Mr. Buruma is the author of “Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah.” The Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza almost died for his ideals one day in 1672. Spinoza, a Sephardic Jew born in Amsterdam ...

Is there room for a novel about Baruch Spinoza in a publishing market crowded with supernatural creatures and kinky romance? Irvin D. Yalom thinks so. In fact, there’s plenty of room to describe ...

The beginning of Baruch Spinoza’s heresy may have begun with his uncircumcised grandfather. As a child in the 17th century, Spinoza visited the Beth Haim cemetery on the outskirts of Amsterdam ...

Statue of Baruch Spinoza at the Ralli Museum in Caesarea, Israel. Photo: Alamy. On July 27, 1656, the governors of Amsterdam’s Jewish synagogue read out a proclamation of excommunication.

AMSTERDAM (JTA) – More than 350 years after this city’s Portuguese Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza and banned his writings for eternity, the philosopher’s books are for sale ...

Ad Policy A portrait of Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza, 1754. (Photo by Bridgeman via Getty Images) Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Baruch Spinoza was the most original thinker of the European Enlightenment.

Sponsored by the Institute of Jewish Thought and Heritage, two leading internationally recognized Spinoza scholars: Steven Nadler (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Zev Harvey (Hebrew University of ...

Attendees at an Amsterdam symposium on whether to lift the ancient order of excommunication against the philosopher Baruch Spinoza examining a copy of the original writ against him, Dec. 6, 2015.

Baruch Spinoza’s life was a product of paradox. The 17th century, in Europe, was a time of both barbarous sectarianism and unprecedented human achievement.