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 not in fact "Jewish" per se, but are simply German or Slavic surnames (including so-called "Jewish" names like Goldberg) which were adopted by Ashkenazi Jews, some of which became so overwhelmingly carried by Jews that they came to be seen as "Jewish", although there are gentile carriers of those same surnames, because it is with those gentile families that the surnames originated to begin with. Only some surnames found among Ashkenazi Jews today are surnames which are exclusively "Jewish" surnames being capable of, on their own, indicating Jewish origins of the carrier. Sephardic Bnei Anusim Sephardic Bnei Anusim (, ,