Amazon eBay: During the first decades of the 20th century, many Jewish emigré artists converged on Paris. Some of them, Modigliani, Soutine, Chagall and Lipchitz, to mention four of the most outstanding, played central roles in avant-garde movements. These artists became active participants in the vibrant Parisian art scene, and substantially contributed to the innovative currents that changed the course of art history. In late 19th century France, however, only one Jewish artist maintained a pivotal position in the vanguard of his time. This distinction belongs to Camille Pissarro, who was one of the principal figures in the founding, development and dissemination of Impressionism. Pissarro was a self-declared atheist and anarchist. Though of Jewish lineage, no references to his ancestry are to be found in his paintings. Nevertheless, the fact that he was born a Jew had an influence on the man and on the course of his life. This study attempts to bring together the scattered and fragmentary, direct and indirect allusions to Pissarro’s Jewishness. It will further endeavor to ascertain what insights these yield (when viewed chronologically and contextually), about the identity of a Jewish artist in late 19th century France. The outermost borders of Pissarro’s biography were touched by two dramatic events that influenced his intellectual development and had significant effects on his life. Both events were related to his Jewish origins. An emphasis will, therefore, be placed here on the first and last decades of his life, when these events had a meaningful impact on his thinking process. In addition, some attention will also be given to exploring written texts, by Pissarro and his close associates, during times when his awareness of his origins was less acutely perceived. But first, it is worth reviewing a few salient points regarding the Jewish heritage to which Pissarro was heir. Camille Pissarro's Jewish Identity Stephanie Rachum The Israel Museum, Jerusalem 4 STEPHANIE RACHUM Pissarro's Jewish Heritage Camille Pissarro was descended from a Spanish-Portuguese Jewish family whose history goes back hundreds of years. Jews arrived in Spain with the Romans already in the 3rd century, and prospered there as merchants. They continued to live there under the Visigoths, who invaded the Roman Empire in the 4th century and by the end of the 5th century controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula. When the Moslems conquered the area, the Jews persevered in their midst, as a tolerated minority. At the end of the 15th century, however, when the Christians, under the Catholic King and Queen Ferdinand and Isabella, completed the reconquest of Spain, the Inquisition was established to purge the country of heretics and the Jews were expelled. Some Jews fled to North Africa; others escaped to Portugal, only to be subjected to a blanket conversion a few years later. Many became Marranos; a name applied to Jews who had been forced to convert but continued to practice their religion in secret. Camille’s great grandfather, Pierre Rodrigues Alvares Pizzarro, was a native of Braganza, a Portuguese medieval fortified city near the Spanish border. His son Joseph Gabriel (Camille’s grandfather, born 1776) emigrated to Bordeaux, France at the end of the 18th century.