History of the Jews in the Netherlands
Encyclopedia
Most history of the Jews in the Netherlands was generated between the end of the 16th century
and World War II
.
The area now known as the Netherlands
was once part of the Spanish Empire
but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces
declared independence. A principal motive was a wish to practice Protestant
Christianity
, then forbidden under Spanish rule
, and so religious tolerance was effectively an important constitutional element of the newly-independent state. This inevitably attracted the attention of Jews
who were religiously oppressed in many parts of the world.
in 1321 and the persecutions in Hainaut
and the Rhine provinces. The first Jews in the province of Gelderland
were reported in 1325. Jews have been settled in Nijmegen, the oldest settlement, in Doesburg
, Zutphen, and in Arnhem
since 1404. In 1349 the Duke of Guelders
was authorized by the Emperor Louis IV of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany
to receive Jews in his duchy. They paid a tax, granted services, and were protected by the law. In Arnhem, where a Jew is mentioned as a physician, the magistrate defended them against the hostilities of the populace. When Jews settled in the diocese of Utrecht does not appear. (However, rabbinical records regarding kashrut - Jewish dietary laws - speculated that the Jewish community in Utrecht dated back to Roman times.) In 1444 they were expelled from the city of Utrecht
, but they were tolerated in the village of Maarssen
, two hours distant, though their condition was not fortunate. Until 1789 no Jew might pass the night in Utrecht; for this reason the community of Maarssen was one of the most important in the Netherlands. Jews were admitted to Zeeland by Albert, Duke of Bavaria.
In 1477, by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy
to the Archduke Maximilian
, son of Emperor Frederick III
, the Netherlands were united to Austria and its possessions passed to the crown of Spain. In the sixteenth century, owing to the persecutions of Charles V
and Philip II of Spain
, the Netherlands became involved in a series of desperate and heroic struggles. Charles V had, in 1522, issued a proclamation against Christians who were suspected of being lax in the faith and against Jews who had not been baptized in Gelderland and Utrecht; and he repeated these edicts in 1545 and 1549. In 1571 the Duke of Alba notified the authorities of Arnhem that all Jews living there should be seized and held until the disposition to be made of them had been determined upon. In 1581, however, the memorable declaration of independence (Act of Abjuration) issued by the deputies of the United Provinces deposed Philip from his sovereignty; religious peace was guaranteed by article 13 of the Unie van Utrecht
. As a consequence the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal turned toward Holland as a place of refuge.
(so-called Spanish Jews) had been expelled from Spain
and Portugal
years earlier, but many remained in the Iberian peninsula
, practising Judaism in secret (see crypto-Jews or Marranos). The newly independent Dutch provinces provided an ideal opportunity for the crypto-Jews to re-establish themselves and practise their religion openly, and they migrated, most notably to Amsterdam
. Collectively, they brought trading influence to the city as they established in Amsterdam. Jews also brought the
Atlantic slave trade
to the Netherlands, see Jews and the slave trade
.
In 1593 these Marranos arrived in Amsterdam after having been refused admission to Middelburg
and Haarlem
. They became strenuous supporters of the House of Orange and were in return protected by the stadholder. At this time the commerce of Holland was increasing; a period of development had arrived, particularly for Amsterdam, to which Jews had carried their goods and from which they maintained their relations with foreign lands. Thus they had connections with the Levant and with Morocco. The Emperor of Morocco had an ambassador at The Hague named Samuel Pallache
(1591–1626), through whose mediation, in 1620, a commercial understanding was arrived at with the Barbary States.
In particular, the relations between the Dutch and South America were established by Jews; they contributed to the establishment of the Dutch West Indies Company in 1621, of the directorate of which some of them were members. The ambitious schemes of the Dutch for the conquest of Brazil were carried into effect through Francisco Ribiero, a Portuguese captain, who is said to have had Jewish relations in Holland. As some years afterward the Dutch in Brazil appealed to Holland for craftsmen of all kinds, many Jews went to Brazil; about 600 Jews left Amsterdam in 1642, accompanied by two distinguished scholars - Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
and Moses Raphael de Aguilar. In the struggle between Holland and Portugal for the possession of Brazil the Dutch were supported by the Jews.
With various countries in Europe also the Jews of Amsterdam established commercial relations. In a letter dated November 25, 1622, King Christian IV of Denmark
invites Jews of Amsterdam to settle in Glückstadt
, where, among other privileges, the free exercise of their religion would be assured to them.
Besides merchants, a great number of physicians were among the Spanish Jews in Amsterdam: Samuel Abravanel, David Nieto, Elijah Montalto, and the Bueno family; Joseph Bueno was consulted in the illness of Prince Maurice (April, 1623). Jews were admitted as students at the university, where they studied medicine as the only branch of science which was of practical use to them, for they were not permitted to practise law, and the oath they would be compelled to take excluded them from the professorships. Neither were Jews taken into the trade-guilds: a resolution passed by the city of Amsterdam in 1632 (the cities being autonomous) excluded them. Exceptions, however, were made in the case of trades which stood in peculiar relations to their religion: printing, bookselling, the selling of meat, poultry, groceries, and drugs. In 1655 a Jew was, exceptionally, permitted to establish a sugar-refinery. One particular Sephardic Jew also stood out during that time: his name was Benedictus de Spinoza (or Baruch Spinoza). He was excommunicated from the Jewish community in 1656 after speaking out his ideas concerning (the nature of) God in his famous work Ethics
.
(so-called "German Jews") were also attracted to the newly independent Dutch provinces, especially near the end of the 17th century. However, the majority were displaced migrants escaping persecution in other parts of northern Europe, in particular the violence of the Thirty Year War (1618–1648) and the Chmielnicki Uprising in Poland in 1648. Because most of the immigrants were poor, they were less welcome. Their arrival in considerable number threatened the economic status of Amsterdam in particular, and with few exceptions they were turned away. Generally, they settled in rural areas where they subsisted typically as pedlar
s and hawker
s. The result was that a large number of small Jewish communities existed throughout the Dutch provinces.
Over time, many of these German Jews attained prosperity through retail trading and by diamond-cutting, in which latter industry they retained the monopoly until about 1870. When William IV
was proclaimed stadholder (1747) the Jews found another protector like William III. He stood in very close relations with the head of the DePinto family, at whose villa, Tulpenburg, near Ouderkerk
, he and his wife paid more than one visit. In 1748, when a French army was at the frontier and the treasury was empty, De Pinto collected a large sum and presented it to the state. Van Hogendorp, the secretary of state, wrote to him: "You have saved the state." In 1750 De Pinto arranged for the conversion of the national debt from a 4 to a 3% basis.
Under the government of William V
the country was troubled by internal dissensions; the Jews, however, remained loyal to him. As he entered the legislature on the day of his majority, March 8, 1766, everywhere in the synagogues services of thanks-giving were held. William V did not forget his Jewish subjects. On June 3, 1768, he visited both the German and the Portuguese synagogue; he attended the marriage of various prominent Jewish families.
, to whose house they remained so faithful that the chief rabbi at The Hague, Saruco, was called the "Orange dominie"; the men of the old régime were even called "Orange cattle." Nevertheless, the Revolution appreciably ameliorated the condition of the Jews; in 1799 their congregations received, like the Christian congregations, grants from the treasury. In 1798 Jonas Daniel Meijer
interceded with the French minister of foreign affairs in behalf of the Jews of Germany; and on Aug. 22, 1802, the Dutch ambassador, Schimmelpenninck, delivered a note on the same subject to the French minister.
From 1806 to 1810 Holland was ruled by Louis Bonaparte
, whose intention it was to so amend the condition of the Jews that their newly acquired rights would become of real value to them; the shortness of his reign, however, prevented him from carrying out his plans. For example, after having changed the market-day in some cities (Utrecht and Rotterdam
) from Saturday to Monday, he abolished the use of the "Oath More Judaico
" in the courts of justice, and administered the same formula to both Christians and Jews. To accustom the latter to military services he formed two battalions of 803 men and 60 officers, all Jews, who had been until then excluded from military service, even from the town guard.
The union of Ashkenazim and Sephardim intended by Louis Napoleon did not come about. He had desired to establish schools for Jewish children, who were excluded from the public schools; even the Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, founded in 1784, did not willingly receive them or admit Jews as members. Among the distinguished Jews of this period were Meier Littwald Lehemon, Asser, Capadose
, and the physicians Heilbron, Davids (who introduced vaccination), Stein van Laun (tellurium), and many others.
On November 30, 1813, William VI
arrived at Scheveningen, and on December 11 he was solemnly crowned as King William I. Chief Rabbi Lehmans of The Hague organized a special thanksgiving service and implored God's protection for the allied armies on January 5, 1814. Many Jews fought at Waterloo
, where thirty-five Jewish officers died. William VI occupied himself with the organization of the Jewish congregations. On February 26, 1814, a law was promulgated abolishing the French régime. The Jews continued to prosper in the independent Holland throughout the 19th century. By 1900, Amsterdam had 51,000 Jews with 12,500 paupers, The Hague 5,754 Jews with 846, Rotterdam 10,000 with 1,750, Groningen 2,400 with 613, Arnhem 1,224 with 349 ("Joodsche Courant," 1903, No. 44). The total population of the Netherlands in 1900 was 5,104,137, about 2% of whom were Jews.
The Netherlands, and Amsterdam in particular, remained a major Jewish population centre until World War II, to the extent that Amsterdam was called Jerusalem of the West
by its Jews. The latter part of the 19th century, as well as the first decades of the 20th century, saw an ever-expanding Jewish community in Amsterdam after Jews from the mediene
(the "country" Jews, Jews who were living outside the big cities - like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague -, across numerous small congregations throughout the Dutch countryside) left their communities en masse, searching for a "better life" in the larger cities.
Dutch Jews were relatively small part of the population and showed a strong tendency towards internal migration, which led to them being integrated in the socialist and liberal "pillars" before the Holocaust, rather than becoming part of a Jewish pillar.
The number of Jews in the Netherlands grew substantially from the early 19th century up to World War II. Between 1830 and 1930, the Jewish presence in the Netherlands increased by almost 250% (numbers given by the Jewish communities to the Dutch Census).
