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The community ofSephardic Jews in the Netherlands, particularly in Amsterdam, was of major importance in the seventeenth century. ThePortuguese Jews in the Netherlands did not refer to themselves as "Sephardim",[1] but rather as "Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation."[2] The Portuguese-speaking community grew fromconversos, Jews forced to convert to Catholicism in Spain and Portugal, who rejudaized underrabbinical authority, to create an openly self-identified Portuguese Jewish community.[3] As a result of the expulsions fromSpain in 1492 andPortugal in 1496, as well as the religious persecution by theInquisition that followed, manySpanish and Portuguese Jews left theIberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, in search of religious freedom. Some migrated to the newly independent Dutch provinces which allowed Jews to become residents. Many Jews who left for the Dutch provinces werecrypto-Jews. Others had been sincereNew Christians, who, despite their conversion, were targeted by Old Christians as suspect. Some of these sought to return to the religion of their ancestors.Ashkenazi Jews began migrating to the Netherlands in the mid-seventeenth century, but Portuguese Jews viewed them with ambivalence.[4]
Many Jews migrating from theKingdom of Portugal, where Spanish Jews had fled after theSpanish Inquisition had been introduced in Spain in 1478, followed by theexpulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. In 1497, the Portuguese forcibly converted all Jews in Portugal, including many who had returned to Judaism after fleeing Spain and its Inquisition. Following the establishment in 1536 of thePortuguese Inquisition, descendants of Jews who had converted to Catholicism dating back to a forced conversion in Spain in 1391 through the Portuguese forced conversion, were looked upon with suspicion by Old Christians. In search of greater religious and economic freedoms, many crypto-Jews left Portugal for places with more lenient religious legislation and opportunities where their unique skill sets could thrive. Many left forBrazil, where Europeans were Portuguese-speaking, andFrance. A couple of decades later, groups of crypto-Jews started reaching theDutch Republic.
Amsterdam became one of the most favored destinations in the Netherlands for Sephardic Jews. Because many were merchants and traders, Amsterdam benefited economically from their arrival. However, the reason to settle in Amsterdam was not merely voluntary; many crypto-Jews ormarranos had been refused admission in trading centers such asMiddelburg andHaarlem and because of that settled in Amsterdam. Soon many Jews settled atVlooienburg. There were three struggling congregations. In 1638 a reconciliation was achieved, whereby one synagogue was sold, one remained in existence and the third continued to be used as a schoolroom which merged toTalmud Torah, a united Sephardic congregation.[5] Several Sephardic Jews supported theHouse of Orange and were in return protected by thestadholder.
Many types of discriminatory laws commonplace in Europe and previously in medieval times were no longer in place in Amsterdam starting ca. 1600; to the extent such laws were on the books, they weren't always followed strictly. In part, such general religious toleration arose before Jews came to Amsterdam, as city officials adopted a policy of freedom of conscience in joining theUnion of Utrecht.[6] Despite voiced challenges toward the loose legislation tolerating Jews, Burgomasters continued to enact laws tailored to their own pragmatic vision of society, even if they were contrary to popular opinion disfavoring Jews. Much of the toleration expressed by the Amsterdam officials was rooted in the economic assets the new Portuguese Jewish community could provide, as well as the officials’ lack of prior experience with Jewish residents. These factors made Amsterdam officials and even residents less susceptible to labeling the entire Jewish community by their negatively perceived history in Christian tradition.[7] While the Jews of Amsterdam enjoyed greater freedoms in the religious and economic spheres of everyday life, which helped them assimilate more quickly and efficiently into Amsterdam society, they were denied certain political privileges, like participation in municipal government.[8]
The Jewish community of Amsterdam was self-governing, with the Imposta board overseeing communal and individual conduct until the establishment of the unifiedMa'amad or governing committee in 1639, seven prominent men who had final say over all that happened in the Jewish community. TheMa'amad was self-sustaining, with members appointing their successors, thus keeping the communal power in the hands of the merchant elite among the Portuguese Jews. Besides providing for and overseeing the institutions of Portuguese Jewry in Amsterdam, theMa'amad also closely controlled the process of rejudaization, helping those who were outwardly Catholic return to a Jewish life. In this process, several individuals rejected Rabbinic Judaism or advanced ideas outside of the norms of Judaism at that time and were disciplined by theMa'amad through the process ofḥerem, which could be anything from denial ofTorah honors to an outright ban on the individual. The most famous of those to receive a fullḥerem was philosopherBaruch Spinoza, whose intellectual contributions were very important in his time and continue to influence thinkers to this day.
