New grant to shed light on Jewish view of discovery, conquest of the New World

Brandeis Stories

New grant to shed light on Jewish view of discovery, conquest of the New World

By Steve Foskett
August 17, 2026 • Humanities and Social Sciences

Flora Cassen, Lavine Family Director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies and Director of the Study of Anti-Jewishness, has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to complete translations of texts offering a rarely seen Jewish perspective on the European colonization of the Americas.

Originally awarded in 2024, the three-year, $300,000 NEH grant is a partnership between Cassen and Ronnie Perelis of Yeshiva University to translate into English 16th century works by Joseph Ha-Kohen and Luis de Carvajal. The project will culminate with "Translating the Americas," a two-volume book that will illustrate how Jews and conversos - Iberian converts to Christianity who held onto Judaism in secret - understood the existence of the new continent.

"These foundational humanities texts have been out of reach of most scholars and students," Cassen said. "Translating them will bring cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity to studying the early Americas, European expansion, and post-expulsion Sephardi Jewry."

The grant was reinstated this year after a delay when hundreds of federal NEH grants, including this one, were initially canceled.

Because so many historians and other scholars were affected, the American Historical Association together with other scholarly associations filed a lawsuit, and won. Now the canceled grants are being reinstated, including Cassen and Perelis's.

"We're delighted", Cassen said, "we're passionate about this project and just want to get back to work."

Under the grant, Cassen will focus on Ha-Kohen's "The Book of New India." On first sight, the book appears to be a straightforward Hebrew translation of Lopez de Gómara's Spanish history of the New World. Closer inspection reveals he infused his work with his own biting criticism of Spanish colonialism, and offered a broader reflection on conquest, oppression, and the position of Jews and Judaism in a larger world.

For example, he wrote that the land did not belong to Christianity and termed the murder of native Americans an "extermination." When Gómara wrote that "Indians" were idolaters, Ha-Kohen added that "(Spaniards) themselves also believe in statues and idols."

Perelis will translate de Carvajal's religious anthology. A converso living in Mexico in the late 1500s who was later burned at the stake by the Inquisition, Carvajal was the first Jewish writer to describe the Americas while living in the New World. Carvajal's diary shows how conversos found inspiration for their secret Judaism in subversive readings of Catholic authors and the Hebrew Scripture translated into Latin. The text also captures the rhythms of their secret religious life as it was created in the deserts, swamps, and emerging cities of the Americas.

Cassen said the translations will open up a broader space for collaborations and exchanges for researchers focusing on this period of history.

"Jewish texts that are not translated usually stay within Jewish studies, and do not become part of a larger conversation," Cassen said. "We aim for our translations to serve as bridges between scholars in different fields who share similar interests."