Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands of Sephardic Jewry in Amsterdam, the Mahamad also closely controlled the process of re-judaization - that is helping those whose families had been secretly living as Jews while being outwardly Catholic return to a full Jewish life. In this process, several individuals rejected Rabbinic Judaism or advanced ideas outside of the norms of Judaism at that time and were disciplined by the Mahamad through the process of herem, which could be anything from denial of Torah honors to an outright ban on the individual. The most famous of those to receive a full ban herem was philosopher Baruch Spinoza, whose
Sephardic Bnei Anusim mulattos), it is estimated that up to 50 million of these possess Sephardic Jewish ancestry to some degree. Recent DNA evidence and historical settlement patterns of Sephardi-origin New Christians indicates that the concentration of these Hispanic/Latino-assimilated Christian-professing descendants of Sephardic Jews are found primarily in the following localities (from north to south): The common denominator between all the abovementioned localities is that they are situated in remote areas, isolated either by distance or geographical features from the Spanish colonial administrative centers, which at the time were Mexico City, in central Mexico, and Lima, in central Peru. This is in complete