Antonio Fernandes Carvajal
Antonio Fernandes Carvajal · Historical & Religious Figures
First Jew endenizened in England and founder of the modern Jewish community of London
vers 1590, Fundão, Portugal — 10 novembre 1659, Londres, Angleterre
Fundão, Canaries, Rouen, Londres
Antonio Fernandes Carvajal is recognized among Jewish contributors to Historical & Religious Figures — First Jew endenizened in England and founder of the modern Jewish community of London
Origins and early life
Antonio Fernandes Carvajal — Abraham Israel Carvajal by his Hebrew name — was born around 1590 in Fundão, in Portugal, into a Marrano family: Jews forcibly converted who kept their faith in secret, as the Jewish Encyclopedia and the Encyclopaedia Judaica record.
Work and career
A merchant, he traded from the Canary Islands and Rouen before settling in London in the 1630s, in a kingdom from which Jews had been banished since 1290, and grew into one of the great merchants of the City, shipping grain, gunpowder and silver, with his own fleet and agents from the Levant to the Indies. In 1655 he became the first Jew endenizened — granted the rights of a subject — in England. When Menasseh ben Israel came from Amsterdam that year to petition Cromwell for the readmission of the Jews, Carvajal and his circle threw off the Catholic disguise; in 1656, after their petition, they obtained from Cromwell the tacit assurance that Jews might live and worship in England, and Carvajal rented the house in Creechurch Lane that became the first synagogue of London since the expulsion, and leased at Mile End the first Jewish cemetery. He died on 10 November 1659 and was buried there — the founder of modern Anglo-Jewry.
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Source: https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4089-carvajal-antonio-fernandez
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First Jew endenizened in England and founder of the modern Jewish community of London
Source: https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4089-carvajal-antonio-fernandez
