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“...Between spermaceti and the town's “other” industry –slavery – Newport's harbour was one of the busiest in America, where as many as 150 ships lay at anchor at a time.
Slavery, and their part in it, has understandably become a sore point with the Sephardim, who tend to play down their “ancestors” role, or to insist that Jewish merchants who took part in the slave trade did so 'only on a very limited scale.' Looking at it in historical perspetive, however, and bearing inmind the attitudes that prevailed at the time –and remembering man's limitless to overlook his own folly – it is possible to view slavery as it was viewed in the eighteenth century, as just another business. No one questioned the morrality of the slave trade. Whether it was right or wrong was something not ever considered. It was not in any way a Jewish preoccupation. All the 'best people' were involved in it, and a great many of New England's oldest, finest, and most redoubtable fortunes area solidly based on human cargo. (One should not point to the Jews and overlook the Christians.)...”
Page 103, The Grandees: America's Sephardic Elite by Stephen Birmingham
Collage of photos of 18 Sephardic Jewish known figures: Issac, Maimonides; Baruch Spinosa, David nieto, Daniel Mendoza, Dvid Ricardo, Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Disraili, Sabato Morais, emma Lazarus, Benjamin n. Cardozo, David de Sota Pool, Basil Henriques, Pierre Mendes,-France, Sam Costa, Jacques Derrida, Silvio Santos, Hank Azaria.
Fine1952™
© January 2015
Slavery, and their part in it, has understandably become a sore point with the Sephardim, who tend to play down their “ancestors” role, or to insist that Jewish merchants who took part in the slave trade did so 'only on a very limited scale.' Looking at it in historical perspetive, however, and bearing inmind the attitudes that prevailed at the time –and remembering man's limitless to overlook his own folly – it is possible to view slavery as it was viewed in the eighteenth century, as just another business. No one questioned the morrality of the slave trade. Whether it was right or wrong was something not ever considered. It was not in any way a Jewish preoccupation. All the 'best people' were involved in it, and a great many of New England's oldest, finest, and most redoubtable fortunes area solidly based on human cargo. (One should not point to the Jews and overlook the Christians.)...”
Page 103, The Grandees: America's Sephardic Elite by Stephen Birmingham
Collage of photos of 18 Sephardic Jewish known figures: Issac, Maimonides; Baruch Spinosa, David nieto, Daniel Mendoza, Dvid Ricardo, Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Disraili, Sabato Morais, emma Lazarus, Benjamin n. Cardozo, David de Sota Pool, Basil Henriques, Pierre Mendes,-France, Sam Costa, Jacques Derrida, Silvio Santos, Hank Azaria.
Fine1952™
© January 2015
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