Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Note on Orthography, Transliteration, and Special Usages
- List of Tables
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction. The Dutch Jerusalem: The Distortions of History
- 1 ‘The True Book of Experience’: Amsterdam's Toleration of the Jews
- 2 Refuge and Opportunity: The Geography of a Jewish Migration
- 3 Commerce, Networks, and Other Relations: The Inner Workings of Portuguese Jewish Entrepreneurship
- 4 Nação and Kahal: A Religious Community in the Making
- 5 ‘Dissonant Words’, ‘Bad Opinions’, and ‘Scandals’: Varieties of Religious Discord and Social Conflict
- 6 A Patchwork Culture: Iberian, Jewish, and Dutch Elements in Peaceable Coexistence
- Conclusion. Reluctant Cosmopolitans: Jewish Ethnicity in statu renascendi
- Appendix: Details of Freight Contracts
- Bibliography
- Index of Persons
- Index of Subjects
5 - ‘Dissonant Words’, ‘Bad Opinions’, and ‘Scandals’: Varieties of Religious Discord and Social Conflict
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Note on Orthography, Transliteration, and Special Usages
- List of Tables
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction. The Dutch Jerusalem: The Distortions of History
- 1 ‘The True Book of Experience’: Amsterdam's Toleration of the Jews
- 2 Refuge and Opportunity: The Geography of a Jewish Migration
- 3 Commerce, Networks, and Other Relations: The Inner Workings of Portuguese Jewish Entrepreneurship
- 4 Nação and Kahal: A Religious Community in the Making
- 5 ‘Dissonant Words’, ‘Bad Opinions’, and ‘Scandals’: Varieties of Religious Discord and Social Conflict
- 6 A Patchwork Culture: Iberian, Jewish, and Dutch Elements in Peaceable Coexistence
- Conclusion. Reluctant Cosmopolitans: Jewish Ethnicity in statu renascendi
- Appendix: Details of Freight Contracts
- Bibliography
- Index of Persons
- Index of Subjects
Summary
I would like you [synagogue elders] to answer one question: if these groundless fears which you instil in the minds of men are contrived to restrain their natural inclination to evil and to keep them from going astray, did it never occur to you that you then likewise are men full of malice, unable to do what is good, ever prone to evil, injurious, without compassion or mercy? But I see every one of you filled with rage at so insolent a question and justifying his own conduct. ‘What, are we not all pious and merciful and strict adherers to truth and justice?’ Either what you boastingly say of yourselves is false or your accusation of all other men, whose natural propensity to evil you pretend to correct with your fictitious terrors, is unjust.
URIEL DA COSTAFOR some individuals, certain requirements of membership of the Kahal Kados de Talmud Tora were too onerous to be passed over in silence. The Mahamad, for their part, regarded some infractions as just too serious to be overlooked. Conflicts ensued. The Mahamad applied the only powers it possessed: the right to deny someone all or some of the privileges of membership of the Kahal, and excommunication, which not only cancelled a person's membership but also removed him from any and all interaction with the nação. The yehidim responded by swallowing their pride and settling their differences, or by severing their ties with the Kahal. In the latter option Amsterdam's Portuguese Jews possessed a latitude rarely encountered in pre-modern Jewish communities. This relative freedom, in turn, imposed clear and immediate restraints upon the exercise of authority by the parnasim. Too incongruous or indiscriminate an application of force might alienate a yahid and result in his departure from the Kahal.
There existed little by way of an independent court to adjudicate in communal conflicts, whether between individuals or between yehidim and parnasim. The records do occasionally refer to a rabbinical court, but its mandate appears to have been limited to strictly religious matters. Capitolo 20 of the communal agreement has the following to say about the Bet Din, the rabbinical court:
All the dinim that will present themselves and that will have to be decided upon will be seen and examined by the salaried hahamim, according to a majority vote.
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- Reluctant CosmopolitansThe Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam, pp. 225 - 277Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2000