In Hamburg an important colony of the Amsterdam community was next formed. But there were difficulties in overcoming German prejudices and German pedantry. Against the advantages arising from the settlement of wealthy and intelligent Jews, which the Amsterdam people had quickly comprehended, the Hamburg citizens struggled hand and foot. For the fierce Lutherans it was an abomination to have Jews in their midst. A Jewish jeweler named Isaac, from Salzuflen, in Lippe, with twelve of his co-religionists, who were compelled to go in search of a new home, made an attempt to settle in Hamburg. He presented a petition to the senate to receive them for twelve years, offering the sum of 9,000 marks and a yearly tax of 400 marks. The negotiator, Isaac, exhaustively set forth all possible reasons for the reception of Jews, and declared that they were willing to submit to any conditions. He adduced that Jews were tolerated not only in Catholic, but also in evangelical countries, both in the West, at Frankfort and Worms, and in northern Germany, in Hanover, Minden, Hildesheim, Göttingen, Norden, Dortmund, Hamm, Lippe, and Emden. All was in vain. Hamburg, then delighting in popish quarreling about orthodoxy and heresy, refused a home to Jews.
It is curious that Hamburg, at the very time when it so strongly opposed the temporary admission of Jews, harbored some in its midst without being aware of it. With these, under the mask of Portuguese papists, orthodox Christians had daily intercourse. Marrano fugitives had escaped from the Inquisition, settled in the North German free Hanse town, and passed as Portuguese "traders." Hearing that their brethren in Amsterdam, with whom they were in communication, openly professed Judaism, and were tolerated, they also lifted their mask, and wished to be recognized as Jews, but continued to have their children baptized. The strict Lutheran citizens raised a loud outcry, and demanded of the senate that the wealthy Jews who had been driven from Portugal and other places should be got rid of, and not be tolerated. But to this the senate did not like to accede; they felt shame at treating these Portuguese of noble demeanor and intelligent character as vagrants or Jews. To the secret Jews of Hamburg there belonged at that time the beloved and much-sought physician, Rodrigo de Castro (born about 1560 at Lisbon, died 1627 or 1628), who, in the violence of the pestilence, hastened with self-sacrifice to the bedsides of those stricken by the plague, and saved the lives of many. De Castro was also a skillful physician for women, and won the favor of the weaker sex, strong in sympathy and antipathy. Able physicians were not numerous, especially not in North Germany. Other "Portuguese," as the disguised Marranos in Hamburg called themselves, and were called, possessed capital, or, as agents, conducted important business for Spanish or Portuguese houses. In short, it did not seem practicable to send these Portuguese away. The senate, therefore, at first put off the citizens with an official denial that there were Jews among them; and afterwards admitted the presence of a smaller number than was correct—about seven Portuguese Jews "who have fire and smoke here," i.e., households. But the Lutheran clergy in Hamburg behaved most intolerantly, excited people against the Portuguese Jews, and charged the senate with neglect of duty. That body, which guarded only the commercial interests, did not care to dispense with the Jews, but being unwilling to burden its conscience, or rather to incur the reproach of unchristian feeling, turned from the Hamburg clergy—the ministry—to a higher court, the theological faculties of Frankfort-on-the-Oder and Jena. The theological grounds of which the senate availed itself for the toleration of Jews are very ridiculous, and prove the ossification of Lutheranism at that time. The judgment of the Frankfort faculty proceeds upon these grounds, and indulges the hope that the Portuguese Jews—who for the sake of their convictions had given up honors, fortune, and a beloved home—would be converted to Christianity in Hamburg. The decision of the Jena faculty looks as if a professor of Dominican theology of a century before, in the time of Hoogstraten, had written it, and as if the index on the dial of history had stood still. Like the intolerant papists, the Lutheran theological faculty wished to compel Jews to listen to Christian preaching.
The senate, sufficiently protected on the ecclesiastical side by these two judgments, in February, 1612, with restrictions growing out of the German spirit or the German narrow-mindedness of that time, granted the Portuguese Jews free residence in Hamburg, avoiding a consideration of the consequences on both sides with pedantic scrupulousness. They really became protected Jews (Schutz-juden), who had to pay an annual charge or protection fee of 1,000 marks. They were not allowed to have synagogues, or private religious service according to Jewish customs, or to practice circumcision, but they might bury their dead in a cemetery of their own at Altona. There were then in Hamburg 125 adults of Marrano descent, among whom were ten capitalists, two physicians, and three artisans. It was an important article in the agreement that new-comers might obtain admission, "if the high and wise council found their qualifications of such a nature that it had no objection to take them under its protection." Thus the young, semi-tolerated Hamburg community grew from year to year, and within a decade several capitalists were added. The increase of the community through the accession of such settlers, admitted openly as Jews, no longer disguised as Portuguese, in 1617 rendered necessary a fresh agreement with the senate, enlarging their privileges in commercial respects, but diminishing them in point of citizenship. They could not possess houses or land, and had to dispose of any they might own. Exception was made in favor of the physician, Rodrigo de Castro, in consideration of his faithful services of many years, but even he could not bequeath his house to an heir.
