Not on account of their wealth alone did they occupy a distinguished position in the new Batavian seat of commerce. The immigrant Marranos belonged for the most part to the educated class; in Spain or Portugal, their unnatural mother country, they had occupied positions as physicians, lawyers, government officials, officers, or clergymen, and were familiar with the Latin language and literature no less than with belles-lettres, and were accustomed to the usages of society. In the Netherlands, then the most civilized part of Europe, humanistic culture was in itself a recommendation. Hence, in Holland, cultivated Jews had intercourse with educated Christians on terms of equality, and obliterated the prejudices against the Jewish race. Some of them obtained a European reputation, and were connected with personages of high rank. Abraham Zacuto Lusitano (born 1576, died 1642), great-grandson of Zacuto, the historian and astronomer, was one of the most celebrated physicians of his time. He corresponded with Frederick, prince of the Palatinate, and his learned wife, the unfortunate couple that occupied the throne of Bohemia for a brief space, and was the cause of the Thirty Years' War. Zacuto's praise was sounded in poetry and prose by Christian as well as Jewish professional brethren. The Stadtholders of the Netherlands, princes of the house of Orange-Nassau, Maurice, Henry, and William II, like the founder of their race, William I, were well disposed towards Jews, and treated them as citizens with full rights. Even the Spanish and Portuguese kings, the persecutors of the Marranos in their own countries, condescended to show respect to the descendants of their hunted victims, to confer appointments upon them, and to intrust them with consular functions for their states.
The attachment of the Amsterdam Jews to their re-adopted religion, purchased with so many dangers, was deep, and was renewed at every accession of fresh fugitives, and every report of the martyrdom of their brethren on the burning pile of the Inquisition. This devotedness was reflected in their conduct, and embodied in verses composed in the language of their persecutors.
Paul de Pina, or Rëuel Jesurun, the poet, who had once been on the point of becoming a monk, composed for a sacred festival part songs in Portuguese, performed by seven youths to do honor to the first synagogue (Beth-Jacob) in 1624. The mountains of the Holy Land, Sinai, Hor, Nebo, Gerisim, Carmel, and Zethim (Mount of Olives), in melodious verses celebrated the excellence of the Jewish religion, the Jewish Law, and the Jewish people. They praised the thousand merciful ways in which God had led His people from the earliest times to the present. The unity of God, the holiness of the Law, and the expectations of the Messianic age of grace, the more deeply felt by the Sephardic Marranos because they were newly acquired and dearly gained convictions—these were the inexhaustible themes of their poetry. But in the background of the splendid picture there always lowered the dreadful dungeon, the priests of Moloch, and the blazing flames of the Inquisition.
In this mood, exalted by the recollection of sufferings and torture endured, the members of the Amsterdam community, with full heart and bountiful hand, founded benevolent institutions of every description, orphan asylums, benevolent societies (brotherhoods), and hospitals, such as were not in existence in any of the older communities. They had the means and the disposition. Their piety was shown in charity and generosity. But, exalted though their mood was, they were men with passions, and dissensions arose in the young community. Many members, born and brought up in Catholicism, brought with them and retained their Catholic views and customs; they thought that they could combine them with Judaism. "Can one carry coals in his bosom without singeing his clothes?" From childhood the Marranos had heard and seen that one is allowed to sin, if from time to time he is reconciled with the church. Catholic priests of all ranks were at hand to effect the reconciliation, and by ecclesiastical means ward off future punishment from the sinner. In the eyes of most Marranos, the rites and ceremonies of Judaism took the place of the Catholic sacraments, and the rabbis of father-confessors. They believed that he who conscientiously observes Jewish rites, and in addition does a few other things, may yield to his desires without forfeiting his soul's welfare. At any rate, the rabbis could give him absolution. Hence the Marranos led a life far from perfect, especially in point of chastity. The first two rabbis of the Amsterdam community, Joseph Pardo and Judah Vega, in consideration of the circumstances were indulgent to these weaknesses and shortcomings. But the third, Isaac Uziel, did not restrain himself; with inexorable rigor he scourged the evil habits of semi-Jews and semi-Catholics from the pulpit. This severity wounded the attacked, but, instead of mending their ways, they were angry with the preacher, and several left the community and the synagogue, and combined to found a new one (the third) in 1618. At the head of the seceders was David Osorio; possibly he felt most deeply wounded by Uziel's severe sermons. For the new synagogue (Beth Israel) which the seceders erected, they chose David Pardo, the son of Joseph Pardo, as rabbi and preacher. He defended the acceptance of this office in the new body, founded to some extent in defiance of Isaac Uziel, by alleging that he wished to lessen dissension. However, the tension lasted for twenty years (1618–1639).
