Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of
Sephardic Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
who are largely descended from Jews who lived as
New Christians
New Christian ( es, Cristiano Nuevo; pt, Cristão-Novo; ca, Cristià Nou; lad, Christiano Muevo) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century ...
in the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
during the immediate generations following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497.
Although the 1492 and 1497 expulsions of unconverted Jews from Spain and Portugal were separate events from the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and
Portuguese Inquisition
The Portuguese Inquisition ( Portuguese: ''Inquisição Portuguesa''), officially known as the General Council of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal, was formally established in Portugal in 1536 at the request of its king, John III. ...
s (which were established over a decade earlier in 1478), they were ultimately linked, as the Inquisition eventually also led to the fleeing out of Iberia of many descendants of Jewish converts to Catholicism in subsequent generations.
Despite the fact that the original Edicts of Expulsion did not apply to Jewish-origin New Christian ''
conversos
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian p ...
'' —as these were now legally Christians— the discriminatory practices that the Inquisition nevertheless placed upon them, which were often lethal, put immense pressure on many of the Jewish-origin Christians to also emigrate out of Spain and Portugal in the immediate generations following the expulsion of their unconverted Jewish brethren.
The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the ''de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being bot ...
of Spain ( Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordering the expulsion of all unconverted practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, including from all its territories and possessions, by 31 July of that year."Edict of the Expulsion of the Jews (1492)" /ref> The primary purpose of the expulsion was to eliminate the influence of unconverted Jews on Spain's by then large Jewish-origin New Christian converso population, to ensure that the prior did not encourage the latter to relapse and revert to Judaism.
Over half of Spain's Jewish origin population had converted to Catholicism as a result of the religious anti-Jewish persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in prior years, it is estimated that of Spain's total Jewish origin population at the time, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism, and initially remained in Spain. Between 40,000 and 80,000 did not convert to Catholicism, and by their steadfast commitment to remain Jewish were thus expelled. Of those who were expelled as unconverted Jews, an indeterminate number nonetheless converted to Catholicism once outside Spain and eventually returned to Spain in the years following the expulsion due to the hardships many experienced in their resettlement. Many of Spain's Jews who left Spain as Jews also initially moved to Portugal, where they were subsequently forcibly converted to the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in 1497.
Most of the Jews who left Spain as Jews accepted the hospitality of Sultan Bayezid II and, after the Alhambra Decree, moved to the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, where they founded communities openly practising the Jewish religion; they and their descendants are known as
Eastern Sephardim Eastern Sephardim are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardi Jews, mostly descended from families expelled and exiled from Iberia as Jews in the 15th century following the Alhambra Decree of 1492 in Spain and the decree of 1497 in Portugal. This branch ...
.
During the centuries following the Spanish and Portuguese decrees, some of the Jewish-origin New Christian conversos started emigrating from Portugal and Spain, settling until the 1700s throughout areas of Western Europe and non-Iberian realms of the colonial Americas (mostly Dutch realms, including Curaçao in the Dutch West Indies,
Recife
That it may shine on all ( Matthew 5:15)
, image_map = Brazil Pernambuco Recife location map.svg
, mapsize = 250px
, map_caption = Location in the state of Pernambuco
, pushpin_map = Brazil#South A ...
in Dutch areas of colonial Brazil which eventually were regained by the Portuguese, and New Amsterdam which later became New York) forming communities and formally reverting to Judaism. It is the collective of these communities and their descendants who are known as
Western Sephardim
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...
, and are the subject of this article.
As the early members of the Western Sephardim consisted of persons who themselves (or whose immediate forebears) personally experienced an interim period as New Christians, which resulted in unceasing trials and persecutions of crypto-Judaism by the
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition ( es, Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition ( es, Inquisición española), was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand ...
s, the early community continued to be augmented by further New Christian emigration pouring out of the Iberian Peninsula in a continuous flow between the 1600s to 1700s. Jewish-origin New Christians were officially considered Christians due to their forced or coerced conversions; as such they were subject to the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church's Inquisitorial system, and were subject to harsh heresy and apostasy laws if they continued to practice their ancestral Jewish faith. Those New Christians who eventually fled both the Iberian cultural sphere and jurisdiction of the
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
were able to officially return to Judaism and open Jewish practice once they were in their new tolerant environments of refuge.
As former conversos or their descendants, Western Sephardim developed a distinctive ritual based on the remnants of the Judaism of pre-expulsion Spain, which some had practiced in secrecy during their time as New Christians, and influenced by Judaism as practiced by the communities (including Sephardic Jews of the Ottoman Empire and
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
) which assisted them in their readoption of normative Judaism; as well as by the Spanish-Moroccan and the Italian Jewish rites practiced by
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
s and hazzanim recruited from those communities to instruct them in ritual practice. A part of their distinctiveness as a Jewish group, furthermore, stems from the fact that they saw themselves as forced to "redefine their Jewish identity and mark its boundaries ..with the intellectual tools they had acquired in their Christian socialization" during their time as New Christian conversos.
Terminology
The main 'Western Sephardic Jewish' communities developed in Western Europe, Italy, and the non-Iberian regions of the Americas.
In addition to the term "Western Sephardim", this sub-group of Sephardic Jews is sometimes also referred to also as "Spanish and Portuguese Jews," "Spanish Jews," "Portuguese Jews," or "Jews of the Portuguese Nation."
The term "Western Sephardim" is frequently used in modern research literature to refer to "Spanish and Portuguese Jews," but sometimes also to "Spanish- Moroccan Jews".
The use of the terms "Portuguese Jews" and "Jews of the Portuguese Nation" in areas such as the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, Hamburg,
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...
, and at one time in London, seems to have arisen primarily as a way for the "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" to distance themselves from Spain in the times of political tension and war between Spain and the Netherlands in the 17th century. Similar considerations may have played a role for ethnic Sephardic Jews in the French regions of Bayonne and
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
, given their proximity to the Spanish border.
Another reason for the terminology of "Portuguese" Jews may have been that a relatively high proportion of the families in question had Portugal as their immediate point of departure from the Iberian peninsula, regardless of whether the remoter family background was nonetheless Spanish, since Portugal was the first place of refuge and transit point for many Spanish Jews immediately following their expulsion from Spain.
As the term "Sephardim" (when used in its ethnic sense) necessarily connotes a link with Spain, the distinguishing feature of the Western subgroup was the added link with Portugal. Thus, as a subset of the Sephardim, "Portuguese" and "Spanish and Portuguese" could be used interchangeably. Finally, almost all organised communities in this group traditionally employed Portuguese rather than Spanish as their official or working language.
In
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, the term "Spanish Jews" (''Ebrei Spagnoli'') is frequently used, but it includes descendants of Jews expelled as Jews from the Kingdom of Naples, as well as "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" proper (i.e. Jews descended from former conversos and their descendants).
In
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
, Spanish and Portuguese Jews were often described as "Ponentine" (Western), to distinguish them from "Levantine" (Eastern) Sephardim from Eastern Mediterranean areas. Occasionally Italian Jews distinguish between the "Portuguese Jews" of Pisa and Livorno and the "Spanish Jews" of Venice, Modena and elsewhere.
The scholar
Joseph Dan
Joseph Dan (, 1935 – 23 July 2022) was an Israeli scholar of Jewish mysticism. He taught for over 40 years in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the first incumbent of the Gershom Scholem Chair ...
distinguishes "medieval Sephardim" (15th and 16th-century Spanish exiles in the Ottoman Empire who arrived as Jews) from "Renaissance Sephardim" (Spanish and Portuguese former converso communities who arrived as New Christians), in reference to the respective times of each grouping's formative contacts with Spanish language and culture.
Relation to other Sephardi communities
The term Sephardi means "Spanish" or "Hispanic", and is derived from
Sepharad
Sepharad ( or ; ''Səp̄āraḏ''; also ''Sefarad'', ''Sephared'', ''Sfard'') is the Hebrew name for Spain. A place called Sepharad, probably referring to Sardis in Lydia ('Sfard' in Lydian), in the Book of Obadiah (, 6th century BC) of the Hebre ...
, a Biblical location. The location of the biblical Sepharad is disputed, but Sepharad was identified by later Jews as
Hispania
Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hisp ...
, that is, the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
. Sepharad still means "Spain" in
modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...
.
The relationship between Sephardi-descended communities is illustrated in the following diagram:
"Sephardim" properly refers to all Jews whose families have extended histories in Spain and
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, in contrast to
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained ...
, who have extended histories in the
Greater Middle East
The Greater Middle East, is a political term, introduced in March 2004 in a paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as part of the U.S. administration's preparatory work for the Group of Eight summit of June 2004, denoting a v ...
and North Africa, are often called "Sephardim" more broadly in
colloquial
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the style (sociolinguistics), linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom norm ...
and religious parlance due to similar styles of liturgy and a certain amount of intermarriage between them and Sephardim proper.
The main factor distinguishing "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" (Western Sephardim) from other "Sephardim proper" is that "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" refers specifically to those Jews who descend from persons whose history as practising members of Jewish communities with origins in the
Iberian peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
was interrupted by a period of having been New Christians (also known as ''conversos'', the Spanish term for "converts" to Catholicism; or ''cristãos-novos'', "new Christians" in the Portuguese equivalent) or ''
anusim
Anusim ( he, אֲנוּסִים, ; singular male, anús, he, אָנוּס ; singular female, anusáh, , meaning "coerced") is a legal category of Jews in ''halakha'' (Jewish law) who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically ...
'' (Hebrew for those "forced" to convert from Judaism to another faith).
During their period as New Christians, many conversos continued to practise their Jewish faith in secrecy as best they could. Those New Christian conversos of Jewish origin who maintained crypto-Jewish practices in secret were termed marranos (Spanish "swine") by
Old Christian
Old Christian ( es, cristiano viejo, pt, cristão-velho, ca, cristià vell) was a social and law-effective category used in the Iberian Peninsula from the late 15th and early 16th century onwards, to distinguish Portuguese and Spanish people atte ...
Spaniards and Portuguese.
Conversely, those New Christian conversos who have remained as conversos since that time, both those in the Iberian Peninsula and those who moved to the Iberian colonial possessions during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, became the related
Sephardic Bnei Anusim
Sephardic Bnei Anusim ( he, בני אנוסים ספרדיים, , lit. "Children f thecoerced onvertedSpanish ews is a modern term which is used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of an estimated quarter of a million 15th-century ...
. Sephardic Bnei Anusim are the contemporary and largely nominally Christian descendants of assimilated 15th century Sephardic Anusim, and are today a fully assimilated sub-group within the Iberian-descended Christian populations of Spain, Portugal,
Hispanic America
The region known as Hispanic America (in Spanish called ''Hispanoamérica'' or ''América Hispana'') and historically as Spanish America (''América Española'') is the portion of the Americas comprising the Spanish-speaking countries of North, ...
and Brazil. For historical reasons and circumstances, Sephardic Bnei Ansuim have not returned to the Jewish faith over the last five centuries, In modern times, some have begun emerging publicly in increasing numbers, especially in the last two decades.
For "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" (Western Sephardim), their historical period as conversos has shaped their identity, culture, and practices. In this respect, they are clearly distinguishable from those Sephardim who descend from the Jews who left Iberia as Jews before the expiration date for the Alhambra Decree, resulting in the 1492 expulsion from Spain and 1497 expulsion from Portugal of all Jews who had not been baptised into the Catholic faith. These expelled Jews settled mainly around the Mediterranean Basin of Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, namely,
Salonika
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
, the
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
and
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
, and they became the Eastern Sephardim and
North African Sephardim
North African Sephardim are a distinct sub-group of Sephardi Jews, who descend from exiled Iberian Jewish families of the late 15th century and North African Maghrebi Jewish communities.
Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the ...
respectively. For centuries, the Sephardic Jewish communities under Ottoman rule provided spiritual leadership to the dispersed Sephardim through their contributions to the Responsa literature. These Sephardic communities offered refuge to all Jews, including the Sephardi Jewish-origin New Christian conversos fleeing the Inquisition across Europe, as well as their Eastern European Ashkenazi coreligionists fleeing pogroms.
Relation to Sephardic Bnei Anusim and Neo-Western Sephardim
The common feature shared by Western Sephardim ("Spanish and Portuguese Jews") to
Sephardic Bnei Anusim
Sephardic Bnei Anusim ( he, בני אנוסים ספרדיים, , lit. "Children f thecoerced onvertedSpanish ews is a modern term which is used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of an estimated quarter of a million 15th-century ...
and Neo-Western Sephardim is that all three are descended from conversos. "Western Sephardim" are descendants of former conversos of earlier centuries; "Sephardic Bnei Anusim" are the still nominally Christian descendants of conversos; and "Neo-Western Sephardim" are the increasing in number modern-day former conversos currently returning to Judaism from among the Sephardic Bnei Anusim population.
The distinguishing factor between "Western Sephardim" and the nascent "Neo-Western Sephardim" is the time frame of the reversions to Judaism, the location of the reversions, and the precarious religious and legal circumstances surrounding their reversions, including impediments and persecutions. Thus, the converso descendants who became the Western Sephardim had reverted to Judaism between the 16th and 18th centuries, they did so at a time before the abolition of the Inquisition in the 19th century, and this time frame necessitated their migration out of the Iberian cultural sphere. Conversely, the converso descendants who are today becoming the nascent Neo-Western Sephardim have been reverting to Judaism between the late 20th and early 21st centuries, they have been doing so at a time after the abolition of the Inquisition in the 19th century, and this time frame has not necessitated their migration out of the Iberian cultural sphere.
Although Jewish communities were re-established in Spain and Portugal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, largely with the help of communities of Spanish and Portuguese Jews such as that in London, these present-day Jews in Portugal and
Jews in Spain
While the history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to legendary Jewish tradition, the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the time ...
are distinct from "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" as, for the most part, the modern Jewish communities resident in Spain and Portugal also include other Jewish ethnic divisions recently immigrated to Spain and Portugal, such as Ashkenazi Jews of Northern Europe.
In modern Iberia, practicing Jews of Sephardic origins, such as the Jewish community of
Oporto
Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropo ...
, however, are also not Western Sephardim, but are Neo-Western Sephardim, as they were re-established in the 20th century and early 21st centuries with a campaign of outreach to the
crypto-Jews
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden').
The term is especially applied historically to Sp ...
of Sephardic Bnei Anusim origins. The Oporto community's return to Judaism was led by the returnee to Judaism Captain
Artur Carlos de Barros Basto
Artur Carlos de Barros Basto ( he, אברהם ישראל בן-ראש; Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh) (18 December 1887 – 8 March 1961) was a Portuguese military officer and writer, who published several works related to Judaism. He was an important Je ...
(1887–1961), known also as the "apostle of the Marranos". In 1921, realizing that there were less than twenty Ashkenazi Jews living in Porto, and that recent returnees to Judaism like himself were not organized and had to travel to Lisbon for religious purposes whenever necessary, Barros Basto began to think about building a synagogue and took initiative in 1923 to officially register the Jewish Community of Porto and the Israelite Theological Center in the
city council
A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...
of Porto. As mentioned, these communities of modern-day returnees to Judaism are among the first in the emergence of the nascent Neo-Western Sephardim. Neo-Western Sephardim are the modern returnees to Judaism throughout Iberia and Ibero-America emerging from among the population of Sephardic Bnei Anusim, and are distinct from Western Sephardim (those termed "Spanish and Portuguese Jews").
Even more recent examples of such Neo-Western Sephardim communities include the
Belmonte Jews
The history of the Jewish Community in Belmonte, Portugal dates back to the 12th century and consists of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who kept their faith alive through the practice of Crypto-Judaism. The Sephardic tradition of Crypto-Judaism is u ...
in Portugal, and the Xuetes of Spain. In the case of the Xuetes, the entire community of converso descendants was extended a blanket recognition as Jews by Rabbinical authorities in Israel due to their particular historical circumstances on the island which effectively resulted in a strict social isolation of the Xuetes imposed upon them by their non-Jewish-descended neighbors up until modern times."Chuetas of Majorca recognized as Jewish"; ''The Jerusalem Post'' 07/12/2011 /ref>
In the last five to ten years, "organized groups of ephardicBenei Anusim have been established in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile,
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...
