and baptized as Tomás Luis. He lived in Tartas, France, and later in Bordeaux and Paris (where he studied medicine and philosophy) as a crypto-Jew. Isaac de Castro subsequently settled in Amsterdam and there lived openly as a Jew. In 1641, he traveled to the Dutch colony of Pernambuco in Brazil, and in 1644 to Bahia, then under Portuguese rule. In Bahia, de Castro was denounced to the Inquisition and arrested; he was tried in Lisbon in 1645. In self-defense, he claimed that he had never been baptized. However, when this claim was disproved and tefillin were discovered among his possessions, he openly proclaimed himself a Jew and refused to renounce his faith. Isaac de Castro Tartas was burned at the stake on December 15, 1647. A volume of elegies was published in his honor in Amsterdam, and his memory was revered in the Portuguese Jewish diaspora.