These studies show that the utility of Jewish merchants in an era of European expansion was vital to their acculturation and assimilation.

Port Jews - concepts, cases and questions, David Cesarani; fields of tension -development dynamics at the port-city interface, Brian Hoyle; port Jews and the three regions of emancipation, David Sorkin; researching port Jews and port Jewries -Trieste and beyond, Lois Dubin; Portmanteau Jews - Sephardim and race in the early modern Atlantic world, Jonathan Schorsch; Germany's door to the world - a haven for the Jews? Hamburg, 1590-1933, Rainer Liedtke; a tale of two port Jewish communities - Southampton and Portsmouth compared, Tony Kushner; the forgotten port Jews of London - court Jews who were also port Jews, David Cesarani; port Jewry of Salonika and Odessa - inter-ethnic relations in cosmopolitan port cities, Maria Vassilikou; a port, not a shtetl - reflections on the distinctiveness of Odessa, John D. Klier; the Sorkin and Golab theses and their applicability to south, southeast and east Asian port Jewry, Jonathan Goldstein; conclusion - future research on port Jews, David Cesarani.