(*) Derived from those persons who stated "Judaism" as their religion in the Dutch Census
(**) Persons with at least one Jewish grandparent. In another Nazi census the total number of people with at least one Jewish grandparent in the Netherlands was put at 160,886: 135,984 people with 4 or 3 Jewish grandparents (counted as "full Jews"); 18,912 Jews with 2 Jewish grandparents ("half Jews"), of whom 3,538 were part of a Jewish congregation; 5,990 with 1 Jewish grandparent ("quarter Jews")
(***) Membership numbers of Dutch Jewish congregations (only those who are Jewish according to the Halakha
)
In 1939, there were some 140,000 Dutch Jews living in the Netherlands, among them some 25,000 German-Jewish refugees who had fled Germany in the 1930s (other sources claim that some 34,000 Jewish refugees entered the Netherlands between 1933 and 1940, mostly from Germany and Austria ). The Nazi occupation force put the number of (racially) Dutch Jews in 1941 at some 154,000. In the Nazi census, some 121,000 persons declared they were members of the (Ashkenazi) Dutch-Israelite community; 4,300 persons declared they were members of the (Sephardic) Portuguese-Israelite community. Some 19,000 persons reported having two Jewish grandparents (although it is generally believed a proportion of this number had in fact three Jewish grandparents, but declined to state that number in the fear they would be seen as Jews instead of half-Jews
by the Nazi authorities). Some 6,000 persons reported having one Jewish grandparent. Some 2,500 persons, who were counted in the census as Jewish, were part of a Christian church, mostly Dutch Reformed, Calvinist Reformed
or Roman Catholic.
In 1941, the majority of Dutch Jews were living in Amsterdam. The census in 1941 gives an indication of the geographical spread of Dutch Jews at the beginning of World War II (province; number of Jews - this number is not based on the racial standards by the Nazis, but by what the persons themselves declared to be in the population census):
In 1945, only about 35,000 of them were still alive. The exact number of "full Jews" who survived the Holocaust is estimated to be 34,379 (of whom 8,500 were part of a mixed marriage and thus spared from deportation and possible death in the Nazi concentration camps
); the number of "half Jews" who were present in the Netherlands at the end of the Second World War in 1945 is estimated to be 14,545, the number of "quarter Jews" 5,990. Some 75% of the Dutch-Jewish population perished, an unusually high percentage compared with other occupied countries in western Europe. Factors that influenced the great number of people perished were the fact that the Netherlands was not under a military regime, because the queen fled to England, and a shortage of hiding places. The Netherlands is a densely populated country, so there was less opportunity to survive in forests or other natural hiding places, for example.
During the first year of the occupation of the Netherlands, Jews were forced to register with the authorities and were banned from certain occupations. Starting in January 1942, some Dutch Jews were forced to move to Amsterdam; others were directly deported to Westerbork, a concentration camp near the small village of Hooghalen
which had been founded in 1939 by the Dutch government to give shelter to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, but would fulfill the function of transit camp to the Nazi destruction camps in Middle and Eastern Europe during World War II
.
All non-Dutch Jews were also sent to Westerbork. Additionally, over 15,000 Jews were sent to labor camps. Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands to Poland and Germany began on 15 June 1942 and ended on 13 September 1944. Ultimately some 101,000 Jews were deported in 98 transports from Westerbork to Auschwitz (57,800; 65 transports), Sobibor
(34,313; 19 transports), Bergen-Belsen
(3,724; 8 transports) and Theresienstadt (4,466; 6 transports), where most of them were murdered. Another 6,000 Jews were deported from other locations (like Vught
) in the Netherlands to concentration camps in Germany, Poland and Austria (like Mauthausen
). Only 5,200 survived. The Dutch underground hid an estimated number of Jews of some 25,000-30,000; eventually, an estimated 16,500 Jews managed to survive the war by hiding. Some 7,000 to 8,000 survived by fleeing to countries like Spain
, the United Kingdom
, and Switzerland
, or by being married to non-Jews (which saved them from deportation and possible death). At the same time, there was substantial collaboration from the Dutch population including the Amsterdam city administration, the Dutch municipal police, and Dutch railway workers who all helped round up and deport Jews.
One of the best known Holocaust victims in the Netherlands is Anne Frank
. Along with her sister, Margot Frank
, she died from typhus in March 1945 in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen
, due to unsanitary living conditions and confinement by Nazis. Anne Frank's mother, Edith Frank-Holländer
, was starved to death by the Nazis in Auschwitz. Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank
, survived the war. Dutch victims of the Holocaust include Etty Hillesum
, and Abraham Icek Tuschinski
.
In contrast to many other countries where all aspects of Jewish communities and culture were eradicated during the Shoah, a remarkably large proportion of rabbinic records survived in Amsterdam, making the history of Dutch Jewry unusually well documented.
(still home to some 6,000 Dutch Jews) and the United States. In 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War in the Netherlands, the total number of Jews as counted in the population census was just 14,346 (down from a count of 154,887 by the German occupation force in 1941). Later, this number was adjusted by Jewish organisations to some 24,000 Jews living in the Netherlands in 1954 - nevertheless an enormous decrease compared to the number of Jews counted in 1941 - a number which was also disputed as the German occupation force counted Jews on basis of race, which meant that for example hundreds of Christians of Jewish heritage were also included in the Nazi census (according to Raul Hilberg in his book 'Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: the Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945', "the Netherlands ... [had] 1,572 Protestants [of Jewish heritage in 1943] ... There were also some 700 Catholic Jews living in the Netherlands [during the Nazi occupation] ...")
In 1954, the geographical spread of Dutch Jews in the Netherlands was as follows (province; number of Jews):
n Jews during the last decades. Approximately one in three Dutch Jews has a non-Dutch background. The number of Israel
i Jews living in the Netherlands (concentrated in Amsterdam) runs in the thousands (estimates run from 5,000 to 7,000 Israeli immigrants in the Netherlands, although some claims go as high as 12,000 ), although only a relatively small number of these Israeli Jews is connected to one of the religious Jewish institutions in the Netherlands. Some 10,000 Dutch Jews have emigrated to Israel in the last couple of decades.
At present, there are approximately 41,000 to 45,000 people in the Netherlands who are either Jewish as defined by halakha
(Rabbinic law), defined as having a Jewish mother (70% - approximately 30,000 persons) or who have a Jewish father (30% - some 10,000 - 15,000 persons; their number was estimated at 12,470 in April 2006). Most Dutch Jews live in the major cities in the west of the Netherlands (Amsterdam
, Rotterdam
, The Hague
, Utrecht
); some 44% of all Dutch Jews live in Amsterdam, which is considered the centre of Jewish life in the Netherlands. In 2000, 20% of the Jewish-Dutch population was 65 years or older; birth rates among Jews were low. An exception is the growing Orthodox Jewish population, especially in Amsterdam.
There are currently some 150 synagogues present in the Netherlands, of which some 50 are still used for religious services. Large Jewish communities in the Netherlands are found in Amsterdam
, Rotterdam
and The Hague
; smaller ones are found throughout the country, in Alkmaar
, Almere
, Amersfoort
, Amstelveen
, Bussum
, Delft
, Haarlem
, Hilversum
, Leiden, Schiedam
, Utrecht
and Zaandam
in the western part of the country, in Breda
, Eindhoven, Maastricht
, Middelburg
, Oosterhout
and Tilburg
in the southern part of the country, and in Aalten
, Apeldoorn
, Arnhem
, Assen
, Deventer
, Doetinchem
, Enschede
, Groningen, Heerenveen
, Hengelo
, Leeuwarden, Nijmegen, Winterswijk
, Zutphen and Zwolle
in the eastern and northern parts of the country.
Some 9,000 Dutch Jews, out of a total of 30,000 (some 30%), are connected to one of the seven major Jewish religious organizations. Smaller, independent synagogues exist as
well.
(Dutch Israelite Church) (NIK), which can be classified as part of (Ashkenazi) Orthodox Judaism
. The NIK has approximately 5,000 members, spread over 36 congregations (of whom 13 in Amsterdam and surroundings alone) in 4 jurisdictions (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and the Interprovincial Rabbinate), making it considerably larger than the Union of Liberal Synagogues (LJG) and thirteen times as large as the Portuguese Israelite Religious Community (PIK). In Amsterdam alone, the NIK governs thirteen functioning synagogues. The NIK was founded in 1814, and at its height in 1877, it represented 176 Jewish communities. This went down to 139 communities prior to World War II, and 36 communities today. Besides governing some 36 congregations, the NIK also holds responsibility for more than 200 Jewish cemeteries throughout the Netherlands (on a total number of Jewish cemeteries of 250).
In 1965 Rabbi Meir Just
was appointed Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands, a position he held until his death in April 2010.
The small Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
(Portuguese Israelite Religious Community) (PIK), which is Sefardic, has a membership of some 270 families, and is concentrated in Amsterdam. It was founded in 1870. Throughout history, Sefardic Jews in the Netherlands, in contrast to their Ashkenazi co-religionists, have concentrated in only a few communities: Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Naarden and Middelburg. Only the one in Amsterdam has survived the Holocaust and is still active.
There are three Jewish schools in Amsterdam, all situated in the Buitenveldert neighbourhood (Rosh Pina, Maimonides and Cheider). One of these (Cheider) is affiliated with Haredi Orthodox Judaism. Chabad has some eleven rabbis, in Almere, Amersfoort, Amstelveen, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Maastricht, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. The head shluchim
in the Netherlands are rabbis I. Vorst and Binyomin Jacobs. The latter is chief rabbi
of the Interprovinciaal Opperrabbinaat (the Dutch Rabbinical Organisation) and vice-president of Cheider. Chabad serves approximately 2,500 Jews in Holland, and an unknown number in the rest of the Netherlands.
(LJG) (Union for Liberal-Religious Jews in the Netherlands) (to which all the communities mentioned above are part of) is affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism
. On October 29, 2006, the LJG changed its name to Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom (NVPJ) (Dutch Union for Progressive Judaism). The NVPJ has six rabbis: Ruben Bar-Ephraïm, Menno ten Brink, Sonny Herman, David Lilienthal, Awraham Soetendorp and Edward van Voolen.
