IN studying Amsterdam's Portuguese Jews we tend to become overwhelmed by the many and profound changes the émigrés must have experienced. They moved from one country and climate to another, ‘converted’ from one religion to another. They had to cope with greatly different economic realities. They found themselves suddenly estranged from society at large, and engaged in the establishment of a novel association. Amid the hustle and bustle of these changes certain basic contin - uities tend to be lost. Some of these continuities pertained to the economic endeavours of the Portuguese Jews; others, no less significant, touched their cultural life.

LANGUAGES AND NAMES

Amsterdam's Portuguese Jews spoke primarily Portuguese. All the records of the Kahal Kados were kept in Portuguese; most notarial documents, too, were drafted in Portuguese. Only a few Portuguese Jews seem to have preferred Spanish. For instance, Abraham Pereyra, formerly a long-time resident of Madrid and author of two moral treatises in Spanish, was addressed in Spanish by a notary. His sons, however, Jacob Pereyra and Moise Pereyra, both of whom were born in Madrid, wrote to the Mahamad in Portuguese.