The Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, by Mosseh Raphael de Aguilar

a legacy of the Sephardic community of Amsterdam in the 17th century

Abstract

The Jewish community of Amsterdam from the XVII and XVIII centuries consisted mostly of Portuguese and its descendants who spoken and wrote in Portuguese. The Ets Haim library, also in Amsterdam, maintain many texts from this community in its collection and among them the Treaty of Soul’s Immortality, from Rabbi Mosseh Raphael de Aguilar, is found in two testimonies. This document’s tradition study intend to yield, to philologists, linguists, jewish studies researchers and historians, essential material of analysis and interpretation when it comes to the Portuguese language and a multicultural community such as the one found in Amsterdam. This study’s choice was made with the intention of further develop knowledge about the characteristics and evolution of the Portuguese language in the Jewish community at hand, and to insert it in the tradition of historic studies of this language, which normally don’t even mention its use outside the Portuguese, Brazilian and other colonies’ territories.