Haham Isaac Aboab de Fonseca's family had suffered for three generations from the Inquisition. Aboab himself grew up in Amsterdam: the Netherlands government tolerated Jews, but in Europe the threat seemed always near. In 1641 the Dutch moved into Recife, a colony in Brazil which they had taken from the Portuguese, and the Jews of Amsterdam decided to send Aboab with a group of pioneers to head the first New World synagogue. In Brazil the rabbi and his followers found Dutch and Portuguese settlers operating under difficult conditions. Cannibal Indians and Portuguese guerrillas lurked in the forest, and the colony was full of spies conspiring to throw out the Dutch.

From the dust jacket