Doña Gracia Nasi דונה גרציה נשיא
head of a banking house who brought thousands of Marranos out of Europe
She was born in Lisbon around 5270 as Beatriz de Luna, into a family of conversos who kept the faith in secret. Widowed young, she took over the Mendes banking house, which lent to kings and to the emperor.
Under cover of the spice trade she built an underground rescue route: agents in Portugal, ships, forged papers, way stations in Antwerp, Venice and Ferrara, and passage to the Ottoman Empire, where one could openly return to Judaism. Thousands of families were saved.
She was hunted. In Venice she was imprisoned on her own sister's denunciation and her property seized. Sultan Suleiman demanded her release, and in 5313 she reached Constantinople — and for the first time in her life called herself openly a Jew: Gracia Nasi.
From there she acted in the open. She built synagogues and academies, supported scholars, and financed the Ferrara Bible in Spanish for those returning to the faith. When the pope burned twenty-four conversos at Ancona, she organised a boycott of the port — the first economic action of its kind.