Kesher Talk

Jews in odd places: The Netherlands:

The members of the Portuguese (i.e., Sephardi) nation in Amsterdam claimed that they lived - or at least aspired to live - according to the principal they called "bom judesmo" ("good and beautiful Judaism"). The Jew and his community were supposed to live according to a code of behavior that would demonstrate and prove the superiority and beauty of Judaism. Everything that needed to be done should be done in a "cultured" way: Prayers, for example, should be said without shouting, and preferably accompanied by suitable music, well-executed. The observance of these values, which we would call bourgeois, expressed the mode of thinking of the members of the community and the way in which their Jewish lives were organized and run, and the difference between them and the Ashkenazim (Jews of non-Iberian European origin). The Sephardi Jews of Amsterdam saw themselves as the elite among the Jewish communities and understood their Judaism in the light of the concept of honor, which was a major axis of their lives.

The articles in From New Christians to New Jews by Jerusalemite scholar Yosef Kaplan discuss the Sephardi diaspora in the early modern period and deal with the ways the Sephardi community and its activities were formed, the changes that occurred in European society and their influence on the Sephardim in Amsterdam.

posted by William @ 2/03/2004 08:55:00 AM