Beatriz de Luna was born in Lisbon, Portugal, to an exiled Spanish-Jewish family who was forced to convert to Christianity during the reign of King Manuel I of Portugal in 1497. At 18, she married her uncle, Francisco Mendes, a wealthy and successful trader. Ten years later, he died, leaving her half of his fortune and their daughter Ana. Soon after, she fled Portugal to escape the Portuguese Inquisition to Antwerp, in nowadays Belgium, joining her husband’s brother and business partner, Diogo. She took her late husband’s place in the family business, overseeing the expansion of the Mendes commercial empire, which included partnerships across Europe and the Middle East and loans to the monarchs of Germany, Portugal, England, and Turkey. In 1542, Diogo died, leaving her the control of the business and one of the richest women in Europe. Her enormous wealth allowed her to influence kings and church representatives and protect fellow converted Jews by establishing an escape network for Crypto-Jews to flee Spain and Portugal to Greece and the Ottoman Empire and save hundreds of Jews. Two years later, she moved to the Republic of Venice. Although Jews were not forbidden to practice their religion in Venice, they lived in ghettos, and she had to practice Judaism in secret while publicly presenting herself as Catholic. She successfully ran the family business, adding more trading products, such as textiles and grain. In 1549, Ercole II, Duke of Este, invited her to relocate her enterprise to the city of Ferrara. There, for the first time in her life, she openly practiced Judaism, adopted the Hebrew marital surname of her daughter, Nasi, and became known as Doña Gracia Nasi. She was active in the Sephardic community in Ferrara, using her fortune to promote literacy and printing, and initiated and benefactor the publication of the Ferrara Bible –the Ladino version of the Hebrew Bible. By the early 1550s, the approach toward Jews in Italy was increasingly hostile, and in 1533, Doña Gracia moved to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, where Jews were welcome. She dedicated her time and wealth to benefit the Jewish relief, aiding fugitives from the Iberian Peninsula, supporting rabbinic scholars, and building synagogues, yeshivas, schools, and hospitals throughout the empire. She also established her own printing business, becoming the first woman printer and publisher in the Ottoman Empire and the first Jewish woman to do so. In 1558, 390 years before Israel was officially established, Doña Gracia leased land in Tiberius, then under the rule of the Ottomans and nowadays a city in the north of Israel. Her purpose was to rehabilitate the area, make it available for Jewish refugees to settle in the Holy land, and turn it into a center of Jewish trade and learning. She intended to live in the city but died before her dream was realized. She was 59 years old. Read more...