| Summary: | In 1749, the Elders of the London Sephardi community announced a significant change to the distribution of sedaca that was going to have long-term consequences for the poor helped by the congregation. From then on, only the following would be admitted to the sedaca: widows of their religious staff, people over 60 years old, small children, and those arriving directly from Iberia fleeing from the Inquisition. The plan was put into effect, and new institutions were founded to help the “industrious poor”, and the “curable ill”. This essay uses eighteenth-century records of the Elders and the Mahamad to reveal how the issue of how to care for their poor became so divisive that it prompted many paid members to abandon the congregation as a way to express their disagreement with how they were expected to care for the poor. This article is part of the special theme section on Portuguese Jews in Europe and the Caribbean, 17th-18th Centuries, guest-edited by José Alberto Tavim.
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