Less influential wereSolomon Ayllon andTzvi Ashkenazi, who hadRomaniote origins. Ayllon was connected tokabbalah, a mystical aspect ofJudaism, and Tzvi Ashkenazi to theSabbateans, a significant Jewish messianic movement. InSalonica, Ashkenazi witnessed the impact ofSabbatai Zevi, theJewish messiah claimant, on the community. This experience became a determining factor in his whole career.
On 30 June 1713,Nehemiah Hayyun arrived at Amsterdam and requested the permission of thePortuguese Congregation orEsnoga to circulate his writings, which had been published in Berlin. Tzvi Ashkenazi thought Hayyun was an old enemy of his fromSarajevo and Salonica, and immediately requested Ayllon, who was thehakham of the Esnoga and was also from Salonica, not to accord patronage to Hayyun, who was unfavorably known to him.[9] On 23 July Tzvi Ashkenazi pronounced theban of exclusion upon Ḥayyun and his heretical book. Ayllon was no doubt the rabbi who laid charges against Tzvi Ashkenazi before the Amsterdam magistrates, and thus made an internal dissension of the Jewish community a matter of public discussion.[citation needed]
The migration of Jews from Portugal and Spain to many places other than Amsterdam allowed them to build a strong international trading network that was unique to diaspora members. Because of the business and family relations many Amsterdam Jews had in light of their former community’s dispersal, they established trading connections with theLevant andMorocco. For instance, theJewish-Moroccan merchantSamuel Pallache (ca. 1550-1616) was sent to the Dutch Republic by SultanZidan Abu Maali ofMorocco in 1608 to be his ambassador atThe Hague. In particular, the relations between the Dutch andSouth America were established by Sephardic Jews; they contributed to the establishment of theDutch West Indies Company in 1621, and some of them were members of its directorate. The ambitious schemes of theDutch for the conquest ofBrazil were carried into effect through Francisco Ribeiro, a Portuguese captain, who is said to have had Jewish relations inHolland. After the Dutch in Brazil appealed to Holland for craftsmen of all kinds, many Jews went to Brazil; about 600 Jews left Amsterdam in 1642, accompanied by two distinguished scholars —Isaac Aboab da Fonseca andMoses Raphael de Aguilar. In the struggle between Holland and Portugal for the possession of Brazil, the Dutch were supported by the Jews. The Jews of Amsterdam also established commercial relations with various countries inEurope. In a letter dated November 25, 1622, KingChristian IV of Denmark invited Jews from Amsterdam to settle inGlückstadt, where, among other privileges, the free exercise of their religion would be assured to them.
