Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities Studies in Jewish History and Culture Edited by Giuseppe Veltri Editorial Board Gad Freudenthal Alessandro Guetta Hanna Liss Ronit Meroz Reimund Leicht Judith Olszowy-Schlanger David Ruderman Marion Aptroot volume 54 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sjhc Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities Edited by Yosef Kaplan LEIDEN | BOSTON This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC License at the time of publication, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Cover illustration: Interior of the residence of Jacob Henriques de Granada in Amsterdam, Nieuwe Herengracht 99. Photo: Pieter Vlaardingerbroek. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kaplan, Yosef, editor. Title: Religious changes and cultural transformations in the early modern western Sephardic communities / edited by Yosef Kaplan. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019] | Series: Studies in Jewish history and culture | “The twenty-four articles in this volume are based on lectures given at the conference that took place at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from November 14 through 16, 2016”—Preface. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018049620 (print) | LCCN 2018050644 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004392489 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004367531 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Jews—Europe, Western—History—Congresses. | Sephardim—Europe, Western—History—Congresses. | Europe, Western—Ethnic relations—Congresses. Classification: LCC DS135.E82 (ebook) | LCC DS135.E82 R45 2019 (print) | DDC 305.892/40409031—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049620 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (EP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement No. 295352. Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1568-5004 isbn 978-90-04-36753-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-39248-9 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by the Authors. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. 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Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xxxiii List of Figures and Tables xxxiv Notes on Contributors xxxvi Part 1 Markers of Converso Identities 1 A Crisis of Judeoconverso Identity and Its Echoes, 1391 to the Present 3 David Graizbord 2 A Family of the Nação from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and Beyond (1497–1640) 22 James Nelson Novoa 3 Conversos versus Recusants: Shaping the Markers of Difference (1570–1680) 43 Natalia Muchnik 4 Richelieu in Marrano Garb: Conversos as Agents of the French Confessional Model, c. 1640 71 Claude B. Stuczynski 5 Semi-Clandestine Judaism in Early Modern France: European Horizons and Local Varieties of a Domestic Devotion 113 Carsten L. Wilke 6 Prison Revelations and Jailhouse Encounters: Inquisitorial Prisons as Places of Judaizing Activism and Cross-Cultural Exchange 137 Ronnie Perelis vi contents Part 2 Mechanisms of Social Discipline in the Sephardic Communities 7 Defining Deviance, Negotiating Norms: Raphael Meldola in Livorno, Pisa, and Bayonne 157 Bernard Dov Cooperman 8 A Sephardic Saga in the Dutch Republic: The Cohen Pallache Women on Love, Religion, and Social Standing 195 Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld 9 Dispute Resolution and Kahal Kadosh Talmud Torah: Community Forum and Legal Acculturation in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam 228 Evelyne Oliel-Grausz 10 The “Livro de Pleitos”: The Leadership of the Spanish and Portuguese Community of London in the Eighteenth Century as a Court of Requests 258 Alex Kerner Part 3 Economy and Community among Italian Sephardim 11 Jews in the Papal States between Western Sephardic Diasporas and Ghettoization: A Trial in Ancona as a Case Study (1555–1563) 291 Serena Di Nepi 12 The Sephardic Community and Social Practices in the Circuit of Money: Social Implications of Payment Networks in the Context of the Livorninas 323 Mauricio Dimant 13 Charity Begins at Home: Reflections on the Dowry Society of Livorno 346 Nourit Melcer-Padon contents vii Part 4 The Boundaries of Rabbinical Authority 14 Jacob Sasportas and Problems of Discipline in the Ets Haim Yeshiva 383 Yaacob Dweck 15 A Letter’s Importance: The Spelling