, Mexico,
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
,
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, and in Sefarad he Iberian Peninsulaitself". Some members of these communities have formally reverted to Judaism.
In 2015, the Spanish government enacted a law conceding Spanish nationality to the descendants of Sephardic Jews of Spanish origin. The law created a powerful incentive for the descendants of B'nei Anusim to re-discover their Sephardic ancestry, and it spurred a wave of genealogical inquiry and even genetic research. The law remained in force until 2019, therefore applications for Spanish citizenship on the basis of Sephardic ancestry are no longer accepted by the Spanish authorities.
History
In Spain and Portugal
Spanish and Portuguese Jews were originally descended from New Christian conversos (i.e. Jews converted to Roman Catholic Christianity) whose descendants later left the Iberian peninsula and reverted to Judaism.
Although legend has it that conversos existed as early as the Visigothic period, and that there was a continuous phenomenon of crypto-Judaism from that time lasting throughout Spanish history, this scenario is unlikely, as in the Muslim period of Iberia there was no advantage in passing as a Christian instead of publicly acknowledging one was a Jew. The main wave of conversions, often forced, followed The massacre of 1391 in Spain. Legal definitions of that era theoretically acknowledged that a forced baptism was not a valid sacrament, but the Church confined this to cases where it was literally administered by physical force: a person who had consented to baptism under threat of death or serious injury was still regarded as a voluntary convert, and accordingly forbidden to revert to Judaism. Crypto-Judaism as a large-scale phenomenon mainly dates from that time.
Conversos, whatever their real religious views, often (but not always) tended to marry and associate among themselves. As they achieved prominent positions in trade and in the Royal administration, they attracted considerable resentment from the "
Old Christian
Old Christian ( es, cristiano viejo, pt, cristão-velho, ca, cristià vell) was a social and law-effective category used in the Iberian Peninsula from the late 15th and early 16th century onwards, to distinguish Portuguese and Spanish people atte ...
s". The ostensible reason given for issuance of the 1492 Alhambra Decree for the conversion, expulsion or execution of the unconverted Jews from Spain was that the unconverted Jews had supported the New Christian conversos in the crypto-Jewish practices of the latter, thus delaying or preventing their assimilation into the Christian community.
After the issuance of Spain's Alhambra Decree in 1492, a large proportion of the unconverted Jews chose exile rather than conversion, many of them crossing the border to Portugal. In Portugal, however, the Jews were again issued with a similar decree just a few years later in 1497, giving them the choice of exile or conversion. Unlike in Spain, however, in actual practice Portugal mostly prevented them from leaving, thus they necessarily stayed as ostensible converts to Christianity whether they wished to or not, after the Portuguese King reasoned that by their failure to leave they accepted Christianity by default. For this reason, crypto-Judaism was far more prevalent in Portugal than in Spain, even though many of these families were originally of Spanish rather than Portuguese descent. Over time, however, most crypto-Jews both of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry had left Portugal by the 18th century.
Crypto-Judaism
Scholars are still divided on the typical religious loyalties of the conversos, in particular on whether they are appropriately described as "crypto-Jews". Given the secrecy surrounding their situation, the question is not easy to answer: probably the conversos themselves were divided, and could be ranged at different points between the possible positions. The suggested profiles are as follows:
#Sincere Christians, who were still subject to discrimination and accusations of Judaizing on the part of the Inquisition; some of these appealed to the Pope and sought refuge in the Papal States.
#Those who had honestly tried their best to live as Christians, but who, on finding that they were still not accepted socially and still suspected of Judaizing, conceived intellectual doubts on the subject and decided to try Judaism, on the reasoning that suspicion creates what it suspects.
#Genuine crypto-Jews, who regarded their conversions as forced on them and reluctantly conformed to Catholicism until they found the first opportunity of living an open Jewish life.
#Opportunistic "cultural commuters" whose private views may have been quite sceptical and who conformed to the local form of Judaism or Christianity depending on where they were at the time.
For these reasons, there was a continuous flow of people leaving Spain and Portugal (mostly Portugal) for places where they could practise Judaism openly, from 1492 until the end of the 18th century. They were generally accepted by the host Jewish communities as ''
anusim
Anusim ( he, אֲנוּסִים, ; singular male, anús, he, אָנוּס ; singular female, anusáh, , meaning "coerced") is a legal category of Jews in ''halakha'' (Jewish law) who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically ...
'' (forced converts), whose conversion, being involuntary, did not compromise their Jewish status.
Conversos of the first generation after the expulsion still had some knowledge of Judaism based on memory of contact with a living Jewish community. In later generations, people had to avoid known Jewish practices that might attract undesired attention: conversos in group 3 evolved a home-made Judaism with practices peculiar to themselves, while those in group 2 had a purely intellectual conception of Judaism based on their reading of ancient Jewish sources preserved by the Church such as the
Vulgate
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...
Apocrypha
Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...
,
Philo
Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo's de ...
and
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...
. Both groups therefore needed extensive re-education in Judaism after reaching their places of refuge outside the peninsula. This was achieved with the help of
* Sephardim living in Italy (and to a lesser extent, Italian Jews proper);
*1492 exiles living in Morocco, who were the immediate heirs of the ''Andalusi'' Jewish tradition;
*especially in Holland and Germany, Ashkenazi Jews.
Ceuta and Melilla
There are still Jewish communities in the North African exclaves of
Ceuta
Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa.
Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territorie ...
and Melilla. These places, though treated in most respects as integral parts of Spain, escaped the Inquisition and the expulsion, so these communities regard themselves as the remnant of pre-expulsion Spanish Jewry.
In Italy
As Sephardic Jewish communities were established in central and northern Italy, following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and from the Kingdom of Naples in 1533, these areas were an obvious destination for conversos wishing to leave Spain and Portugal. The similarity of the Italian language to Spanish was another attraction. Given their Christian cultural background and high level of European-style education, the new emigrants were less likely to follow the example of the 1492 expellees by settling in the Ottoman Empire, where a complete culture change would be required.
On the other hand, in Italy they ran the risk of prosecution for Judaizing, given that in law they were baptized Christians; for this reason they generally avoided the Papal States. The Popes did allow some Spanish-Jewish settlement at
Ancona
Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic ...
, as this was the main port for the
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
trade, in which their links with the Ottoman Sephardim were useful. Other states found it advantageous to allow the conversos to settle and mix with the existing Jewish communities, and to turn a blind eye to their religious status. In the next generation, the children of conversos could be brought up as fully Jewish with no legal problem, as they had never been baptized.
The main places of settlement were as follows:
#The
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia, ...
often had strained relations with the Papacy. They were also alive to the commercial advantages offered by the presence of educated Spanish-speaking Jews, especially for the Turkey trade. Previously the Jews of Venice were tolerated under charters for a fixed term of years, periodically renewed. In the early 16th century, these arrangements were made permanent, and a separate charter was granted to the "Ponentine" (western) community. Around the same time, the state required the Jews to live in the newly established
Venetian Ghetto
The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were forced to live by the government of the Venetian Republic. The English word ''ghetto'' is derived from the Jewish ghetto in Venice. The Venetian Ghetto was instituted on 29 March 151 ...
. Nevertheless, for a long time the Venetian Republic was regarded as the most welcoming state for Jews, equivalent to the Netherlands in the 17th century or the United States in the 20th century.
#Sephardic immigration was also encouraged by the
House of Este
The House of Este ( , , ) is a European dynasty of North Italian origin whose members ruled parts of Italy and Germany for many centuries.
The original House of Este's elder branch, which is known as the House of Welf, included dukes of Bavaria ...
in their possessions of Reggio, Modena and Ferrara. In 1598 Ferrara was repossessed by the Papal States, leading to some Jewish emigration from there.
#In 1593,
Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (30 July 1549 – 3 February 1609) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1587 to 1609, having succeeded his older brother Francesco I.
Early life
Ferdinando was the fifth son (the third surviving at ...
, granted Spanish and Portuguese Jews charters to live and trade in Pisa and Livorno.
On the whole, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews remained separate from the native
Italian rite Jews
Italian Jews ( it, Ebrei Italiani, he, יהודים איטלקים ''Yehudim Italkim'') or Roman Jews ( it, Ebrei Romani, he, יהודים רומים ''Yehudim Romim'') can be used in a broad sense to mean all Jews living in or with roots in I ...
, though there was considerable mutual religious and intellectual influence between the groups. In a given city, there was often an "Italian synagogue" and a "Spanish synagogue", and occasionally a "German synagogue" as well. Many of these synagogues have since merged, but the diversity of rites survived in modern Italy.
The Spanish Synagogue (''Scola Spagnola'') of Venice was originally regarded as the "mother synagogue" for the Spanish and Portuguese community worldwide, as it was among the earliest to be established, and the first prayer book was published there. Later communities, such as in Amsterdam, followed its lead on ritual questions. With the decline in the importance of Venice in the 18th century, the leading role passed to Livorno (for Italy and the Mediterranean) and Amsterdam (for western countries). Unfortunately, the Livorno synagogue – considered to be the most important building in town – was destroyed in the Second World War: a modern building was erected on the same site in 1958–1962.
Many merchants maintained a presence in both Italy and countries in the Ottoman Empire, and even those who settled permanently in the Ottoman Empire retained their Tuscan or other Italian nationality, so as to have the benefit of the
capitulations of the Ottoman Empire
Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire were contracts between the Ottoman Empire and other powers in Europe, particularly France. Turkish capitulations, or Ahidnâmes were generally bilateral acts whereby definite arrangements were entered int ...
. Thus, in Tunisia there was a community of ''Juifs Portugais'', or ''L'Grana'' (Livornese), separate from, and regarding itself as superior to, the native Tunisian Jews (''Tuansa''). Smaller communities of the same kind existed in other countries, such as Syria, where they were known as ''Señores Francos''. They were generally not numerous enough to establish their own synagogues, instead meeting for prayer in each other's houses.
In France
In the 16th and early 17th centuries, conversos were also seeking refuge beyond the
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...
, settling in France at
Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Saint-Jean-de-Luz (; eu, Donibane Lohitzune,Donibane Lohitzune Tarbes
Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turba ...
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
,
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
, and Montpellier. They lived apparently as Christians; were married by Catholic priests; had their children baptized, and publicly pretended to be Catholics. In secret, however, they circumcised their children, kept Shabbat and feast-days as best they could and prayed together.
Henry III of France confirmed the privileges granted them by
Henry II of France
Henry II (french: Henri II; 31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I and Duchess Claude of Brittany, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder bro ...
, and protected them against accusations. Under
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...
, the conversos of Bayonne were assigned to the suburb of Saint-Esprit. At Saint-Esprit, as well as at Peyrehorade, Bidache,
Orthez
Orthez (; eu, Ortheze; oc, Ortès, ) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, and region of New Aquitaine, southwestern France.
It lies 40 km NW of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne. The town also encompasses the sm ...
Comtat Venaissin
The Comtat Venaissin (; Provençal: , Mistralian norm: , classical norm: ; 'County of Venaissin'), often called the for short, was a part of the Papal States (1274‒1791) in what is now the region of France.
The entire region was an enclav ...
; all three groups were emancipated at the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. The third community originally had their own Provençal rite, but adopted the Spanish and Portuguese rite shortly after the French Revolution and the incorporation of Comtat Venaissin into France. Today there are still a few Spanish and Portuguese communities in Bordeaux and Bayonne, and one in Paris, but in all these communities (and still more among French Jews generally) any surviving Spanish and Portuguese Jews are greatly outnumbered by recent Sephardic migrants of North African origin.
In the Netherlands
During the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands, converso merchants had a strong trading presence there. When the
Dutch Republic
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
gained independence in 1581, the Dutch retained trading links with Portugal rather than Spain, as Spain was regarded as a hostile power. Since there were penal laws against Catholics, and Catholicism was regarded with greater hostility than Judaism, New Christian conversos (technically Catholics, as that was the Christian tradition they were forced into) were encouraged by the Dutch to "come out" openly as Jews. Given the multiplicity of Protestant sects, the Netherlands was the first country in the Western world to establish a policy of religious tolerance. This made Amsterdam a magnet for conversos leaving Portugal.
There were originally three Sephardi communities: the first, ''Beth Jacob'', already existed in 1610, and perhaps as early as 1602; ''Neve Shalom'' was founded between 1608 and 1612 by Jews of Spanish origin. The third community, ''Beth Israel'', was established in 1618. These three communities began co-operating more closely in 1622. Eventually, in 1639, they merged to form ''Talmud Torah'', the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam, which still exists today. The current
Portuguese Synagogue
The Portuguese Synagogue, also known as the Esnoga, or Snoge, is a late 17th-century Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam, completed in 1675. ''Esnoga'' is the word for synagogue in Judaeo-Spanish, the traditional Judaeo-Spanish language of Sephardi ...
, sometimes known as the "Amsterdam Esnoga", was inaugurated in 1675, of which Abraham Cohen Pimentel was the head Rabbi.
At first the Dutch conversos had little knowledge of Judaism and had to recruit rabbis and ''hazzanim'' from Italy, and occasionally Morocco and
Salonica
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
, to teach them. Later on Amsterdam became a centre of religious learning: a religious college ''Ets Haim'' was established, with a copious Jewish and general library. This library still exists. The transactions of the college, mainly in the form of responsa, were published in a periodical, ''Peri Ets Haim'' (see links below). There were formerly several Portuguese synagogues in other cities such as
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
. Since the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War and the mass killing of Jews by the Nazi regime, the Amsterdam synagogue is the only remaining synagogue of the Portuguese rite in the Netherlands: it serves a membership of about 600. On the other hand, the synagogue at the Hague survived the war undamaged; it is now the Liberal Synagogue and no longer belongs to the "Portuguese" community.
The position of Jews in the
Spanish Netherlands
Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the H ...
(modern
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
) was rather different. Considerable numbers of conversos lived there, in particular in Antwerp. The Inquisition was not allowed to operate. Nevertheless, their practice of Judaism remained under cover and unofficial, as acts of Judaizing in Belgium could expose one to proceedings elsewhere in the Spanish possessions. Sporadic persecutions alternated with periods of unofficial toleration. The position improved somewhat in 1714, with the cession of the southern Netherlands to Austria, but no community was officially formed until the 19th century. There is a Portuguese synagogue in Antwerp; its members, like those of the Sephardic rite synagogues of Brussels, are now predominantly of North African origin, and few if any pre-War families or traditions remain.
In Germany, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe
There were Portuguese Jews living in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
as early as the 1590s. Records attest to their having a small synagogue called ''Talmud Torah'' in 1627, and the main synagogue, ''Beth Israel'', was founded in 1652. From the 18th century on, the Portuguese Jews were increasingly outnumbered by "German Jews" (Ashkenazim). By 1900, they were thought to number only about 400.
A small branch of the Portuguese community was located in Altona, with a congregation known as ''Neweh Schalom''. Historically, however, the Jewish community of Altona was overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, as Altona belonged to the kingdom of
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establish ...
, which permitted Jews of all communities to settle there when Hamburg proper still only admitted the Portuguese.
Spanish and Portuguese Jews had an intermittent trading presence in Norway until the early 19th century, and were granted full residence rights in 1844. Today they have no separate organizational identity from the general (mainly Ashkenazi) Jewish community, though traditions survive in some families.
Around 1550, many Sephardi Jews travelled across Europe to find their haven in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, which had the largest Jewish population in the whole of Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. For this reason there are still Polish Jewish surnames with a possible Spanish origin. However, most of them quickly assimilated into the Ashkenazi community and retained no separate identity.
In Britain
There were certainly Spanish and Portuguese merchants, many of them conversos, in England at the time of
Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
; one notable marrano was the physician
Roderigo Lopez
Roderigo Lopes (also called Ruy Lopes, Ruy Lopez, Roderigo Lopus, Ruy Lopus, Roger Lopez and Rodrigo Lopes; also referred to as Roderigo Lopez and Rodrigo Lopez; c. 1517 – 7 June 1594) served as a physician-in-chief to Queen Elizabeth I of En ...
. In the time of
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...
,
Menasseh Ben Israel
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, wri ...
led a delegation seeking permission for Dutch Sephardim to settle in England: Cromwell was known to look favourably on the request, but no official act of permission has been found. By the time of Charles II and James II, a congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews had a synagogue in Creechurch Lane. Both these kings showed their assent to this situation by quashing indictments against the Jews for unlawful assembly. For this reason the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of England often cite 1656 as the year of re-admission, but look to Charles II as the real sponsor of their community.
Bevis Marks Synagogue
Bevis Marks Synagogue, officially Qahal Kadosh Sha'ar ha-Shamayim ( he, קָהָל קָדוֹשׁ שַׁעַר הַשָׁמַיִם, "Holy Congregation Gate of Heaven"), is the oldest synagogue in the United Kingdom in continuous use. It is loc ...
was opened in 1701 in London. In the 1830s and 40s there was agitation for the formation of a branch synagogue in the West End, nearer where most congregants lived, but rabbis refused this on the basis of ''Ascama 1'', forbidding the establishment of other synagogues within six miles of Bevis Marks. Dissident congregants, together with some Ashkenazim, accordingly founded the
West London Synagogue
The West London Synagogue of British Jews, abbreviated WLS ( he, ק"ק שער ציון, ''Kahal Kadosh Sha'ar Tziyon'', "Holy Congregation Gate of Zion"), is a synagogue and congregation, affiliated to Reform Judaism, near Marble Arch in cent ...
in Burton Street in 1841. An official branch synagogue in Wigmore Street was opened in 1853. This moved to Bryanston Street in the 1860s, and to Lauderdale Road in
Maida Vale
Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is ...
in 1896. A private synagogue existed in Islington from 1865 to 1884, and another in
Highbury
Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington
in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads.
The manor house was sit ...
from 1885 to 1936. A third synagogue has been formed in Wembley. Over the centuries the community has absorbed many Sephardi immigrants from Italy and North Africa, including many of its rabbis and '' hazzanim''. The current membership includes many
Iraqi Jews
The history of the Jews in Iraq ( he, יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים, ', ; ar, اليهود العراقيون, ) is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and mo ...
and some Ashkenazim, in addition to descendants of the original families. The Wembley community is predominantly
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
.
The synagogues at Bevis Marks, Lauderdale Road and Wembley are all owned by the same community, formally known as ''Sahar Asamaim'' (Sha'ar ha-Shamayim), and have no separate organisational identities. The community is served by a team rabbinate: the post of ''Haham'', or chief rabbi, is currently vacant (and has frequently been so in the community's history), the current head being known as the "Senior Rabbi". The day-to-day running of the community is the responsibility of a ''
Mahamad
Ma'amad or Mahamad ( he, מעמד) was Council of Elders (or "the board of directors") of the communities of Sephardi Jews ( Spanish-Portuguese Jews) corresponding to ''qahal'' of the Ashkenazi Jews. Ma'amad was described as extremely conservative ...
'', elected periodically and consisting of a number of ''parnasim'' (wardens) and one ''gabbay'' (treasurer). Under the current Senior Rabbi, Joseph Dweck, the name of the community has been changed from "Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews" to "S&P Sephardi Community".
In addition to the three main synagogues, there is the Montefiore Synagogue at Ramsgate associated with the burial place of
Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, aft ...
. A synagogue in Holland Park is described as "Spanish and Portuguese" but serves chiefly Greek and Turkish Jews, with a mixed ritual: it is connected to the main community by a Deed of Association. The Manchester Sephardic synagogues are under the superintendence of the London community and traditionally used a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese ritual, which is giving way to a Jerusalem Sephardic style: the membership is chiefly Syrian in heritage, with some Turkish, Iraqi and North African Jews. The London community formerly had oversight over some Baghdadi synagogues in the Far East, such as the
Ohel Leah Synagogue
The Ohel Leah Synagogue (Hebrew: בית הכנסת אהל לאה ''Beit Ha-Knesset Ohel Leah'') and its next-door neighbors, the Jewish Recreation Club and the Jewish Community Center, have formed the center of Jewish social and religious l ...
in Hong Kong and
Ohel Rachel Synagogue
The Ohel Rachel Synagogue (Hebrew for "Tent of Rachel") is a Sephardi synagogue in Shanghai, China. Built by Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon in memory of his wife Rachel, it was completed in 1920 and consecrated in 1921. Ohel Rachel is the largest ...
in Shanghai. An informal community using the Spanish and Portuguese rite, and known as the "Rambam Synagogue", exists in
Elstree
Elstree is a large village in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire, England. It is about northwest of central London on the former A5 road, that follows the course of Watling Street. In 2011, its population was 5,110. It forms part of t ...
and a further minyan has been established in Hendon. Newer Sephardic rite synagogues in London, mostly for Baghdadi and Persian Jews, preserve their own ritual and do not come under the Spanish and Portuguese umbrella.
Like the Amsterdam community, the London Spanish and Portuguese community early set up a ''Medrash do Heshaim'' (''Ets Haim''). This is less a functioning religious college than a committee of dignitaries responsible for community publications, such as prayer books. In 1862 the community founded the " Judith Lady Montefiore College" in Ramsgate, for the training of rabbis. This moved to London in the 1960s: students at the college concurrently followed courses at Jews' College (now the
London School of Jewish Studies
The London School of Jewish Studies (commonly known as LSJS, originally founded as Jews' College) is a London-based organisation providing adult educational courses and training to the wider Jewish community. Since 2012 LSJS also offers rabbinic ...
). Judith Lady Montefiore College closed in the 1980s, but was revived in 2005 as a part-time rabbinic training programme run from Lauderdale Road, serving the Anglo-Jewish Orthodox community in general, Ashkenazim as well as Sephardim.
In the Americas
From the 16th to the 18th centuries, a majority of conversos leaving Portugal went to Brazil. This included economic emigrants with no interest in reverting to Judaism. As the Inquisition was active in Brazil as well as in Portugal, conversos still had to be careful.
Dutch Sephardim were interested in colonisation, and formed communities in both Curaçao and
Paramaribo
Paramaribo (; ; nicknamed Par'bo) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname' ...
, Suriname. Between 1630 and 1654, a Dutch colony existed in the north-east of Brazil, including Recife. This attracted both conversos from Portuguese Brazil and Jewish emigrants from Holland, who formed a community in Recife called ''
Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue
Kahal Zur Israel was a Jewish synagogue located at Rua do Bom Jesus (Rua dos Judeus) number 197 in Recife, Brazil. It was established in 1636 by Portuguese and Spanish Sephardic Jews that had taken refuge in the Netherlands fleeing forced conver ...
'', the first synagogue in the Americas. On the reconquest of the Recife area by Portugal, many of these Jews (it is not known what percentage) left Brazil for new or existing communities in the Caribbean such as Curaçao. Others formed a new community,
Congregation Shearith Israel
The Congregation Shearith Israel (Hebrew: קהילת שארית ישראל ''Kehilat She'arit Yisra'el'' "Congregation Remnant of Israel") – often called The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue – is the oldest Jewish congregation in the Unit ...
, in New Amsterdam (later renamed as New York) in 1654, the first Jewish synagogue in what became the United States. Numerous conversos, however, stayed in Brazil. They survived by migrating to the countryside in the province of Paraíba and away from the reinstated Inquisition, which was mostly active in the major cities.
In the Caribbean, there were at one point Spanish and Portuguese synagogues in various other Dutch- and English-controlled islands, such as
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...
,
St. Eustatius
Sint Eustatius (, ), also known locally as Statia (), is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially " public body") of the Netherlands.
The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, s ...
and
Nevis
Nevis is a small island in the Caribbean Sea that forms part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies. Nevis and the neighbouring island of Saint Kitts constitute one country: the Federation of Saint Kitts and ...
. With the elimination of the Inquisition after the
Spanish American wars of independence
The Spanish American wars of independence (25 September 1808 – 29 September 1833; es, Guerras de independencia hispanoamericanas) were numerous wars in Spanish America with the aim of political independence from Spanish rule during the early ...
, which many Caribbean Sephardim had supported, many of these communities declined as Jews took advantage of their new-found freedom to move to the mainland, where there were better economic opportunities.
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...
,
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
, Costa Rica and Honduras, among others, received numbers of Sephardim. Within a couple of generations, these immigrants mostly converted to Catholicism to better integrate into society. Only in Panama and Suriname did viable communities endure on the Central- and South-American mainland. In the 21st century among the Caribbean islands, only Curaçao and Jamaica still have communities of Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
In Canada, at that time named as '
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...
', Esther Brandeau was the first Jew to immigrate to Canada, in 1738, disguised as a Roman Catholic boy. She came from Saint-Esprit (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), a district of Bayonne, a port city in Southwestern France, were Spanish and Portuguese Jews had settled.
In the British Thirteen Colonies, synagogues were formed before the American Revolution at
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...
and
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, as well as in cities of the southern colonies of South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. Since then, many of the former Sephardic synagogues in the southern states and the Caribbean have become part of the
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
,
Reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
or Reconstructionist movements, and retain only a few Spanish and Portuguese traditions. Thus, among the pioneers of the Reform Judaism movement in the 1820s there was the Sephardic congregation Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina.
Despite the Dutch origins of the New York community, by the 19th century all of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities in the United States and Canada were very much part of the London-based family. The 19th and early 20th century editions of the prayer book published in London and Philadelphia contained the same basic text, and were designed for use on both sides of the Atlantic: for example, they all contained both a prayer for the Royal family and an alternative for use in republican states. The New York community continued to use these editions until the version of
David de Sola Pool
David de Sola Pool ( he, דוד די סולה פול; 1885–1970) was the leading 20th-century Sephardic rabbi in the United States. A scholar, author, and civic leader, he was a world leader of Judaism.
Biography Early life and educati ...
was published in 1954. On the other hand, in the first half of the 20th century, the New York community employed a series of ''hazzanim'' from Holland, with the result that the community's musical tradition remained close to that of Amsterdam.
There are only two remaining Spanish and Portuguese synagogues in the United States: Shearith Israel in New York, and Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. In both congregations, only a minority of their membership has Western Sephardic ancestry, with the remaining members a mix of Ashkenazim, Levantine Sephardim, Mizrahim, and converts. Newer Sephardic and Sephardic-rite communities, such as the Syrian Jews of
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
and the Greek and Turkish Jews of
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, do not come under the Spanish and Portuguese umbrella. The Seattle community did use the de Sola Pool prayer books until the publication of ''Siddur Zehut Yosef'' in 2002.
Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel
Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, also called The Sephardic Temple, is a large, urban Sephardi Jewish synagogue located in Westwood, Los Angeles, California at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Warner Avenue. Established on February 1, 1920 as ...
, a community in Los Angeles with a mainly Turkish ethnic background, still uses the de Sola Pool prayer books.
In India and the East Indies – Goa, Cochin, Chennai and Malacca
The signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, divided the world between Portugal, and Spain. Portugal was allotted responsibility over lands east of the Tordesillas meridian. In 1498 Vasco da Gama arrived on India's western coast where he was first greeted by a
Polish Jew
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...
:
Gaspar da Gama
Gaspar da Gama also known as Gaspar da India and Gaspar de Almeida (c. 1444 – c. 1510) was an interpreter ("Língua", in old Portuguese) and guide to several fleets of the Portuguese discoveries, Portuguese maritime explorations. He was of Jewis ...
. In 1505 Portugal made
Cochin
Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ...
its eastern headquarters, and in 1510
Goa
Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...
With the establishment of the Portuguese colonies in Asia,
New Christian
New Christian ( es, Cristiano Nuevo; pt, Cristão-Novo; ca, Cristià Nou; lad, Christiano Muevo) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century ...
s began flocking to India's western coast. Regarding Goa, the Jewish Virtual Library states that "From the early decades of the 16th century many New Christians from Portugal came to Goa. The influx soon aroused the opposition of the Portuguese and ecclesiastical authorities, who complained bitterly about the New Christians' influence in economic affairs, their monopolistic practices, and their secret adherence to Judaism." Professor Walter Fischel of the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
observes that despite the start of the inquisition in Portugal, the Portuguese relied heavily on Jews and New Christians in establishing their fledgling Asian empire. The influence of Jews and New Christians in Goa was substantial. In his book'', The Marrano Factory,'' Professor Antonio Saraiva of the
University of Lisbon
The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...
writes that "King Manuel theoretically abolished discrimination between Old and New Christians by the law of March 1, 1507 which permitted the departure of New Christians to any part of the Christian world, declaring that they 'be considered, favored and treated like the Old Christians and not distinct and separated from them in any matter.' Nevertheless, in apparent contradiction to that law, in a letter dated Almeirim, February 18, 1519, King Manuel promoted legislation henceforth prohibiting the naming of New Christians to the position of judge, town councilor or municipal registrar in Goa, stipulating, however, that those already appointed were not to be dismissed. This shows that even during the first nine years of Portuguese rule, Goa had a considerable influx of recently baptized Spanish and Portuguese Jews" There are even examples of well-positioned Portuguese Jews, and New Christians, leaving the Portuguese administration to work with the Muslim sultanates of India in an attempt to strike back at Portugal for what it had done to them viz-a-viz the inquisition in Portugal. Moises Orfali of
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University (BIU, he, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academi ...
writes that the initially Portuguese colonial and ecclesiastical authorities complained in very strong terms about Jewish influence in Goa. The
Goa Inquisition
The Goa Inquisition ( pt, Inquisição de Goa) was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition in Portuguese India. Its objective was to enforce Catholic Orthodoxy and allegiance to the Apostolic See of Rome (Pontifex). The inquisition primaril ...
which was established in 1560 was initiated by Jesuit Priest
Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; Latin: ''Franciscus Xaverius''; Basque: ''Frantzisko Xabierkoa''; French: ''François Xavier''; Spanish: ''Francisco Javier''; Portuguese: ''Francisco Xavier''; 7 April 15063 December ...
from his headquarters in Malacca due to his inability to reanimate the faith of the New Christians there, Goa and in the region who had returned to Judaism. Goa became the headquarters of the Inquisition in Asia.
Cochin, and Chennai
Cochin was, and still is, home to an ancient Jewish community (the
Cochin Jews
Cochin Jews (also known as Malabar Jews or Kochinim, from ) are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now pa ...
). Sephardic Jews from Iberia joined this community and became known as
Paradesi Jews
Paradesi Jews were Jewish people who immigrated to the Indian subcontinent during the 15th and 16th centuries following the expulsion of Jews from Spain. ''Paradesi'' refers to the Malayalam word that means ''foreign'' as they were newcomers ...
or "White Jews" (as opposed to older community which came to be known as the "Malabari Jews" or "Black Jews"). Cochin also attracted New Christians. In his lecture at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...
explains that New Christians came to India for economic opportunities (the Spice trade, the Golconda Diamonds trade, etc.) and because India had well-established Jewish communities which allowed them the opportunity to rejoin the Jewish world.
As explained by Professor Fischel, the Sephardic Jews of London were active in trading out of
Fort St. George, India
Fort St. George (or historically, White Town) is a fortress in the coastal city of Chennai, India. Founded in 1639, it was the first English (later British) fortress in India. The construction of the fort provided the impetus for further s ...
which later developed into the city of Madras, and is known today as
Chennai
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
and during the early years, the city council was required to have three Jewish aldermen to represent the community's interests.
Malacca
Malacca, Malaysia was in the 16th century a Jewish hub – not only for Portuguese Jews but also for Jews from the middle east and the Malabar. With its synagogues and rabbis, Jewish culture in Malacca was alive and well. Visible Jewish presence (Dutch Jews) existed in Malacca right up to the 18th century. Due to the inquisition a lot of the Jews of Malacca were either captured or assimilated into the Malacca-Portuguese (Eurasian) community where they continued to live as New Christians. Malacca was the headquarters of Jesuit priest Francis Xavier and it was his discovery of the conversos from Portugal there who had openly returned to Judaism as in the fortresses of India that became the turning point and from whence he wrote to King John III of Portugal to start the inquisition in the East. Prominent Malaccan Jewish figures include Portuguese Rabbi Manoel Pinto, who was persecuted by the Goa Inquisition in 1573 and Duarte Fernandes a former Jewish tailor who had fled Portugal to escape the Inquisition who became the first European to establish diplomatic relations with Thailand.
Synagogues
Most Spanish and Portuguese synagogues are, like those of the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
and
Romaniote Jews
The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes ( el, Ῥωμανιῶτες, ''Rhomaniótes''; he, רומניוטים, Romanyotim) are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community native to the Eastern Mediterranean. They are one of the oldest Jewish comm ...
