History of the Jews in the Netherlands
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The History of the Jews in the Netherlands was most relevant from the end of the 16th century until World War II, when approximately 75% of Dutch Jews were killed.
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 practise 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 suppressed in many parts of the world.
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[edit] History
[edit] Early history
Jews seem not to have lived in the province of Holland before 1593; but 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 France 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 Gelderland was authorized by the Emperor Louis IV of Germany to receive Jews in his duchy. They paid a tax, granted services, and were protected by the law. In Arnhem, where a Jewish person 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. 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 Holland. 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 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.
[edit] Marranos and Sephardic Jews
The Sephardim (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.
In 1593 these Marranos arrived in Amsterdam after having been refused admission to Middelburg and Haarlem. These Jews were important merchants and persons of great ability. They labored assiduously in the cause of the people and contributed materially to the prosperity of the country. 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 Palache (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-gilds: 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.
[edit] Ashkenazim
Many Ashkenazim (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 pedlars and hawkers. 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.
[edit] 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 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 Meier 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 het Algemeen, founded in 1804, 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), etc.
[edit] The 19th Century & Early 20th Century
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. 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 staunch supporters of the Dutch monarchy until the late 19th century. Most Jews became socialists during the early 20th century and were fully integrated into the socialist pillar before the Holocaust.
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 giving by the Jewish communities to the Dutch Census).
- 1830 - 46,397
- 1840 - 52,245
- 1849 - 58,626
- 1859 - 63,790
- 1869 - 67,003
- 1879 - 81,693
- 1889 - 97,324
- 1899 - 103,988
- 1909 - 106,409
- 1920 - 115,223
- 1930 - 111,917
[edit] The Holocaust
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 1930's. 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 15,000 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 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 the Second World War (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):
- Groningen - 4,682
- Friesland - 851
- Drenthe - 2,498
- Overijssel - 4,345
- Gelderland - 6,663
- Utrecht - 4,147
- North Holland - 87,026 (including 79,410 in Amsterdam)
- South Holland - 25,617
- Zeeland - 174
- North Brabant - 2,320
- Limburg - 1,394
- Total - 139,687
In 1945 only about 35,000 of them were still alive. Some 75% of the Dutch-Jewish population perished, one of the highest percentages of all Nazi-occupied countries - despite the fact that Dutch Jews seemed to be more tolerated by and more integrated in the Dutch population than for example the Jews in Poland in the Polish population.
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 send to Westerbork. Additionally, over 15,000 Jews were sent to labor camps. Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands to Poland and Germany began at June 15th of 1942 and ended at September 13th 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 a large number of Jews, as many as 25,000-30,000, many of whom survived. At the same time, there was substantial collaboration as the Amsterdam city administration, the Dutch municipal police, and Dutch railway workers all helped round up and deport Jews. It is said that in many cases, from arrest to deportation from Westerbork to the destruction camps in Poland and Germany, all work was done by ethnic Dutch. The last couple of years the Dutch media has spent considerable time and effort to debunk the widespread myth among the population that the Dutch Jews were met with considerable support and help from both the Dutch population as well as from the Dutch government during the Second World War; instead, more than 75% of the Dutch Jewish population died between 1940-1945, with the help and support of thousands of ethnic Dutch, while the majority of the population seems to have had a fairly indifferent view towards their Jewish compatriots during the war.
Yet even more recently this view too is now seen as too simplistic. The high amount of Jewish victims is not that easily to blame on anyone and wartime sources make it clear most Dutch were very concerned with the Jews but helping wasn't easy. Indifferent were very few. Also finally people are daring to look at the fact that many Jews (one in seven) didn't even try to find a hiding place and that many went voluntarily and without resistance to the Nazi concentrationcamps. Also we now understand why the civil servants could do little to help and that most resistance they took part in has remained invisible. It seems the Dutch media in the 1950s was too positive about the Dutch role during the war; from the 1960s onwards the media was too negative. Today, historians finally are putting forward a more balanced opinion. Many did support and help the Jews but it was nearly impossible to do something that really did something to change the situation. Recent books have supported and proven this new and more balanced view on the Dutch history. "Victims & Survivors - The Nazi persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands 1940-1945" by Bob Moore was the first English book since the 1960s that looked at original sources and creates a very new and more understanding view of the Netherlands and the Dutch Jews during the war. Another book is "We leven nog" (We're still alive) by Bart van der Boom, reporting on the research of Dutch wartime diaries and German secret reports, proving that the majority of Dutch were indeed very concerned with what was happening to the Jews. We must also not forget the February strike in 1941 when thousands of Dutch protested in public against the way the Germans treated the Dutch Jews. The only strike of its kind in any occupied country.
However, survivor rates differed in certain parts of the Netherlands. In Groningen, more than 90% of the Jewish population was killed; in Eindhoven, this number was just above 40%. Contrary to popular belief, Jewish survivors were met with hostility and indifference from the side of the Dutch government in the years following the Second World War.
One of the best known Holocaust victims in the Netherlands is Anne Frank. Along with her sister, Margot Frank, she was killed by the Nazis in March 1945 in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Anne Frank's mother, Edith Frank-Holländer, died in Auschwitz. Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank, survived the war. Other Dutch victims of the Holocaust include Etty Hillesum.
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.
[edit] Today
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).[1]. 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 center 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.
