The first pic­ture book intro­duc­ing Doña Gra­cia Mendes, the extra­or­di­nary 16th-cen­tu­ry secret Jew. Even Gra­cia — her Jew­ish name — had to be kept secret. But she and her hus­band helped oth­er secret Jews in Por­tu­gal by per­suad­ing the king to pro­tect them dur­ing the Inqui­si­tion. When her hus­band died, many said a woman couldn’t run his inter­na­tion­al busi­ness, but Doña Gra­cia did. Escap­ing Por­tu­gal, she helped oth­er Jews do the same, smug­gling them out of the coun­try on her spice ships in the night. She defied kings and risked her life to help oth­er secret Jews escape to safe­ty. When she could final­ly live freely as a Jew in Turkey, Gra­cia used her resources to help build syn­a­gogues, hos­pi­tals, and yeshiv­as. In this time­less tale of iden­ti­ty, com­mu­ni­ty, and courage, (and doesn’t refer to The Inqui­si­tion by name) Dona Gra­cia saved worlds.