Meanwhile German Jews, whom the ravages of the Thirty Years' War had driven out of their Ghettos, sought the asylum of Amsterdam, and were admitted to its shelter. If the Amsterdam Council had at first merely connived at the immigration and settlement of Jews, at a later period it decidedly furthered their admission, because it perceived the important advantage which they brought the state. The immigrant German Jews naturally could not unite closely with the Portuguese community, because they differed, not only in language, but also in demeanor and manners. A wide chasm divided the Portuguese and the Germans of the same race and religion from each other. The former haughtily looked down upon the latter as semi-barbarians, and the latter did not regard the former as genuine Jews. As soon as a sufficient number had assembled, the German Jews formed a synagogue, with a rabbi of their own. Their first chief was Moses Weil. The breach within the Portuguese community was painfully felt. Jacob Curiel, a distinguished man, afterwards resident of the Portuguese court in Hamburg, by the greatest exertions brought about a reconciliation, and not till the union of the three synagogues in one single corporate body, in April, 1639, did the Portuguese community, by the harmonious co-operation of its powers, stand forth in all its splendor, and surpass all its elder sisters in the three divisions of the globe. The Amsterdam community in some points resembled the ancient Alexandrian Jewish congregation. Like the latter, it possessed great wealth, cultivation, and a certain distinction of character; but, like it, suffered from insufficient knowledge of Jewish religious and scientific literature. Nearly all Marrano members had to commence to learn Hebrew in advanced age!
On uniting the three communities, for which statutes were passed, the representatives took pains to obviate this ignorance of Hebrew. They founded an institute (Talmud Torah) in which children and youths might have instruction in the useful branches of Jewish theology. It was, perhaps, the first graded institution of the kind among Jews. It consisted, at first, of seven classes. Students could be conducted from the lowest step, the Hebrew alphabet, to the highest rung of the Talmud. It was at once an elementary school and a college for higher studies. Thorough Hebrew philology, elocution, and modern Hebrew poetry were also taught there, which was not usual in other Jewish schools. In the highest departments, the first rabbis, or Chachamim, at that time Saul Morteira and Isaac Aboab, gave instruction. These two men, with Manasseh ben Israel and David Pardo, formed the first rabbinical college. This richly endowed institute became a nursery for the training of rabbis for the Amsterdam community and its daughters in Europe and America. From it pupils went forth who labored in wider spheres; among whom may be mentioned, for the sake of contrast, the confused Kabbalist Moses Zacuto and the clear-headed Baruch Spinoza.
It was a misfortune for the Amsterdam community that its first spiritual guides, who exercised remarkable influence, were possessed of only mediocre talents, in some degree lacked mental poise. With the vast resources which this first Dutch community had at command, with the fund of culture characterizing its members, and their devotion to Judaism, its leaders might have brought about remarkable results, if they had possessed more independence, profounder intellect, and greater genius. The first Amsterdam rabbinical college had nothing of all this. David Pardo appears to have been of very little importance. Saul Levi Morteira (born about 1596, died 1660) was not even a distinguished preacher; his colleagues, Aboab and Manasseh ben Israel, far outshone him. His sermons, the only printed productions of his literary activity, have a philosophical complexion, but no depth of thought. Morteira followed the broad, beaten paths, repeating what had been thought and pointed out before him. Even in rabbinical learning he had no mastery, and was not considered an authority by contemporary Talmudists. His colleague, Isaac Aboab de Fonseca (born 1606, died 1693), was even less distinguished. He, also, was a Portuguese by descent, and, it seems, came to Amsterdam as a child with his mother, who was fifty years old at his birth. He was trained under Isaac Uziel, and acquired from him pulpit eloquence, if that can be learnt. Aboab became an excellent and beloved preacher. His style of speaking has been very well described by Antonio Vieira of Lisbon, a wise Jesuit, possessed of goodwill towards Jews. When once in Amsterdam, he heard Aboab and Manasseh ben Israel preach, and when asked how he liked them, he replied: "The one (Manasseh) says what he knows, and the other knows what he says." But a well-arranged, impressive, attractive sermon is not always the fruit of solid knowledge and clear conviction. At any rate, it was not with Aboab. In character he was vacillating, submissive to the influence of others, open to flattery, hence not independent. To this man was given the control of the Amsterdam community for nearly seventy years. Aboab was superstitious like the multitude, and, instead of leading, was led.