A new Liberal synagogue is being built in Amsterdam, 300 meters away from the current synagogue. This is needed since the current building became too small for the growing community. The Liberal synagogue in Amsterdam receives approximately 30 calls a month by people whom wish to convert to Judaism. The number of people actually converting is much lower. The number of converts to Liberal Judaism may be as high as 200 to 400, on an existing community of approximately 3,500.
Amsterdam is also home to Beit Ha'Chidush
, a progressive religious community which was founded in 1995 by Jews with secular as well as religious backgrounds who felt it was time for a more open, diverse and renewed Judaism. The community accepts members from all kinds of backgrounds, including homosexuals and half-Jews (including Jews with a Jewish father, the first Jewish community in the Netherlands to do so). Beit Ha'Chidush has links to Jewish Renewal
in the United States, and Liberal Judaism
in the United Kingdom. Rabbi for the community is German-born Elisa Klapheck, the first female rabbi of the Netherlands. The community uses the Uilenburger synagogue in the center of Amsterdam.
Klal Israël
is an independent Jewish congregation founded in the end of 2005, since 2009 affiliated with the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. It holds its roots in Progressive Judaism
. The congregation holds services in two synagogues, once in every two weeks in Delft
.
community in the city of Almere
. In 2005 Masorti Nederland (Masorti Netherlands) had some 75 members, primarily based in Almere, with members also present in Weesp
, Utrecht, Amsterdam and Leiden.
. Rosj Pina is a school for Jewish children in the age of 4 through 12. Education is mixed (boys and girls together) despite its affiliation to the Orthodox NIK. It is the largest Jewish school in the Netherlands. As of 2007 it has 285 pupils enrolled. Maimonides is the largest Jewish high school in the Netherlands. It had some 160 pupils enrolled in 2005. Although founded as a Jewish school and also affiliated to the NIK, it has a secular curriculum. Cheider presents education to Jewish children of all ages, and is the only one of three schools which holds an ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) background.Girls and boys are given separate education in separate classes. The school has some 200 pupils.
; kosher food is available. Both nursing homes have their own synagogue.
There is a Jewish wing at the Amstelland Hospital in Amstelveen
. It is unique in Western Europe in that Jewish patients are cared with according to Orthodox Jewish law; kosher food is the only type of food available at the hospital. The Jewish wing was founded after the fusion of the Nicolaas Tulp Hospital and the (Jewish) Central Israelite Patient Care in 1978.
The Sinai Centrum (Sinai Center) is a Jewish psychiatric hospital located in Amsterdam, Amersfoort
(primary location) and Amstelveen
, which focuses on mental healthcare, as well as caring for and guiding persons who are mentally disabled. It is the only Jewish psychiatric hospital currently operating in Europe
. Originally focusing on the Jewish segment of the Dutch population, and especially on Holocaust survivors who were faced with mental problems after the Second World War, nowadays the Sinai Centrum also provides care for non-Jewish victims of war and genocide.
television channel (except from the end of May until the beginning of September). NIKMedia is also responsible for broadcasting music and interviews on Radio 5
.
The Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad is the oldest still functioning (Jewish) weekly in the Netherlands, with some 6,000 subscribers. It is an important news source for many Dutch Jews, focusing on Jewish topics on a national as well as on an international level. The Joods Journaal (Jewish Weekly) was founded in 1997 and is seen as a more "glossy" magazine in comparison to the NIW. It gives a lot of attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
.
Another Jewish magazine published in the Netherlands is the Hakehillot Magazine, issued by the NIK
, the Jewish Community of Amsterdam and the PIK
. Serving a more liberal Jewish audience, the NVPJ
publishes its own magazine, Levend Joods Geloof (Living Jewish Faith), six times a year; serving this same audience, Beit Ha'Chidush
publishes its own magazine as well, called Chidushim.
There are a couple of Jewish websites focusing on bringing Jewish news to the Dutch Jewish community. By far the most prominent is Joods.nl, which gives attention to the large Jewish communities in the Netherlands as well as to the Mediene
, to Israel as well as to Jewish culture and youth.
and the Riverneighbourhood. Buitenveldert is considered a popular neighbourhood to live in; this is due to its low crime-rate and because it is considered to be a quiet neighbourhood.
Especially in the neighbourhood of Buitenveldert there's a sizeable Jewish community. In this area, Kosher food is widely available. There are several Kosher restaurants, two bakeries, Jewish-Israeli shops, a pizzeria and some supermarkets host a Kosher department. This neighourbood also has a Jewish elderly home, an Orthodox synagogue and three Jewish schools.
s and other officials from either culture, depending on who was available.
The close proximity of the two cultures inevitably led to intermarriage at a higher rate than was known elsewhere, and in consequence many Jews of Dutch descent have family names that seem to belie their religious affiliation. Particularly unusual, all Dutch Jews have for centuries named children after the children’s grandparents, which is otherwise considered exclusively a Sephardi tradition. (Ashkenazim elsewhere traditionally avoid naming a child after a living relative.)
In 1812, while the Netherlands was under Napoleonic rule, all Dutch residents (including Jews) were obliged to register surnames with the civic authorities, a practice which among Jews had previously been followed only by Sephardim. As a result of the compulsory registration and other extant records, it became clear that while the Ashkenazim had been avoiding civic registration, many had nevertheless been using an unofficial system of surnames for hundreds of years.
Also under Napoleonic rule, in 1809 a law was passed obliging Dutch Jewish schools to teach in Dutch and Hebrew
. This effected the exclusion of other languages and in due course, Yiddish, the lingua franca
of Ashkenazim, and Portuguese
, the previous language of the Sephardim, practically ceased to be spoken among Dutch Jews. Certain Yiddish words have been adopted into the Dutch language, especially in Amsterdam (which is also called Mokum, from the Hebrew word for town or place, makom), where the historically large Jewish community has had a significant influence on the local dialect.
There are several other Hebrew words that can be found in the local dialect including: Mazel which is the Hebrew word for luck or fortune; Tof which is Tov in Hebrew meaning good (as in מזל טוב - Mazel tov), and Googem in Hebrew Chacham or Hakham
, meaning wise, sly, witty or intelligent, where the Dutch g is pronounced similarly to the 8th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet the guttural Chet or Heth
.
Because Jews were obliged to live in specified Jewish quarters, there was severe overcrowding. By the mid-nineteenth century, many were migrating to other countries where the advancement of emancipation
offered better opportunities (see Chuts
).
16th century
As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century lasted from 1501 to 1600. It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred....
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
The area now known as the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
was once part of the Spanish Empire
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
declared independence. A principal motive was a wish to practice Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, then forbidden under Spanish rule
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
, and so religious tolerance was effectively an important constitutional element of the newly-independent state. This inevitably attracted the attention of Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
who were religiously oppressed in many parts of the world.
Early history
Jews seem to have lived in the province of Holland before 1593; a few references to them are in existence which distinctly mention them as present in the other provinces at an earlier date, especially after their expulsion from FranceHistory of the Jews in France
The history of the Jews of France dates back over 2,000 years. In the early Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but persecution increased as the Middle Ages wore on...
in 1321 and the persecutions in Hainaut
County of Hainaut
The County of Hainaut was a historical region in the Low Countries with its capital at Mons . In English sources it is often given the archaic spelling Hainault....
and the Rhine provinces. The first Jews in the province of Gelderland
Gelderland
Gelderland is the largest province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. The capital city is Arnhem. The two other major cities, Nijmegen and Apeldoorn have more inhabitants. Other major regional centers in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wijchen,...
were reported in 1325. Jews have been settled in Nijmegen, the oldest settlement, in Doesburg
Doesburg
Doesburg Doesburg Doesburg (Dutch is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Gelderland. Doesburg received city rights in 1237 and currently has 11,602 inhabitants (1 January 2007, source: CBS). The city is situated on the right bank of river IJssel, at the...
, Zutphen, and in Arnhem
Arnhem
Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...
since 1404. In 1349 the Duke of Guelders
Guelders
Guelders or Gueldres is the name of a historical county, later duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the Low Countries.-Geography:...
was authorized by the Emperor Louis IV of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
to receive Jews in his duchy. They paid a tax, granted services, and were protected by the law. In Arnhem, where a Jew is mentioned as a physician, the magistrate defended them against the hostilities of the populace. When Jews settled in the diocese of Utrecht does not appear. (However, rabbinical records regarding kashrut - Jewish dietary laws - speculated that the Jewish community in Utrecht dated back to Roman times.) In 1444 they were expelled from the city of Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
, but they were tolerated in the village of Maarssen
Maarssen
Maarssen is a town and former municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht, along the river Vecht. It lies in an area called the Vechtstreek.On January 1, 2011 Maarssen merged with Breukelen and Loenen to Stichtse Vecht....
, two hours distant, though their condition was not fortunate. Until 1789 no Jew might pass the night in Utrecht; for this reason the community of Maarssen was one of the most important in the Netherlands. Jews were admitted to Zeeland by Albert, Duke of Bavaria.
In 1477, by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy
Mary of Burgundy
Mary of Burgundy ruled the Burgundian territories in Low Countries and was suo jure Duchess of Burgundy from 1477 until her death...
to the Archduke Maximilian
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
, son of Emperor Frederick III
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick the Peaceful KG was Duke of Austria as Frederick V from 1424, the successor of Albert II as German King as Frederick IV from 1440, and Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III from 1452...
, the Netherlands were united to Austria and its possessions passed to the crown of Spain. In the sixteenth century, owing to the persecutions of Charles V
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
and Philip II of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
, the Netherlands became involved in a series of desperate and heroic struggles. Charles V had, in 1522, issued a proclamation against Christians who were suspected of being lax in the faith and against Jews who had not been baptized in Gelderland and Utrecht; and he repeated these edicts in 1545 and 1549. In 1571 the Duke of Alba notified the authorities of Arnhem that all Jews living there should be seized and held until the disposition to be made of them had been determined upon. In 1581, however, the memorable declaration of independence (Act of Abjuration) issued by the deputies of the United Provinces deposed Philip from his sovereignty; religious peace was guaranteed by article 13 of the Unie van Utrecht
Union of Utrecht
The Union of Utrecht was a treaty signed on 23 January 1579 in Utrecht, the Netherlands, unifying the northern provinces of the Netherlands, until then under the control of Habsburg Spain....
