Letter to the Editor

Abstract

IV Letter to the Editor For the ftrst time, after having investigated and published for more than fifty years on the history of the Jews in South America, I feel obligated to rectify a book review, not because ofthe opinion which the commentator ofmy book had, but because his comments have erroneous arguments that can only confuse the reader of this journal. In his review (Fall 1996 issue, Vol. 15, No.1) Norman Roth suggests that my study should have begun in the year 1600. Why? The title ofmy bookis "The Sephardim in the Dutch Colonies of South America" and not "The Sephardim in South America." Jewish life on the continent only started in 1630, in the Dutch colonies, and this year 1630 is also accepted by the person who knows most about the history of the Jews in Colonial Dutch Brazil, Jose Antonio Gonsalves de Mello. The reviewer also asks why I didn't use Hermann Kellenbenz's book, "As re1ayoes economicas entre 0 Brasil e a Alemania na epoca colonial." For two reasons. As the title of the book indicates , Kellenbenz refers to the relations between Brazil and Germany, and therefore does not have much to do with the Sephardim in the Dutch Colonies, the topic of my investigation. The second reason is that Kellenbenz has been able to offer very little new material, after his well-known'"Sephardim an der unterim Elbe" (Wiesbaden, 1958). Indeed, in SHOFAR Summer 1997 Vol. 15, No.4 April 1945, he had destroyed, by superior orders of the Nazi party, all the files and irreplaceable documents he had collected since 1939 for the "Reichinstitut fUr die Geschichte des Neuen Deutschland," under the direction of one of the worst Nazis and antisemites, Walter Frank. Frank had requested him to investigate the Jewish fmanciers and bankers of Hamburg. Kellenbenz was only able to save from this destruction his doctoral thesis, which he naturally rewrote, eliminating his venomous anti- .semitic commentaries, which, however, can still be felt when carefully reading the book. The antecedents of the Nazi and antisemitic Kellenbenz came to light only in 1966, when Helmut Heiber published an investigation on Walter Frank and his ominous Institute (Stuttgart, 1966, p. 456). After that, Norman Roth reproaches me "that he has ignored Joseph da Costa of Amsterdam, who from 1617 was already trading with Brazil, where he ftnally went and became parnas of the Zur Israel congregation in Recife." This is very strange information, as Joseph da Costa, the parnas elected in Recife, 15 September 1951, declared in Amsterdam , 15 January 1644, at the offtce of Notary J. J. Van de Ven (Gementelijke Archiefdienst van Amsterdam, No.-Arch. 1.065, fo1. 221 v/212), before boarding a ship to Brazil, that at that moment he was 25 years old. That means that he was born in 1619; therefore, it is very difficult to believe that he could have been "already trading with Brazil in 1617"!. Norman Roth goes on to say that Joseph da Costa "was one of the Sephardim who went from Recife to New Amsterdam (later New York), which is ignored." Please, I was not writing the history of all the Sephardim who went from Recife to ''New Amsterdam." Also, Joseph da Costa did not travel from Recife to New Amsterdam, but it seems that he traveled first to Surinam with his brother David (Isaac da Costa, "Noble Families among the Sephardic Jews," London: Oxford University Press, p. 115). From there he emigrated again, this time to New Amsterdam. He is mentioned there for the first time in August 1655, and it seems that he was not there before that date, as he does not appear among those that signed a "Petition," which many Sephardim signed in July 1655 (Samuel Oppenheim: "Early History of the Jews of New York, 16541664 ," AJHS, N. 18, 1909, p. 16). Norman Roth goes on to say that it is not understood from my book "the importance of the role of the Sephardic merchants in the sugar trade," and I quote, "in Barbados, not discussed in the book." It is true that I do not analyze the case of Barbados, but my investigation refers to the Dutch...