Amsterdam was the last Dutch city to join the Protestant Revolt against the Spanish monarch, and from this turning point in 1578—the so-called “Alteratie”—this small town grew very fast in wealth and size. By the middle of the seventeenth century Amsterdam was Europe's third largest metropolis, with a population of more than two hundred thousand. Amsterdam's miraculous Golden Age owed much to its newcomers. The city especially welcomed those who had escaped from Catholic Spanish territories and those who were likely to contribute to the economy. Among the first such refugees were the “New Christians,” descendants of forcibly baptized Jews who fled the Inquisition in Portugal. Amsterdam was one of the few places in the Dutch Republic, indeed in Europe, where Jews could settle freely and with no limit on their numbers, and where they could practice their religion, build their synagogues, and live wherever they chose. Here the “‘Portuguese,” as they were invariably called, could openly revert to Judaism in peace. Their community flourished, and Amsterdam soon became an important center in the Sephardic diaspora.

Amsterdam admitted virtually all immigrants — only “heathens” (Gypsies) were expelled — and offered them religious freedom, at least in private. But newcomers in need had to turn to their own religious communities for assistance. The “Portuguese” took the obligation to take care of their poor very seriously; they were always nervous about their reputation and keen not to be viewed as burdening the city of Amsterdam. They also feared that charity handouts might lure the poor among them to Christian churches. A fear that charity would lead to conversion was not an empty one; for the same reason, the largely Calvinist government prohibited Catholics from organizing their own poor relief.

The success of the Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam has been nicely demonstrated by scholars. Poverty and poor relief within this relatively affluent group, however, which never reached more than a few thousand people, has attracted much less attention. This in-depth study by Dutch historian Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld shows that the subject of the “Portuguese” poor in Amsterdam is by no means a minor or simple one. The author takes the reader on a journey into a field of unexpected complexities, dilemmas, and nearly insoluble problems. For a start, the numbers of poor were always large, extending well beyond the widows, orphans, sick, and elderly one might expect. In the early decades of migration, many of the refugees from Portugal had to leave their possessions behind; many were from families that had lost their breadwinner; others needed help finding and reuniting with family members. But soon Jews from other Sephardic centres, like Venice, Belgrade, Thessalonika, as well as from Turkey and North Africa, flocked to Amsterdam, attracted by the reputed wealth and hospitality of the “Portuguese.” And this was nothing compared with the large-scale immigration from the middle of the seventeenth century onward of Ashkenazim from Germany and Poland, most of whom were desperately poor. The “Portuguese” were not fond of these “tudescos,” to whom they felt superior; but the Ashkenazim, too, were Jews, and therefore their responsibility. The active concern of the “Portuguese” for Ashkenazi poor ended only in 1670, when the Ashkenazim set up their own welfare system. In the eighteenth century economic decline made the poor more numerous and help more difficult, but by then the reputation of the “Portuguese” as rich and hospitable had greatly diminished.

In her book, Levie Bernfeld sketches the organization of welfare, both public and private, as well as the constant struggle to determine who needed help, who was entitled to it, and who deserved it. There was never enough money, and the conditions for aid became increasingly restrictive. The communal leaders (parnasim) tried to send away from the city those they excluded from charity, or put them on a ship to the West Indies; but many of those sent away simply returned. One is often reminded of contemporary dilemmas—the consequences of mass migrations, the problem of “free riders” in welfare states, and the political choices of inclusion and exclusion. For me, the most moving chapters were those on migration and on the daily lives of the poor, especially of women, who constituted the majority of those receiving help. Because the “Portuguese” followed the Mediterranean tradition of female seclusion in the home, women in the community had little opportunity to earn money for themselves. Poor girls could only hope for luck in the dowry lottery, which would provide them with a dowry and therefore a husband.

Poverty and Welfare among the Portuguese Jews in Early Modern Amsterdam fully deserves to have received the 2012 National Jewish Book Award in Sephardic Studies; but it is also an important contribution to the history of Amsterdam. The author has lived most of her life in that city and knows quite well its archives, history, and historians. Her book places Portuguese-Jewish charitable activity in the context of Amsterdam and its unique and complex system of welfare. This system was partly municipal, partly organized by the different religious communities, and partly administered by the guilds. Each institution had its own characteristics and its own policies concerning funding. Poor relief and poverty in the Dutch Republic has not been a neglected subject in the last decade, but this is the first in-depth study of the welfare system within one religious community in Amsterdam.

Charity was nearly always given in kind, and as a supplement to other income. “Portuguese” recipients of charity therefore needed also to work in order to have enough to live. But the labor market for Jews was restricted. While Jews could buy citizenship, on the whole they were excluded from the citizens’ guilds, that is to say from most well-paid craft occupations. Jews were active in the tobacco, sugar, and diamond industries, but in general the “Portuguese” resisted taking advantage of the many opportunities Amsterdam offered to unskilled persons to serve as sailors, manual laborers, and servants. This was partly because the “Portuguese” felt that heavy manual labor was degrading; but it was mainly because every ship, workshop, and household was organized around the Christian calendar, so that Jewish holidays could not be kept by those who worked in them. Comparing the “Portuguese” poor with the many thousands of poor German Lutheran immigrants, for example (as described in Erika Kuyper's book, Migrantenstad [2005]), reveals the long-term differences. The men of the latter group worked as day laborers or enlisted as sailors and soldiers with the East and West India Companies, and the women went out to work as servants or textile workers. For those who failed to find a living, there was a chance of being taken in by the municipal almshouse and hospitals. But those who managed to save money could marry and expect a better life, even buying their way into the guild system. In one or two generations they were integrated into the (Christian) Amsterdam economy.

This is a volume of profound learning and impeccable scholarship, the rich harvest of many years of hard work, in which every archival stone was turned and no reference missed. Levie Bernfeld commands every language used in her sources and in the relevant literature. The scale and the painstaking accuracy of the research on which it is based make it the definitive book on the subject. The book's six hundred pages—including appendices with tables and figures, an elaborate bibliography, and indices both on persons and subjects—should not intimidate the reader. In the first 230 pages the author gives the interested reader a basic narrative. For those who want to go deeper, the following section of about the same size contains the notes, including not only references but also additional examples, quotations from the sources, and bibliographic discussions. (To fully profit from what is in a sense a second book, however, knowledge of Portuguese and Dutch is necessary.) The book is beautifully edited, but it is a pity that there are no illustrations. Even so, this is a rich and admirable book, which deserves to be widely read.