A correlation between shared culture, language, kinship, and trust is still deeply entrenched in the historiography about early modern commerce. Yet, recent studies about trading minorities – such as Sephardic Jews, Portuguese New Christians, or Armenians – have grown skeptical of older notions regarding intra-group ethnic and religious solidarity (as conveyed by Abner Cohen's term ‘trading diaspora’). Today, scholars increasingly emphasize mechanisms of communal control and cohesiveness, and disciplining systems that promoted effective long-distance commercial networks. In doing so, they show that trust – the building block of pre-modern commerce – was not a natural outcome of belonging to the same ethno-religious minority, but a constantly negotiated status.

The importance of kinship practices as a crucial foundation of premodern Jewish trade, however, should not be minimized. The devolution and protection of capital within a family through specific marriage, dowry, and inheritance strategies were essential for its economic success in a competitive market. The family played an especially significant role for Mediterranean Jewish commerce. Jewish merchants in that area continued structuring their business in family firms even in the late eighteenth century, when joint-stock companies had become commonplace in northern Europe. Furthermore, ties maintained by separated relatives from the same household remained key for the functioning of Jewish trade networks: they helped spread out risk, increase potential for success, and expand business to multiple markets.