Samuel Usque

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File:Consolasam samuel usque.jpg
Consolação às Tribulações de Israel 1553

Samuel Usque (Lisbon, c.1500 - after 1555 in Italy or Ottoman Palestine) was a Portuguese converso Jewish author who settled in Ferrara.[1] Usque was a trader.[2]

His major work is the Consolação às Tribulações de Israel ("Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel"), Ferrara, 1553.[3][4][5] He appears to be the only one of the contemporaries of Solomon ibn Verga to have made use of the latter's Scepter of Judah.[6] Usque makes a connection between forcible conversion and the rise of Protestantism.[7] His work depicts the Inquisition as a monster threatening Europe, indicating common cause between Portuguese Jews and the Netherlands.[8] He bemoans the persecution and expulsion suffered by Jewish communities, and expresses his hope to reach the Holy Land.

He is credited with coining the epithet "Mother of Israel" (Judaeo-Spanish: Madre de Israel) for the Greek city of Thessaloniki.[9]

References

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  1. ^ Meyer M. A. Ideas of Jewish history 1974 p105 "Samuel Usque (sixteenth century) was a Portuguese Marrano, a Jew forcibly converted to Christianity, who after extensive wanderings settled in Ferrara.
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  4. ^ Cohen, Martin A. Samuel: Usque’s Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel (Consolaçam às Tribulaçoes de Israel), translated from the Portuguese (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1977) [1st ed. 1965].
  5. ^ Usque, Samuel: Consolação ás Tribulações de Israel, Edição de Ferrara, 1553, com estudos introdutórios por Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi e José V. de Pina Martins (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1989).
  6. ^ REJ xvii. 270.
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  9. ^ Gallery labels, Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki.

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