. As a consequence the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal turned toward Holland as a place of refuge.
Marranos and Sephardic Jews
The SephardimSephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
(so-called Spanish Jews) had been expelled from Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
years earlier, but many remained in the Iberian peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
, practising Judaism in secret (see crypto-Jews or Marranos). The newly independent Dutch provinces provided an ideal opportunity for the crypto-Jews to re-establish themselves and practise their religion openly, and they migrated, most notably to Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
. Collectively, they brought trading influence to the city as they established in Amsterdam. Jews also brought the
Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
to the Netherlands, see Jews and the slave trade
Jews and the slave trade
Like their Christian and Muslim neighbors, Jews owned slaves and participated in the slave trade. In the middle ages, Jews were minimally involved in slave trade. During the 1490s, trade with the New World began to open up. At the same time, the monarchies of Spain and Portugal expelled all of...
.
In 1593 these Marranos arrived in Amsterdam after having been refused admission to Middelburg
Middelburg
Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...
and Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
. They became strenuous supporters of the House of Orange and were in return protected by the stadholder. At this time the commerce of Holland was increasing; a period of development had arrived, particularly for Amsterdam, to which Jews had carried their goods and from which they maintained their relations with foreign lands. Thus they had connections with the Levant and with Morocco. The Emperor of Morocco had an ambassador at The Hague named Samuel Pallache
Samuel Pallache
Samuel Pallache was a Jewish-Moroccan merchant, diplomat and pirate who was sent as an envoy to the Dutch Republic in 1608....
(1591–1626), through whose mediation, in 1620, a commercial understanding was arrived at with the Barbary States.
In particular, the relations between the Dutch and South America were established by Jews; they contributed to the establishment of the Dutch West Indies Company in 1621, of the directorate of which some of them were members. The ambitious schemes of the Dutch for the conquest of Brazil were carried into effect through Francisco Ribiero, a Portuguese captain, who is said to have had Jewish relations in Holland. As some years afterward the Dutch in Brazil appealed to Holland for craftsmen of all kinds, many Jews went to Brazil; about 600 Jews left Amsterdam in 1642, accompanied by two distinguished scholars - Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca was a rabbi, scholar, kabbalist and writer. In 1656, he was one of several elders within the Portuguese-Israelite community in the Netherlands who excommunicated Baruch Spinoza for the statements this philosopher made concerning the nature of God.Isaac Aboab da Fonseca was...
and Moses Raphael de Aguilar. In the struggle between Holland and Portugal for the possession of Brazil the Dutch were supported by the Jews.
With various countries in Europe also the Jews of Amsterdam established commercial relations. In a letter dated November 25, 1622, King Christian IV of Denmark
Christian IV of Denmark
Christian IV was the king of Denmark-Norway from 1588 until his death. With a reign of more than 59 years, he is the longest-reigning monarch of Denmark, and he is frequently remembered as one of the most popular, ambitious and proactive Danish kings, having initiated many reforms and projects...
invites Jews of Amsterdam to settle in Glückstadt
Glückstadt
Glückstadt is a town in the Steinburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is located on the right bank of the Lower Elbe at the confluence of the small Rhin river, about northwest of Altona...
, where, among other privileges, the free exercise of their religion would be assured to them.
Ethics (book)
Ethics is a philosophical book written by Benedict de Spinoza. It was written in Latin. Although it was published posthumously in 1677, it is his most famous work, and is considered his magnum opus....
.
Ashkenazim
Many AshkenazimAshkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
(so-called "German Jews") were also attracted to the newly independent Dutch provinces, especially near the end of the 17th century. However, the majority were displaced migrants escaping persecution in other parts of northern Europe, in particular the violence of the Thirty Year War (1618–1648) and the Chmielnicki Uprising in Poland in 1648. Because most of the immigrants were poor, they were less welcome. Their arrival in considerable number threatened the economic status of Amsterdam in particular, and with few exceptions they were turned away. Generally, they settled in rural areas where they subsisted typically as pedlar
Peddler
A peddler, in British English pedlar, also known as a canvasser, cheapjack, monger, or solicitor , is a travelling vendor of goods. In England, the term was mostly used for travellers hawking goods in the countryside to small towns and villages; they might also be called tinkers or gypsies...
s and hawker
Hawker (trade)
A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with peddler or costermonger. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells items or food that are native to the area...
s. The result was that a large number of small Jewish communities existed throughout the Dutch provinces.
Over time, many of these German Jews attained prosperity through retail trading and by diamond-cutting, in which latter industry they retained the monopoly until about 1870. When William IV
William IV, Prince of Orange
William IV, Prince of Orange-Nassau , born Willem Karel Hendrik Friso, was the first hereditary stadtholder of the Netherlands.-Early life:...
was proclaimed stadholder (1747) the Jews found another protector like William III. He stood in very close relations with the head of the DePinto family, at whose villa, Tulpenburg, near Ouderkerk
Ouderkerk
Ouderkerk is a municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of 28.53 km²...
, he and his wife paid more than one visit. In 1748, when a French army was at the frontier and the treasury was empty, De Pinto collected a large sum and presented it to the state. Van Hogendorp, the secretary of state, wrote to him: "You have saved the state." In 1750 De Pinto arranged for the conversion of the national debt from a 4 to a 3% basis.
Under the government of William V
William V, Prince of Orange
William V , Prince of Orange-Nassau was the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, and between 1795 and 1806 he led the Government of the Dutch Republic in Exile in London. He was succeeded by his son William I...
the country was troubled by internal dissensions; the Jews, however, remained loyal to him. As he entered the legislature on the day of his majority, March 8, 1766, everywhere in the synagogues services of thanks-giving were held. William V did not forget his Jewish subjects. On June 3, 1768, he visited both the German and the Portuguese synagogue; he attended the marriage of various prominent Jewish families.
The French Revolution and Napoleon
The year 1795 brought the results of the French Revolution to Holland, including emancipation for the Jews. The National Convention, on September 2, 1796, proclaimed this resolution: "No Jew shall be excluded from rights or advantages which are associated with citizenship in the Batavian Republic, and which he may desire to enjoy." Moses Moresco was appointed member of the municipality at Amsterdam; Moses Asser member of the court of justice there. The old conservatives, at whose head stood the chief rabbi Jacob Moses Löwenstamm, were not desirous of emancipation rights. Indeed, these rights were for the greater part of doubtful advantage; their culture was not so far advanced that they could frequent ordinary society; besides, this emancipation was offered to them by a party which had expelled their beloved Prince of OrangePrince of Orange
Prince of Orange is a title of nobility, originally associated with the Principality of Orange, in what is now southern France. In French it is la Principauté d'Orange....
, to whose house they remained so faithful that the chief rabbi at The Hague, Saruco, was called the "Orange dominie"; the men of the old régime were even called "Orange cattle." Nevertheless, the Revolution appreciably ameliorated the condition of the Jews; in 1799 their congregations received, like the Christian congregations, grants from the treasury. In 1798 Jonas Daniel Meijer
Jonas Daniel Meijer
Jonas Daniel Meijer was the first Jewish lawyer in the Netherlands. He has had a significant impact on Dutch law, and is also known for his battle for emancipation of the Dutch Jews....
interceded with the French minister of foreign affairs in behalf of the Jews of Germany; and on Aug. 22, 1802, the Dutch ambassador, Schimmelpenninck, delivered a note on the same subject to the French minister.
From 1806 to 1810 Holland was ruled by Louis Bonaparte
Louis Bonaparte
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu , King of Holland , was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino...
, whose intention it was to so amend the condition of the Jews that their newly acquired rights would become of real value to them; the shortness of his reign, however, prevented him from carrying out his plans. For example, after having changed the market-day in some cities (Utrecht and Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
) from Saturday to Monday, he abolished the use of the "Oath More Judaico
Oath More Judaico
The Oath More Judaico or Jewish Oath was a special form of oath, accompanied by certain ceremonies and often intentionally humiliating or dangerous, that Jews were required to take in European courts of law until the 20th century...
" in the courts of justice, and administered the same formula to both Christians and Jews. To accustom the latter to military services he formed two battalions of 803 men and 60 officers, all Jews, who had been until then excluded from military service, even from the town guard.
The union of Ashkenazim and Sephardim intended by Louis Napoleon did not come about. He had desired to establish schools for Jewish children, who were excluded from the public schools; even the Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, founded in 1784, did not willingly receive them or admit Jews as members. Among the distinguished Jews of this period were Meier Littwald Lehemon, Asser, Capadose
Abraham Capadose
The Revd Dr Abraham Capadose or Capadoce was a Dutch physician and Calvinist writer...
, and the physicians Heilbron, Davids (who introduced vaccination), Stein van Laun (tellurium), and many others.
19th century and early 20th century
William I of the Netherlands
William I Frederick, born Willem Frederik Prins van Oranje-Nassau , was a Prince of Orange and the first King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg....
arrived at Scheveningen, and on December 11 he was solemnly crowned as King William I. Chief Rabbi Lehmans of The Hague organized a special thanksgiving service and implored God's protection for the allied armies on January 5, 1814. Many Jews fought at Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
, where thirty-five Jewish officers died. William VI occupied himself with the organization of the Jewish congregations. On February 26, 1814, a law was promulgated abolishing the French régime. The Jews continued to prosper in the independent Holland throughout the 19th century. By 1900, Amsterdam had 51,000 Jews with 12,500 paupers, The Hague 5,754 Jews with 846, Rotterdam 10,000 with 1,750, Groningen 2,400 with 613, Arnhem 1,224 with 349 ("Joodsche Courant," 1903, No. 44). The total population of the Netherlands in 1900 was 5,104,137, about 2% of whom were Jews.
