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continued to aid refugees fleeing Iberia, redeemed Jewish
slaves captured by pirates, and established a yeshivah
colloquially called “the academy of the giveret” and a
synagogue named “the synagogue of the Señora.” She
organized the boycott of the popular trading port Anacona
in 1556 after the papal mistreatment of Portuguese Jews
living there – two dozen of whom were burned at the stake.
In her own home, she hosted meals that served nearly a
hundred hungry people every day.
Her heart, however, was always focused on the Land of
Israel. In the 1560s, Gracia Nasi and her nephew, Joseph
Nasi, who served in the sultan’s court, sought to establish
a settlement in Tiberias with the goal of creating a place of
refuge for Jews. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent granted
Joseph Nasi permission to settle Tiberias, and by 1566, a
A map of Ferrara, c.1600. (PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS) thriving community of Jews were living there. Doña Gracia
Doña is a Spanish honorific reserved for nobility, Gracia is Nasi even reinterred the remains of her deceased parents
the Spanish equivalent of Chana, and her new surname, and husband from Portugal to Israel. Though the settlement
Nasi, alluded to the biblical title that connoted royalty and she helped to build in Tiberias dwindled to only a few
political leadership. A nasi, or prince, represents the Jewish remaining families, she made an indelible mark in the effort
people in communal, legal, financial, and political aspects to bring Jews back to the Land of Israel. Today the Doña
of life, and Doña Gracia Nasi was the only woman for whom Gracia hotel and museum is located in Tiberias, welcoming
there is evidence that this title was used. In keeping with visitors to the land to which she yearned to return.
this title, even after openly reclaiming her Judaism, Doña Doña Gracia Nasi died in 1569. After her passing, the famous
Gracia did not submit to the sumptuary laws that restricted poet Sa’adiah Longo wrote an ode to commemorate her
the clothing Jews were allowed to wear, and continued to called “Doña Gracia of the House of Nasi,” comparing the
dress fashionably in the high style of living to which she pain of her loss to the pain felt for the destruction of the
was accustomed. Temples on Tisha B’Av. Revered as a champion for the
An active patron of the literary and printing endeavors Jewish people, Doña Gracia was a woman who chose to act
of Ferrara’s Jewish community, both the Ferrara Bible, a at a time when many Jews were burned alive at the stake.
vernacular Spanish translation of the Hebrew Bible, and Her unabashed allegiance to the Jewish nation made Doña
historian Samuel Usuqe’s Consolation for the Tribulations of Gracia the embodiment of perseverance in exile, reminding
Israel – published in Ferrara in 1553 – were dedicated to our people that they would one day return as free and proud
Doña Gracia Nasi. Jews to the Holy Land.
In the spring of 1553, Gracia Nasi moved from Venice to Chaya Sara Oppenheim holds a B.A. from Barnard College where she
Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. She studied English and history.

The city of Tiberias

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