![]() ![]() “We do hope that you will decide to pursue your plans to come to Amsterdam to do your work as requested. ![]() “We regret that a perfectly normal request to visit the premises of the Portuguese Synagogue has led to an international uproar,” Minco and Schrijver wrote to Melamed last Tuesday. Serfaty had acted without approval from the board of the Jewish Cultural Quarter, a city-funded institution that runs the Jewish Museum of Amsterdam and the non-religious components of the synagogue, according to Michael Minco and Emile Schrijver, the head of the board of directors of the synagogue and the head of the Jewish Cultural Quarter, respectively. However within a week the organisation responsible for the historic synagogue apologised for Serfaty’s action. “I therefore deny your request and declare you persona non grata in the Portuguese Synagogue complex,” he wrote. He concluded the letter by barring Melamed from the building. ![]() You have devoted your life to the study of Spinoza’s banned works and the development of his ideas,” Serfaty wrote, using the Hebrew words for the community’s leaders. “The chachamim and parnassim of Kahal Kados Torah excommunicated Spinoza and his writings with the severest possible ban, a ban that remains in force and cannot be rescinded. In a letter to the professor, Rabbi Joseph Serfaty, a leader of Amsterdam’s Sephardic community, told Melamed he would not be welcomed into the building – a building in which Spinoza himself may have studied, as he was enrolled in the school that was once housed there. Melamed had sought access to the synagogue to make a documentary about Spinoza, whom the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam excommunicated in 1656 for writings that it deemed heretic. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |