IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that in the fight against poverty, nothing can be done without money. This was as true in the early modern period as it is today. In times of peace and prosperity the Portuguese community of early modern Amsterdam took a more tolerant and generous line towards the reception and care of paupers, while in periods of war and economic malaise it tended to be stricter and less lavish in its support.

Financing charity within the Amsterdam community was never easy. Poor relief was constantly at odds with a rule in the 1639 unification statutes that the annual expenditure of the kahal should never exceed its revenue. This injunction was repeated time and again in the so-called Livro de escamot, the Resolution Book, but still expenditure exceeded income on countless occasions; and the greatest area of expenditure for the kahal during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was poor relief. Private welfare proved to be an indispensable help, saving paupers and relieving the burden on the official sector where public means failed. An analysis of the finances of both public and private welfare provision will help us to understand this crucial underpinning of welfare policy.

The Public Sector

Income and Expenditure

The balance of income and expenditure was recorded by means of an impressive bookkeeping system. As the community grew, so did the accounting system, expanding from a set of slim journals at the beginning of the seventeenth century to a series of thick, heavy, main and subsidiary ledgers during the eighteenth century, giving evidence of a growing bureaucracy. In addition to managing its own funds, the Kahal Kados de Talmud Torah increasingly handled the capital of private individuals.

Two summaries were issued every year, the first covering mainly internal developments, the second all foreign and private transactions, such as annual remittances to people living in Erets Yisra'el. Payments earmarked for aid to cativos were also included in the second survey. The following discussion is based particularly on the internal income and expenditure account, also known as the sedaca account (kupat sedaca), under which heading, as in other kehilot, all financial transactions involving the synagogue were entered.