Menasseh ben Israel vs. The Rabbis

Think conflicts within Jewish communities are something new? The
re-admission of Jews to England may have been a consequence of a squabble
between Amsterdam rabbis!

With the merger of the three original Amsterdam Sephardic communities, the
city found itself with four rabbis. All of them were strong characters.
Inevitably, there were disputes over who had religious authority and who
should be paid the most.

It is possible that Menasseh's trip to London, and the establishment of a
Jewish community there, partly had its roots in his differences with Saul
Levi Morteira, Isaac Aboab, David Pardo.

Our expert speaker this week, Professor Steven Nadler, is Professor of
Philosophy and of Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His
research focuses on philosophy in the seventeenth century. He has written
extensively on Descartes and Cartesianism, Spinoza, and Leibniz. He also
works on medieval and early modern Jewish philosophy. His publications
include biographies of Spinoza and Menasseh ben Israel.

To receive an invitation to this free meeting, and our other talks, you are
welcome to join our mailing list before midnight on Sunday:
https://mailchi.mp/sephardicgenealogy/ars1w3v45e

Topic: Menasseh ben Israel vs. The Rabbis
Time: Nov 8, 2020. 2pm NYC, 7pm London, 8pm Amsterdam/Paris, 9pm Jerusalem.

Sephardic World is managed by David Mendoza in the UK and Ton Tielen in the
Netherlands. They host weekly free talks on Sephardic genealogy, history and
culture. They also professionally research Sephardic genealogy, including
for those applying for Portuguese citizenship due to Sephardic ancestry.

David Mendoza