Please join us as we discuss “Amsterdam’s Sephardic Community During the Dutch Golden Age.”

We will have a variety of schnitzel, fish and sides for dinner.

LECTURE TOPIC:

Dr. Platt will be presenting a fascinating talk on the role of Sephardim in the 17th century Dutch Republic. After fleeing the Spanish expulsion a century earlier, a small group of Sephardi Jews found a safe haven in Amsterdam, where they enjoyed religious freedom. Dr. Platt will explore the cultural, economic, and religious relationships that developed between this community and the surrounding Dutch society during this time. He will also highlight some of the key figures from this period, such as the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who was born in Amsterdam, and the renowned painter Rembrandt, who lived in the Jewish quarter.

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Eric Platt is an associate professor of history and chair of the Department of Economics, History, and Political Science at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Platt’s research focuses on early modern European history, in particular England and the Dutch Republic, as well as the Atlantic World. He is the author of the book Britain and the Bestandstwisten (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), which examines British involvement in the Dutch religious/political disputes of the 1610s and its impact on both countries, as well as several articles. He is currently at work on his second book, a study of Lady Deborah Moody and the early history of Gravesend, which she founded in what is now Brooklyn in the mid-seventeenth century.