Hebrews of the portuguese nation. Converses and community in early modern Amsterdam
Editorial INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Mainland Spain
- Publisher INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
- ISBN13 9780253332929
- ISBN10 0253332923
- Type Book
- Bookbinding Cloth
Sections
Universal History ContemporaryHebrews of the portuguese nation. Converses and community in early modern Amsterdam
Editorial INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Mainland Spain
Book Details
In the seventeenth century, descendants of forcibly baptized Jews (conversos) fled the Iberian Inquisitions to settle in Amsterdam, a city renowned for its commercial ties and religious tolerance. On arrival the conversos lacked clear ethnic or religious identities and had little social organization. Yet they formed the nucleus of what within a generation became a strongly cohesive community with a highly structured and well-developed sense of its Jewish identity. Drawing on family and communal records, diaries, memoirs, literary works, and other sources, Miriam Bodian reconstructs the fascinating story of how these Portuguese immigrants - merchants, professionals, and intellectuals, for the most part - reasserted their Judaism, while maintaining their Iberian heritage.