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This chapter illustrates a twofold journey of Conversos, a physical trek northward to freedom and a spiritual journey to the practice of Judaism, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They had no personal experience of life in a Jewish community after the Expulsion from Spain. What united them was a sense of shared oppression at the hands of the Inquisition in Portugal and the collective memory, however faint, of being portugueses de la nación hebrea, homens de nação, or simply members of the nação, the 'Nation'. The chapter explores a distinctive social unit that Conversos formed with extraordinarily tight bonds in Seville, Madrid, Lima, and elsewhere, and a sense of kinship with other Portuguese and Spanish Conversos, wherever they were. This background produced a new and different historical trajectory. The Amsterdam community outstripped the others in culture and affluence and served as their model and guide. Amsterdam, in turn, drew its models of the Jewish community from the Sephardim of Venice. It also examines the emerging new political reality, United Provinces of the Netherlands, and a new model of the Jewish community, the western Sephardi diaspora.

This chapter highlights the Torah mantle, which was the last of the ceremonial objects to evolve for the wrapping of the Torah scroll. Just as garments reflect the status of their wearers in all cultures, so the mantle plays a similar role. Thus, a mantle is donated not only in order to protect the scroll, to give thanks to God, or to commemorate someone who has passed away; it is also a means of acquiring social status in the congregation and demonstrating one's wealth. This is especially evident in congregations in Italy and the Portuguese diaspora, whose mantles compete with each other with their wonderful gold embroidery, even though most of them lack any inscription or Jewish content. Flaunting wealth in the synagogue by donating ceremonial objects is especially ingrained in the Sephardi and Italian heritage as a result of the restrictions placed by rabbis on wearing sumptuous outer garments so as not to arouse jealousy among non-Jews. In contrast, in Ashkenazi congregations, the social status of the donors is demonstrated primarily through the use of honorific titles in the dedications, though beautiful embroidery and luxurious materials may be used to enhance the effect.

This chapter focuses on the Torah wrapper and the Torah binder. The wrapper, the piece of fabric rolled up with the parchment scroll, is an item used in the wrapping of the Torah scroll in Italy and the Sephardi diaspora of exiles from Spain and Portugal. In Italy, the wrapper is known as the mapah, indicating that it evolved from the first ceremonial object connected to the Torah scroll in antiquity, inheriting its name. Meanwhile, the binder is a long, thin piece of cloth bound around the Torah scroll. In Italy and in Sephardi diaspora congregations, it is bound over the wrapper, while in other communities it is placed directly next to the parchment scroll. What makes the Italian binders unique is that they are rooted in the embroidery and lace-work traditions of the Italian Renaissance and baroque period.