Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg
The senate asked the Lutheran theological faculties of Jena and Frankfort-on-the-Oder for their opinions in the matter, and, after many negotiations, it was agreed that, in consideration of a payment made for their protection, the Sephardim should be tolerated in the town as strangers, though they were not to be allowed to practise their religion publicly.
"[1] Thus the senate argued towards the aldermen, that the Sephardim were just another group of foreign merchants enhancing Hamburg's international commercial relations, emphasising their Portuguese nationality.
In 1617 they obtained the right to choose four sworn brokers from among their own people as members of Bourse of Hamburg (Germany's first stock exchange); and later on this number was increased to fifteen.
They were the first to open up trade with Spain and Portugal; they imported from the colonies sugar, tobacco, spices, cotton, etc., and they took a prominent part in the foundation of the Bank of Hamburg (1619).
As early as the year 1627 the Portuguese Jews possessed a small place of worship, styled Talmud Torah (תלמוד תורה), in the house of Elijah Aboab Cardoso.
Emperor Ferdinand II addressed bitter complaints to the senate about this "synagogue",[citation needed] the Catholics not being allowed to build a church in Hamburg at that time.
In 1652 the three Portuguese congregations formally constituted themselves as Holy Community of the Sephardim of Beit Israel (בית ישראל) with a large synagogue of the same name, and chose as Chief Rabbi ("Ḥacham da naçao") the learned David Cohen de Lara (d. 1674).
In 1656 Isaac Jesurun was called from Venice to Hamburg, there to take the place of Chief Rabbi ("Ḥacham geral") "for the promotion of religion and the general welfare," as the oldest minute-book of the congregation says.
Among the early elders of the congregation was Benedict de Castro, a son of Rodrigo, and, like his father, a well-known physician (personal doctor of Christina of Sweden).
They arranged celebrations in his honor in their principal synagogue, the young men wearing trimmings and sashes of green silk, "the livery of Shabbethai Zebi.
Internal quarrels, and especially the withdrawal of Jacob Abensur (minister resident of Augustus II the Strong) and his followers, were other causes of the decline of the Sephardic congregation in Hamburg.
Still, it had some well-known Ḥachamim, for example Jacob de Abraham Basan, who wrote an order of prayers (still extant) for a fast-day held after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake,[citation needed] and Benjamin Benveniste (d. 1757).
The shechitah, formerly under its sole supervision, went over to the Ashkenazi community, which in exchange had to pay to the Portuguese one-fourth (since 1856 one-eighth) of the total proceeds of the meat-tax.
The members of the congregation were granted equal rights (Jewish emancipation) by the city-state on 21 February 1849, adopting the legislation of the Frankfurt National Assembly.
In July 1939 the Nazi government abolished Jewish congregations as religious organisations and transformed them into subordinate branches of the police administration in charge of publicising and supervising the observance of the ever-growing number of anti-Semitic invidiousnesses.
Therefore, all persons classified as Jews according to the Nuremberg Laws were compulsorily enlisted as members, including Catholics, irreligionists and Protestants, of whose grandparents three to four had been enrolled in a Jewish congregation.
[7] By the end of 1942 the Jüdischer Religionsverband in Hamburg was dissolved as independent legal entity and its remaining assets and staff was assumed by the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (District Northwest).
