Curiel family

The Curiel family (Dutch: Curiël or also known as: Nuñez da Costa) is a prominent Sephardi Jewish family.

Until the late 18th century, the family held diplomatic positions for the Portuguese Crown in Hamburg and Amsterdam.

History 
The family's origins date back to the 14th century in Curiel de Duero, Castile, Spain. Part of the Sephardic community in Spain, the Curiel family settled in Coimbra, Portugal after the 1492 Spanish decree that ordered the expulsion of all Jews who refused conversion to Catholicism. They were ennobled in 1641 by João IV of Portugal and hold noble titles in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. The Curiel family has links to banking and commerce, the arts, literature and politics.

Historian Jonathan Israel wrote that in the seventeenth century, "the new Hamburg synagogue, a place of worship for some eight hundred Sephardi Jews, was filled with emblems and reminders of the Curiel family. The eternal lamp, the Ner Tamid, was provided by Jacob Curiel, as was the oil for keeping the lamp burning. And also the bimah that stood at the centre of the synagogue, the shelves which lined it being reserved for the use of Jacob and his family."

Israel wrote that Moses Curiel was "renowned for his wealth, the prestige he enjoyed among non-Jews (the Stadholder William III stayed at his house for three days during one of his later visits to Amsterdam), and his handsome donations to the Amsterdam Portuguese synagogue, his name figured constantly in Dutch Jewish community life and synagogue politics for over half a century."  He continues: "his opulent residence on the Nieuwe Herengracht, then called the Joden Herengracht, in Amsterdam, testified to the seigneurial grandeur of his life-style and his pretensions to leadership among the Portuguese Jewish 'nation' as the community was known in Holland."

Notable members 

Abraham Curiel (1545-1609), Portuguese physician
 David Curiel (1594-1666), Portuguese merchant and diplomat
 Israel ben Meir di Curiel (1501–1573), rabbi at Safed, Ottoman Palestine
 Jacob Curiel (1587-1664), Portuguese merchant and diplomat
 Moses Curiel (1620-1697), Portuguese merchant and diplomat

References

Further reading 

 I. Da Costa, Noble Families Among the Sephardi Jews, (Gordon Press Publishers, 1976), 
 Daniel M. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-century Amsterdam, (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004),

External links 

 Archives tagged "curiel family" at The National Archives 

Category:Curiel family
Category:Jewish Portuguese history
Category:Jewish Dutch history
Category:Jewish Spanish history
Category:Sephardi Jews
Category:Jewish families
Category:Banking families
Category:Spanish Jews
Category:Portuguese Jews
Category:Dutch Sephardi Jews
Category:British Jews
Category:Egyptian Jews
Category:Italian Jews
Category:French Jews
Category:European noble families
Category:Portuguese noble families
Category:European nobility
Category:British Jewish families