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Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, Holland in a community of Portuguese Jews of Sephardic Jewish descent. He worked as a lens grinder and made lenses for telescopes that the most important scientific instruments of that time. His writings on rationalism, many of which were published, reveal substantial mathematical training. Spinoza's most influential work was his ethnics, a work that established him as one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. He is recognized as a founder of modern biblical criticism, and as having laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment. Spinoza was critical of the Talmud and took positions contrary to normative Jewish belief. In 1656 he was excommunicated from the Jewish community for his unorthodox conception of God.