, characterised by a bipolar layout, with the ''tebáh'' bimah) near the opposite wall to the ''Hechál'' (
Torah ark
A Torah ark (also known as the ''Heikhal'', or the ''Aron Kodesh'') refers to an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls.
History
The ark, also known as the ''ark of law'', or in Hebrew the ''Aron Kodesh'' or ''aron ha- ...
). The Hekhál has its ''
parochet
A ''parochet'' (Hebrew: פרוכת; Ashkenazi pronunciation: ''paroches'') meaning "curtain" or "screen",Sonne Isaiah (1962) 'Synagogue' in The Interpreter's dictionary of the Bible vol 4, New York: Abingdon Press pp 476-491 is the curtain that ...
'' (curtain) inside its doors, rather than outside. The
sefarim
''Sifrei Kodesh'' ( he, ספרי קודש, , Holy books), commonly referred to as ''sefarim'' ( he, ספרים, , books), or in its singular form, ''sefer'', are books of Jewish religious literature and are viewed by religious Jews as sacred. T ...
(Torah scrolls) are usually wrapped in a very wide mantle, quite different from the cylindrical mantles used by most Ashkenazi Jews. ''Tikim,'' wooden or metal cylinders around the ''sefarim,'' are typically not used. These were reportedly used, however, by the
Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg
From about 1590 on, there had been a Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg, whose ''qehilla'' (קהילה "congregation") existed until its compulsory merger with the Ashkenazi congregation in July 1939. The first Sephardic settlers were Portug ...
.
The most important synagogues, or ''esnogas'', as they are usually called amongst Spanish and Portuguese Jews, are the
Portuguese Synagogue
The Portuguese Synagogue, also known as the Esnoga, or Snoge, is a late 17th-century Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam, completed in 1675. ''Esnoga'' is the word for synagogue in Judaeo-Spanish, the traditional Judaeo-Spanish language of Sephardi ...
of Amsterdam and those in London and New York. Amsterdam is still the historical centre of the Amsterdam ''minhag'', as used in the Netherlands and former Dutch possessions such as Surinam. Also important is the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, the historical centre of the London ''minhag''. The
Curaçao synagogue
The Mikvé Israel-Emanuel Synagogue ( he, בית הכנסת מקווה ישראל-עמנואל; en, The Hope of Israel-Emanuel Synagogue), in Willemstad, Curaçao, is the Oldest synagogues in the world#South America and Caribbean, oldest survivin ...
(built in 1732 and known as the ''Snoa'', the Papiamento form of ''esnoga'') of the ''Mikvé Israel-Emanuel'' congregation is considered one of the most important synagogues in the Jewish history of the Americas.
Since the late 20th century, many ''esnogas'' or synagogues in the Iberian Peninsula have been discovered by archaeologists and restored by both private and governmental efforts. In particular, the synagogues of Girona, Spain and
Tomar
Tomar (), also known in English as Thomar (the ancient name of Tomar), is a city and a municipality in the Santarém district of Portugal. The town proper has a population of about 20,000. The municipality population in 2011 was 40,677, in an a ...
, Portugal have been impressively restored to their former grandeur, if not their former social importance. (See the article
Synagogue of Tomar
The Synagogue of Tomar ( pt, Sinagoga de Tomar) is a well-preserved medieval synagogue in Tomar, Portugal. Along with the Synagogue of Castelo de Vide, it is one of two existing pre-expulsion synagogues in the country. It is located at 73 Rua Dr. ...
.) Both Spain and Portugal have recently made efforts to reach out to descendants of Jews who were expelled from the peninsula in the 15th century, inviting them to apply for citizenship.
Language
"Spanish and Portuguese Jews" typically spoke both Spanish and Portuguese in their Early Modern forms. This is in contrast to the languages spoken by Eastern Sephardim and
North African Sephardim
North African Sephardim are a distinct sub-group of Sephardi Jews, who descend from exiled Iberian Jewish families of the late 15th century and North African Maghrebi Jewish communities.
Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the ...
Haketia
Haketia ( he, חַכִּיתִּיָה; ar, حاكيتيا; es, Haquetía) (also written as Hakitia or Haquitía) is an endangered Jewish Romance language also known as ''Djudeo Spañol'', ''Ladino Occidental'', or Western Judaeo-Spanish. ...
(a mixture of Old Spanish,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, and
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, plus various other languages depending on the area of their settlement). Their Early Modern languages also differ from modern Spanish and Portuguese, as spoken by Sephardic Bnei Anusim of Iberia and Ibero-America, including some recent returnees to Judaism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The use of Spanish and Portuguese languages by Western Sephardim persists in parts of the synagogue service. Otherwise, the use of Spanish and Portuguese quickly diminished amongst the Spanish and Portuguese Jews after the 17th century, when they were adapting to new societies.
In practice, from the mid-19th century on, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews gradually replaced their traditional languages with the local ones of their places of residence for their everyday use. Local languages used by "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" include Dutch in the Netherlands and
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, Low German in the Altona, Hamburg area, English in Great Britain, Ireland,
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, and the United States, and Gascon, in its particular Judeo-Gascon sociolect, in France.
In Curaçao, Spanish and Portuguese Jews contributed to the formation of Papiamento, a creole of Portuguese and various African languages. It is still used as an everyday language on the island.
Spanish and Portuguese Jews who have migrated to Latin America since the late 20th century have generally adopted modern standard Latin American varieties of Spanish as their mother tongue.
Portuguese
Because of the relatively high proportion of immigrants through
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, the majority of Spanish and Portuguese Jews of the 16th and 17th centuries spoke Portuguese as their first language. Portuguese was used for everyday communication in the first few generations, and was the usual language for official documents such as synagogue by-laws; for this reason, synagogue officers still often have Portuguese titles such as ''Parnas dos Cautivos'' and ''Thesoureiro do Heshaim''. As a basic academic language, Portuguese was used for such works as the halakhic manual ''Thesouro dos Dinim'' by Menasseh Ben Israel and controversial works by Uriel da Costa.
The
Judaeo-Portuguese
Judaeo-Portuguese, or Judeo-Lusitanic, is said to be the extinct Jewish language that was used by the Jews of Portugal.
See also
* History of the Jews in Portugal
* Spanish and Portuguese Jews
* Lusophone
* Lusitanic
Lusitanic is a term use ...
dialect was preserved in some documents, but was extinct since the late 18th century: for example, Portuguese ceased to be a spoken language in Holland in the Napoleonic period, when Jewish schools were allowed to teach only in Dutch and Hebrew. Sermons in
Bevis Marks Synagogue
Bevis Marks Synagogue, officially Qahal Kadosh Sha'ar ha-Shamayim ( he, קָהָל קָדוֹשׁ שַׁעַר הַשָׁמַיִם, "Holy Congregation Gate of Heaven"), is the oldest synagogue in the United Kingdom in continuous use. It is loc ...
were preached in Portuguese till 1830, when English was substituted. Judaeo-Portuguese has had some influence on the Judeo-Italian language of Livorno, known as ''Bagitto''.
Castilian (Spanish)
Castilian Spanish was used as the everyday language by those who came directly from Spain in the first few generations. Those who came from Portugal regarded it as their literary language, as did the Portuguese at that time. Relatively soon, the Castilian ''Ladino'' took on a semi-sacred status ("Ladino", in this context, simply means literal translation from Hebrew: it should not be confused with the Judaeo-Spanish used by Balkan, Greek and Turkish Sephardim.) Works of theology as well as ''reza books'' (
siddur
A siddur ( he, סִדּוּר ; plural siddurim ) is a Jewish prayer book containing a set order of daily prayers. The word comes from the Hebrew root , meaning 'order.'
Other terms for prayer books are ''tefillot'' () among Sephardi Jews, '' ...
im) were written in Castilian rather than in Portuguese; while, even in works written in Portuguese such as the ''Thesouro dos Dinim'', quotations from the Bible or the prayer book were usually given in Spanish. Members of the Amsterdam community continued to use Spanish as a literary language. They established clubs and libraries for the study of modern Spanish literature, such as the ''Academia de los Sitibundos'' (founded 1676) and the ''Academia de los Floridos'' (1685).
In England the use of Spanish continued until the early 19th century: In 1740 Haham Isaac Nieto produced a new translation into contemporary Spanish of the prayers for the New Year and Yom Kippur, and in 1771 a translation of the daily, Sabbath and Festival prayers. There was an unofficial translation into English in 1771 by A. Alexander and others by David Levi in 1789 and following years, but the Prayer Books were first officially translated into English in 1836, by ''
hakham
''Hakham'' (or ''chakam(i), haham(i), hacham(i)''; he, חכם ', "wise") is a term in Judaism, meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. It can also refer to any cultured and learned person: "He ...
'' David de Aaron de Sola. Today Spanish Jews in England have little tradition of using Spanish, except for the hymn '' Bendigamos'', the translation of the Biblical passages in the prayer-book for
Tisha B'Av
Tisha B'Av ( he, תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב ''Tīšʿā Bəʾāv''; , ) is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian E ...
, and in certain traditional greetings.
Hebrew
The Hebrew of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the 19th century and 20th century is characterised primarily by the pronunciation of ( Beth rafé) as a hard ''b'' (''e.g.'', ''Abrahám, Tebáh, Habdaláh'') and the pronunciation of ( ʿAyin) as a voiced velar nasal (''Shemang, Ngalénu''). The hard pronunciation of Beth Rafé differs from the ''v'' pronunciation of Moroccan Jews and the Judaeo-Spanish Jews of the Balkans, but is shared by Algerian and Syrian Jews. The nasal pronunciation of 'Ayin is shared with traditional
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
pronunciation (where it can be either "ng" or "ny"), but not with any other Sephardi groups. Both these features are declining, under the influence of hazzanim from other communities and of
Israeli Hebrew
Israeli may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel
* Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel
* Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Mo ...
.
The sibilants , , and are all transcribed as ''s'' in earlier sources. This, along with the traditional spellings ''Sabá'' (Shabbat), ''Menasseh'' (Menashe), ' (Rosh Hashana), ''Sedacáh'' (tzedaka), ''massoth'' (matzot), is evidence of a traditional pronunciation which did not distinguish between the various sibilants—a trait which is shared with some coastal dialects of Moroccan Hebrew. Since the 19th century, the pronunciations (for and sfor have become common—probably by influence from Oriental Sephardic immigrants, from
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ash ...
and, in our times,
Israeli Hebrew
Israeli may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel
* Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel
* Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Mo ...
.
The ( taw rafé) is pronounced like ''t'' in all traditions of Spanish and Portuguese Jews today, although the consistent transliteration as ''th'' in 17th-century sources may suggest an earlier differentiation of and . (Final is occasionally heard as ''d''.)
In Dutch-speaking areas, but not elsewhere, (
gimel
Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all d ...
) is often pronounced like Dutch "g". More careful speakers use this sound for ''gimel rafé'' (gimel without dagesh), while pronouncing ''gimel'' with dagesh as .
Dutch Sephardim take care to pronounce he with
mappiq
The mappiq (, also ''mapiq'', ''mapik'', ''mappik'', lit. "causing to go out") is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It is part of the Masoretes' system of niqqud (vowel points), and was added to Hebrew orthography at the same time. It takes ...
as a full "h", usually repeating the vowel: ''vi-yamlich malchutéhe''.
The accentuation of Hebrew adheres strictly to the rules of Biblical Hebrew, including the secondary stress on syllables with a long vowel before a shva. Also, the shvá nang in the beginning of a word is normally pronounced as a short ''eh'' (''Shemang, berít, berakháh''). Shva nang is also normally pronounced after a long vowel with secondary stress (''ngomedím, barekhú''). However it is not pronounced after a prefixed ''u-'' (and): ', not ''u-bene''.
Vocal shva,
segol
Segol (modern he, סֶגּוֹל, ; formerly , ''səḡôl'') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign that is represented by three dots forming an upside down equilateral triangle "ֶ ". As such, it resembles an upside down therefore sign (a becau ...
(short e) and
tzere
Tzere (also spelled ''Tsere'', ''Tzeirei'', ''Zere'', ''Zeire'', ''Ṣērê''; modern he, צֵירֵי, , sometimes also written ; formerly ''ṣērê'') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by two horizontally-aligned dots "◌ֵ" un ...
(long e) are all pronounced like the 'e' in "bed": there is no distinction except in length. In some communities, e.g. Amsterdam, vocal shva is pronounced when marked with ''gangya'' (a straight line next to the vowel symbol, equivalent to
meteg
Meteg (or meseg or metheg, Hebrew: , lit. 'bridle', also , lit. 'bellowing', , or ) is a punctuation mark used in Biblical Hebrew for stress marking. It is a vertical bar placed under the affected syllable.
Usage
Meteg is primarily used in ...
), and as when followed by the letter
yodh
Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many l ...
: thus ''va-nashubah'' and ''bi-yom'' (but ''be-Yisrael'').
The differentiation between kamatz gadol and kamatz katan is made according to purely phonetic rules without regard to etymology, which occasionally leads to
spelling pronunciation
A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounc ...
s at variance with the rules laid down in the grammar books. For example, (all), when unhyphenated, is pronounced "kal" rather than "kol" (in "kal ngatsmotai" and " Kal Nidre"), and (noon) is pronounced "tsahorayim" rather than "tsohorayim". This feature is shared by other Sephardic groups, but is not found in
Israeli Hebrew
Israeli may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel
* Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel
* Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Mo ...
. It is also found in the transliteration of proper names in the
King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...
such as
Naomi
Naomi or Naomie may refer to:
People and biblical figures
* Naomi (given name), a female given name and a list of people with the name
* Naomi (biblical figure), Ruth's mother-in-law in the Old Testament Book of Ruth
* Naomi (Romanian singer) (bor ...
Although all Sephardic liturgies are similar, each group has its own distinct liturgy. Many of these differences are a product of the syncretization of the Spanish liturgy and the liturgies of the local communities where Spanish exiles settled. Other differences are the result of earlier regional variations in liturgy from pre-expulsion Spain.
Moses Gaster
Moses Gaster (17 September 1856 – 5 March 1939) was a Romanian, later British scholar, the ''Hakham'' of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation, London, and a Hebrew and Romanian linguist. Moses Gaster was an active Zionist in Romani ...
(died 1939, Hakham of the S&P Jews of Great Britain) has shown that the order of prayers used by Spanish and Portuguese Jews has its origin in the Castilian liturgy of Pre-Expulsion Spain.
As compared with other Sephardic groups, the minhag of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews is characterised by a relatively low number of cabbalistic additions. The Friday night service thus traditionally starts with
Psalm
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...
29, "Mizmor leDavid: Habu LaA.”. In the printed siddurim of the mid-17th century, “
Lekhah Dodi
Lekha Dodi ( he, לכה דודי) is a Hebrew-language Jewish liturgical song recited Friday at dusk, usually at sundown, in synagogue to welcome the Sabbath prior to the evening services. It is part of Kabbalat Shabbat.
The refrain of ''Lekh ...
" and the
Mishnaic
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...
passage are also not yet included, but these are included in all newer siddurim of the tradition except for the early
West London
West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary.
The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North Londo ...
Reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
prayerbooks, both of which have Spanish and Portuguese roots.
Of other, less conspicuous, elements, a number of archaic forms can be mentioned—including some similarities with the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
and Western Ashkenazi traditions. Such elements include the shorter form of the
Birkat Hamazon
Birkat Hamazon ( he, בִּרְכַּת הַמָּזוׂן, The Blessing of the Food), known in English as the Grace After Meals ( yi, ; translit. ''bentschen'' or "to bless", Yinglish: Bentsching), is a set of Hebrew blessings that Jewish ...
which can be found in the older
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
and
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
/ Scandinavian traditions. The Livorno (Leghorn) tradition, however, includes many of the cabbalistic additions found in most other
Sephardi
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
traditions. The current London minhag is generally close to the Amsterdam minhag, but follows the Livorno tradition in some details—most notably in the
Birkat Hamazon
Birkat Hamazon ( he, בִּרְכַּת הַמָּזוׂן, The Blessing of the Food), known in English as the Grace After Meals ( yi, ; translit. ''bentschen'' or "to bless", Yinglish: Bentsching), is a set of Hebrew blessings that Jewish ...
