When the rulers of Chris­t­ian Spain, and lat­er Por­tu­gal, demand­ed that their Jew­ish sub­jects con­vert or leave their home­land, many sought a viable com­pro­mise. Out­ward­ly reject­ing their her­itage and beliefs, they secret­ly main­tained Jew­ish reli­gious prac­tices and hoped to evade notice by the authorities.

Doña Gra­cia Mendes Nasi, the sub­ject of Yael Zoldan’s work of mid­dle-grade his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, was the daugh­ter of a wealthy and influ­en­tial Jew­ish fam­i­ly who had left Spain and set­tled in Por­tu­gal. Their finan­cial use­ful­ness to those in pow­er tem­porar­i­ly offered some pro­tec­tion, but even­tu­al­ly they left the Iber­ian Penin­su­la entire­ly. The Girl with the Secret Name tells the sto­ry of how Gra­cia ded­i­cat­ed her life to sup­port­ing Jew­ish refugees and Jew­ish com­mu­nal life in Italy, Turkey, and the Ottoman ter­ri­to­ry of Palestine.

Fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships are a for­ma­tive part of Gracia’s iden­ti­ty. When her father reveals to her that their fam­i­ly is Jew­ish, she is ini­tial­ly con­fused but soon becomes recep­tive to the idea. Her father explains that they are ​“links in a pre­cious chain;” this metaphor of Jew­ish con­ti­nu­ity is lat­er the prin­ci­ple behind her coura­geous actions. Gra­cia was also known by the Chris­t­ian name Beat­riz de Luna, and she comes to iden­ti­fy with the bib­li­cal Queen Esther, who at first also hid her true iden­ti­ty. Like Esther, Gar­cia accepts respon­si­bil­i­ty for sav­ing her peo­ple, but the tur­bu­lent era in which she lives and her family’s wealth allow her more agency than her bib­li­cal inspi­ra­tion. When Garcia’s hus­band, Fran­cis­co Mendes, dies, she makes the deci­sion to leave Por­tu­gal and become active­ly involved in his trad­ing com­pa­ny. Set­tling in Antwerp, she hides a clan­des­tine car­go of Jew­ish refugees in the ships trans­port­ing spices and oth­er goods. When Antwerp also becomes unsafe, Gra­cia con­tin­ues to trav­el in search of a haven for Jews. Using the fic­tion­al device of a jour­nal, Zoldan gives read­ers a glimpse into Gracia’s mind, as she records her thoughts and plans.

Dual­i­ties defined the lives of cryp­to- (or ​“secret”) Jews dur­ing the Span­ish Inqui­si­tion. Gra­cia and her hus­band were mar­ried in a Jew­ish cer­e­mo­ny, but also in a pub­lic Catholic one. Rit­u­als sur­round­ing birth and death also required decep­tion. Gracia’s goal was to end this ten­sion, seek­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for the open expres­sion of Jew­ish reli­gion and cul­ture. Her will­ing­ness to work with Chris­t­ian rulers who extort­ed funds from her involved great finan­cial costs, but she cal­cu­lat­ed that pre­serv­ing Jew­ish lives was worth the price. Even­tu­al­ly, she nego­ti­at­ed with the Ottoman Sul­tan Suleiman to estab­lish a vibrant Sephardic com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing Torah acad­e­mies, in Tiberias. Although Gra­cia her­self did not set­tle there, it remains one of the out­stand­ing parts of her lega­cy. Zoldan’s engag­ing nov­el cap­tures the qui­et defi­ance and prag­ma­tism of Doña Gra­cia Mendes Nasi’s emblem­at­ic Jew­ish life.