Far more distinguished was Manasseh ben Israel (born 1604, died 1657), a child of the Amsterdam community, to which his father had come broken down by the torture of the Inquisition, and robbed of all his property. Young Manasseh, eager for learning, was trained under Isaac Uziel, and while his knowledge of the Bible and the Talmud did not attain to perfect mastery, it was extensive and ready. Directed by his personal circumstances to the study of ten languages—including Portuguese as his mother tongue, and Latin as the literary language—Manasseh learnt to express himself in speech and writing with more or less perfection in all these languages and in an elevated style. A ready speaker by nature, he educated himself as a preacher, displaying all the lights and shadows of his profession. He became a prolific writer, and, though he died young, performed incomparably more than his colleagues. In the case of this amiable man, who rendered essential service to Judaism, we should not take the part of severe critics, nor inquire how large a share enthusiasm and a certain vanity had in his work. But history is a stern judge. What his contemporaries admired in Manasseh was not his profound intellect, nor his overpowering, far-reaching greatness, but his quiet, yielding, modest behavior, and his simple nature. He correctly and briefly described himself without under- or over-estimation: "I rejoice in the modest though happy talent of being able to describe, with a certain degree of order, the objects that the will presents to the mind." He brought no great and fruitful thoughts into the world, but fostered the intellectual offspring of others, treating them as his own. He knew rather than thought much. Although familiar with profane literature and Christian theology, he clung firmly not only to traditional Judaism, as represented by the rabbinical system, but also to the Kabbala, and, like his less educated colleagues, regarded every word in the Talmud and the Zohar as a profound truth. Like others, Manasseh ben Israel was subject to superstitions, which had a strong influence over him, and spurred on his will.
Such was the character of the men called to guide and instruct the young, ignorant, catholicizing, and tractable Amsterdam community. Great power was in their hand. Important affairs were discussed and decided at the public sittings of the rabbis (Maamad) with the trustees elected by the members. In religious matters the Chachamim alone decided, because the laity did not trust their own judgment. The decisions of the rabbis were binding on the members. Nobody might oppose them, because the government had a despotic character. The authorities allowed the board of trustees and the college of rabbis full liberty to inflict spiritual penalties on disobedient members. Of this liberty and this power the leaders made only too extensive a use. They had brought from Spain mischievous zeal in maintaining the faith pure and uprooting heresy. The Amsterdam rabbis introduced the innovation of bringing religious opinions and convictions before their judgment-seat, of constituting themselves a sort of inquisitional tribunal, and instituting autos-da-fé, which, even if bloodless, were not less painful to the sufferers. The character and organization of the largest Portuguese community in Europe had a powerful influence on the course of Jewish history. Branch communities were formed, which took for their model not only the organization, dignity, devoted piety, and benevolence, but also the follies and perversities, of their mother. The second community on Dutch soil was gradually formed at Rotterdam. Two brothers, as pious as wealthy, Abraham and David Pinto, laid the foundation of this community, and elected as Chacham and principal of the institute which they founded (Jesiba de los Pintos), a young man, Josiah Pardo, son of David Pardo, and son-in-law of Morteira, who, however, did not distinguish himself.
In Haarlem, also, the Jews were on the point of obtaining permission to settle. The Humanists and favorers of toleration, like Joseph Scaliger, the prince of philologists, were already rejoicing; but, in the end, intolerance prevailed, and nothing came of the movement. Instead, Portuguese communities arose in North Germany beyond the sea, and gradually in other cities of the Netherlands.