David Franco Mendes
David Franco Mendes was a Dutch-Portuguese businessman born into a prominent Sephardic family of Amsterdam. A prolific writer, he had a gift for languages, of which he knew seven, and wrote his poetry in Hebrew. His best-known literary work is the drama Gemul Atalyah, influenced partly by Jean Racine’s play Athalie. Franco Mendes was also a highly regarded Judaic scholar. In the latter part of his life, a crisis in the Dutch economy ruined his business, obliging him from 1778 on to earn his living by copying manuscripts.
Content by David Franco Mendes
Primary Source
Memórias do estabelecimento e progresso dos judeus portuguezes e espanholes nesta famosa cidade de Amsterdam (Account of the Establishment and Progress of the Portuguese and Spanish Jews in This Famous City of Amsterdam)
Primary Source
Dictionary of Maritime Terms
Primary Source
Note of Royalty Who Visited the Sephardic Synagogue of Amsterdam between 1642 and 1781
Primary Source
Cover of Kol tefila ve-kol zimra
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