Francesca Trivellato * 122 within the community of reference . There, “New Jews” of Iberian descent forged a balance between tradition and acculturation that, though driven by “circumstantial conjunctions, without an ideological justification” ( 27 ) , constituted an “alternative path” when compared to that of other Jewish groups . This dual process of confessionalization and rupture with traditional Judaism is at the core of Kaplan’s scholarship . Between the 1590 s and the early eighteenth century, a new Jewish society emerged and flourished as a result of internal fractures and an important project of collective self - definition . Leaders of this creative project were the upper echelons of Amsterdam Sephardi society, who came to embody the notion of bom judesmo a novel symbiosis of Jewish customs and gentile respectability . The , ) 71 ( guardians of this “accommodation” ( 27 ) were the lay syndics ( parnassim ) elected on a rotating basis to be at the helm of the Spanish and Portu...
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