marrano

Alternative letter-case form of Marrano: a Jew who converted to Catholicism under threat or force.

Any of the Sephardi Jews who stayed in Iberia during the Spanish Inquisition, and continued to practice Judaism in secret.

Look at the Crypto-Jews, the Marranos, who for centuries lived a double life, outwardly Christians, but handing down secretly from generation to generation the faith, the traditions, the observances of Judaism.

In the Portuguese universities, the Marranos had studied logic, physics, medicine and mathematics, but they had no expertise in the more intuitive disciplines of Jewish practice.