Editing Sephardic Jews (section)

=== In the Age of Discoveries ===
[[File:Interieur van de Portugese synagoge te Amsterdam, SK-A-3738.jpg|thumb|left|Interior of the [[Portuguese Synagogue (Amsterdam)|Portuguese synagogue]] in Amsterdam, c. 1680]]
The largest part of Spanish Jews expelled in 1492 fled to Portugal, where they eluded persecution for a few years. The [[History of the Jews in Portugal|Jewish community in Portugal]] was perhaps then some 15% of that country's population.<ref name="Kayserling" /> They were declared Christians by Royal decree unless they left, but the King hindered their departure, needing their artisanship and working population for Portugal's overseas enterprises and territories. Later Sephardic Jews settled in many trade areas controlled by the Empire of Philip II and others. With various countries in Europe also the Sephardic Jews established commercial relations. In a letter dated 25 November 1622, King [[Christian IV of Denmark]] invites Jews of Amsterdam to settle in [[Glückstadt]], where, among other privileges, the free exercise of their religion would be assured to them.

[[Álvaro Caminha]], in [[Cape Verde]] islands, who received the land as a grant from the crown, established a colony with Jews forced to stay on the island of [[São Tomé]]. [[Príncipe]] island was settled in 1500 under a similar arrangement. Attracting settlers proved difficult, however, the Jewish settlement was a success and their descendants settled many parts of Brazil.<ref>{{cite web |date=2009-08-04 |title=The Expulsion 1492 Chronicles, section XI: "The Vale of Tears", quoting Joseph Hacohen (1496–1577); also, section XVII, quoting 16th-century author Samuel Usque |url=http://www.aish.com/h/9av/aas/52421817.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131003125410/http://www.aish.com/h/9av/aas/52421817.html |archive-date=3 October 2013 |access-date=2013-12-16 |publisher=Aish.com}}</ref> In 1579 [[Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva]] a Portuguese-born [[Converso]], Spanish-Crown officer, was awarded a large swath of territory in New Spain, known as [[Nuevo León|Nuevo Reino de León]]. He founded settlements with other conversos that would later become [[Monterrey]].

In particular, Jews established relations between the Dutch and South America. They contributed to the establishment of the Dutch West Indies Company in 1621, and some were members of the directorate. The ambitious schemes of the Dutch for the conquest of Brazil were carried into effect through Francisco Ribeiro, a Portuguese captain, who is said to have had Jewish relations in the [[Dutch Republic|Netherlands]]. Some years afterward, when the Dutch in Brazil appealed to the Netherlands for craftsmen of all kinds, many Jews went to Brazil. About 600 Jews left Amsterdam in 1642, accompanied by two distinguished scholars—[[Isaac Aboab da Fonseca]] and [[Moses Raphael de Aguilar]]. Jews supported the Dutch in the struggle between the Netherlands and Portugal for possession of Brazil.
[[File:Execution of Mariana de Carabajal.jpg|thumbnail|right|Execution of Mariana de Carabajal in [[Mexico City]], daughter of [[Francisca Nuñez de Carabajal]], in 1601 by the ''Santo Oficio''.]]
In 1642, Aboab da Fonseca was appointed rabbi at [[Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue]] in the Dutch colony of [[Pernambuco]] ([[Recife]]), Brazil. Most of the white inhabitants of the town were Sephardic Jews from Portugal who had been banned by the [[Portuguese Inquisition]] to this town at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In 1624, the colony had been occupied by the Dutch. By becoming the rabbi of the community, Aboab da Fonseca was the first appointed rabbi of the Americas. The name of his congregation was [[Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue]] and the community had a synagogue, a [[mikveh]] and a [[yeshiva]] as well. However, during the time he was a rabbi in Pernambuco, the Portuguese re-occupied the place again in 1654, after a struggle of nine years. Aboab da Fonseca managed to return to Amsterdam after the occupation of the Portuguese. Members of his community immigrated to North America and were among the founders of [[New York City]], but some Jews took refuge in [[Seridó]].

The Sephardic [[Qahal|kehilla]] in [[Zamość]] in the 16th and 17th centuries was one of its kind in all of [[Poland]] at that time. It was an autonomous institution, and until the mid-17th century it was not under the authority of the highest organ of the Jewish self-government in the Republic of Poland - the [[Council of Four Lands]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Historia społeczności {{!}} Wirtualny Sztetl |url=https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/z/17-zamosc/99-historia-spolecznosci/138301-historia-spolecznosci |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180225043103/https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/z/17-zamosc/99-historia-spolecznosci/138301-historia-spolecznosci |archive-date=25 February 2018 |access-date=2021-06-23 |website=sztetl.org.pl}}</ref>

Besides merchants, a great number of physicians were among the Spanish Jews in Amsterdam: Samuel Abravanel, David Nieto, Elijah Montalto, and the Bueno family; Joseph Bueno was consulted in the illness of Prince Maurice (April 1623). Jews were admitted as students at the university, where they studied medicine as the only branch of the science of practical use to them, for they were not permitted to practice law, and the oath they would be compelled to take excluded them from the professorships. Neither were Jews taken into the trade-guilds: a resolution passed by the city of Amsterdam in 1632 (the cities being autonomous) excluded them. Exceptions, however, were made in the case of trades that related to their religion: printing, bookselling, and the selling of meat, poultry, groceries, and drugs. In 1655 a Jew was, exceptionally, permitted to establish a sugar-refinery.

Jonathan Ray, a professor of Jewish theological studies, has argued that the community of Sephardim was formed more during the 1600s than the medieval period. He explains that prior to expulsion Spanish Jewish communities did not have a shared identity in the sense that developed in diaspora. They did not carry any particular Hispano-Jewish identity into exile with them, but certain shared cultural traits contributed to the formation of the diaspora community from what had historically been independent communities.<ref>Jonathan S Ray. ''After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry''. New York University Press (2013), p. 7-8</ref>