Mere years after arriving in the Netherlands, the Academia Y Yesiba Ets Haim was founded by Sfardic refugees in Amsterdam in 1616.
In Rotterdam, Abraham De Pinto (Don Gyl Lopes Pinto, born Lisbon 1588, died Rotterdam 1668) who had fled from Antwerp with his entire family and his dependents in 1647, and converted back to the faith of his ancestors, founded the Yesiba De Los Pintos in 1650 / 1651, with Chacham Josiau Pardo (son of David Pardo, and grandson of Yoseph Pardo, chief Rabbi of Amsterdam) as Ros Yesiba.
At that time there were only a few thousand Sfardim in the Netherlands. At its height, the Sfardic community barely hit the five thousand mark. But it had TWO yeshivos, and printed many books that were disseminated all over Northern and Eastern Europe.
The greater Bay Area has half a million Jews - that's more than a hundred times the number of Sfardim in the Netherlands during the Golden Age.
But, to my knowledge, there is not a single yeshiva in the Bay Area.
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FOG CAUSES FITS
When I woke up on Tuesday the fog was thick enough to cut it with a knife. Much much later it had disappeared. My late lunch in Chinatown wa...
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I have a theory. Enlightenment happened. western Liberalism happened. See the "Does G-d duide Liberalism" post on DovBear today.
Of particular interest is my brilliant opening salvo.
As a result of Shoah, how many Rabbis were denied the opportunity to teach other Rabbis, who never founded yeshivot? How many potential Rabbis never lived long enough to graduate yeshivot that were never founded and so never received smicha? How many Rabbis that never were, that never received smicha, never taught students that were never to be? When I say Mourner's Kaddish, I stand and daven, even though I am not personally,(toda El!) in mourning. I say kaddish for those for whom none were left to say kaddish. The long term ripple out effects of Shoah are with us today.
B'shalom;
R
there are jewish day schools and high schools
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