Aron Sterk

http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=354

The Portuguese is wrong - it's Bem vindos Judeus! and it totally ignores the Portuguese diaspora equating Sephardim only with Jews from muslim countries, but there is some very interesting stuff here:http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/199924/start-up-nation

University of Potsdam are particularly looking for someone interested in Sephardic Studies for their project 'Minor Cosmopolitanisms':

A good online introduction to early modern English palaeography - test yourself with the ducking stool game!

This is an amazing find in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil - what seems to be a XVII century mikveh with its 'bor' reservoir of rainwater hidden in a building right on top of the church plaza!

For anyone near Liverpool ...

Folllowing on form the discussion on name myths Laura Arnold Leibman mentions another one in this interesting page on naming customs: that names ending in -ez indicate Jewish ancestry. They are of course common Spanish patronymics. (However -es is the Portuguese spelling not an archaic Spanish spelling). The grave shown has one of the assumed coat of arms I mentioned Gehazi Bispo. Perhaps Laura ca...

Review of Francesca Bregoli's important book on the Livorno community "Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform." as a third model of Jewish Enlightenment - is this distinct from the "Alternative Path to Modernity"?

http://www.revistacodice.es/actividades/actividades_2016/paleografia/curso_paleografia_2016.htm

The early S&P community in Dublin, Ireland. A report of the trial of David Cohen Henriks (Henriques) for assault and battery on a fellow servant Elizabeth Applebee with whom he is claimed to have an adulterous affair during her husband's absence in England. Both were servants working for Solomon de Castro. Henriks was acquitted "to the general satisfaction of the whole Tribe of Swine Haters that w...

http://www.crescas.nl/cursussen/74z/Ets-Haim-anno-1616/

https://jhse.org/event/the-first-sephardim-in-the-atlantic/

http://www.bethhaimcuracao.comh/t Laura Arnold Leibman

LIsbon is to get a Jewish Museum in Alfama (although not in the medieval Judieria):

An important book from Sepharad. David Abudarham's 'Perush' printed by Eliezer Alantasi in 1490 describes the differences in the liturgies in Spain and Portugal and was one of the first books printed in Portugal. An incunabula, each page was carved as one woodblock rather than using movable type. Frankfurt are fortunate to have two copies!http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/inchebr/search?operat...

Menasseh Ben Israel's first book 'Safa Berura' a grammar of Hebrew written in Portuguese. This digitalised version is a copy by his pupil Selomo De Oliveira:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1530942720529461/

There are some very interesting parallels here with some claims of 'crypto-Jewish' blood:

This is a very useful site indeed:

Michael do you have the ketuba for Sipora Giyoret?

Does anyone have a copy of Peterse, 'Livro do Bet Haim do Kahal Kados de Bet Yahakob' Assen 1970? either a scan or access to check something.NB that is the Bet Yahakob one not Talmud Torah.

New Year card sent to H. Moses Gaster by M.P. Mendoza

http://www.genealogiahispana.com/primeros-pasos/tendre-antepasados-judios-mitos-y-realidades/

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/archives-of-53-000-jews-who-lived-in-ireland-made-available-to-the-public-1.2328592

for those who can't access it this is the paper discussed below: