New Book: "Gracia of Lisbon" by Guiora Barak

Dona Gracia-A proto-tip for a Heroine. My book «Gracia of Lisbon»

Dona Gracia was one of the greatest women in the Jewish history, if not the greatest. In the last years her story was told and celebrated in different places around the world, especially in Portugal and in Israel.

Few times during her life, Gracia stood in front of junctions, where she was obliged to take decisions. She did take the right ones, while she could have taken the others. Her mother had told her that she was, in fact, a Jewish ,when she was 12 years old, on 1522, at Lisbon ,daughter of the King’s doctor. She could have deny it and stay a good Christian like many others. Gracia decided on the spot to take the Jewish-Trail and absorbed out of her Mother all sorts of information, like what did it mean to be a Jew, how to maintain a Jewish- House, etc.

When Gracia had met her husband-to-be, Francisco Mendes, one of the richest men in the world at that time, she could easily enter to a very comfortable life of a fair Christian Lady. But she did learnt every small detail of his business and the great organization he had created to help Jewish in troubles all over the World, and his fellow-Marranos-brothers, looking for shelter away from the Inquisition. Gracia choose to become a full partner in the Shipping business and Spices world-wild trade, as in his International connections and the Net he created in order to help.

When Francisco had passed-away, leaving her as a young widow with a little girl to take care, Gracia could have give up and hide herself behind the circumstances. Gracia left her old parents, took with her, her sister
Brianda, who, later on, would betray her, with her nephew Juan, who later would become Don Yossef Nasi, and headed towards Antwerpen, where ,she thought, they would find a refuge.

Gracia could have settle-down as a wife of a noble-man whom the Queen Maria herself arranged for her. She decided to run-on away, succeeded to conceal a big part of her fortune, and while the Inquisition ran after her ,she managed to arrive to Italy.

At the end of her journey, Gracia settled-down at Istanbul, Capital of the Ottoman Empire. From her large and big house she could have live in peace and control all her activities. But at the moment, on 1555, that the new Pope decided to hunt Marranos marchands at the port town of Ancona, in Italy, and Gracia heard that the Inquisition sentenced 96 people to death, she raised «heaven and earth» to avoid that. Gracia did succeed to minimize the number to 25 «only». Would she be satisfied? Not she. The Jewish woman declared a Boycott on Ancona’s port in order to harm the Pope’s treasury. Would any leader at our days dare
to call-upon a rebellion against the Pope? Not a chance. That Jewish Heroine did.

Finally, she got from Sultan Suliman a permit to re-build a Jewish settlement in Tiberias, which she used wisely and we can sea the remains of this settlement till our days.

This is the story of «La Seniora», as she was nicknamed at her time and centuries after her death.

I decided to write and tell this extra-ordinary story, and by the privet story of «Dona Gracia», herself, to describe the History of the Iberian Jewish and most of all, the story of the Marranos.

My first book, «Gracia of Lisbon», tells her story till the age of 18.

The next two books will cover the whole story of her life.

GUIORA BARAK,
Author