Gracia Mendes Nasi
Gracia Mendes Nasi · Historical & Religious Figures
Banker and head of the Mendes-Benveniste house; organized escape networks that carried hundreds of conversos out of Inquisition Europe, funded printing presses and communities, and leased Tiberias for Jewish resettlement
1510, Lisbon, Portugal — 1569, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Portugal · Antwerp · Venice · Ferrara · Constantinople · Tiberias
Gracia Mendes Nasi is recognized among Jewish contributors to Historical & Religious Figures — Banker and head of the Mendes-Benveniste house; organized escape networks that carried hundreds of conversos out of Inquisition Europe, funded printing presses and communities, and leased Tiberias for Jewish resettlement
Born Beatriz de Luna into a converso family in Lisbon, Gracia Mendes Nasi took over the Casa Mendes-Benveniste banking and spice house on her husband's death and ran it across Antwerp, Venice, Ferrara and finally Constantinople, where she returned openly to Judaism. She used that network to move hundreds of conversos out of reach of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, financed the Ferrara Bible and other Hebrew printing, supported synagogues and yeshivot, and organised a boycott of the port of Ancona after twenty-five Jews were burned there in 1556. In 1558 she obtained from Sultan Suleiman a long-term lease of Tiberias and its villages, intending a Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel — an early attempt at organised return.
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Source: Wikipedia — Gracia Mendes Nasi
Banker and head of the Mendes-Benveniste house; organized escape networks that carried hundreds of conversos out of Inquisition Europe, funded printing presses and communities, and leased Tiberias for Jewish resettlement
Source: Wikipedia — Gracia Mendes Nasi
