About this shiur
Prof. Benjamin Fisher discusses the Jewish community in Amsterdam and their contributions to Jewish scholarship.
A 55 min shiur shiur by SeforimChatter with Nachi Weinstein. Like every video on Lehallel, it was judged and approved under the Lehallel law before it ever appeared — no unreviewed result is ever shown.


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What’s said in this shiur
The opening of this shiur, in SeforimChatter with Nachi Weinstein’s own words— taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.
who is the associate professor of medieval and early modern Jewish history at Towson University. And we will be discussing his new book with which uh was published a year or two ago. I'm forgetting offhand as we started. And it is titled Amsterdam's People of the Book, Jewish Society and the Turn to Scripture in the 17th Century. So, thank you, Professor Fisher, for joining me. >> My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. >> Okay, let's start off. Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background. >> Okay, um well, I just I'm professor of Jewish history at Towson University and director of the Jewish studies program at Towson which has a wonderful group of scholars and experts in all kinds of all kinds of areas of Jewish history and I'm delighted to be talking about Amsterdam's people of the book today which was based on my doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania and research follow up that was done at Harvard and Oxford. >> Okay, so obviously this book has like two parts. It's about Amsterdam's Jewish community and about like it said turns to scripture about the Bible about and their interest in that. So I guess these two parts of the book how did you become you know why did you become interested in this and studying this and writing your your dissertation and then this book? >> Sure. So [snorts] it feels like a million years ago I became extremely fascinated and I guess hopefully excited about Amsterdam because I thought that I thought they wanted to do a project on
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165 approved videos from 2024 to 2026, 87 of them searchable by their own words. Open all of SeforimChatter with Nachi Weinstein’s shiurim →
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Key takeaways
- Shiur — 55 min, by SeforimChatter with Nachi Weinstein
- Approved by the Lehallel judge before appearing — never an unreviewed result
- Watch free during prelaunch on Lehallel
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Amsterdam's People of The Book55:28
SZ Series Episode 3: With Prof. Yaacob Dweck discussing Rabbi Yaakov Sasportas1 min
SZ Series Episode 5: With Prof. Matt Goldish part 2: Discussing post-conversion and death of SZ1 minEvery video is reviewed against one written standard before it can play.



