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The reputed wealth and benevolence of the Portuguese Jews of early modern Amsterdam attracted many impoverished people to the city, both ex-Conversos from the Iberian peninsula and Jews from many other countries. In describing the consequences of that migration in terms of demography, admission policy, charitable institutions—public and private—philanthropy and daily life, and the dynamics of the relationship between the rich and the poor, Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld adds a nuanced new dimension to the understanding of Jewish life in the early modern period.
Most people know little more than fragments of Dutch Jewish history: the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam; Jewish socialism; the devastating years of the Second World War. So where is the storyline? What happened to the Jews in the Netherlands from the moment they first settled there permanently? This book answers that question. It presents the central points of 700 years of Jewish history in the Netherlands briefly and succinctly. One hundred elements of the story have been chosen that taken as a whole create a balanced and representative picture. Each relates to a central event, place, person or object that helps to illuminate one important aspect of the history of the Jews in the Netherlands, and each is linked to a striking, iconic image. They are grouped by century around unifying themes that make them part of an ongoing story.
This volume, consisting of seventeen studies by leading experts in the field, takes stock of recent work on the history and literary culture of the Jews in the Netherlands and Antwerp from before the revolt until the present. Important new discoveries are included here for the first time.
Groundbreaking essays on Sephardic Jewish families in the Ottoman Empire and Western Sephardic communities
In The Religious Cultures of Dutch Jewry an international group of scholars examines aspects of religious belief and practice of pre-emancipation Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Amsterdam, Curaçao and Surinam, ceremonial dimensions, artistic representations of religious life, and religious life after the Shoa. The origins of Dutch Jewry trace back to diverse locations and ancestries: Marranos from Spain and Portugal and Ashkenazi refugees from Germany, Poland and Lithuania. In the new setting and with the passing of time and developments in Dutch society at large, the religious life of Dutch Jews took on new forms. Dutch Jewish society was thus a microcosm of essential changes in Jewish history.
This groundbreaking book examines the complex relationships between individuals and communities in the profound transitions of the early modern period. Taking a global and comparative approach to historical issues, the distinguished contributors show that individual and community created and recreated one another in the major structures, interactions, and transitions of early modern times. Offering an important contribution to our understanding both of the early modern period and of its historiography, this volume will be an invaluable resource for scholars working in the fields of medieval, early modern, and modern history, and on the Renaissance and Reformation.
From the sixteenth century on, hundreds of Portuguese New Christians began to flow to Venice and Livorno in Italy, and to Amsterdam and Hamburg in northwest Europe. In those cities and later in London, Bordeaux, and Bayonne as well, Iberian conversos established their own Jewish communities, openly adhering to Judaism. Despite the features these communities shared with other confessional groups in exile, what set them apart was very significant. In contrast to other European confessional communities, whose religious affiliation was uninterrupted, the Western Sephardic Jews came to Judaism after a separation of generations from the religion of their ancestors. In this edited volume, several experts in the field detail the religious and cultural changes that occurred in the Early Modern Western Sephardic communities. "Highly recommended for all academic and Jewish libraries." - David B Levy, Touro College, NYC, in: Association of Jewish Libraries News and Reviews 1.2 (2019)
Jewish Entanglements in the Atlantic World represents the first collective attempt to reframe the study of colonial and early American Jewry within the context of Atlantic History. From roughly 1500 to 1830, the Atlantic World was a tightly intertwined swathe of global powers that included Europe, Africa, North and South America, and the Caribbean. How, when, and where do Jews figure in this important chapter of history? This book explores these questions and many others. The essays of this volume foreground the connectivity between Jews and other population groups in the realms of empire, trade, and slavery, taking readers from the shores of Caribbean islands to various outposts of the Dutch, English, Spanish, and Portuguese empires. Jewish Entanglements in the Atlantic World revolutionizes the study of Jews in early American history, forging connections and breaking down artificial academic divisions so as to start writing the history of an Atlantic world influenced strongly by the culture, economy, politics, religion, society, and sexual relations of Jewish people.
Using cutting-edge theory regarding trade networks and diaspora, this study challenges the historiographical argument that the Sephardim, and indeed, a variety of religio-ethnic groups, achieved their commercial success by relying on geographically dispersed family members and fellow ethnics. The book’s findings challenge the reigning understanding that commercial success stemmed from endogamous business relationships and socio-cultural insularity. The book demonstrates that the most successful Sephardic merchants of early seventeenth century Amsterdam built their fortunes not thanks to familial or diasporic connections, but through “loose ties,” economic networks comprised of non-Sephardim. Focusing on three of the most prominent Sephardic merchants in Amsterdam, and a random sampling of other Sephardi merchants, the book reveals a multi-ethnic and multi-religious trade network of non-Jewish merchants.
Memoirs of Jewish life in the east European shtetl often recall the hekdesh (town poorhouse) and its residents: beggars, madmen and madwomen, disabled people, and poor orphans. Stepchildren of the Shtetl tells the story of these marginalized figures from the dawn of modernity to the eve of the Holocaust. Combining archival research with analysis of literary, cultural, and religious texts, Natan M. Meir recovers the lived experience of Jewish society's outcasts and reveals the central role that they came to play in the drama of modernization. Those on the margins were often made to bear the burden of the nation as a whole, whether as scapegoats in moments of crisis or as symbols of degenerati...