ALTECA BOTECA. - Corrupted form of 'Al tēhl ha-'abhōtēhā ("Be not like your fathers"): the opening words by which is usually cited the anti-Christian work written around 1396 by the Jew of the Duran family, Jishāq ben Mošeh, better known by the names Profeit (erroneously Profiat) Duran, nicknamed Efodi. The latter, born in Cordova, apparently converted to Christianity in 1391, then went to Palestine where, having returned to Judaism, he launched the 'Igghēret 'el Bonetto, an epistle to a certain Bonetto, a Jew who had become a Christian, beginning with those words, often thereafter repeated in the course of the writing.
The A. pretends to confirm a friend in the Christian faith that he has embraced, but in reality it is a virulent satire against baptized Jews. The irony, however, is so subtle that the writing was considered by many as a defense of Christianity against Judaism, and often cited as such. It takes its place within the dense anti-Christian production of the Spanish Jews of the 2nd half of the 14th century: Support of the Faith (1374) by Mošeh Cohen rabbi of Avila, the Touchstone of Semtob ben Jishāq Šaprut, the epistle against Paul of Burgos (v.) by Josūa ben Josef, the work of Hasdai Crescas (v.). The epistle A. was published in Constantinople in 1554; Bartolocci knew of a manuscript of it in the Vatican library.
Bibliography
Antonino Romeo