.
One interesting feature of the tradition (at least in New York and Philadelphia) is that, when reading the haftarah on Simhat Torah and Shabbat Bereshit, the Hatan Torah and Hatan Bereshit chant two extra verses pertaining to bridegrooms from Isaiah 61:10 and 62:5 at the end of the standard haftarot for the days themselves. This seems to be a unique remnant of the old tradition of reading Isaiah 61:10–63:9 if a bridegroom who had been married the previous week was present in synagogue.
Music
Historical
The ritual music of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews differs from other
Sephardic music
Sephardic music is an umbrella term used to refer to the music of the Sephardic Jewish community. Sephardic Jews have a diverse repertoire the origins of which center primarily around the Mediterranean basin. In the secular tradition, material is u ...
in that it is influenced by Western European Baroque and Classical music to a relatively high degree. Not only in Spanish and Portuguese communities, but in many others in southern France and northern Italy, it was common to commission elaborate choral compositions, often including instrumental music, for the dedication of a synagogue, for family events such as weddings and circumcisions and for festivals such as Hoshana Rabbah, on which the halachic restriction on instrumental music did not apply.
Already in 1603, the sources tell us that harpsichords were used in the Spanish and Portuguese synagogues in Hamburg. Particularly in the Amsterdam community, but to some degree also in Hamburg and elsewhere, there was a flourishing of Classical music in the synagogues in the 18th century. There was formerly a custom in Amsterdam, inspired by a hint in the '' Zohar'', of holding an instrumental concert on Friday afternoon prior to the coming in of the Shabbat, as a means of getting the congregants in the right mood for the Friday night service. An important Jewish composer was Abraham Caceres; music was also commissioned from non-Jewish composers such as Cristiano Giuseppe Lidarti, some of which is still used.
The same process took place in Italy, where the Venetian community commissioned music from non-Jewish composers such as
Carlo Grossi
Carlo Grossi (c. 163414 May 1688) was an Italian composer.
Life
He is believed to have been the first composer to use the term "divertimento", in his 1681 composition ''Il divertimento de' grandi musiche da camera, ò per servizio di tavola.''
...
and
Benedetto Marcello
Benedetto Giacomo Marcello (; 31 July or 1 August 1686 – 24 July 1739) was an Italian composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher.
Life
Born in Venice, Benedetto Marcello was a member of a noble family and in his compositions he is f ...
.
Another important centre for Spanish and Portuguese Jewish music was Livorno, where a rich cantorial tradition developed, incorporating both traditional Sephardic music from around the Mediterranean and composed art music: this was in turn disseminated to other centres.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in particular in Italy at the time of the Italian unification, hazzanim sometimes doubled as opera singers, and some liturgical compositions from this period reflect this operatic character.
Choirs
Already in the 17th century, choirs were used in the service on holidays in the Amsterdam community: this choir still exists and is known as ''Santo Serviço''. This custom was introduced in London in the early 19th century. In most cases, the choirs have consisted only of men and boys, but in Curaçao, the policy was changed to allow women in the choir (in a separate section) in 1863.
Instrumental music
There are early precedents for the use of instrumental music in the synagogue originating in 17th century Italy as well as the Spanish and Portuguese communities of Hamburg and
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
and in the Ashkenazic community of
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
. As in most other communities the use of instrumental music is not permitted on Shabbat or festivals.
As a general rule, Spanish and Portuguese communities do not use pipe organs or other musical instruments during services. In some Spanish and Portuguese communities, notably in France (Bordeaux, Bayonne), US (
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later t ...
, Charleston, South Carolina, Richmond, Virginia) and the Caribbean (Curaçao), pipe organs came into use during the course of the 19th century, in parallel with developments in Reform Judaism. In Curaçao, where the traditional congregation had an organ set up in the late 19th century, the use of the organ on Shabbat was eventually also accepted, as long as the organ player was not Jewish. In the more traditional congregations, such as London and New York, a free-standing organ or electric piano is used at weddings or benot mitzvah (although never on Shabbat or Yom Tob), in the same way as in some English Ashkenazi synagogues.
Current practice
The cantorial style of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews adheres to the general Sephardi principle that every word is sung out loud and that most of the ritual is performed communally rather than soloistically (although nowadays in the New York community, the Pesukei dezimra (''zemirot'') throughout the year, Hallel on festivals or the new moon, and several of the
selichot
Selichot ( he, סְלִיחוֹת, səlīḥōt, singular: , ''səlīḥā'') are Jewish penitential poems and prayers, especially those said in the period leading up to the High Holidays, and on fast days. The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy ar ...
during
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur (; he, יוֹם כִּפּוּר, , , ) is the holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. Primarily centered on atonement and repentance, the day' ...
are chanted in a manner more similar to the Ashkenazi practice of reading only the first and last few verses of each paragraph aloud). The hazzan's role is typically one of guiding the congregation rather than being a soloist. Thus, there is traditionally a much stronger emphasis on correct diction and knowledge of the musical minhag than on the soloistic voice quality. In the parts of the service where the ḥazzan would traditionally have a more soloistic role, the basic melodies are embellished according to the general principles of Baroque performance practice: for example, after a prayer or hymn sung by the congregation, the ḥazzan often repeats the last line in a highly elaborated form. Two- and three-part harmony is relatively common, and Edwin Seroussi has shown that the harmonies are a reflection of more complex, four-part harmonies in written sources from the 18th century.
The recitative style of the central parts of the service, such as the Amidah, the
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
and the
cantillation
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy.
Cantillation includes:
* Chant
...
of the Torah is loosely related to that of other Sephardi and Mizraḥi communities, though there is no formal maqam system as used by most of these. The closest resemblance is to the rituals of Gibraltar and Northern Morocco, as Spanish and Portuguese communities traditionally recruited their ḥazzanim from these countries. There is a remoter affinity with the Babylonian and North African traditions: these are more conservative than the Syrian and Judaeo-Spanish (Balkan, Greek, Turkish) traditions, which have been more heavily influenced by popular Mediterranean, Turkish and Arabic music.
In other parts of the service, and in particular on special occasions such as the festivals, Shabbat Bereshit and the anniversary of the founding of the synagogue, the traditional tunes are often replaced by metrical and harmonized compositions in the Western European style. This is not the case on Rosh Hashanah and Kippúr (Yom Kippur), when the whole service has a far more archaic character.
A characteristic feature of Oriental Sephardic music is the transposition of popular hymn tunes (themselves sometimes derived from secular songs) to important prayers such as ''Nishmat'' and ''
Kaddish
Kaddish or Qaddish or Qadish ( arc, קדיש "holy") is a hymn praising God that is recited during Jewish prayer services. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy, different version ...
''. This occurs only to a limited extent in the Spanish and Portuguese ritual: such instances as exist can be traced to the book of hymns ''Imre no'am'' (1628), published in Amsterdam by Joseph Gallego, a hazzan originating in Salonica. Certain well-known tunes, such as ''El nora aliláh'' and ''Ahhot ketannáh'', are shared with Sephardi communities worldwide with small variations.
Cantillation
Spanish and Portuguese traditional
cantillation
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy.
Cantillation includes:
* Chant
...
has several unique elements. ''Torah'' cantillation is divided into two musical styles. The first is the standard used for all regular readings. A similar but much more elaborate manner of cantillation is used on special occasions. This is normally referred to as ''High Tangamim'' or ''High Na'um''. It is used for special portions of the Torah reading, principally the
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...
Simchat Torah
Simchat Torah or Simhat Torah (, lit., "Rejoicing with/of the Torah", Ashkenazi: ''Simchas Torah'') is a Jewish holiday that celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle. Simch ...
Song of Moses
The Song of Moses is the name sometimes given to the poem which appears in Deuteronomy of the Hebrew Bible, which according to the Bible was delivered just prior to Moses' death on Mount Nebo. Sometimes the Song is referred to as Deuteronomy 32 ...
, the concluding sentences of each of the five books and several other smaller portions.
Spanish and Portuguese Torah cantillation has been notated several times since the 17th century. The melodies now in use, particularly in London, show some changes from the earlier notated versions and a degree of convergence with the Iraqi melody.
The rendition of the
Haftarah
The ''haftara'' or (in Ashkenazic pronunciation) ''haftorah'' (alt. ''haftarah, haphtara'', he, הפטרה) "parting," "taking leave", (plural form: ''haftarot'' or ''haftoros'') is a series of selections from the books of ''Nevi'im'' ("Pro ...
(prophetic portion) also has two (or three) styles. The standard, used for most ''haftarot'', is nearly identical with that of the Moroccan ''
nusach Nusach can refer to:
* Nusach (Jewish custom)
In Judaism, Nusach ( he, נוסח ''nusaħ'', modern pronunciation ''nusakh'' or ''núsakh''), plural nuschaot () or Modern Hebrew nusachim (), refers to the exact text of a prayer service; sometimes ...
''. A distinctly more somber melody is used for the three ''haftarot'' preceding the ninth of Ab (the "three weeks".) On the morning of the
Ninth of Ab
Tisha B'Av ( he, תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב ''Tīšʿā Bəʾāv''; , ) is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian ...
a third melody is used for the Haftarah—although this melody is borrowed from the melody for the Book of Ruth.
There is a special melody used for reading the Book of Esther on
Purim
Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Book ...
, but this is not cantillation in the accepted sense as it is chant-like and does not depend on the Masoretic symbols. There are however the remnants of a cantillation melody in the chant for the verses from the Book of Esther read at the conclusion of the morning service in the two weeks preceding Purim; this melody is also used for certain verses recited by the congregation during the reading on Purim itself.
The books of Ruth, read on Shavuot, and
Lamentations
The Book of Lamentations ( he, אֵיכָה, , from its incipit meaning "how") is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. In the Hebrew Bible it appears in the Ketuvim ("Writings") as one of the Five Megillo ...
, read on the Ninth of Ab, have their own cantillation melodies as well. There is no tradition of reading Ecclesiastes.
Most Spanish and Portuguese communities have no tradition of liturgical reading of the ''Shir haShirim'' ( Song of Songs), unlike Ashkenazim who read it on
Pesach
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the The Exodus, Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or ...
and Oriental Sephardim who read it on Friday nights. However, in the two weeks preceding Pesach a passage consisting of selected verses from that book is read each day at the end of the morning service. The chant is similar but not identical to the chant for Shir haShirim in the Moroccan tradition, but does not exactly follow the printed cantillation marks. A similar chant is used for the prose parts of the book of Job on the Ninth of Ab.
There is no cantillation mode for the books of
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
,
Proverbs
A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbia ...
and the poetic parts of
Job
Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...
. The chant for the Psalms in the Friday night service has some resemblance to the cantillation mode of the Oriental traditions, but is not dependent on the cantillation marks.
Menasseh Ben Israel
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, wri ...
Saul Levi Morteira
Saul Levi Morteira or Mortera ( 1596 – 10 February 1660) was a Dutch rabbi of Portuguese descent.
Life
In a Spanish poem Daniel Levi de Barrios speaks of him as being a native of Germany ("''de Alemania natural''"). From the age of thirt ...
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (or Isaak Aboab Foonseca) (February 1, 1605 – April 4, 1693) was a rabbi, scholar, kabbalist and writer. In 1656, he was one of several elders within the Portuguese-Israelite community in the Netherlands who excommunica ...
*
Jacob Abendana
Jacob Abendana (1630 – 12 September 1685) was ''hakham'' of London from 1680 until his death.
Biography
Jacob was the eldest son of Joseph Abendana and brother to Isaac Abendana. Though his family originally lived in Hamburg, Jacob and his br ...
*
David Nieto
David Nieto (1654 – 10 January 1728) was the Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community in London, later succeeded in this capacity by his son, Isaac Nieto.
Nieto was born in Venice. He first practised as a physician and officiated ...
*
Hezekiah da Silva
Rabbi Hezekiah da Silva (also Hezekiah Silva) (1659–1698) () was a Jewish author born in Livorno, Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He was the son-in-law of the dayan Mordechai Rafael Malachi.
Biography
Hezekiah Da Silva was born in 1659 in Livorno, Gr ...
Gershom Mendes Seixas
Gershom Mendes Seixas (January 15, 1745 – July 2, 1816) was the first native-born Jewish religious leader in the United States. An American Patriot, he served as the hazzan of Congregation Shearith Israel, New York City's first Spanish and Por ...
*
Raphael Meldola
Raphael Meldola FRS (19 July 1849 – 16 November 1915) was a British chemist and entomologist. He was Professor of Organic Chemistry in the University of London, 1912–15.
Life
Born in Islington, London, he was descended from Raphael Me ...
Elijah Benamozegh
Elijah Benamozegh, sometimes Elia or Eliyahu, (born 1823; died 6 February 1900) was an Italian Sephardic Orthodox rabbi and renowned Kabbalist, highly respected in his day as one of Italy's most eminent Jewish scholars. He served for half a cen ...
Abraham Pereira Mendes
Abraham Pereira Mendes (February 9, 1825 in Kingston, Jamaica – April 18, 1893 in New York City) was a Jamaican rabbi and educator. He served in Jamaica, England, and the USA.
He was the first master of the Beth Limud School of Kingston, but ...
*
Frederick de Sola Mendes
Frederick de Sola Mendes (July 8, 1850 in Montego Bay, Jamaica, West Indies – October 26, 1927 in New Rochelle, New York) was a rabbi, author, and editor.
Family history and education
Frederick de Sola Mendes was born into an old Spanish & Portu ...
*
Joseph Athias
Joseph Athias (c. 1635 – 12 May 1700) was a merchant, bookprinter and the publisher of a famous Hebrew Bible which was approved by States-General of the Dutch Republic and both Jewish and Christian theologians.
Life
Joseph was born in Lisb ...
*
Henry Pereira Mendes
Henry Pereira Mendes (, 13 April 1852 – 21 October 1937), was an American rabbi who was born in Birmingham, England and died in New York City. He was also known as Haim Pereira Mendes.
Family history and education
Henry Pereira Mendes was born ...
*
Moses Gaster
Moses Gaster (17 September 1856 – 5 March 1939) was a Romanian, later British scholar, the ''Hakham'' of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation, London, and a Hebrew and Romanian linguist. Moses Gaster was an active Zionist in Romani ...
*
David de Sola Pool
David de Sola Pool ( he, דוד די סולה פול; 1885–1970) was the leading 20th-century Sephardic rabbi in the United States. A scholar, author, and civic leader, he was a world leader of Judaism.
Biography Early life and educati ...
*
Shem Tob Gaguine
Shemtob Gaguin(e) (5 September 1884 – 30 July 1953) was a British Sephardic rabbi and scion of a famous Moroccan rabbinical dynasty which emigrated to Palestine from Spain at the time of the Inquisition.
Biography
He was the great-grandso ...
Abraham Lopes Cardozo
Abraham Lopes Cardozo (1914–February 21, 2006) was ''hazzan'' of Congregation Shearith Israel, the historic Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in New York City.
Biography
Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, he was the gre ...
*
Isaac Touro Isaac Touro (1738 – 8 December 1783) was a Dutch-born American rabbi. He was a Jewish leader in colonial America. Born in Amsterdam, in 1758 he left for Jamaica. In 1760, he arrived in Newport, Rhode Island to serve as hazzan and spiritual leader ...
Abraham Cohen Pimentel
Abraham Cohen Pimentel (died March 21, 1697) was a rabbi of Amsterdam. He was a student of Saul Levi Morteira, and he also served as hakham of the synagogue in Hamburg and was initially a signator to a letter of approbation for Sabbatai Zevi
Sa ...
*
Emanuel Nunes Carvalho
Emanuel Nunes Carvalho (1771, London, England - 1817, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American Jewish religious leader and lexicographer.
Career
Emanuel Nunes Carvalho was born in London, England in 1771. In 1799, Carvalho, whose merchant ...
*
Jessurun Cardozo Rabbi David Abraham Jessurun Cardozo (March 29, 1896 – August 31, 1972) was a Dutch-born American Sephardic Rabbi who served as assistant minister of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City, the oldest synagogue in the United S ...
*
Solomon Gaon
Solomon Gaon (1912–1994) was Sephardic Rabbi and Hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of the British Commonwealth.