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 Israel (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):
- Groningen - 242
- Friesland - 155
- Drenthe - 180
- Overijssel - 945
- Gelderland - 997
- Utrecht - 848
- Noord-Holland - 15,446 (including 14,068 in Amsterdam)
- Zuid-Holland - 3,934
- Zeeland - 59
- Noord-Brabant - 620
- Limburg - 297
- Total - 23,723
The sixties and seventies of the 20th century 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 nineties 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%. 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.
The Jewish population in the Netherlands also seems to become more and more internationalised, with an influx of mostly Israeli and Russian Jews during the last decades. Approximately one in three Dutch Jews has a non-Dutch background. The number of Israeli Jews living in the Netherlands (concentrated in Amsterdam) runs in the thousands, 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.
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.
A majority of the affiliated Jews in the Netherlands (Jews part of a Jewish community) are affiliated to the Nederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (Dutch Israelite Religious Community) (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). Chief rabbi for the NIK is rabbi Raphael Evers.
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 Nederland (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. The LJG has six rabbis: Ruben Bar-Ephraïm, Menno ten Brink, Sonny Herman, David Lilienthal, Awraham Soetendorp and Edward van Voolen.
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.
Masorti Judaism was introduced in the Netherlands in 2004, with the founding of a Masorti 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.
The Netherlands 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), and has communities spread across the Netherlands, including in Amsterdam and Groningen (founded in 2005). Beit Ha'Chidush has links to Reconstructionist Judaism and 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.
In total, some 9,000 Dutch Jews, on a total of 30,000 (some 30%), are connected to one of five religious organisations mentioned above.
Chabad is also active in the Netherlands. Of the three Jewish schools present in Amsterdam (Rosh Pina, Maimonides and Cheider), one (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.
Kosher food is widely available in Amsterdam, by several Kosher restaurants, two bakeries, Israeli/Kosher stores, Pizzeria and some supermarkets host a Kosher department. Kosher food is also available on a smaller scale, in Rotterdam, The Hague and smaller communities throughout the country.
[edit] 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 rabbis 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 Jews were obliged to register surnames with the civic authorities, a practice which 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 Ladino, the lingua franca of 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.
[edit] 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 offered better opportunities (see Chuts).
[edit] Some notable Dutch Jews
- Jacob Abendana - rabbi and philosopher
- Isaac Aboab da Fonseca - rabbi, kabbalist, scholar, writer
- Hedy d'Ancona - female politician, well-known feminist
- Jacques d'Ancona - television personality, Jewish father (no relative of Hedy d'Ancona)
- Barbara Barend - television host, daughter of Frits Barend
- Frits Barend - television host
- Sonja Barend - television host
- Dieuwertje Blok - television host
- Hadassah de Boer - television personality, daughter of Hedy d'Ancona
- Sacha de Boer - anchorwoman
- Abraham Bueno de Mesquita - comedian, actor
- Neve Campbell - Canadian actress, daughter of an Amsterdam-born mother of Sephardic Jewish descent
- Job Cohen - current mayor of Amsterdam
- Isaac da Costa - poet
- Raphael Evers - chief rabbi of the Nederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (Dutch Israelite Religious Community) (NIK)
- Anne Frank - born in Germany, she wrote her famous diary while hiding in The Netherlands
- Jack van Gelder - television host
- Evelien Gans - female historian
- Natasha Gerson - writer, journalist
- Hanneke Groenteman - television host
- Arnon Grunberg - author
- Jacob Israël de Haan - writer and diplomat. Moved to the British Mandate of Palestine
- Raoul Heertje- comedian
- Herman Heijermans - writer
- Xaviera Hollander - author, Jewish father
- Ralph Inbar - television personality, director
- Lenny Kuhr - singer, won the Eurovision Song Contest
- Manasseh ben Israel - rabbi, influential in the readmission of the Jews to England
- Isaac Israëls - painter
- Aletta Jacobs - first female student at a Dutch university
- Gideon Levy - producer, co-host of Dutch television show "Levy & Sadeghi"
- Willy Lindwer - documentary filmmaker
- Ischa Meijer - author
- Abraham Moszkowicz - lawyer, son of Max Moszkowicz
- Max Moszkowicz - lawyer
- Harry Mulisch - author, Jewish mother
- Ronny Naftaniel - director of Centrum for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI)
- Johan Neeskens - footballer, football coach
- Balthazar (Isaac) Orobio de Castro - philosopher
- Rob Oudkerk - politician, Jewish father
- Abraham Pais - particle physicist, science historian
- Marga van Praag - news anchor, Jewish father
- Jacques Presser - historian
- Daniel de Ridder - soccerplayer, Jewish-Israeli mother
- Renate Rubinstein - author (1935-1990), Jewish father
- Loretta Schrijver - news anchor, Jewish father
- Baruch Spinoza - philosopher
- Ed van Thijn - politician, former mayor of Amsterdam
- Ida Vos - author
- Jacques Wallage - current mayor of Groningen
- Leon de Winter - author
[edit] See also
- Beit Ha'Chidush
- Jewish Eindhoven
- Jewish Maastricht
- Jewish Tilburg
- Nederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
- Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap
- Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands
- Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland
[edit] References
- ^ Demographic Outlook - Jews in the Netherlands. Demos. Accessed 8th December 2006 (Dutch)
- This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] 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
- Demos, Demographic Research (Dutch)
- Joods.nl (Dutch)
- 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 (Dutch)
- Chabad Netherlands (Dutch)
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Dependencies, autonomies and other territories
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1 Has significant territory in Asia.
