Sounding the Nação: Aural Conversion and Eighteenth-Century Community Formation at the Amsterdam Sephardic Synagogue

Abstract

The extant eighteenth-century notated cantorial repertory from the Amsterdam Portuguese synagogue (Esnoga) reveals the formation of a cosmopolitan space where Sephardic Jews forged a distinct acoustic community through the “aural conversion” of Italianate music, a process by which ḥazzanim turned fashionable trans-European sounds into Jewish liturgical artifacts. Traditional sacred texts substituted Italian vernacular lyrics, entrenching Jewish specificity within the parameters of a widely circulating galant musical style. Chiefly as sacred contrafacts, the new pieces reciprocally shaped and were shaped by the particular socio-economic position of Sephardic Jews in the Dutch Republic: the Sephardic elite leveraged Italianate aesthetics to signal refinement, distance themselves from alleged Ashkenazic “noise,” and negotiate their standing. Drawing on community chronicles, traveler accounts, and Hebrew oratorio translations—the essay shows that a carefully curated musical corpus helped establish community boundaries, performed cultural sophistication, and enacted cross-cultural diplomacy.