Biography
Solomon Gaon was born in Travnik, Yugoslavia in 1912 and studied at the yeshiva in Sarajevo. Both his parents were ...
Pinchas Toledano Dr Pinchas Toledano (פנחס טולידאנו) is Hakham-Emeritus (Chief Rabbi) of Amsterdam and of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of the Netherlands.
He was also the official ''Av Beit Din'', head of the court, of the Netherlands '' Beit Din''. ...
Isaac Abravanel
Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel ( he, יצחק בן יהודה אברבנאל; 1437–1508), commonly referred to as Abarbanel (), also spelled Abravanel, Avravanel, or Abrabanel, was a Portuguese Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator ...
Antonio de Nebrija
Antonio de Nebrija (14445 July 1522) was the most influential Spanish humanist of his era. He wrote poetry, commented on literary works, and encouraged the study of classical languages and literature, but his most important contributions were i ...
– linguist, historian, teacher and astronomer
*
Judah Leon Abravanel
Judah Leon Abravanel or Abrabanel () (c. 1460 Lisbon – c. 1530 ? Naples?), otherwise known by the pen name of Leo the Hebrew (in Latin: ''Leo Hebraeus''; in Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Leão Hebreu''; in Italian language, Italian: ''Leo ...
– physician, poet, and philosopher
* Pedro de Herrera – Gibraltar community leader
* Alonso Calle – treasurer on the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas; one of the settlers of Sephardic origin who composed the crew
* Juan de Vergara – writer, humanist and hellenist
*
Garcia de Orta
Garcia de Orta (or Garcia d'Orta) (1501 – 1568) was a Sephardic Jewish physician, herbalist and naturalist of the Portuguese Renaissance, who worked primarily in the former Portuguese capital of Goa and the Bombay territory (Chaul, Bassein & D ...
– physician, herbalist and naturalist
* Gracia Mendes Nasi – businesswoman and philanthropist
* Amato Lusitano – physician who discovered the circulation of the blood
*
Joseph Nasi
Joseph Nasi (1524, Portugal – 1579, Konstantiniyye), known in Portuguese as João Miques, was a Portuguese Sephardi diplomat and administrator, member of the House of Mendes/Benveniste, nephew of Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi, and an influential fi ...
– Duke of
Naxos
Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ab ...
*
Roderigo Lopez
Roderigo Lopes (also called Ruy Lopes, Ruy Lopez, Roderigo Lopus, Ruy Lopus, Roger Lopez and Rodrigo Lopes; also referred to as Roderigo Lopez and Rodrigo Lopez; c. 1517 – 7 June 1594) served as a physician-in-chief to Queen Elizabeth I of En ...
– physician who served
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
Eli ...
Samuel Pallache
Samuel Pallache (Arabic: صامويل آل بالاتش, ''Shmuel Baylash'', Hebrew: 'שמואל פאלאץ, ''Shmuel Palach'', c. 1550 – February 4, 1616) was a Jewish Moroccan-born merchant, diplomat, and pirate of the Pallache family, who, ...
religious philosopher
Religious philosophy is philosophical thinking that is influenced and directed as a consequence to teachings from a particular religion. It can be done objectively, but may also be done as a persuasion tool by believers in that faith. Religious ...
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
-Jewish merchant, became the first endenizened English Jew
*
Moses Cohen Henriques
Moses Cohen Henriques was a Dutch pirate of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin, operating in the Caribbean.
Henriques helped Dutch naval officer and folk hero Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein, of the Dutch West India Company, capture the Spanish ...
Isaac Cardoso
Isaac (Fernando) Cardoso was a Jewish physician, philosopher, and polemic writer. Life
He was born of Marrano parents at Trancoso, near Celorico, in the province of Beira, Portugal in 1603 or 1604 and died at Verona in 1683. He was an older br ...
– physician, philosopher, and polemic writer
*
Benjamin Musaphia Benjamin ben Immanuel Musaphia (c. 1606 – 1675), also called Benjamin Musaphia or Mussafia and Dionysius, was a Jewish doctor, scholar and kabbalist.
Musaphia was probably born in Spain. He married Sara Abigail da Silva, daughter of Semuel da S ...
Gabriel Milan
Gabriel Milan ( – 26 March 1689) was a German-born colonial administrator and planter who served as governor of the Danish West Indies from 7 May 1684 to 27 February 1686. Though he mainly went by the name of 'Gabriel Milan', he identified ...
– governor of the
Danish West Indies
The Danish West Indies ( da, Dansk Vestindien) or Danish Antilles or Danish Virgin Islands were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with ; Saint John ( da, St. Jan) with ; and Saint Croix with . The ...
Greater Boston
Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston (the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England) and its surrounding areas. The region forms the northern a ...
Joseph de la Vega
José or Joseph Penso de la Vega, best known as Josseph de la Vega (ca. 1650 — Amsterdam, 13 November, 1692), was a Sephardi Jewish merchant in diamonds, financial expert, moral philosopher and poet, residing in Amsterdam. He became famous for ...
– merchant, poet, and philanthropist
*
Solomon de Medina
Sir Solomon de Medina (ca.1650, Bordeaux – 15 September 1730, AmsterdamRabinowicz, Oskar K. ''Sir Solomon de Medina'', London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 1974) was an army contractor for William III and the first Jew to be knighted i ...
– army contractor for
William III of England
William III (William Henry; ; 4 November 16508 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic f ...
, first Jew to be knighted in England
*
Moses da Costa
Moses Mendes da Costa (died 1747), also called Anthony da Costa, was an English banker.
In 1727, Costa brought an action against the Russia Company, which refused to admit him to membership on the ground of his being a Jew. The attorney-general ...
William the Silent
William the Silent (24 April 153310 July 1584), also known as William the Taciturn (translated from nl, Willem de Zwijger), or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange ( nl, Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch Re ...
* Luis Moises Gomez – prominent businessman and leader within the early Jewish community in the
Province of New York
The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the U ...
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
physician, among the earliest Jews to settle in North America
*
Jacob de Castro Sarmento
Jacob Henriques de Castro Sarmento (6 May 1690 in Bragança, Portugal – 14 September 1762 in London) was a Portuguese '' estrangeirado'', physician, naturalist, poet and Deist.
Life
At the age of seventeen he entered the University of É ...
– Portuguese '' estrangeirado'', physician, naturalist, poet and
deist
Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...
António José da Silva
António José da Silva Coutinho (8 May 170518 October 1739) was a Portuguese dramatist born in colonial Brazil, known as "the Jew" (''O Judeu''). The Brazilian spelling of his first name is Antônio; António José da Silva Coutinho in Hebrew is ...
– Brazilian dramatist
* John de Sequeyra – British physician who was born into a Spanish-Portuguese Jewish family
*
David Franco Mendes
David Franco Mendes (; 13 August 1713 – 10 October 1792), also known as David Ḥofshi (), was a Dutch-Jewish Hebrew-language poet. He was an early member of the Haskalah in Holland.
Biography
A businessman, he devoted his leisure hours to the ...
– Dutch Hebrew-language poet
* Jacob Rodrigues Pereira – financier, academic and the first teacher of
deaf-mute
Deaf-mute is a term which was used historically to identify a person who was either deaf and used sign language or both deaf and could not speak. The term continues to be used to refer to deaf people who cannot speak an oral language or have som ...
s in France
* Joseph Salvador – British-Jewish businessman, first and only Jew to become a director of the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
*
Isaac de Pinto
Isaac de Pinto (10 April 1717 – 13 August 1787) was a Dutch merchant and banker of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin who was one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company, as well as a scholar and philosophe who concentrated on Je ...
– Dutch scholar and one of the main investors in the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
*
Emanuel Mendes da Costa
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (5 June 1717 – 31 May 1791) was an English botanist, naturalist, philosopher, and collector of valuable notes and of manuscripts, and of anecdotes of the literati. Da Costa became infamous for embezzling funds while ...
– English botanist, naturalist, philosopher, and collector of valuable notes and of
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
s, and of anecdotes of the literati
* Abraham de Caceres – Portuguese-Dutch composer of the late baroque period
* Isaac Pinto – American publisher
*
Aaron Lopez
Aaron Lopez (1731–1782), born Duarte Lopez, was a merchant, slave trader, and philanthropist in colonial Rhode Island. Through his varied commercial ventures, he became the wealthiest person in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1761 and 1762, Lopez ...
–
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...
*
Haym Salomon
Haym Salomon (also Solomon; anglicized from Chaim Salomon; April 7, 1740 – January 6, 1785) was a Polish-born Jewish businessman and political financial broker who assisted the Superintendent of Finance, English-born Robert Morris, as the prim ...
– financier to George Washington
*
Francis Salvador
Francis Salvador (1747 – 1 August 1776) was an English-born American plantation owner in the colony of South Carolina from the Sephardic Jewish community of London; in 1774 he was the first Jew to be elected to public office in the colonies whe ...
– first American Jew killed in the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
Aaron Nunez Cardozo Jewish Virtual Library and was consul for
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
*
Daniel Mendoza
Daniel Mendoza (5 July 1764 – 3 September 1836) (often known as Dan Mendoza) was an English prizefighter, who became the 18th boxing champion of England from 1792–1795. He was of Sephardic or Portuguese Jewish descent.''The Jewish Boxer's ...
– English prizefighter,
boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...
David Ricardo
David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a ...
– economist
*
Judah Touro
Judah Touro (June 16, 1775 – January 18, 1854) was an American businessman and philanthropist.
Early life and career
Touro's father Isaac Touro of Holland was chosen as the hazzan at the Touro Synagogue in 1762, a Portuguese Sephardic cong ...
– American businessman and philanthropist
*
Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, aft ...
– philanthropist
*
Mordecai Manuel Noah
Mordecai Manuel Noah (July 14, 1785, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – May 22, 1851, New York) was an American sheriff, playwright, diplomat, journalist, and utopian. He was born in a family of Portuguese Sephardic ancestry. He was the most import ...
– American playwright, diplomat, journalist, and
utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...
n
*
Henri Castro
Henri Castro (born Moïse Henriques de Castro, July 17, 1786 – November 3, 1865), a Jewish Texan, was one of the most important empresarios of the Republic of Texas.
Early life
Castro, who was born in Bayonne, France, was a French diplomat o ...
– one of the most important
empresario
An empresario () was a person who had been granted the right to settle on land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for settling the eastern areas of Coahuila y Tejas in the early nineteenth century. The word in Spanish for entre ...
Olinde Rodrigues
Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues (6 October 1795 – 17 December 1851), more commonly known as Olinde Rodrigues, was a French banker, mathematician, and social reformer. In mathematics Rodrigues is remembered for Rodrigues' rotation formula for vectors, ...
– French banker, mathematician, and
social reformer
A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary move ...
Rehuel Lobatto
Rehuel Lobatto (6 June 1797 – 9 February 1866 ) was a Dutch mathematician.
The Gauss-Lobatto quadrature method is named after him, as are his variants on the Runge–Kutta methods for solving ODEs, and the Lobatto polynomials.
He was ...
– Dutch mathematician
*
Isaac da Costa
Isaäc da Costa (14 January 1798 – 28 April 1860) was a Jewish poet.
Da Costa was born in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. His father, an aristocratic Sephardic Portuguese Jew, Daniel da Costa, a relative of Uriel Acosta, was a prominent me ...
– Dutch poet
*
Péreire brothers
Émile Pereire (3 December 1800, Bordeaux - 5 January 1875, Paris) and his brother Isaac Pereire (25 November 1806, Bordeaux – 12 July 1880, Gretz-Armainvilliers) were major figures in the development of France's finance and infrastructure durin ...
– French financiers, rivals of the Rothschilds
*
Abraham Cohen Labatt Abraham Cohen Labatt (1802, Charleston, South Carolina - August 16, 1899, Galveston, Texas) was an American Sephardic Jew who was a prominent pioneer of Reform Judaism in the United States in the 19th century, founding several early congregation ...
– American merchant and pioneer of Reform Judaism in the United States
* Benjamin Mendes da Costa – English merchant and philanthropist
*
David Laurent de Lara
David Laurent de Lara (c.1806, Amsterdam - 1876) was a London-based, Dutch-born limner of Spanish descent. He has been described as a pioneer who helped illumination to become recognised as an artform in its own right at a time when very few had ...
– London-based, Dutch-born
limner
A limner is an illuminator of manuscripts, or more generally, a painter of ornamental decoration. One of the earliest mentions of a limner's work is found in the book ''Methods and Materials of Painting'' by Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865).
...
*
Jacob De Cordova
Jacob Raphael De Cordova (6 June 1808 – 26 January 1868) was the founder of the ''Jamaica Gleaner''. He settled in Texas in 1839 and lived in Galveston. After living in Galveston, De Cordova moved to Houston, Texas where he was elected ...
– founder of the
Gleaner Company
The Gleaner Company Ltd. is a newspaper publishing enterprise in Jamaica. Established in 1834 by Joshua and Jacob De Cordova, the company's primary product is ''The Gleaner'', a morning broadsheet published six days each week. It also publishes ...
and later a member of the
Texas House of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 United States census, each member represents abo ...
*
Judah P. Benjamin
Judah Philip Benjamin, QC (August 6, 1811 – May 6, 1884) was a United States senator from Louisiana, a Cabinet officer of the Confederate States and, after his escape to the United Kingdom at the end of the American Civil War, an English ba ...
– politician and lawyer
*
Samuel Sarphati
Samuel Sarphati (31 January 1813 – 23 June 1866) was a Dutch physician and Amsterdam city planner.
Biography
Sarphati's ancestors were Spanish and Portuguese Jews who arrived in the Netherlands in the 17th century. Though middle-class, his p ...
– Dutch physician and Amsterdam city planner
* Joseph d'Aguilar Samuda – English civil engineer and politician
*
Grace Aguilar
Grace Aguilar (2 June 1816 – 16 September 1847) was an English novelist, poet and writer on Jewish history and religion. Although she had been writing since childhood, much of her work was published posthumously. Among those are her best know ...
– novelist
*
Mark Prager Lindo
Mark Prager Lindo (18 September 1819 — 9 March 1877) was a Dutch prose writer of English-Jewish descent. He was born in London, England.
Early life
He went to the Netherlands aged nineteen, became established there as a private teacher of the E ...
– Dutch prose writer
* Edwin de Leon —diplomat, writer, and journalist in the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
The Jewish Chronicle
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
Albert Cardozo
Albert Jacob Cardozo (December 21, 1828 – November 8, 1885) was an attorney and an American jurist in New York.
Early background
Albert Jacob Cardozo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the son of Ellen Hart and Michael H. Cardozo, S ...
Jacob Mendes Da Costa
Jacob Mendes Da Costa, or Jacob Mendez Da Costa (February 7, 1833, Saint Thomas, Danish Virgin Islands, Caribbean – September 12, 1900) was an American physician.
He is particularly known for discovering Da Costa's syndrome (also known as ...
Moses Jacob Ezekiel
Moses Jacob Ezekiel, also known as Moses "Ritter von" Ezekiel (October 28, 1844 – March 27, 1917), was an American sculptor who lived and worked in Rome for the majority of his career. Ezekiel was "the first American-born Jewish artist to r ...
;– American soldier and sculptor
*
Emma Lazarus
Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes. She is remembered for writing the sonnet " The New Colossus", which was inspire ...
– American poet
*
Raphael Meldola
Raphael Meldola FRS (19 July 1849 – 16 November 1915) was a British chemist and entomologist. He was Professor of Organic Chemistry in the University of London, 1912–15.
Life
Born in Islington, London, he was descended from Raphael Me ...
– British
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...
Ernest Peixotto
Ernest Clifford Peixotto (1869–1940) was an American artist, illustrator, and author. Although he was known mainly for his murals and his travel literature, his artwork also regularly appeared in ''Scribner's Magazine''. His 1916 work ''Our His ...
– artist
*
Daniel De Leon
Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...
– American socialist, editor-in-chief of a newspaper, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer
*
David Belasco
David Belasco (July 25, 1853 – May 14, 1931) was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director, and playwright. He was the first writer to adapt the short story ''Madame Butterfly'' for the stage. He launched the theatrical career of ...
– American theatrical producer,
impresario
An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer.
His ...
Viceroy of India
The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...