The Netherlands, and Amsterdam in particular, remained a major Jewish population centre until World War II, to the extent that Amsterdam was called Jerusalem of the West
Jerusalem of the West
Jerusalem of the West was a term sometimes used to describe a place where Jews had settled in Europe or Northern Africa.-Applications:In Europe, Amsterdam was commonly associated with the term and was called Jeruzalem van het Westen in Dutch. Jews settled there in the 17th-century and in 1672,...
by its Jews. The latter part of the 19th century, as well as the first decades of the 20th century, saw an ever-expanding Jewish community in Amsterdam after Jews from the mediene
Mediene
The Mediene is the name given to all the Jewish kehillot in the Netherlands outside of the capital Amsterdam, the historical center of Dutch Judaism. From the 18th century onwards up until the Holocaust, dozens of Jewish communities were created in towns big and small scattered throughout the...
(the "country" Jews, Jews who were living outside the big cities - like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague -, across numerous small congregations throughout the Dutch countryside) left their communities en masse, searching for a "better life" in the larger cities.
Dutch Jews were relatively small part of the population and showed a strong tendency towards internal migration, which led to them being integrated in the socialist and liberal "pillars" before the Holocaust, rather than becoming part of a Jewish pillar.
The number of Jews in the Netherlands grew substantially from the early 19th century up to World War II. Between 1830 and 1930, the Jewish presence in the Netherlands increased by almost 250% (numbers given by the Jewish communities to the Dutch Census).
| Year | Number of Jews | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1830 | 46,397 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1840 | 52,245 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1849 | 58,626 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1859 | 63,790 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1869 | 67,003 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1879 | 81,693 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1889 | 97,324 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1899 | 103,988 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1909 | 106,409 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1920 | 115,223 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1930 | 111,917 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1941 | 154,887 | Nazi occupation** |
| 1947 | 14,346 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1954 | 23,723 | Commission on Jewish Demography*** |
| 1960 | 14,503 | Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... * |
| 1966 | 29,675 | Commission on Jewish Demography*** |
(*) Derived from those persons who stated "Judaism" as their religion in the Dutch Census
(**) Persons with at least one Jewish grandparent. In another Nazi census the total number of people with at least one Jewish grandparent in the Netherlands was put at 160,886: 135,984 people with 4 or 3 Jewish grandparents (counted as "full Jews"); 18,912 Jews with 2 Jewish grandparents ("half Jews"), of whom 3,538 were part of a Jewish congregation; 5,990 with 1 Jewish grandparent ("quarter Jews")
(***) Membership numbers of Dutch Jewish congregations (only those who are Jewish according to the Halakha
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
)
The Holocaust
Mischling
Mischling was the German term used during the Third Reich to denote persons deemed to have only partial Aryan ancestry. The word has essentially the same origin as mestee in English, mestizo in Spanish and métis in French...
by the Nazi authorities). Some 6,000 persons reported having one Jewish grandparent. Some 2,500 persons, who were counted in the census as Jewish, were part of a Christian church, mostly Dutch Reformed, Calvinist Reformed
Reformed Churches in the Netherlands
The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands was the second largest Protestant church in the Netherlands until it merged into the Protestant Church in the Netherlands in 2004.-History:...
or Roman Catholic.
In 1941, the majority of Dutch Jews were living in Amsterdam. The census in 1941 gives an indication of the geographical spread of Dutch Jews at the beginning of World War II (province; number of Jews - this number is not based on the racial standards by the Nazis, but by what the persons themselves declared to be in the population census):
- GroningenGroningen (province)Groningen [] is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen , in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea...
- 4,682 - FrieslandFrieslandFriesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
- 851 - DrentheDrentheDrenthe is a province of the Netherlands, located in the north-east of the country. The capital city is Assen. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and Germany to the east.-History:Drenthe, unlike many other parts of the Netherlands, has been a...
- 2,498 - OverijsselOverijsselOverijssel is a province of the Netherlands in the central eastern part of the country. The region has a NUTS classification of NL21. The province's name means "Lands across river IJssel". The capital city of Overijssel is Zwolle and the largest city is Enschede...
- 4,345 - GelderlandGelderlandGelderland is the largest province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. The capital city is Arnhem. The two other major cities, Nijmegen and Apeldoorn have more inhabitants. Other major regional centers in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wijchen,...
- 6,663 - UtrechtUtrecht (province)Utrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands in terms of area, and is located in the centre of the country. It is bordered by the Eemmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, South Holland in the west, and North Holland in the northwest...
- 4,147 - North HollandNorth HollandNorth Holland |West Frisian]]: Noard-Holland) is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam.-Geography:...
- 87,026 (including 79,410 in AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
) - South HollandSouth HollandSouth Holland is a province situated on the North Sea in the western part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is The Hague and its largest city is Rotterdam.South Holland is one of the most densely populated and industrialised areas in the world...
- 25,617 - ZeelandZeelandZeeland , also called Zealand in English, is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. With a population of about 380,000, its area is about...
- 174 - North BrabantNorth BrabantNorth Brabant , sometimes called Brabant, is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.- History :...
- 2,320 - LimburgLimburg (Netherlands)Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and part of the west, andthe Dutch province of North Brabant partly to...
- 1,394 - Total - 139,717
In 1945, only about 35,000 of them were still alive. The exact number of "full Jews" who survived the Holocaust is estimated to be 34,379 (of whom 8,500 were part of a mixed marriage and thus spared from deportation and possible death in the Nazi concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
); the number of "half Jews" who were present in the Netherlands at the end of the Second World War in 1945 is estimated to be 14,545, the number of "quarter Jews" 5,990. Some 75% of the Dutch-Jewish population perished, an unusually high percentage compared with other occupied countries in western Europe. Factors that influenced the great number of people perished were the fact that the Netherlands was not under a military regime, because the queen fled to England, and a shortage of hiding places. The Netherlands is a densely populated country, so there was less opportunity to survive in forests or other natural hiding places, for example.
Hooghalen
Hooghalen is a town in the Dutch province of Drenthe. It is a part of the municipality of Midden-Drenthe, and lies about 9 km south of Assen....
which had been founded in 1939 by the Dutch government to give shelter to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, but would fulfill the function of transit camp to the Nazi destruction camps in Middle and Eastern Europe during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
All non-Dutch Jews were also sent to Westerbork. Additionally, over 15,000 Jews were sent to labor camps. Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands to Poland and Germany began on 15 June 1942 and ended on 13 September 1944. Ultimately some 101,000 Jews were deported in 98 transports from Westerbork to Auschwitz (57,800; 65 transports), Sobibor
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
(34,313; 19 transports), Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
(3,724; 8 transports) and Theresienstadt (4,466; 6 transports), where most of them were murdered. Another 6,000 Jews were deported from other locations (like Vught
Vught
Vught is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is a town where lots of commuters live and has recently been named "Best place to live" by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.-Politics:...
) in the Netherlands to concentration camps in Germany, Poland and Austria (like Mauthausen
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
). Only 5,200 survived. The Dutch underground hid an estimated number of Jews of some 25,000-30,000; eventually, an estimated 16,500 Jews managed to survive the war by hiding. Some 7,000 to 8,000 survived by fleeing to countries like Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, or by being married to non-Jews (which saved them from deportation and possible death). At the same time, there was substantial collaboration from the Dutch population including the Amsterdam city administration, the Dutch municipal police, and Dutch railway workers who all helped round up and deport Jews.
One of the best known Holocaust victims in the Netherlands is Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
. Along with her sister, Margot Frank
Margot Frank
Margot Betti Frank was the older sister of Anne Frank, whose deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding, and who subsequently perished in Bergen-Belsen...
, she died from typhus in March 1945 in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
, due to unsanitary living conditions and confinement by Nazis. Anne Frank's mother, Edith Frank-Holländer
Edith Frank-Holländer
Edith Frank was the mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank.-Early life:Edith was the youngest of four children, having been born into a German-Jewish family in Aachen, Germany...
, was starved to death by the Nazis in Auschwitz. Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank
Otto Frank
Otto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
, survived the war. Dutch victims of the Holocaust include Etty Hillesum
Etty Hillesum
Esther "Etty" Hillesum was a young Jewish woman whose letters and diaries, kept between 1941 and 1943 describe life in Amsterdam during the German occupation...
, and Abraham Icek Tuschinski
Abraham Icek Tuschinski
Abraham Icek Tuschinski was a Dutch businessman of Jewish-Polish descent who ordered the construction of the Tuschinski Theater, a famed cinema in Amsterdam....
.
In contrast to many other countries where all aspects of Jewish communities and culture were eradicated during the Shoah, a remarkably large proportion of rabbinic records survived in Amsterdam, making the history of Dutch Jewry unusually well documented.
1945-1960
The Jewish-Dutch population after the Second World War is marked by certain significant changes: emigration; a low birth rate; and a high intermarriage rate. After the Second World War and the devastations which were caused by the Holocaust, thousands of surviving Jews migrated to IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
(still home to some 6,000 Dutch Jews) and the United States. In 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War in the Netherlands, the total number of Jews as counted in the population census was just 14,346 (down from a count of 154,887 by the German occupation force in 1941). Later, this number was adjusted by Jewish organisations to some 24,000 Jews living in the Netherlands in 1954 - nevertheless an enormous decrease compared to the number of Jews counted in 1941 - a number which was also disputed as the German occupation force counted Jews on basis of race, which meant that for example hundreds of Christians of Jewish heritage were also included in the Nazi census (according to Raul Hilberg in his book 'Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: the Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945', "the Netherlands ... [had] 1,572 Protestants [of Jewish heritage in 1943] ... There were also some 700 Catholic Jews living in the Netherlands [during the Nazi occupation] ...")
In 1954, the geographical spread of Dutch Jews in the Netherlands was as follows (province; number of Jews):
- GroningenGroningen (province)Groningen [] is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen , in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea...
- 242 - FrieslandFrieslandFriesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
- 155 - DrentheDrentheDrenthe is a province of the Netherlands, located in the north-east of the country. The capital city is Assen. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and Germany to the east.-History:Drenthe, unlike many other parts of the Netherlands, has been a...
