ABSTRACT
About eighteenth-century Sephardi, Emmanuel and Emmanuel (1970:234) write: “The social life and religious life of the Jew … were inextricably interwoven.” This has been a common condition in Jewish communities, and such semi-autonomy often was found among Sephardi in Moslem countries and in many traditional societies (Zenner and Deshen 1982). Zenner and Deshen (1982:21) write: “The internal organization of Jewish communities is the product of both external forces and of Jewish tradition.” Below I discuss internal political organization among Curaçaoan Sephardi.