(1921–25), barrister, jurist and
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...
of the United Kingdom
* David Lobo – Venezuelan doctor, professor, writer and politician.
*
Annie Nathan Meyer
Annie Nathan Meyer (February 19, 1867 – September 23, 1951) was an American author, an anti-suffragist, and a promoter of higher education for women who founded Barnard College. Her sister was the activist Maud Nathan and her nephew the author ...
– American author and promoter of higher education for women
* Maud Nathan – American social worker, labor activist and suffragette for women's right to vote
*
Joseph Mendes da Costa
Joseph Mendes da Costa (4 November 1863 – 20 July 1939) was a Dutch sculptor and teacher.
Life and work
Mendes da Costa was born in Amsterdam to the sculptor Moses Mendes da Costa and Esther Teixeira de Mattos, sister of Henri Teixeira de Mat ...
– Dutch sculptor and teacher.
*
Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita
Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita (6 June 1868 – 11 February 1944) was a Dutch graphic artist active in the years before the Second World War. His pupils included graphic artist M. C. Escher (1898–1972). A Sephardic Jew, in his old age he was sen ...
– Dutch graphic artist, teacher of
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher (; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for most of his life neglected in t ...
*
Benjamin N. Cardozo
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (May 24, 1870 – July 9, 1938) was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the New York Court of Appeals from 1914 to 1932 and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1932 until his deat ...
Federigo Enriques
Abramo Giulio Umberto Federigo Enriques (5 January 1871 – 14 June 1946) was an Italian mathematician, now known principally as the first to give a classification of algebraic surfaces in birational geometry, and other contributions in algebrai ...
– Italian mathematician
*
Emanuel Querido
Emanuel Querido (6 August 1871 – 23 July 1943) was a successful Dutch publisher as the founder and owner of N.V. Em. Querido Uitgeversmaatschappij, which published Dutch titles, and of , which published titles of German writers in exile from N ...
SCADTA
Sociedad Colombo Alemana de Transportes Aéreos german: Deutsch-Kolumbianische Luftverkehrsgesellschaft), or SCADTA, was the world's second airline, and the first airline in Latin America, operating from 1919 until World War II. After the war, SCA ...
(now known as
Avianca
Avianca S.A. ( acronym in Spanish for ''Aerovias del Continente Americano S.A.'', "Airways of the American Continent") is a Colombian airline. It has been the flag carrier of Colombia since December 5, 1919, when it was initially registered und ...
), the oldest still-operating airline in the Americas
* David Jessurun Lobo – Dutch theater actor
*
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
Alexander Louis Teixeira de Mattos (April 9, 1865 – December 5, 1921), known as Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, was a Dutch-English journalist, literary critic and publisher, who gained his greatest fame as a translator.
Early life
The Teix ...
– Dutch journalist, literary critic and publisher, who gained his greatest fame as a translator
*
Carlos Salzedo
Carlos Salzedo (6 April 1885 – 17 August 1961) was a French harpist, pianist, composer and conductor. His compositions made the harp into a virtuoso instrument. He influenced many composers with his new ideas for the harp's sounds through his ...
Robert Nathan
Robert Gruntal Nathan (January 2, 1894 – May 25, 1985) was an American novelist and poet.
Biography
Nathan was born into a prominent New York Sephardic family. He was educated in the United States and Switzerland and attended Harvard Uni ...
– American novelist and poet
*
Vivian de Sola Pinto
Vivian de Sola Pinto (9 December 1895 – 27 July 1969) was a British poet, literary critic and historian. He was a leading scholarly authority on D. H. Lawrence, and appeared for the defence (Penguin Books) in the 1960 '' Lady Chatterley's Lo ...
Governor of the United States Virgin Islands
The governor of the United States Virgin Islands is the head of government of the United States Virgin Islands whose responsibilities also include making the annual State of the Territory addresses to the Virgin Islands Legislature, submitting ...
* Robert David Quixano Henriques – British writer, broadcaster and farmer
* Sir Alan Mocatta – English judge, expert on restrictive practices and a leader of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Britain
*
Pierre Mendès France
Pierre Isaac Isidore Mendès France (; 11 January 190718 October 1982) was a French politician who served as prime minister of France for eight months from 1954 to 1955. As a member of the Radical Party, he headed a government supported by a co ...
– French President of the Council of Ministers
*
William Pereira
William Leonard Pereira (April 25, 1909 – November 13, 1985) was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, who was noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco. Remarkably pr ...
– American architect noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings
*
Sam Costa
Samuel Gabriel Costa (17 June 1910 – 23 September 1981) was an English singer, entertainer and broadcaster. Initially a popular singer in the dance band era and a comic actor on the show ''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh'', he was later a disc j ...
– British popular singer and radio disk jockey
* Max Delvalle – Vice President (and briefly President) of
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
Abraham Bueno de Mesquita
Abraham "Appie" Bueno de Mesquita (July 23, 1918 in Amsterdam – August 19, 2005 in Lelystad) was a Dutch comedian, actor and stage artist, well known for his ability to make funny faces.
In World War II, Bueno de Mesquita was imprisoned in ...
– comedian
*
Abraham Pais
Abraham Pais (; May 19, 1918 – July 28, 2000) was a Dutch-American physicist and science historian. Pais earned his Ph.D. from University of Utrecht just prior to a Nazi ban on Jewish participation in Dutch universities during World War II. ...
– Dutch-born American
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
and
science historian
The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history that examines the understanding of the natural world (science) and the ability to manipulate it (technology) at different points in time. This academic discipline also studies the c ...
Eric Arturo Delvalle
Eric Arturo Delvalle Cohen-Henríquez (2 February 1937 – 2 October 2015) was a Panamanian politician. He served as Vice President under Nicolás Ardito Barletta. Following the disputed 1984 election, and after Barletta's forced resignation, ...
– President of
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
*
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (; born November 24, 1946) is a political scientist, professor at New York University, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Biography
Bueno de Mesquita graduated from Stuyvesant High School in ...
–
political scientist
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
, professor at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, an ...
*
René Cassin
René Samuel Cassin (5 October 1887 – 20 February 1976) was a French jurist known for co-authoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Born in Bayonne, Cassin served as a soldier in the First Wo ...
, French jurist
Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews
*
Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva
Luis de Carvajal (sometimes Luis de Carabajal y de la Cueva) ( – 13 February 1591) was governor of the Spanish province of Nuevo León in present-day Mexico, slave trader, and the first Spanish subject known to have entered Texas from Mexico ...
– adventurer, slaver and first governor and captain-general of the
New Kingdom of León
The New Kingdom of León ( es, Nuevo Reino de León), was an administrative territory of the Spanish Empire, politically ruled by the Viceroyalty of New Spain. It was located in an area corresponding generally to the present-day northeastern Mexica ...
Juan Lindo
Juan Nepomuceno Fernández Lindo y Zelaya (generally known as Juan Lindo) (16 May 1790, Tegucigalpa, Honduras – 23 April 1857, Gracias, Honduras) was a Conservative Central American politician, provisional president of the Republic of El Sa ...
Christian de Meza
Christian Julius de Meza (14 January 1792 – 16 September 1865) was the commander of the Danish Army during the 1864 Second Schleswig War. De Meza was responsible for the withdrawal of the Danish army from the Danevirke, an event which shocked th ...
– commander of the Danish army during the 1864
Second Schleswig War
The Second Schleswig War ( da, Krigen i 1864; german: Deutsch-Dänischer Krieg) also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War was the second military conflict over the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the nineteenth century. ...
Neo-impressionist
Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, '' A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'', marked the beginn ...
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
*
Lionel Belasco
Lionel Belasco Maracaibo (Venezuela) 1881 – ) was a prominent Venezuelan pianist, composer and bandleader, best known for his calypso recordings.
Biography
According to various sources, Belasco was born in Maracaibo (Venezuela), the son of ...
–
Trinidadian
Trinidadians and Tobagonians, colloquially known as Trinis or Trinbagonians, are the people who are identified with the country of Trinidad and Tobago. The country is home to people of many different national, ethnic and religious origins. As a ...
pianist, composer and bandleader, best known for his calypso recordings
* Rafael Cansinos-Asséns – Spanish poet, essayist, literary critic and translator
*
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism.
In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...
– American poet
*
Pedro Henríquez Ureña
Pedro Henríquez Ureña (June 29, 1884 – May 11, 1946) was a Dominican essayist, philosopher, humanist, philologist and literary critic.
Biography
Early works
Pedro Henríquez Ureña was born in Santo Domingo, the third of four siblings. He ...
– Dominican intellectual, essayist, philosopher, humanist, philologist and literary critic
* Amedeo Modigliani – Italian painter and sculptor
*
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
– Mexican painter
*
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and ...
– Portuguese poet and writer.
*
Vicente Lombardo Toledano
Vicente Lombardo Toledano (July 16, 1894 – November 16, 1968) was one of the foremost Mexican labor leaders of the 20th century, called "the dean of Mexican Marxism ndthe best-known link between Mexico and the international world of Mar ...
– Mexican labor leader and philosopher
*
Julio Lobo
Julio Lobo y Olavarria (30 October 1898– 30 January 1983) was a powerful Cuban sugar trader and financier. From the late 1930s to 1960, when he left Cuba to go into exile, Lobo was considered the single most powerful sugar broker in the worl ...
– Cuban sugar trader and financier
*
Frieda Belinfante
Frieda Belinfante (May 10, 1904 in Amsterdam – March 5, 1995 age 91 when she died in Santa Fe, New Mexico) was a Portuguese Sephardic-Dutch cellist, philharmonic conductor, a prominent lesbian and a member of the Dutch resistance during World ...
William Pereira
William Leonard Pereira (April 25, 1909 – November 13, 1985) was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, who was noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco. Remarkably pr ...
– American
futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...
architect
*
Frank Silvera
Frank Alvin Silvera (July 24, 1914 – June 11, 1970) was a Jamaican-born American character actor and theatrical director.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Boston, Silvera dropped out of law school in 1934 after winning his first sta ...
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...
– American poet, painter, liberal activist and co-founder of
City Lights Bookstore
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ti ...
*
Emmy Lopes Dias
Emmy Lopes Dias (4 August 1919, in Hilversum – 28 March 2005, in Laren) was a Dutch actress and activist who performed on stage, radio, and television. She was a well-known advocate for the right to die.
Biography
Lopes Dias was born to a ci ...
– Dutch actress and activist
*
Vic Seixas
Elias Victor Seixas Jr. (; pronounced SAY-shus; born August 30, 1923)
– tennis player
*
Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...
– British comic actor, 1st-cousin-4x-removed of boxer
Daniel Mendoza
Daniel Mendoza (5 July 1764 – 3 September 1836) (often known as Dan Mendoza) was an English prizefighter, who became the 18th boxing champion of England from 1792–1795. He was of Sephardic or Portuguese Jewish descent.''The Jewish Boxer's ...
*
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
– (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.), American singer, songwriter, activist, and actor
*
Arie Pais
Aäron "Arie" Pais (16 April 1930 – 25 June 2022) was a Dutch politician of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and economist.
Early life and education
Pais was of Jewish descent. Before World War II, he attended from 1942 on ...
– Dutch politician and economist
*
Herberto Hélder
Herberto Helder de Oliveira (Funchal, São Pedro, 23 November 1930 – Cascais, 23 March 2015) was a Portuguese poet often considered the most important Portuguese poet of the second half of the 20th century.
Biography
Herberto Helder was b ...
– Portuguese poet
*
Pim de la Parra
Pim de la Parra (born 5 January 1940) is a Surinamese- Dutch film director.
Between 1967 and 1976, he directed films under the independent production company Scorpio Films with Dutch film director Wim Verstappen, who manages all of its achievem ...
Ricardo Maduro
Ricardo Rodolfo Maduro Joest (born 20 April 1946 in Panama) is a Honduran politician who served as President of Honduras from 2002 to 2006. A member of the National Party, Maduro was previously chairman of the Central Bank of Honduras. He gra ...
–
President of Honduras
The president of Honduras ( es, Presidente de Honduras) officially known as the President of the Republic of Honduras (Spanish: ''Presidente de la República de Honduras''), is the head of state and head of government of Honduras, and the Com ...
and Bank of Honduras chairman
*
Uri Coronel
Maurice Uriel "Uri" Coronel (24 December 1946 – 18 July 2016) was a Dutch sports director and chairman of Ajax Amsterdam, a position he held at the club from April 2008 to 25 July 2011. He was born in Amsterdam.
Career
Uri Coronel was a b ...
Ophir Pines-Paz
Ophir Pines-Paz ( he, אופיר פינס-פז, born 11 July 1961) is an Israeli former politician who served as Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister of Science, Culture & Sport, and as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party from 1996 u ...
Vice President of Venezuela
The vice president of Venezuela ( es, Vicepresidente de Venezuela), officially known as the Executive Vice President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, Vicepresidente Ejecutivo de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is the second ...
*
Roman Abramovich
Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (, ; he, רומן ארקדיביץ' אברמוביץ'; born 24 October 1966) is a Russian oligarch and politician. He is the former owner of Chelsea, a Premier League football club in London, England, and is the ...
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
Sephardim
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
*
History of the Jews in Spain
While the history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to legendary Jewish tradition, the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the time ...
*
History of the Jews in Portugal
The history of the Jews in Portugal reaches back over two thousand years and is directly related to Sephardi history, a Jewish ethnic division that represents communities that originated in the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain).
Before P ...
**
Portuguese Inquisition
The Portuguese Inquisition ( Portuguese: ''Inquisição Portuguesa''), officially known as the General Council of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal, was formally established in Portugal in 1536 at the request of its king, John III. ...
*
History of the Jews in Morocco
Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community. Before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, there were about 250,000 to 350,000 Jews in the country, which gave Morocco the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, but by 2017 onl ...
*
Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands
As a result of the Alhambra Decree of 1492 and the religious repression by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, many Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews) left the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, i ...
*
History of the Marranos in England
The History of Marranos in England consists of the Marranos' contribution and achievement in England.
Arrival of Marranos
Toward the middle of the 17th century a considerable number of Marrano merchants settled in London and formed there a sec ...
*
History of the Jews in Gibraltar
The history of the Jews in Gibraltar dates back more than 650 years. There have been periods of persecution, but for the most part the Jews of Gibraltar have prospered and been one of the largest religious minorities in the city, where they ...
*
History of the Jews in Jamaica
The history of the Jews in Jamaica predominantly dates back to migrants from Spain and Portugal. Starting in 1309, many Jews began fleeing from Spain because of the persecution of the Holy Inquisition. When the English captured Jamaica from Spa ...
Maduro & Curiel's Bank
Maduro & Curiel's Bank (MCB) is a private Dutch Caribbean bank and financial services provider headquartered in Willemstad, Curaçao that operates 23 branches and specializes in insurance brokerage, consumer banking, trust, private banking and c ...
*
History of the Jews in Suriname
The history of the Jews in Suriname starts in 1639, as the English government allowed Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy to settle the region, coming to the old capital Torarica.
History
After the arrival of ...
*
Sephardic law and customs
Sephardic law and customs are the practice of Judaism by the Sephardim, the descendants of the historic Jewish community of the Iberian Peninsula. Some definitions of "Sephardic" inaccurately include Mizrahi Jews, many of whom follow the same ...
(for liturgy etc.)
*
Lançados
The ''lançados'' (literally, ''the thrown out ones'' Pardue 2015: p. 42 or ''the cast out ones'') were settlers and adventurers of Portuguese origin in Senegambia, Cabo Verde, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and other areas on the coast of West Africa. Man ...
Notes
Bibliography
General
*Altabé, David, ''Spanish and Portuguese Jewry before and after 1492'': Brooklyn 1993
* Angel, Marc D., ''Remnant of Israel: A Portrait Of America's First Jewish Congregation'':
*Barnett, R. D., and Schwab, W., ''The Western Sephardim'' (The Sephardi Heritage Volume 2): Gibraltar Books, Northants., 1989
*Birmingham, S., ''The Grandees: America's Sephardic Elite'': Syracuse 1971 repr. 1997
* de Sola Pool, David and Tamar, ''An Old Faith in the New World'': New York, Columbia University Press, 1955.