of Daka(h) (Deut. 23:2) and the Broadening of Western Sephardic Rabbinic Culture 393 David Sclar 16 Hakham Yaakov Athias—A Portuguese Rabbi Facing the Winds of Enlightenment and Secularization 414 Yocheved Beeri Part 5 Varieties of Cultural Creativity 17 On the Role of Hebrew Grammars in the Western European Diaspora and the New World 431 Moisés Orfali 18 New Jews in Amsterdam: Some Social Aspects Reflected in the Thesouro dos Dinim by Menasseh ben Israel 452 Aliza Moreno-Goldschmidt 19 Penso de la Vega and the Question of Jewish Baroque 469 Einat Davidi Part 6 Crossing the Atlantic—Sephardic Communities in the New World 20 Sea Is History, Sea Is Witness: The Creation of a Prosopographical Database for the Sephardic Atlantic 487 Michael Studemund-Halévy viii contents 21 Revisiting Blackness, Slavery, and Jewishness in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic 512 Jonathan Schorsch 22 Feckless Fathers, Fraught Families: Abandonment and Cultural Change in the Early Modern Jewish World 541 Jessica Vance Roitman 23 The Gabay Dynasty: Plantation Jews of the Colonial Atlantic World 565 Stanley Mirvis 24 Patriots at the Periphery: David Nassy, the French Revolution, and the Emancipation of the Dutch Jews 581 Sina Rauschenbach Index of Names and Places 611 Preface Yosef Kaplan The presence of the Portuguese Jews in the cities of Europe in the early mod- ern period aroused curiosity mingled with enthusiasm and suspicion. For some visitors in cities like Venice and Amsterdam, these were the first flesh and blood Jews they had ever encountered. The Portuguese Jews’ splendid dress, cosmopolitan education, and excellent mastery of European languages contradicted the common stereotype of poorly spoken Jews with coarse man- ners. In contrast, the Portuguese Jews displayed elegance and courtesy, and the best educated among them were used to holding conversations on a broad variety of intellectual subjects. For example, Thomas Coryate, who visited Venice in 1608, wrote about the Jews he met there: “For indeed I noted some of them to be most elegant and sweete featured persons, which gave me oc- casion the more to lament their religion.”1 Alexandre-Toussaint Limojon de Saint Didier found there Jews of various origins, and he particularly empha- sized the wealth of the Portuguese: “There are several sorts of Nations among them, Hollanders, Spaniards, Portuguese, Germans and Italians, who have their particular Synagogues. But of all these different Nations, the Portuguese are counted the richest, who likewise esteem themselves to be in the highest de- gree above all the rest.”2 In a letter sent from Venice on March 27, 1688, the French tourist, Maximillian Misson outdid himself in describing the wealth of the Portuguese Jews: “There are some Jews at Venice who drive a great Trade, especially the Portuguese, who are very rich here, as well as at Amsterdam and elsewhere.”3 Following a visit to Amsterdam, he spoke with amazement about the political status of some of the representatives of the Portuguese social elite: “Notwithstanding the Inquisition against the Jews in Spain and Portugal, a Portuguese Jew (Don Jerome Nunez de Costa) was Agent of Portugal at Amsterdam. And another, 1 Thomas Coryate, Coryate’s Crudities (London, 1611), 231–32; Benjamin Ravid, “Christian Trav- elers in the Ghetto of Venice: Some Preliminary Remarks,” in Between History and Literature: Studies in Honor of Isaac Barzilay, ed. Stanley Nash (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publish- ing House 1997), 111–50. 2 Alexandre-Toussaint Limojon de Saint Didier, The City and Republick of Venice (London, 1699), 2: 60–61. 3 Maximillian Misson, A New Voyage to Italy, English translation from the French original, 5th enlarged edition (London, 1739), 2: Letter xxiv, 476. x preface Don Emanuel de Belmonte, Resident of Spain. This last received the Title of Count from the Emperor.”4 The Italian diplomat, Gregorio Letti, expressed himself in a similar tone and praised them extravagantly: “La sinagoga de’ Portoghesi sembra un seggio di Nobili, gente ben fatta, quasi tutta civile, ben vestita, ricca e che fa gran figura” (The synagogue of the Portuguese seems like the seat of nobles, cultivated peo- ple, almost all well-mannered, well-dressed, rich and who look impressive).5 Though he found the synagogue service repugnant, Letti was enchanted by the Portuguese social elite especially in Amsterdam,