Thriving Jewish communities emerged in Spain and Portugal as early as the early Middle Ages. From 711, the Iberian Peninsula was under Islamic rule in which Jews participated in society as an equal population group. These Spanish and Portuguese Jews are also called Sephardic Jews, after the Hebrew word for Spain, Sepharad. At the end of the 15th century, this period came to a brutal end with the expulsion of the Ottomans by Christian rulers. Other religions are no longer tolerated and persecuted. The Inquisition expels and murders Jews or forces them to convert to Christianity. Spanish and Portuguese Jews flee en masse, including to the Republic of the Netherlands.

The first Sephardic Jews settled in Amsterdam from 1600 onwards. The community holds services in small home synagogues. Three separate Sephardi communities merged in 1639 to form the Kahal Kadosh Talmud Tora, or the Portuguese-Israelite Congregation. As the Sephardic community grew rapidly, the board decided to have a large, majestic synagogue built in 1670.

The festive dedication of the Portuguese Synagogue took place on 2 August 1675. This booklet contains the sermons delivered during the dedication by chacham Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, chacham Solomon de Oliveira and chacham Isaac Saruco, among others. The inclusion of detailed engravings of the interior and several plans of the new synagogue, made by engraver Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708), makes it a valuable memento. The booklet also lists the costs of construction and patrons. Architect and master builder Elias Bouman (1636-1686) makes the final design for the synagogue.

The Portuguese Synagogue consists of a main building surrounded by outbuildings for offices, a room for washing and caring for the deceased, a mikve (ritual bath), meeting room for the parnassim (committee members of the congregation), a smaller synagogue room for use at small services and during the winter period, and the seminary Talmud Tora with its associated library, now Library Ets Haim - Livraria Montezinos.

During worship in the synagogue, people read from the Torah from a raised platform called the tevah. This unique cloth placed over the teba (also called a manta) is made of precious fabrics from India and decorated with floral motifs and medallions. It is likely that this rug was also used during the dedication of the Portuguese Synagogue. It is therefore called the dedication tevah.