*Dobrinsky, Herbert C.: ''A treasury of Sephardic laws and customs: the ritual practices of Syrian, Moroccan, Judeo-Spanish and Spanish and Portuguese Jews of North America.'' Revised ed. Hoboken, N.J.: KTAV; New York: Yeshiva Univ. Press, 1988.
*Gubbay, Lucien and Levy, Abraham, ''The Sephardim: Their Glorious Tradition from the Babylonian Exile to the Present Day'': paperback ; hardback (a more general work but with notable information on the present day London S&P community)
* Hyamson, M., ''The Sephardim of England: A History of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community 1492–1951'': London 1951
*Katz and Serels (ed.), ''Studies on the History of Portuguese Jews'': New York, 2004
*Laski, Neville, ''The Laws and Charities of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation of London''
*Meijer, Jaap (ed.), ''Encyclopaedia Sefardica Neerlandica: Uitgave van de Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente'': Amsterdam, 1949–1950 (2 vol., in Dutch): in alphabetical order, but only reaches as far as "Farar"
*Samuel, Edgar, ''At the End of the Earth: Essays on the history of the Jews in England and Portugal'': London 2004
*Singerman, Robert, ''The Jews in Spain and Portugal: A Bibliography'': 1975
*Singerman, Robert, ''Spanish and Portuguese Jewry: a classified bibliography'': 1993
*Studemund-Halévy, Michael & Koj, P. (publ.), ''Sefarden in Hamburg: zur Geschichte einer Minderheit'': Hamburg 1993–1997 (2 vol.)
Caribbean Jews
*Ezratty, Harry A., ''500 Years in the Jewish Caribbean: The Spanish & Portuguese Jews in the West Indies'', Omni Arts Publishers (November 2002); hardback , paperback
*''Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the Caribbean and the Guianas: A Bibliography (Hardcover)'' John Carter Brown Library (June 1999)
*Arbell, Mordechai, ''The Jewish Nation of the Caribbean: The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Settlements in the Caribbean and the Guianas''
*Arbell, Mordechai, ''The Portuguese Jews of Jamaica''
*Goldish, Josette Capriles, ''Once Jews: Stories of Caribbean Sephardim'', Markus Weiner Publishers (2009)
Synagogue Architecture
*Kadish, Sharman; Bowman, Barbara; and Kendall, Derek, ''Bevis Marks Synagogue 1701–2001: A Short History of the Building and an Appreciation of Its Architecture (Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage in the United Kingdom & Ireland)'':
*''Treasures of a London temple: A descriptive catalogue of the ritual plate, mantles and furniture of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Synagogue in Bevis Marks'': London 1951 ASIN B0000CI83D
Law and ritual
*Brandon, I. Oëb, (tr. Elisheva van der Voort), ''Complete manual for the reader of the Portuguese Israelitic Congregation in Amsterdam'': Curaçao 1989. (The Dutch original was handwritten in 1892 and printed as an appendix to ''Encyclopaedia Sefardica Neerlandica'', above.)
* Peter Nahon, ''Le rite portugais à Bordeaux d’après son'' Seder ḥazanut, Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner : Paris, 2018 . Description and analysis of the Spanish and Portuguese liturgy of Bordeaux, France.
* Gaguine, Shem Tob, ''Keter Shem Tob'', 7 vols (in Hebrew): ketershemtob.com, vols. 1–2, vol. 3, vol. 6 vol. 7 *Salomon, H. P., ''Het Portugees in de Esnoga van Amsterdam. (A Língua Portuguesa na Esnoga de Amesterdão)'': Amsterdam 2002 (in Dutch). Portuguese phrases used in the synagogue service, with a CD showing correct pronunciation.
*Whitehill, G. H., ''The Mitsvot of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, London (Sha'ar Hashamayim): A guide for Parnasim'': London 1969
*''Peri Ets Haim'' (ed. Isaac Haim Abendana de Britto): vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4, vol. 5, vol. 6 (vol. 2 of new series), vol. 7 (vol. 3 of new series), vol. 8 (vol. 4 of new series), vol. 9, vol. 10, vol. 11 vol. 12 *Hirsch, Menko Max, ''Frucht vom Baum des Lebens. Ozer Peroth Ez Chajim. Die Sammlung der Rechtsgutachten Peri Ez Chajim des Rabbinerseminars Ets Haim zu Amsterdam. Zeitlich geordnet, ins Deutsche übertragen und in gekürzter Form herausgegeben'': Antwerp and Berlin 1936, German abstract of the rulings in ''Peri Ets Haim''
*Dayan Toledano, Pinchas, ''Fountain of Blessings, Code of Jewish Law'' (four volumes), Mekor bracha: Jerusalem 2009.
* de Sola Pool, David, ''The Traditional Prayer Book for Sabbath and Festivals'': Behrman House, 1960.
Reza books (siddurim)
Italy
*Venice edition, 1524: reproduced in photostat in Remer, ''Siddur and Sefer Tefillat Ḥayim'', Jerusalem 2003
*''Libro de Oraciones'', Ferrara 1552 (Spanish only)
*Fiorentino, Salomone, ''Seder Tefilah סדר תפלה: Orazioni quotidiane per uso degli Ebrei Spagnoli e Portoghesi: questo volume contiene le tre orazioni giornaliere, quella del Sabbato e del capo di mese tradotte dall’idioma ebraico coll’aggiunta di alcune note e di qualche poetica versione'' Livorno, 1802.
*Fiorentino, Salomone, ''Seder Tefilah סדר תפלה: Orazioni quotidiane per uso degli ebrei spagnoli e portoghesi ...'' Vienna: Antonio Schmid, 1822.
*Fiorentino, Salomone, ''Seder Tefilah סדר תפלה: Orazioni quotidiane per uso degli ebrei spagnoli e portoghesi ... '' Livorno: Presso Natan Molco, 1825.
*Ottolenghi, Lazzaro E., ''Maḥzor le-yamim nora’im מחזור לימים נוראים: Orazioni ebraico-italiano per il capo d'anno e giorno dell;Espiazione: ad uso degli Israeliti Portoghesi e Spagnoli'' Livorno, 1821.
*Ottolenghi, Lazzaro E., ''Sefer Mo’ade H’: Orazioni ebraico-italiano per le tre annuali solennità: ad uso degli israeliti portoghesi e spagnoli'' Livorno, 1824.
France
* Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières Journalières à l'usage des Juifs portugais ou espagnols .. auxquelles on a ajoutés des notes élémentaires'' Nice, 1772.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières des Jours du Ros-Haschana et du Jour de Kippour Nice'' 1773.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières Journalières à l'usage des Juifs portugais ou espagnols .. traduites de l’hébreu: auxquelles on a ajoutés des notes élémentaires, nouvelle édition'' Paris: chez Lévy, 1807.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières des Jours du Ros-Haschana et du Jour de Kippour, nouvelle édition'' Paris, 1807.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières des Jours de Jeûnes de Guedalya, de Tebeth, d'Esther, de Tamouz et d’Ab'' Paris: chez Lévy, 1807.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières des Fêtes de Pessah, Sebouhot, et de Souccot'' Paris: chez Lévy, 1807.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Cantique des Cantique, avec la paraphrase chaldaïque, et traité d'Aboth ... précédé de la Haggada'' Paris: chez Lévy, 1807.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières des jours de Rosch-haschana, à l’usage des Israélites du rit portugais, traduites de l’Hébreu avec des notes élémentaires déstinées à faciliter l’intelligence, par Mardochée Venture, nouvelle édition, première partie'' Paris: aux Bureaux des Archives Israélites, 1845.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières du jour de Kippour à l’usage des Israélites, tr. par M. Venture, nouvelle édition, deuxième partie'' Paris: aux Bureaux des Archives Israélites, 1845.
*Venture, Mardochée, ''Prières des Fêtes de Pessah, Sebouhot, et de Souccot Paris, 2d ed.,'' Paris: Lazard-Lévy, 1845.
* Créhange, Alexandre, ''מנחה חדשה: סדר תפלת ישראל כמנהג ספרד נעתקה ללשון צרפת על ידי אלכסנדר בן ברוך קריהנש: Offrande nouvelle: prières des Israélites du rite espangol et portugais, traduction de A. ben Baurch Créhange'' Paris, 1855.
* Créhange, Alexandre, ''Erech Hatephiloth où Prières des Grandes Fêtes à l’usage des Israélites du Rite Séfarad. Kippour. Léon Kaan éditeur, traduction française de A. Créhange'' Paris: Librairie Durlacher, 1925.
*Créhange, Alexandre, ''מחזור ליום כפורים זכור לאברהם: Rituel de Yom Kippour, rite séfarade, traduction française des prières par A. Créhange, Seli’hot, introduction et règles concernant Roche Hachana 4th ed.'' Paris: Les éditions Colbo, 1984.
*Créhange, Alexandre, ''מחזור לראש השנה זכור לאברהם: Rituel de Roche HaChana, rite séfarade, traduction française des prières par A. Créhange, transcription en caractères latine des principaux passages du Rituel, introduction et règles concernant le Yom Kippour 2d ed.'' Paris: Les éditions Colbo, 1984.
*Créhange, Alexandre, ''Rituel de Roche HaChana, rite séfarade'', Editions du Scèptre, Colbo, 2006, .
*Créhange, Alexandre, ''Rituel de Yom Kippour, rite séfarade 3rd ed.'', Editions du Scèptre, Colbo, 2006.
*Créhange, Alexandre, ''Rituel des Trois Fêtes, rite séfarade'', Editions du Scèptre, Colbo, 2006, .
Netherlands
*
Menasseh ben Israel
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, wri ...
, ''Orden de Ros Asanah y Kipúr'': Amsterdam 1630 (Spanish only)
*''Seder ha-tefillot ke-minhag K"K Sefardim'', with Dutch translation (S. Mulder): Amsterdam 1837
*''Seder ha-mo'adim ke-minhag K"K Sefardim'' (festivals), with Dutch translation (S. Mulder): Amsterdam 1843
*''Seder le-Rosh ha-Shanah ke-minhag K"K Sefardim'' (Rosh Hashanah), with Dutch translation (S. Mulder): Amsterdam 1849
*''Seder le-Yom Kippur ke-minhag K"K Sefardim'' (Yom Kippur), with Dutch translation (S. Mulder): Amsterdam 1850
*''Tefillat Kol Peh'', ed. and tr. Ricardo: Amsterdam 1928, repr. 1950
English-speaking countries
* Isaac Nieto, ''Orden de las Oraciones de Ros-Ashanah y Kipur'', London 1740
*Nieto, ''Orden de las Oraciones Cotidianas, Ros Hodes Hanuca y Purim'', London 1771
*A. Alexander, 6 vols, London 1771–77, including:
**''The Liturgy According to the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Hebrew and English, as Publicly Read in the Synagogue, and Used By All Their Families'' (vol 3)
**''The tabernacle service which are publicly read in the synagogue. By the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. And used by all families'' (vol 4)
**''The Festival service which are publicly read in the synagogue by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews and used by all families''
**''Evening and morning service of the of the year, which are publicly read in the synagogue by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and used by all families''
**''The fasts days service. Which are publickly read in the synagogue. By the Spanish and Portuguese Jews and used by all families'' (vol 6)
*''The Order of Forms of Prayer'' (6 vols.), David Levi: London 1789–96, repr. 1810
*''Forms of Prayer According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews'', D. A. de Sola, London 1836
*''Siddur Sifte Tsaddikim, the Forms of Prayer According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews'',
Isaac Leeser
Isaac Leeser (December 12, 1806 – February 1, 1868) was an American Orthodox Jewish religious leader, teacher, scholar and publisher. He helped found the Jewish press of America, produced the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English, ...
, Philadelphia (6 vols.) 1837-8
*''Forms of Prayer According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews'', Abraham de Sola, Philadelphia 1878
*''Book of Prayer of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, London'' (5 vols.),
Moses Gaster
Moses Gaster (17 September 1856 – 5 March 1939) was a Romanian, later British scholar, the ''Hakham'' of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation, London, and a Hebrew and Romanian linguist. Moses Gaster was an active Zionist in Romani ...
, 1901
*''Book of Prayer of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, London'' (5 vols.): Oxford (Oxford Univ. Press,
Vivian Ridler
Vivian Hughes Ridler, CBE (2 October 1913–11 January 2009), was a printer, typographer and scholar in Britain. He was Printer to the University of Oxford at Oxford University Press from 1958 until his retirement in 1978; and also establishe ...
), 5725–1965 (since reprinted)
*''Book of Prayer: According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews'',
David de Sola Pool
David de Sola Pool ( he, דוד די סולה פול; 1885–1970) was the leading 20th-century Sephardic rabbi in the United States. A scholar, author, and civic leader, he was a world leader of Judaism.
Biography Early life and educati ...
, New York: Union of Sephardic Congregations, 1941, 1954 (later edition 1979) (The 1960 printing is scanned and availabl here )
* Gaon, Solomon, ''Minhath Shelomo: a commentary on the Book of prayer of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews'': New York 1990 (based on de Sola Pool edition)
*Daily and festival prayers books, Congregation Shearith Israel: New York Published prayer books for the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation
Musical traditions
*Adler, Israel: ''Musical life and traditions of the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam in the 18th century.'' (Yuval Monograph Series; v. 1.) Jerusalem: Magnes, 1974.
*Aguilar, Emanuel & De Sola, David A.:. טללי זמרה Sephardi melodies, being the traditional liturgical chants of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews’ Congregation London ', London 1857. Second edition publ by the Society of Heshaim with the sanction of the Board of Elders of the Congregation, Oxford Univ. Press, 5691–1931.
*Kanter, Maxine Ribstein: “High Holy Day hymn melodies in the Spanish and Portuguese synagogues of London”, in ''Journal of Synagogue Music'' X (1980), No. 2, pp. 12–44
*Kramer, Leon & Guttmann, Oskar: ''Kol Shearit Yisrael: Synagogue Melodies'' Transcontinental Music Corporation, New York, 1942.
*Lopes Cardozo, Abraham: ''Sephardic songs of praise according to the Spanish-Portuguese tradition as sung in the synagogue and home.'' New York, 1987.
*Rodrigues Pereira, Martin: חָכְמַת שְׁלֹמֹה ''(‘Hochmat Shelomoh) Wisdom of Solomon: Torah cantillations according to the Spanish and Portuguese custom'' Tara Publications, 1994
*Seroussi, Edwin: ''Spanish-Portuguese synagogue music in nineteenth-century Reform sources from Hamburg: ancient tradition in the dawn of modernity.'' (Yuval Monograph Series; XI) Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996. ISSN 0334-3758
*Seroussi, Edwin: "Livorno: A Crossroads in the History of Sephardic Religious Music", from Horowitz and Orfali (ed.), ''The Mediterranean and the Jews: Society, Culture and Economy in Early Modern Times''
*Swerling, Norman P.: ''Romemu-Exalt: the music of the Sephardic Jews of Curaçao.'' Tara Publications, 1997. .
Discography
*''Musiques de la Synagogue de Bordeaux'': Patrimoines Musicaux Des Juifs de France (Buda Musique 822742), 2003.
*''Talele Zimrah — Singing Dew'': ''The Florence-Leghorn Jewish Musical Tradition'' (Beth Hatefutsot) 2002.
*''Choral Music of Congregation Shearith Israel'', Congregation Shearith Israel, 2003.
*''Traditional Music of Congregation Shearith Israel'' (Shearith Israel League) 3 CD's.
*''Jewish Voices in the New World: Chants and Prayers from the American Colonial Era'': Miliken Archive (Naxos) 2003
*''Sephardic Songs of Praise'': Abraham L. Cardozo (Tara Publications)
*'' The Western Sefardi Liturgical Tradition'': Abraham Lopes Cardozo (The Jewish Music Research Center- Hebrew University) 2004
*'' A Sephardi Celebration'' The Choir of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews' Congregation, London, Maurice Martin, Adam Musikant (The Classical Recording Company)
*''Kamti Lehallel: I Rise in Praise'', Daniel Halfon (Beth Hatefutsot) 2007
Mikveh Israel Hazzanut nbsp;– Detailed, comprehensive compendium of liturgical customs throughout the year, including tunes and readings, for the Philadelphia and New York branches of the tradition. Yede Abraham – Hazzanut in the Spanish and Portuguese tradition (mostly New York and Philadelphia)