But help came to Chacham Zevi from without. The rabbis whose pretended letters of recommendation Chayon had prefixed to his work declared them to be forged. The deepest impression was made by the letters of the highly respected, aged rabbi of Mantua, Leon Brieli, who, well acquainted with the past history of the impostor, unmasked him, and approved of the sentence of condemnation against his heretical book. Brieli wrote urgently to the Amsterdam council, and to Ayllon, in Hebrew and Italian, imploring them not to lend their authority to so bad a cause. But they remained stubborn, answered him politely, yet evasively. The quarrel rose higher every day in the Amsterdam community; every one took one side or the other, defending his view with bitterness, passion, and frequently with vigorous action. Peace vanished from this pattern community, and dissension was carried into family life. Matters had gone so far that the leaders could not yield. Ayllon and De Pinto went to greater lengths in their obstinacy. They suggested that the Portuguese council summon Chacham Zevi, the rabbi of the German community (over whom it had no authority whatever), before its tribunal, with the intention of shaming him or of inducing him to recant. When he paid no heed, it laid him and Moses Chages under the ban, most strictly forbidding the members of the community to have dealings with them, protect them, or intercede for them with the civic authorities.
As though the council and the rabbinate had been infected by Chayon's baseness, they committed one meanness after another. In justification of their course of action they distorted the actual state of the case, and made use of notorious falsehoods. They encouraged, or at least countenanced, Chayon in calumniating his opponents with the vilest and most revolting aspersions, not only Chacham Zevi and Chages, but even the wise and venerable rabbi, Leon Brieli, and supported Chayon in all his audacities. The Portuguese council and the rabbinate, or rather De Pinto and Ayllon, for their colleagues were mere puppets, persecuted Chayon's opponents as though they were lost to all feeling of right. With Moses Chages they had an easy game. He lived on the Portuguese community; and when they withdrew the means of sustenance, he was compelled to leave Amsterdam with his helpless family and migrate to Altona. They also pressed Chacham Zevi hard, annoyed him, accused him before the civil authorities, and prevented any one's assisting him. He, too, left Amsterdam, either De Pinto procuring his banishment at the hands of the magistrates, or Chacham Zevi, in order to anticipate scandalous expulsion, going into banishment of his own accord. He repaired to London, in the first instance, then by way of Breslau to Poland, and was everywhere honorably received and treated.