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Musaphia & Milan in Amsterdam & Den Haag.md

Benjamin Musaphia and Gabriel Milan in Amsterdam & Den Haag

Below is a list of notarial documents obtained through various references as well as searches on the Amsterdam City Archives Transkribus site: https://transkribus.eu/r/amsterdam-city-archives/

I do not speak Dutch or Portuguese natively, but give an attempt at a short summary for some of the documents.

Names of other Sephardim that jumped out at me when skimming the documents have been included below, but do note that these lists are not exhaustive!

The identity of Gabriel Milan as Isaac Semach Arias was ascertained by Ton Tielen from the last will of Benjamin Musaphia: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheSepardicDiaspora/posts/3266475920278693/ (requires membership, see quotation on Geni)

A document from The Hague is also linked below.

At the end of this document is a quotation from Kellenbenz, referred to by 5 of the below documents.

— Mikkel Eide Eriksen, last updated January 13, 2023

Skærmbillede 2022-12-28 kl 13 57 27

Gemeente Amsterdamse Stadsarchief

Format: date (name of notarius, inventarisnummer) mentioned names

  • 1656-03-28 (Adriaen Lock, 2271) Benjamin Musaphia, Antonio Lopes Gomes, Jacob Abas, Isaac Abas, David Torres

  • 1657-03-16 (Benedict Baddel, 983A) Benjamin Musaphia

Haagse Gemeentearchief

  • 1673-02-01 (Johannes Beecqman, 461) Baruch Spinoza, Gabriel Milan

Kellenbenz

Kellenbenz mentions Isaac Semach Arias exactly once in his Sephardim 1958, in a footnote (my emphasis):

Dr. Musaphia war aber auch kaufmännisch tätig; er trieb Juwelenhandel, machte Wechselgeschäfte und arbeitete dabei mit seinen Schwiegersöhnen Gabriel Milan in Amsterdam sowie Josua und Daniel Abensur in Hamburg zusammen. Im Jahre 1673[38] starb Dr. Musaphia.

[38] Am 12. Kislev 5433, vgl. CASSUTO2 S. 291. Über die Geschäfte von Dr. Musaphia: RA Kopenhagen Finansarkiverne, Afregninger IX, 104. GA Amsterdam, NA, Jeunen de Vos 2965 (23.3.1662; Vaz Dias, Diversen G, S., 72); ebd. Lock 2210 (14.2.1661) und Lock 2209 (3.12.1660): Musaphia Schoonvader von Isaac Semach Arias; 1674 hatte er ein Vermögen von 10 000 Gulden (Vaz Dias, Diversen D); vgl. auch Baddel 983a (16.3.1657) und v.d. Groe 4086 (13.3.1678).

CASSUTO2: Die Portugiesischen Juden in Glückstadt. In: Jahrbuch der Jüdisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft 21, Frankfurt/M. 1930.

— Hermann Kellenbenz, Sephardim an der unteren Elbe: Ihre wirtschaftliche und politische Bedeutung vom Ende des 16. bis zum Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts (Franz Steiner Wiesbaden, 1958) p. 338

Note: 12. Kislev 5433 = 1. dec 1672

Note also that he writes p. 377: "Wenn wir uns nicht täuschen, war [Gabriel Milan] der Sohn von Antonio Dias Millao und also ein Neffe von Paul Dirichsen." It therefore appears that he was not aware of Milan's alias Isaac Semach Arias, or had access to the will of Musaphia.

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