The more the Portuguese Jews, by their capital and business connections, gained weight with commercial men in the senate, the more they broke through the boundaries drawn by narrow-minded legislation. When the bank at Hamburg, to which this city owed its commercial prosperity, was founded (1619–1623), no less than twelve Jewish capitalists supported it with their funds and efforts, as the Amsterdam Portuguese had done at the formation of the Dutch companies trading beyond the sea. The Portuguese Jewish settlers alone founded the important trade of Hamburg with Spain and Portugal. Hence they might assume that the senate, which held the reins of government, would connive at violations of the articles. They were especially anxious to be permitted to assemble for public worship, and this was directly forbidden. Relying on their indispensability, they quietly erected a synagogue in about 1626. It was Elihu Aboab Cardozo who risked this venture. They named it Talmud Torah, and appointed as Chacham, Isaac Athias, of Amsterdam, a disciple of Isaac Uziel.
This probably simple synagogue, consisting of two large rooms, caused wide dissension, and produced much bitterness. Emperor Ferdinand II, the terror of the Protestants, indignant that the arch-Lutheran city on the Elbe would not allow Catholics to build a church, sent a threatening letter to the senate, July 28th, 1627, because for the sake of trade a synagogue was openly permitted to Jews, while Roman Catholics were forbidden the exercise of their religion. Nothing more was needed to excite the Lutheran fanatics. If free exercise of their religion was granted to Jews, it must also be granted to Catholics, and even to Calvinists, they said. A frightful consequence indeed! When the ministry, or spiritual assembly, which had great power in Hamburg, reproached the senate on account of the violation of articles in the agreement with the Jews, and that body in turn arraigned the Jews, the latter declared that they had no synagogue, merely a place of meeting to read the Law of Moses, the Psalms, the Prophets, and other books of the Old Testament; if they prayed there, it was only for the welfare of the city and the government. The senate proceeded no further, because the Jews threatened that, in case they were denied the worship of God, they would leave Hamburg in a body, and transfer their capital and business connections to a neighboring place. That argument prevailed. But the clergy demanded nothing less than that a Christian rabbi be appointed to preach Christianity to Jews in the synagogue, or elsewhere. The physicians also viewed with indignation the popularity of their Jewish colleagues, and sought to bring not only them, but Jews generally, under suspicion, and stirred up the people against them.
But the community grew in prosperity from year to year, and the senate gladly received those who came with capital and business connections. Even if the descriptions by John Miller, the arch-foe of the Jews, appear exaggerated, yet an idea may be gathered from them of the wealth of the Portuguese Jews of Hamburg. "They strut along adorned with gold and silver, costly pearls, and precious stones. At their weddings they eat and drink from silver ware, and drive in such carriages as become only persons of exalted rank, and, moreover, have outriders and a large following." The extremely rich Texeira family, settled in Hamburg, lived in princely luxury. The founder of this banking house, Diego Texeira de Mattos, was called in Hamburg, like Joseph of Naxos in Constantinople, "the rich Jew." He was of Portuguese descent, bore a title of high nobility, and had previously been Spanish resident in Flanders. Over seventy years of age, he underwent the operation of circumcision in order to become a Jew in reality. By means of his wealth, and his connections with both the nobility and capitalists, Diego Texeira could play the aristocrat. He drove in a carriage lined with satin, and had liveried servants.
The Portuguese Jews already had three synagogues, the second built by Abraham Aboab Falero, the third by David de Lima. A German community, also, had gradually assembled at Hamburg, and built a house of prayer. And were the faithful followers of Luther to behold it calmly, although almost on his death-bed he had ordered the Jews to be treated as gypsies, and the tongues of the rabbis to be cut out? The Hamburg pastors could not endure it, they pressed the senate, and stirred up the citizens to withdraw even this small amount of religious toleration. Among them stood forth an arch-bigot, John Miller, senior at St. Peter's church, a Protestant inquisitor and chief persecutor, an abusive man given to scandal, who cast aspersions upon his reverend brethren from the pulpit and in libelous writings. With this virulent pastor, who considered himself a pillar of Lutheran orthodoxy, it was a matter of conscience thoroughly to hate and humiliate the Jews. In writing and in talking, in the pulpit and in the circle of his disciples, in private conversation and in official addresses, his favorite theme was the Jews and their humiliation. Everything in the Jews vexed him: their joy and feasting on Purim, their mourning on the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, their dress, their friendship with Christians, and their funerals. The bigot was not wrong on some points, as, for instance, his censure of the hereditary failing of the Portuguese Marranos, as illustrated in their misconduct with Christian women, and of the way in which some of them challenged Christianity. A Jewish author (Jacob Jehuda Leon?) had composed a work entitled "Colloquium Middelburgense," a Latin dialogue between a rabbi and a Christian on the value or worthlessness of Christian doctrines, the gospels, and the ecclesiastical writings, in which the weak points of Christianity were laid bare. Miller composed a defense, or rather a libel, entitled, Judaism, or the Jewish Doctrine, a full account of the Jewish people's unbelief, blindness, and obduracy (1644). This was dictated neither by the Holy Ghost nor by Christian love. Luther's virulent language against Jews seemed an undeniable revelation to the pastor. Out of it spoke Lutheranism, pure and unadulterated, which had as little heart as the popery attacked by it, and the essence of which consisted of dry formulas of belief. Miller's absurdity and uncharitableness are not his own; they are part and parcel of the corrupt Lutheran church of the time. Three theological faculties, the arch-Lutheran faculty of Wittenberg, and those of Strasburg and Rostock, in reply to Miller's inquiry, decided that Jewish physicians should never be admitted to Christian patients. Thus, in the face of the seventeenth century, when the Thirty Years' War was teaching toleration with an iron rod, the leaders of Lutheranism were issuing a new edition of the decrees of the Visigothic councils against Jews. But, after all, times had changed. Christian IV, king of Denmark, Schleswig and Holstein, next to Gustavus Adolphus the champion of the Protestants, to whom Miller dedicated his book, had appointed Benjamin Musaphia, a Jewish physician, his medical attendant.
Even in Hamburg Miller's fanatical zeal did not meet with great success. The citizens gradually got accustomed to Jews, and learnt to respect them. Some of them were appointed business agents or residents even by high Catholic potentates. The king of Portugal first appointed Duarte Nuñes da Costa, and then Jacob Curiel, as his agents, and his Catholic majesty, Philip IV, elevated Immanuel Rosales, a Jewish author of Portuguese descent, to the dignity of count palatine. The Portuguese Jews, in general more favorably situated than their German brethren, felt so happy at Hamburg, that they called it their "little Jerusalem."
A colony of the Amsterdam mother-community was formed in Brazil, South America, discovered and peopled by Portuguese, and a number settled in the town of Pernambuco. Thither the Portuguese government had often transported Jewish offenders, i.e., Marranos, whom it did not wish to deliver to the burning-pile, together with prostitutes, and other rabble. These disgraced Marranos assisted the Dutch in conquering Brazil, which became a Dutch colony, with a Stadtholder of its own, the intelligent John Maurice, of Nassau (1624–1636). Connections were immediately established between the Amsterdam and the Brazilian community, which threw off the mask of Christianity, and was almost spoilt by the favor of the Dutch. The Jews at Recife, near Pernambuco, called themselves "the holy community" (Kahal Kados), and had a governing body consisting of David Senior Coronel, Abraham de Moncado, Jacob Mucate, and Isaac Cathunho. Several hundred Amsterdam Portuguese, either by invitation, or of their own accord, sailed to Brazil to form business connections with the colony, and took with them the Chacham Isaac Aboab. He was the first Brazilian rabbi, settling probably at Recife. At Tamarica a community was formed, which had its own Chacham, Jacob Lagarto, the first Talmudical author in South America. Of course, the Brazilian Jews enjoyed perfect equality of rights with other citizens, for they rendered the Dutch essential services as advisers and warriors. When the native Portuguese, who bore the yoke of the Dutch impatiently, formed a conspiracy to get rid of the Dutch authorities at a banquet in the capital, and attack the colony bereft of government, a Jew gave warning, and saved the colony from certain destruction. Later, in 1646, when open war broke out between the Portuguese and the Dutch, and the garrison of Recife, exhausted by famine, was on the point of surrendering unconditionally, the Jews encouraged the governor to brave resistance.
A fanatical war of race and religion between the Portuguese and the Dutch devastated fair Brazil, and a famine ensued. The Jews vied with the Dutch in suffering and bravery. Isaac Aboab, the Chacham of the Brazil community, paints the sufferings of the war, which he himself endured, in lurid colors: