Religious Minorities: The Sephardi Jewish Diaspora
Overview of lecture
 Sephardi Jews underwent several migrations during the early modern period, fleeing
persecution and looking for commercial opportunities. We focus on the Sephardi
diaspora in order to illustrate the status of minorities in early modern Spain, the
Ottoman Empire and the Netherlands.
 While Sephardi Jews were always marginalized to some extent, many were very
successful merchants and Sephardi communities were often wealthy. We will think
about why diaspora was conducive to economic success.
 Lastly, we will explore the remarkable phenomenon of Sabbatai Zevi, the selfproclaimed Jewish Messiah of the late seventeenth century. The Sabbatean movement
is an example of how ideas were transmitted easily across great distances, and across
political and cultural borders, via Sephardi networks.
Who are the Sephardi Jews / Sephardim?
 Jews of Spanish/Portuguese descent.
 Spoke Ladino: Spanish dialect written in Hebrew characters.
 Prosperous and vibrant Sephardi community lived in medieval Muslim Spain.
The persecution of Jews in early modern Spain
 The Christian reconquest of Spain, which took place gradually between the 10th and
15th centuries, was often accompanied by anti-Semitism.
 Reconquest completed in 1492 with the defeat of the Muslim principality of Granada
by the combined monarchies of Castile and Aragon.
 The Alhambra Decree of 1492 ordered all Jews and Muslims in Spain to convert to
Christianity or be expelled.
 Many Sephardi Jews converted in 1492, joining others who had converted in response
to previous episodes of persecution. Known as conversos, or “New Christians,” they
were never fully accepted by the “Old Christians” in Spain. They were discriminated
against, and targeted by the Inquisition.
 Many conversos (but not all) were in fact “crypto-Jews.” They identified as Christians
in public, but maintained Jewish religious practices in secret.
Tolerance, but not equality, in the Ottoman Empire
 Ottoman government welcomed Sephardi refugees, who settled in cities including
Salonica, Constantinople, Smyrna, Aleppo, Jerusalem and Cairo.
 Ottomans allowed freedom of worship to Jews and Christians. Non-Muslims were
theoretically subjected to a poll tax and to numerous restrictions – on public worship,
building synagogues/churches, and clothing. In practice, only the poll tax was
regularly enforced.
 Sephardi Jews were concentrated in major commercial cities, and many became
successful merchants.
 Jews were permitted to arrange their affairs according to Jewish law, and to establish
and use Jewish courts. This was not quite “communal autonomy,” because the
Ottomans did not formally recognize Jewish institutions as having any authority.
Jewish courts existed only because some Jews voluntarily chose to use them. All Jews
were entitled to use the Muslim courts, which would always take precedence. In
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practice, most Jews preferred to use the Muslim courts because they had more
authority.
Similarly, tolerance but no equality in the Netherlands
 Conversos began migrating from Spain and Portugal to the Netherlands around the
end of the sixteenth century. Some would move on from there to England and
northern Germany. But a substantial population settled in Amsterdam, which became
the most important Jewish city in western Europe, perhaps in the world.
 These converso migrants were fleeing the Inquisition. The newly-independent
Netherlands had a policy of personal religious freedom. Many conversos dropped
their Christian identities and began publicly practicing Jews again.
 Sephardi merchants prospered in Amsterdam, which was becoming a hub for global
trade. Sephardis played a significant role in the Dutch West India Company.
 Wealthy Sephardi merchants also became important creditors of the Dutch
government.
Why was diaspora conducive to economic success?
 In the absence of effective legal institutions, early modern international trade
depended on trust.
 Diaspora created trust among its members because it was a closed community with
multiplex relations.
 The closure of the diaspora community was important because it meant that all
members could rely on one another to share the same set of values and norms.
 “Multiplex relations” means relations in many different spheres of life: commercial,
religious, social, family. Dishonesty would therefore lead to sanctions in many
different spheres of one’s life, which was a strong disincentive.
Sabbatai Zevi: an early modern messianic movement
 Sabbatai Zevi was a Sephardi Jew from Smyrna, interested in kabbala. After
wandering around the eastern Mediterranean for much of his early life, he declared
himself the Messiah in 1665, under the tutelage of the noted mystic Nathan of Gaza.
 He attracted a following in Palestine and Smyrna, and from Smyrna the news of the
Messiah spread rapidly across the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, through
Sephardi networks.
 The Sabbatean movement attracted Jews from all the major communities in Europe
and the Mediterranean, and from all social classes.
 After a year of intense religious excitement in Jewish communities from Amsterdam
to Cairo, the Ottoman government became concerned that the movement was a threat.
The Sultan summoned Sabbatai and threatened him with execution unless he
converted to Islam. Sabbatai chose to convert, shattering the hopes of most, but not
all, of his followers.
 The brief Sabbatean phenomenon demonstrates how the Sephardi diaspora remained a
single community despite its wide dispersal, its networks allowing ideas to flow easily
back and forth across the Mediterranean.
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