Educated in England and Israel, Harold Zvi Rabbie participated in the explosive growth of the high tech industry in Israel and in California, and is now retired.

He has been researching his Dutch Jewish ancestry for more than 25 years, and is able to trace his family story back to Portugal in 1450.

“The Western Sephardim, a Minority in a Minority in a Minority” (Mon-119), 7:30-8:45 A.M.

After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, many Sephardi Jews headed east, to the Ottoman Empire. But some chose to undergo insincere Christian conversions, or head west to Portugal. Some made their way to Protestant countries of Northern Europe or to the New World, where they could revert back to Judaism.

This is the story of the earliest Jewish communities in the Netherlands, England, and the Caribbean, which were founded by these Spanish and Portuguese Jews.

Topics: Immigration and migration over the ages, Sephardic research, Specific countries or geographic areas (Netherlands, England, Caribbean)