It is customs and traditions that make a community unique. The Western Sephardim, also known as the Nação Portuguesa (Portuguese Nation) and Spanish & Portuguese Jews, were the community that experienced the Inquisition. What sets this historically small but important group apart? What is different about its liturgy, and why? What is uniquely Portuguese? Historically, how were the young people educated? How did a 17th and 18th Century religious merchant community deal with the institution of slavery?

Sephardic World’s speaker Yehonatan Elazar-DeMota, obtained a doctorate in international law from the University of Amsterdam. His thesis was Nação Legal Consciousness and its contribution to the 17th century Dutch Republic Debate on Slavery and Slave Trade. Yehonatan holds a MA in Religious Studies and Anthropology, and a BA in Liberal Studies from Florida International University. Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the political history department at the University of Antwerp. In addition to academia, he is the Rosh Yeshibah at Beth Midrash Eleazar in the Dominican Republic.

#judaism #minhag #jewishtraditions

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