Livro de ascamot (Book of Regulations): On a Banned Book

The Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam

1666

3 Elul 5426 [September 3, 1666]

In meetings of the community’s Mahamad [board of governors], past and present, discussions were held about a book that Gideon [Abudiente] ordered printed concerning the end of days (Fin de los Días). And believing that it could be prejudicial to us with regard to the gentiles, [the Mahamad] decided that all these books should be withdrawn, whether bound or in loose form, and ordered that the treasurer be told, on pain of beraḥa [excommunication], that he bring them all, with none remaining (only the manuscript) to the president’s house and there they shall be packed and sealed, remaining in the community chest until such time as we hope God grants it auspicious for them to be given back to him.

In the said meeting, it was decided unanimously that no one may have a book or any other item published without so notifying the Mahamad then serving, and without its being redacted by the aforementioned, and without a license being issued for its printing, or else it cannot be printed, and anyone who does so, will pay a fine of twenty rijksdaalders [fifty guilders] to the general coffers and this sum shall be collected without exception, and it shall be at the discretion of the Mahamad whether to permit or prohibit it.

Translated by
Marvin
Meital
.

Credits

The Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam, Livro de ascamot: On a Banned Book, Ms. photocopy, Central Archives (Jerusalem), fol. 322.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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The Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam

Toward the end of the sixteenth century, as the Netherlands was engaged in a war to free itself from Spanish rule, New Christians began to settle in Amsterdam. There they found religious freedom and personal safety. The first to arrive did not live openly as Jews, but a group that settled in Amsterdam in 1602 conducted religious services in a private home. Initially, the legal status of the Jews was unclear; the Reform Church opposed their residence in the city, while civic authorities favored it. The first congregation, Beth Jacob, was founded in 1607. Another was founded the following year, and together the two established charitable foundations. Amsterdam became a center of Jewish learning and intellectual life, and its Talmud Torah (religious school) gained a reputation for excellence. Likewise, many works intended for Sephardic communities were written and published in the city. Many Spanish and Portuguese Jews engaged in international trade, tobacco production, printing, and the diamond industry.

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