- 180 - OverijsselOverijsselOverijssel is a province of the Netherlands in the central eastern part of the country. The region has a NUTS classification of NL21. The province's name means "Lands across river IJssel". The capital city of Overijssel is Zwolle and the largest city is Enschede...
- 945 - GelderlandGelderlandGelderland is the largest province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. The capital city is Arnhem. The two other major cities, Nijmegen and Apeldoorn have more inhabitants. Other major regional centers in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wijchen,...
- 997 - UtrechtUtrecht (province)Utrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands in terms of area, and is located in the centre of the country. It is bordered by the Eemmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, South Holland in the west, and North Holland in the northwest...
- 848 - Noord-Holland - 15,446 (including 14,068 in AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
) - Zuid-Holland - 3,934
- ZeelandZeelandZeeland , also called Zealand in English, is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. With a population of about 380,000, its area is about...
- 59 - Noord-Brabant - 620
- LimburgLimburg (Netherlands)Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and part of the west, andthe Dutch province of North Brabant partly to...
- 297 - Total - 23,723
1960s and 1970s
The 1960s and 1970s saw a lowering birth rate among Dutch Jews, while intermarriage increased; was the intermarriage rate among Jewish males 41% and among Jewish women 28% in the period of 1945-1949, figures from the 1990s saw an increase of intermarriage to some 52% of the total number of marriages among Jews. Among so-called father Jews, the intermarriage rate is as high as 80%. Some within the Jewish community try to counter this trend, creating possibilities for (single) Jews to come in contact with other (single) Jews, like the dating site Jingles, Jentl en Jewell. According to a research by the Joods Maatschappelijk Werk (Jewish Social Service), a large number of Dutch Jews has received an academic education, and more Jewish Dutch women are in the labor force compared to non-Jewish Dutch women.1980s and onwards
The Jewish population in the Netherlands became more internationalized, with an influx of mostly Israeli and RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n Jews during the last decades. Approximately one in three Dutch Jews has a non-Dutch background. The number of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i Jews living in the Netherlands (concentrated in Amsterdam) runs in the thousands (estimates run from 5,000 to 7,000 Israeli immigrants in the Netherlands, although some claims go as high as 12,000 ), although only a relatively small number of these Israeli Jews is connected to one of the religious Jewish institutions in the Netherlands. Some 10,000 Dutch Jews have emigrated to Israel in the last couple of decades.
At present, there are approximately 41,000 to 45,000 people in the Netherlands who are either Jewish as defined by halakha
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
(Rabbinic law), defined as having a Jewish mother (70% - approximately 30,000 persons) or who have a Jewish father (30% - some 10,000 - 15,000 persons; their number was estimated at 12,470 in April 2006). Most Dutch Jews live in the major cities in the west of the Netherlands (Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
); some 44% of all Dutch Jews live in Amsterdam, which is considered the centre of Jewish life in the Netherlands. In 2000, 20% of the Jewish-Dutch population was 65 years or older; birth rates among Jews were low. An exception is the growing Orthodox Jewish population, especially in Amsterdam.
There are currently some 150 synagogues present in the Netherlands, of which some 50 are still used for religious services. Large Jewish communities in the Netherlands are found in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
and The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
; smaller ones are found throughout the country, in Alkmaar
Alkmaar
Alkmaar is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of Noord Holland. Alkmaar is well known for its traditional cheese market. For tourists, it is a popular cultural destination.-History:...
, Almere
Almere
Almere is a planned city and municipality in the province of Flevoland, the Netherlands, bordering Lelystad and Zeewolde. The municipality of Almere comprises the districts Almere Stad, Almere Haven, Almere Buiten, Almere Hout, Almere Poort and Almere Pampus .Almere is the youngest city in the...
, Amersfoort
Amersfoort
Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the...
, Amstelveen
Amstelveen
' is a suburban municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is part of the metropolitan area of Amsterdam. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the following villages and/or districts: Amstelveen, Bovenkerk, Westwijk, Bankras-Kostverloren, Groenelaan, Waardhuizen,...
, Bussum
Bussum
Bussum is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.-History:Bussum was first mentioned in 1306. In this time, Bussum was a large heathland with many small farms, sheep pens and forests as is shown on old maps. Since Bussum is situated near the fortified town...
, Delft
Delft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
, Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, Hilversum
Hilversum
is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called "'t Gooi", it is the largest town in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller villages...
, Leiden, Schiedam
Schiedam
Schiedam is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. It is part of the Rotterdam metropolitan area. The city is located west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen and south of Delft...
, Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
and Zaandam
Zaandam
Zaandam is a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad, and received city rights in 1811...
in the western part of the country, in Breda
Breda
Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
, Eindhoven, Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
, Middelburg
Middelburg
Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...
, Oosterhout
Oosterhout
Oosterhout is a municipality and a city in the South of the Netherlands. At June, 2008, the city population was 54,015.-History:Oosterhout is mentioned for the first time in 1277, although archaeological excavations showed the existence of human settlements in the area in prehistoric times. The...
and Tilburg
Tilburg
Tilburg is a landlocked municipality and a city in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of Noord-Brabant.Tilburg municipality also includes the villages of Berkel-Enschot and Udenhout....
in the southern part of the country, and in Aalten
Aalten
Aalten is a municipality and a village in the eastern Netherlands. The former municipalities of Bredevoort and Dinxperlo have been merged with Aalten....
, Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland, about 60 miles south east of Amsterdam, in the centre of the Netherlands. It is a regional centre and has 155,000 . The municipality of Apeldoorn, including villages like Beekbergen, Loenen and Hoenderloo, has over 155,000...
, Arnhem
Arnhem
Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...
, Assen
Assen
Assen is a municipality and a city in the north eastern Netherlands, capital of the province of Drenthe. It received city rights in 1809. Assen's main claim to fame is the TT Circuit Assen the motorcycle racing circuit, where on the last Saturday in June the Dutch TT is run...
, Deventer
Deventer
Deventer is a municipality and city in the Salland region of the Dutch province of Overijssel. Deventer is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, but also has a small part of its territory on the west bank. In 2005 the municipality of Bathmen Deventer is a municipality and city in...
, Doetinchem
Doetinchem
Doetinchem is a city and municipality in the east of the Netherlands. It is situated along the Oude IJssel river in a part of the province of Gelderland called the Achterhoek . The municipality has 56,700 inhabitants and has an area of 79.66 km²...
, Enschede
Enschede
Enschede , also known as Eanske in the local dialect of Twents, is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region...
, Groningen, Heerenveen
Heerenveen
Heerenveen is a town in the Heerenveen municipality of the province of Friesland , in the north of the Netherlands.- History :The town was established in 1551 by three lords as a location for the purpose of digging peat which was used for fuel, hence the name...
, Hengelo
Hengelo
Hengelo is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands, in the province of Overijssel. The city lies along the motorways A1/E30 and A35 and it has a station for the International Amsterdam – Hannover – Berlin service.-Traffic and transport:...
, Leeuwarden, Nijmegen, Winterswijk
Winterswijk
Winterswijk is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands.Winterswijk is a town with a population of some 30,000 in the Achterhoek which lies in the most eastern part of the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. It was also known as Winethereswick, Winriswic or Wenterswic...
, Zutphen and Zwolle
Zwolle
Zwolle is a municipality and the capital city of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, 120 kilometers northeast of Amsterdam. Zwolle has about 120,000 citizens.-History:...
in the eastern and northern parts of the country.
Religion
well.
Orthodox Judaism
A majority of the affiliated Jews in the Netherlands (Jews part of a Jewish community) are affiliated to the Nederlands Israëlitisch KerkgenootschapNederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
The Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap is the umbrella organisation for most Jewish communities in the Netherlands, and is Orthodox in nature, while to be described as traditional in outlook. The expression Orthodox, is for the Dutch situation at least, of a later date than the existence of...
(Dutch Israelite Church) (NIK), which can be classified as part of (Ashkenazi) Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
. The NIK has approximately 5,000 members, spread over 36 congregations (of whom 13 in Amsterdam and surroundings alone) in 4 jurisdictions (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and the Interprovincial Rabbinate), making it considerably larger than the Union of Liberal Synagogues (LJG) and thirteen times as large as the Portuguese Israelite Religious Community (PIK). In Amsterdam alone, the NIK governs thirteen functioning synagogues. The NIK was founded in 1814, and at its height in 1877, it represented 176 Jewish communities. This went down to 139 communities prior to World War II, and 36 communities today. Besides governing some 36 congregations, the NIK also holds responsibility for more than 200 Jewish cemeteries throughout the Netherlands (on a total number of Jewish cemeteries of 250).
In 1965 Rabbi Meir Just
Meir Just
Meir Just was the Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam. Just served as a spiritual leader for the Dutch Jewish community for more than 45 years, until his death in 2010....
was appointed Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands, a position he held until his death in April 2010.
The small Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
The Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap is the community for Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands. Sephardic Jews have been living in the Netherlands since the 16th century with the forced relocation of Spanish but above all Portuguese Jews from their home countries due to the Inquisition...
(Portuguese Israelite Religious Community) (PIK), which is Sefardic, has a membership of some 270 families, and is concentrated in Amsterdam. It was founded in 1870. Throughout history, Sefardic Jews in the Netherlands, in contrast to their Ashkenazi co-religionists, have concentrated in only a few communities: Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Naarden and Middelburg. Only the one in Amsterdam has survived the Holocaust and is still active.
There are three Jewish schools in Amsterdam, all situated in the Buitenveldert neighbourhood (Rosh Pina, Maimonides and Cheider). One of these (Cheider) is affiliated with Haredi Orthodox Judaism. Chabad has some eleven rabbis, in Almere, Amersfoort, Amstelveen, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Maastricht, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. The head shluchim
Shaliach (Chabad)
A Chabad shliach is a Chabad member sent out to promulgate Judaism and Chasidut around the world.Chabad shluchim as of 2010 number about 4,500 worldwide, and can be found in many of even the most remote worldly locales.-Origins:...
in the Netherlands are rabbis I. Vorst and Binyomin Jacobs. The latter is chief rabbi
Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
of the Interprovinciaal Opperrabbinaat (the Dutch Rabbinical Organisation) and vice-president of Cheider. Chabad serves approximately 2,500 Jews in Holland, and an unknown number in the rest of the Netherlands.
