THE PORTUGUESE JEWS IN AMSTERDAM. FROM FORCED CONVERSION TO A RETURN TO JUDAISM Y. KAPLAN A. The Converso problem as seen by repentant Jews Most of the members of the Portuguese community in the 17th century in Amste previously been Conversos or were descendants of Conversos who openly re Judaism and accepted Jewish religious law. It was natural therefore that the p the Conversos occupied an important place in their lives and did not cease to tr conscience. Many of them had suffered the experience of forced conversion pe the Iberian peninsula where they had been compelled to deny their religion a and to accept outwardly the beliefs and customs of Christianity. After joining the community they continued to think about the phenomenon of forced conv religious and historical significance. The existence of a large community of Conversos in Spain and Portugal thro 17th century, which included the kinsmen and relations of those who returned to openly, and the continued migration of Conversos from those countries, thei Judaism and their integration into the communities of Spanish diaspora Jew practical and concrete dimensions to the painful Converso question. No one claims that all Conversos were of one and the same kind. Already in immediately after the disturbances of 1391, Isaac Ben Sheshet Perfet (the Riba the acute seriousness of the problem of apostasy amongst those Conversos who "si had been converted, even though forcibly at the beginning, later rejected Judaism off the yoke of the Torah and willingly follow the ways of gentiles, transgressing commandments of the Torah and, moreover, persecute the unfortunate Jews amon and falsely accuse them in order to destroy them and thus obliterate the memory furthermore, these people are handing over those Marranos whose heart is d heaven and who are attempting to extricate themselves from apostasy, to the auth and, on the other hand, the other Conversos "who would willingly and whole reject their conversion but are unable to do so because they do not possess th cover the tremendous costs involved in extricating themselves, their wives and th ones . . ." It is obvious that this distinction of the Ribash holds good for later too, even after the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the conversion decrees in Por 1497 when the scope and dimensions of the Marrano problem grew. Dozens of responsa on Jewish legal subjects connected with the question of versos of the Iberian Peninsula were written by the rabbis of Spain and th diaspora following the expulsion. The historian will find a great amount of m 37