Besides merchants, a great number of physicians were among the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam, including Samuel Abravanel,David Nieto,Elijah Montalto, and the Bueno family. Joseph Bueno was consulted in the illness ofMaurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange (April 1623). Jews were admitted as students at the university, where they studied medicine as the only branch of science which was of practical use to them, for they were not permitted to practise law, and the oath they would be compelled to take excluded them from the professorships. Neither were Jews taken into the trade guilds: a resolution passed by the city of Amsterdam in 1632 excluded them. Exceptions, however, were made in the case of trades which stood in peculiar relations to their religion: printing, bookselling, the selling of meat, poultry, groceries, and drugs. Jews tended to involve themselves in newer industries in Amsterdam, like the importation of colonial products, that just so happened to not have as many guild restrictions attached to them.[10] In 1655, a Jew was permitted to establish a sugar refinery. Jews also became heavily involved in the jewelry and tobacco industries.[11] While occupational status did not differ greatly between Jews and the rest of the Amsterdam population, Jews were far more concentrated in particular lines of commerce.[12]
The migration of Portuguese Jews from the Netherlands to the Caribbean Antilles began in the mid-17th century, after the Dutch fleet captured the island ofCuraçao from Spain in 1634. One generation later, several waves of migrant Jewish and Protestant families from the Netherlands had established a shipping and trading settlement inWillemstad, a natural harbor controlled by theDutch West Indies Company. The Dutch troops lost the Brazilian colony ofRecife to the Portuguese in 1654, which forced many Dutch Sephardic refugees from Brazil to move to Curaçao or to the colony ofNew Amsterdam (Manhattan).
By the 1680s, the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam went into decline, in spite of having built a new synagogue, the monumentalEsnoga, which was inaugurated in 1675. With the Netherlands experiencing economic difficulty (in part due to loss of New World colonies) some Jews left and immigration slowed. The Ashkenazic community became the larger Jewish community in Amsterdam, even as the Sephardic Jews kept positions of power and remained the significantly wealthier community. The process ofemancipation, granting Jews full Dutch citizenship in the late 18th and early 19th century, continued the erosion of power theMahamad held over the community.
On the eve ofthe Holocaust, approximately 4300 Sephardic Jews were living in the Netherlands out of a total Jewish population of some 140,000 (3%).[citation needed] AfterWorld War II, the Sephardic community had declined to some 800 people, 20% of the prewar population. The Holocaust ended the existence of the Sephardic community inThe Hague, with its Jews deported toNazi concentration camps and with no post-war resettlement in any numbers.
The Sephardic community in the Netherlands, called thePortugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap "Portuguese-Israelite Religious Community" (PIK), has a membership of some 270 families (approximately 600 persons), and is concentrated in Amsterdam. They constitute now some 2% of the Dutch Jewish community. The PIK also has a youth movement, J-PIG (Jongeren Portugees-Israëlitische Gemeente - Youth Portuguese-Israelite Community).
Amsterdam is still home to works of its once vibrant Sephardic community. TheEsnoga, which was inaugurated in 1675, is located at the heart of Amsterdam'sJewish Cultural Quarter and it is still in use today. The venerableLibrary Ets Haim -Livraria Montezinos was founded in 1616 and it is the oldest functioning Jewish library in the world. Also, the Sephardic cemeteryBeth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, in a village on the outskirts of Amsterdam, has been in use since 1614 and is the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Netherlands. Another reminder of the Sephardic community in Amsterdam is theHuis de Pinto, a residence for the wealthy Sephardic family de Pinto, constructed in 1680.
Freedom of conscience, as defined by Article XIII of the Union of Utrecht - namely, as the absence of persecution - required no greater degree of explicitness on the part of Amsterdam's burgomasters than this resolution exhibited, and the subject was never taken up again.
Their introduction into Amsterdam at this juncture, in a form altogether milder than in previous centuries, does not seem to have been prompted by any awareness of their history in Christian tradition but rather by specific contemporary incidents.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Louis Ginzberg; J. Vredenburg (1901–1906)."Ashkenazi, Zebi Hirsch (Ḥakam Ẓebi) B. Jacob". InSinger, Isidore; et al. (eds.).The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. RetrievedJuly 1, 2013."In practice, those areas of industrial initiative to which the Portuguese Jews were most attracted were relatively new fields not restricted by existing guild regulations, and these entrepreneurs pursued particular industrial initiatives not because they happened to be free of guild exclusivism but because their commercial concentration on the importation of colonial products suggested specific industries which by their very nature were of relatively recent vintage and, therefore, free of guild traditions.
"The sugar refineries, tobacco workshops, and diamond-processing ateliers established by Portuguese Jews were a direct offshoot of Portuguese Jewish commercial activities.