Reform Judaism
Though the number of Dutch Jews is decreasing, the last decades have seen a growth of Liberal Jewish communities throughout the country. Introduced by German-Jewish refugees in the early 1930s, nowadays some 3,500 Jews in the Netherlands are linked to one of several Liberal Jewish synagogues throughout the country. Liberal synagogues are present in Amsterdam (founded in 1931; 725 families - some 1,700 members), Rotterdam (1968), The Hague (1959; 324 families), Tilburg (1981), Utrecht (1993), Arnhem (1965; 70 families), Enschede (1972), Almere (2003) and Heerenveen (2000; some 30 members); six rabbis are present to serve the several communities. The Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in NederlandVerbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland
The Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom is the umbrella organisation for Progressive Jews in the Netherlands, and is affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It was founded in 1931 under the name of Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland The Nederlands Verbond...
(LJG) (Union for Liberal-Religious Jews in the Netherlands) (to which all the communities mentioned above are part of) is affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism
World Union for Progressive Judaism
The World Union for Progressive Judaism describes itself as the "international umbrella organization for the Reform, Liberal, Progressive and Reconstructionist movements." This overall Jewish religious movement is based in about 40 countries with more than 1,000 affiliated synagogues...
. On October 29, 2006, the LJG changed its name to Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom (NVPJ) (Dutch Union for Progressive Judaism). The NVPJ has six rabbis: Ruben Bar-Ephraïm, Menno ten Brink, Sonny Herman, David Lilienthal, Awraham Soetendorp and Edward van Voolen.
A new Liberal synagogue is being built in Amsterdam, 300 meters away from the current synagogue. This is needed since the current building became too small for the growing community. The Liberal synagogue in Amsterdam receives approximately 30 calls a month by people whom wish to convert to Judaism. The number of people actually converting is much lower. The number of converts to Liberal Judaism may be as high as 200 to 400, on an existing community of approximately 3,500.
Amsterdam is also home to Beit Ha'Chidush
Beit Ha'Chidush
Beit Ha'Chidush is a Jewish congregation founded in 1995 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, by Jews who at that time didn't feel at home anymore in the existing Jewish congregations...
, a progressive religious community which was founded in 1995 by Jews with secular as well as religious backgrounds who felt it was time for a more open, diverse and renewed Judaism. The community accepts members from all kinds of backgrounds, including homosexuals and half-Jews (including Jews with a Jewish father, the first Jewish community in the Netherlands to do so). Beit Ha'Chidush has links to Jewish Renewal
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Renewal , is a recent movement in Judaism which endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with mystical, Hasidic, musical and meditative practices...
in the United States, and Liberal Judaism
Liberal Judaism
Liberal Judaism , is one of the two forms of Progressive Judaism found in the United Kingdom, the other being Reform Judaism. Liberal Judaism, which developed at the beginning of the twentieth century is less conservative than UK Reform Judaism...
in the United Kingdom. Rabbi for the community is German-born Elisa Klapheck, the first female rabbi of the Netherlands. The community uses the Uilenburger synagogue in the center of Amsterdam.
Klal Israël
Klal Israël
"OJG Klal Israel" was in 2005, based in Delft, the Netherlands. OJG Klal Israel holds services twice a month in the Delft synagogue, Koornmarkt 12 in Delft...
is an independent Jewish congregation founded in the end of 2005, since 2009 affiliated with the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. It holds its roots in Progressive Judaism
Progressive Judaism
Progressive Judaism , is an umbrella term used by strands of Judaism which affiliate to the World Union for Progressive Judaism. They embrace pluralism, modernity, equality and social justice as core values and believe that such values are consistent with a committed Jewish life...
. The congregation holds services in two synagogues, once in every two weeks in Delft
Delft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
.
Conservative Judaism
Masorti Judaism was introduced in the Netherlands in 2004, with the founding of a MasortiMasorti
The Masorti Movement is the name given to Conservative Judaism in Israel and other countries outside Canada and U.S. Masorti means "traditional" in Hebrew...
community in the city of Almere
Almere
Almere is a planned city and municipality in the province of Flevoland, the Netherlands, bordering Lelystad and Zeewolde. The municipality of Almere comprises the districts Almere Stad, Almere Haven, Almere Buiten, Almere Hout, Almere Poort and Almere Pampus .Almere is the youngest city in the...
. In 2005 Masorti Nederland (Masorti Netherlands) had some 75 members, primarily based in Almere, with members also present in Weesp
Weesp
Weesp is a town and a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It has a population of 17,533 .Weesp lies next to the rivers de Vecht and Smal Weesp and also next to the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. It is in an area called the "Vechtstreek"...
, Utrecht, Amsterdam and Leiden.
Jewish schools
There are three Jewish schools present in the Netherlands, all located in Amsterdam. They are all affiliated to the Nederlands Israëlitisch KerkgenootschapNederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
The Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap is the umbrella organisation for most Jewish communities in the Netherlands, and is Orthodox in nature, while to be described as traditional in outlook. The expression Orthodox, is for the Dutch situation at least, of a later date than the existence of...
. Rosj Pina is a school for Jewish children in the age of 4 through 12. Education is mixed (boys and girls together) despite its affiliation to the Orthodox NIK. It is the largest Jewish school in the Netherlands. As of 2007 it has 285 pupils enrolled. Maimonides is the largest Jewish high school in the Netherlands. It had some 160 pupils enrolled in 2005. Although founded as a Jewish school and also affiliated to the NIK, it has a secular curriculum. Cheider presents education to Jewish children of all ages, and is the only one of three schools which holds an ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) background.Girls and boys are given separate education in separate classes. The school has some 200 pupils.
Jewish youth
There are several Jewish organisations in the Netherlands focused on Jewish youth. They include:- Bne Akiwa Holland (Bnei Akiva), a religious Zionist youth organisation.
- CIJO, the youth organisation of CIDI (Centrum Informatie en Documentatie Israël), a political Jewish youth organisation.
- Gan Israel Holland, the Dutch branch of the youth organisation of Chabad.
- Haboniem-Dror, a socialist Zionist youth movement.
- Ijar, a Jewish student organisation
- Moos, an independent Jewish youth organisation
- Netzer Holland, a Zionist youth organisation aligned to the NVPJVerbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in NederlandThe Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom is the umbrella organisation for Progressive Jews in the Netherlands, and is affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It was founded in 1931 under the name of Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland The Nederlands Verbond...
- NextStep, the youth organisation of Een Ander Joods GeluidEen Ander Joods GeluidEen Ander Joods Geluid is a Dutch-Jewish organisation founded in May 2001 to promote the public debate concerning Israel...
Jewish health care
There are two Jewish nursing homes in the Netherlands. One, Beth Shalom, is situated in Amsterdam at two locations, Amsterdam Buitenveldert and Amsterdam Osdorp. There are some 350 elderly Jews currently residing in Beth Shalom. Another Jewish nursing home, the Mr. L.E. Visserhuis, is located in The Hague. It is home to some 50 elderly Jews. Both nursing homes are aligned to Orthodox JudaismOrthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
; kosher food is available. Both nursing homes have their own synagogue.
There is a Jewish wing at the Amstelland Hospital in Amstelveen
Amstelveen
' is a suburban municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is part of the metropolitan area of Amsterdam. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the following villages and/or districts: Amstelveen, Bovenkerk, Westwijk, Bankras-Kostverloren, Groenelaan, Waardhuizen,...
. It is unique in Western Europe in that Jewish patients are cared with according to Orthodox Jewish law; kosher food is the only type of food available at the hospital. The Jewish wing was founded after the fusion of the Nicolaas Tulp Hospital and the (Jewish) Central Israelite Patient Care in 1978.
The Sinai Centrum (Sinai Center) is a Jewish psychiatric hospital located in Amsterdam, Amersfoort
Amersfoort
Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the...
(primary location) and Amstelveen
Amstelveen
' is a suburban municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is part of the metropolitan area of Amsterdam. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the following villages and/or districts: Amstelveen, Bovenkerk, Westwijk, Bankras-Kostverloren, Groenelaan, Waardhuizen,...
, which focuses on mental healthcare, as well as caring for and guiding persons who are mentally disabled. It is the only Jewish psychiatric hospital currently operating in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Originally focusing on the Jewish segment of the Dutch population, and especially on Holocaust survivors who were faced with mental problems after the Second World War, nowadays the Sinai Centrum also provides care for non-Jewish victims of war and genocide.
Jewish media
Jewish television and radio in the Netherlands is produced by NIKMedia. Part of NIKMedia is the Joodse Omroep, which broadcasts documentaries, stories and interviews on a variety of Jewish topics every Sunday and Monday on the Nederland 2Nederland 2
Nederland 2 is a Dutch television channel, one of three alongside Nederland 1 and Nederland 3. It was established in October 1964 and tends to broadcast sports, light entertainment, news and current affairs programming....
television channel (except from the end of May until the beginning of September). NIKMedia is also responsible for broadcasting music and interviews on Radio 5
Radio 5 (Netherlands)
Radio 5 is a Dutch public-service network radio station operated by NPO. On weekdays between 06:00 and 19:00 it aims to broadcast an accessible mix of easy listening music, short interviews, and listener participation , together with brief news summaries and other public information items, to a...
.
The Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad is the oldest still functioning (Jewish) weekly in the Netherlands, with some 6,000 subscribers. It is an important news source for many Dutch Jews, focusing on Jewish topics on a national as well as on an international level. The Joods Journaal (Jewish Weekly) was founded in 1997 and is seen as a more "glossy" magazine in comparison to the NIW. It gives a lot of attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
.
Another Jewish magazine published in the Netherlands is the Hakehillot Magazine, issued by the NIK
Nederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
The Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap is the umbrella organisation for most Jewish communities in the Netherlands, and is Orthodox in nature, while to be described as traditional in outlook. The expression Orthodox, is for the Dutch situation at least, of a later date than the existence of...
, the Jewish Community of Amsterdam and the PIK
Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
The Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap is the community for Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands. Sephardic Jews have been living in the Netherlands since the 16th century with the forced relocation of Spanish but above all Portuguese Jews from their home countries due to the Inquisition...
. Serving a more liberal Jewish audience, the NVPJ
Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland
The Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom is the umbrella organisation for Progressive Jews in the Netherlands, and is affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It was founded in 1931 under the name of Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland The Nederlands Verbond...
publishes its own magazine, Levend Joods Geloof (Living Jewish Faith), six times a year; serving this same audience, Beit Ha'Chidush
Beit Ha'Chidush
Beit Ha'Chidush is a Jewish congregation founded in 1995 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, by Jews who at that time didn't feel at home anymore in the existing Jewish congregations...
publishes its own magazine as well, called Chidushim.
There are a couple of Jewish websites focusing on bringing Jewish news to the Dutch Jewish community. By far the most prominent is Joods.nl, which gives attention to the large Jewish communities in the Netherlands as well as to the Mediene
Mediene
The Mediene is the name given to all the Jewish kehillot in the Netherlands outside of the capital Amsterdam, the historical center of Dutch Judaism. From the 18th century onwards up until the Holocaust, dozens of Jewish communities were created in towns big and small scattered throughout the...
, to Israel as well as to Jewish culture and youth.
Amsterdam
Amsterdam's Jewish community today numbers about 15,000 people. A large amount lives in the neighbourhoods of Buitenveldert, the Oud-ZuidAmsterdam Oud-Zuid
Oud-Zuid is a neighborhood and a former borough of Amsterdam. It was formed in 1998 by merging the former boroughs of Zuid and De Pijp. In 2010 the borough was merged with Zuideramstel to form the borough Amsterdam-Zuid. On January 1st 2005 the borough had a population of 83,696...
and the Riverneighbourhood. Buitenveldert is considered a popular neighbourhood to live in; this is due to its low crime-rate and because it is considered to be a quiet neighbourhood.
Especially in the neighbourhood of Buitenveldert there's a sizeable Jewish community. In this area, Kosher food is widely available. There are several Kosher restaurants, two bakeries, Jewish-Israeli shops, a pizzeria and some supermarkets host a Kosher department. This neighourbood also has a Jewish elderly home, an Orthodox synagogue and three Jewish schools.
Cultural distinctions
Uniquely in the Netherlands, Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities coexisted in close proximity. Having different cultural traditions, the communities remained generally separate but their geographical closeness resulted in cross-cultural influences not found elsewhere. Notably, in the early days when small groups of Jews were attempting to establish communities, they were bound to use the services of rabbiRabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
s and other officials from either culture, depending on who was available.
The close proximity of the two cultures inevitably led to intermarriage at a higher rate than was known elsewhere, and in consequence many Jews of Dutch descent have family names that seem to belie their religious affiliation. Particularly unusual, all Dutch Jews have for centuries named children after the children’s grandparents, which is otherwise considered exclusively a Sephardi tradition. (Ashkenazim elsewhere traditionally avoid naming a child after a living relative.)
In 1812, while the Netherlands was under Napoleonic rule, all Dutch residents (including Jews) were obliged to register surnames with the civic authorities, a practice which among Jews had previously been followed only by Sephardim. As a result of the compulsory registration and other extant records, it became clear that while the Ashkenazim had been avoiding civic registration, many had nevertheless been using an unofficial system of surnames for hundreds of years.
Also under Napoleonic rule, in 1809 a law was passed obliging Dutch Jewish schools to teach in Dutch and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. This effected the exclusion of other languages and in due course, Yiddish, the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of Ashkenazim, and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, the previous language of the Sephardim, practically ceased to be spoken among Dutch Jews. Certain Yiddish words have been adopted into the Dutch language, especially in Amsterdam (which is also called Mokum, from the Hebrew word for town or place, makom), where the historically large Jewish community has had a significant influence on the local dialect.
There are several other Hebrew words that can be found in the local dialect including: Mazel which is the Hebrew word for luck or fortune; Tof which is Tov in Hebrew meaning good (as in מזל טוב - Mazel tov), and Googem in Hebrew Chacham or Hakham
Hakham
Hakham is a term from Judaism, meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. The word is generally used to designate a cultured and learned person: "He who says a wise thing is called a wise man ["hakham"], even if he be not a Jew"...
, meaning wise, sly, witty or intelligent, where the Dutch g is pronounced similarly to the 8th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet the guttural Chet or Heth
Heth
-People:* Children of Heth, a Canaanite nation in the Hebrew Bible, purportedly named after Heth, son of Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah* figures in the Book of Mormon:** Heth , an early Jaredite** Heth a later Jaredite...
.
Economic influences
Jews played a major role in the development of Dutch colonial territories and international trade, and many Jews in former colonies have Dutch ancestry. However, all the major colonial powers were competing fiercely for control of trade routes; the Dutch were relatively unsuccessful and during the 18th century, their economy went into decline. Many of the Ashkenazim in the rural areas were no longer able to subsist and they migrated to the cities in search of work. This caused a large number of small Jewish communities to collapse completely (ten adult males were required for major religious ceremonies). Entire communities then migrated to the cities where the Jewish populations swelled explosively. In 1700, the Jewish population of Amsterdam was 6,200, with Ashkenazim and Sephardim in almost equal numbers. By 1795 the figure was 20,335, the vast majority being poor Ashkenazim.Because Jews were obliged to live in specified Jewish quarters, there was severe overcrowding. By the mid-nineteenth century, many were migrating to other countries where the advancement of emancipation
Jewish Emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...
offered better opportunities (see Chuts
Chuts
Chuts is the name applied to Jews who immigrated to London from the Netherlands during the latter part of the 19th century. They typically came from Amsterdam and practised trades they had already learned there, most notably cigar, cap and slipper making....
).
See also
- Beit Ha'ChidushBeit Ha'ChidushBeit Ha'Chidush is a Jewish congregation founded in 1995 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, by Jews who at that time didn't feel at home anymore in the existing Jewish congregations...
- Jewish AmsterdamJewish AmsterdamAmsterdam has historically been the center of the Dutch Jewish community, and has had a continuing Jewish community for the last 370 years. Amsterdam is also known under the name "Mokum", given to the city by its Jewish inhabitants...
- Jewish EindhovenJewish EindhovenEindhoven is a municipality and a city located in the province of Noord-Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, originally at the confluence of the Dommel and Gender brooks...
- Jewish MaastrichtJewish MaastrichtJudaism in Maastricht traces back to the Middle Ages. A synagogue with a mikvah existed in the city before 1295. However, severe pogroms persuaded Jews to leave Limburg en masse. Hardly any Jews lived in Limburg between the years 1350 and 1650. Jews were not free again to settle in the city of...
- Jewish TilburgJewish TilburgTilburg is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant. Tilburg municipality also includes the village of Berkel-Enschot and Udenhout....
- Jews and the slave tradeJews and the slave tradeLike their Christian and Muslim neighbors, Jews owned slaves and participated in the slave trade. In the middle ages, Jews were minimally involved in slave trade. During the 1490s, trade with the New World began to open up. At the same time, the monarchies of Spain and Portugal expelled all of...
- Klal IsraëlKlal Israël"OJG Klal Israel" was in 2005, based in Delft, the Netherlands. OJG Klal Israel holds services twice a month in the Delft synagogue, Koornmarkt 12 in Delft...
- List of Dutch Jews
- MedieneMedieneThe Mediene is the name given to all the Jewish kehillot in the Netherlands outside of the capital Amsterdam, the historical center of Dutch Judaism. From the 18th century onwards up until the Holocaust, dozens of Jewish communities were created in towns big and small scattered throughout the...
- Nederlands Israëlitisch KerkgenootschapNederlands Israëlitisch KerkgenootschapThe Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap is the umbrella organisation for most Jewish communities in the Netherlands, and is Orthodox in nature, while to be described as traditional in outlook. The expression Orthodox, is for the Dutch situation at least, of a later date than the existence of...
- Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad
- Portugees-Israëlitisch KerkgenootschapPortugees-Israëlitisch KerkgenootschapThe Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap is the community for Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands. Sephardic Jews have been living in the Netherlands since the 16th century with the forced relocation of Spanish but above all Portuguese Jews from their home countries due to the Inquisition...
- Sephardic Jews in the NetherlandsSephardic Jews in the NetherlandsAs a result of the Inquisition, many Sephardim left the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, in search for religious freedom. Some of them found their way to the newly independent Dutch provinces: independent from the reign of Spain, Sephardic Jews from...
- Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in NederlandVerbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in NederlandThe Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom is the umbrella organisation for Progressive Jews in the Netherlands, and is affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It was founded in 1931 under the name of Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland The Nederlands Verbond...
External links
- The Destruction of the Jews of the Netherlands During the Holocaust
- Jewish Historical Museum (Amsterdam)
- Center for Research on Dutch Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Archive of the Portuguese-Israelite community in Amsterdam, in the Archives Database of the Amsterdam City Archives
- Archive of the Dutch-Israelite Synagogue, in the Archives Database of the Amsterdam City Archives
- Demos, Demographic Research
- Joods.nl
- Wartime and Postwar Dutch Attitudes toward the Jews: Myth and Truth
- Dutch Israelite Religious Community (NIK)
- Liberal Judaism in the Netherlands (LJG)
- Esnoga (Portuguese-Israelite Synagogue Amsterdam)
- Beit Ha'Chidush
- Masorti Netherlands
- Chabad Netherlands
- Stichting Joods Bijzonder Onderwijs (Association Jewish Education)
- Digital Monument of the Jewish Community in the Netherlands
- Ondergang: De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse jodendom 1940-1945 by Jacques PresserJacques PresserJacques Presser was a Dutch historian, writer and poet best known for his book Ashes in the wind on the history of the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands during World War II...
(full online version) - Dutch Melodies (site of K'hal Adas Yeshurun Jerusalem)