About Jewishness

Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, 1595

Amsterdam 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 ("Mokum" is Yiddish for "town", derived from the Hebrew "makom", which literally means "place"). Although the Holocaust deeply affected the Jewish community, killing some 80% of the some 80,000 Jews at time present in Amsterdam, since then the community has managed to rebuild a vibrant and living Jewish life for its approximately 15,000 present members. Job Cohen, Mayor of Amsterdam from 2001 to 2010 is Jewish. Cohen was runner-up for the award of World Mayor in 2006. In 2010 he decided to take up his candidacy to become leader of the Dutch Labour Party, with the possibility to become Prime-Minister after the next elections.

Marranos and Sephardic Jews
Permanent Jewish life in Amsterdam began with the arrival of pockets of Marranos and Sephardic Jews at the end of the 15th, and beginning of the 16th century. Although many Sephardim (so-called Spanish Jews) had been expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492.
From 1497, others remained in the Iberian peninsula, practising Judaism in secret. The newly independent Dutch provinces provided an ideal opportunity for these 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. Quite new for the Netherlands, they also held connections with the Levant and Morocco.
The formal independence from Spain of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces (1581), theoretically opens the door to public practice of judaism. Yet only in 1603 a gathering takes place that is licensed by the city. The first recognisable synagogue is opened in 1639.

When around 1595 the first flow of Jewish refugees from Portugal arrived in Amsterdam, they settled in the district that at the time was just newly built. The German and Polish Jews came later. Thus arose the "Jewish neighborhood": the area around the current Jodenbreestraat, which extends to Rapenburg, Marken and Uilenburg. Since the second world war there is little left of the old Jewish neighborhood. The area was depopulated by the Nazis, who sent the Jewish people to their extermination camps. It was a neighborhood with its own atmosphere, with numerous shops and markets. The houses were extremely small and relatively inexpensive, but really still too expensive, for it was a slum. They lived on the streets because of lack of space indoors. The population was destitute, often with large families and many disease and high mortality. And just as in other organized religions, the people here were kept ignorant by the religious leaders, and kept poor by the diamond dealers.

Ashkenazi
The first Ashkenazi who arrived in Amsterdam were refugees from the Chmielnicki Uprising in Poland and the Thirty Years War. Their numbers soon swelled, eventually outnumbering the Sephardic Jews at the end of the 17th century; by 1674, some 5,000 Askhenazi Jews were living in Amsterdam, while 2,500 Sephardic Jews called Amsterdam their home . Many of the new Ashkenazi immigrants were poor, contrary to their relatively wealthy Sephardic co-religionists. They were only allowed in Amsterdam because of the financial aid promised to them and other guarantees given to the Amsterdam city council by the Sephardic community, despite the religious and cultural differences between the Yiddish-speaking Askhenazi and the Portuguese-speaking Sephardim.
Only in 1671 did the large Askhenazi community inaugurate their own synagogue, the Great Synagogue, which stood opposite to the Sephardic Esnoga Synagogue. Soon after, several other synagogues were built, among them the Obbene Shul (1685-1686), the Dritt Shul (1700) and the Neie Shul (1752, also known as the New Synagogue). For a long time, the Askhenazi community was strongly focused on Central and Eastern Europe, the region where most of the Dutch Ashkenazi originated from. Rabbis, cantors and teachers hailed from Poland and Germany. Up until the 19th century, most of the Askhenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, with some Dutch influences. Meanwhile, the community grew and flourished. At the end of the 18th century, the 20,000-strong Askhenazi community was the largest in Western and Eastern Europe.

Jewish quarter: Markensteeg

This block of houses on the corner of Markensteeg and Jodenhouttuinen was divided into one bedroom apartments, which each had to be enough for a whole family. Running water and toilets were not present, nor a cooking place, people used to cook on an oil stove. On the ground floor were small businesses, such as potato traders, hardware stores, etc. In 1913 the building was declared uninhabitable. The Markensteeg was in the middle of the Jewish neighborhood, almost opposite the Rembrandt House at Jodenbreestraat. The neighborhood got its name from the Jewish immigrants from Portugal (Sephardim) Eastern Europe (Ashkenazim) who had been settling there from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The area became depopulated when most of the Jewish people were deported to extermination camps by the Nazis in World War II. More often than not the Holocaust survivors settled elsewhere after the war.

Diseases caused by bad housing and lack of fresh drinkwater

Trachoma is an eye disease that occurs due to poor hygiene by the absence of running water and sanitation. 80 percent of the slum dwellers in Amsterdam suffered from it , mainly in the Jewish neighborhood.

In this basement residence, wich existed of 1 room, lived a 3-person family: father, mother and a sickly, 34-year old son.

Germans create Amsterdam ghetto. In the background the house of Rembrandt

The Holocaust
The Germans occupied the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, and established a civilian administration dominated by the SS. Amsterdam, the country's largest city, had a Jewish population of about 75,000, including, notably, Anne Frank, which increased to over 79,000 in 1941. Jews represented less than 10 percent of the city's total population. More than 10,000 of these were foreign Jews who had found refuge in Amsterdam in the 1930s.

Jewish school children, with Star of David

On February 22, 1941, the Germans arrested several hundred Jews and deported them from Amsterdam first to the Buchenwald concentration camp and then to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Almost all of them were murdered in Mauthausen. The arrests and the brutal treatment shocked the population of Amsterdam.

First memorial day of the 1941 February Strike , in 1946

In response, Communist activists organized a general strike on February 25, and were joined by many other worker organizations. As tensions rose, the Dutch pro-nazi movement NSB and its streetfighting arm, the WA (Weerbaarheidsafdeling - defence section), were involved in a series of provocations in Jewish neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. This eventually led to a series of street battles between the WA and Jewish self-defence groups and their supporters, with as high point a pitched battle on February 11, 1941 on the Waterlooplein.
On February 12, 1941, German soldiers, assisted by Dutch police, encircled the old Jewish neighbourhood and cordoned it off from the rest of the city by putting up barbed wire, opening bridges and putting in police checkpoints. This neighbourhood was now forbidden for non-Jews.
On February 19, the German Grüne Polizei stormed into ice-cream salon Koco in the Van Woustraat. In the fight that ensued, several police officers were wounded. Revenge for this and other fights came in the weekend of February 22 and February 23, when a large scale pogrom was undertaken by the Germans. 425 Jewish men, age 20-35 were taken hostage and eventually sent to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.
Following this pogrom, on February 24, an open air meeting was held on the Noordermarkt to organise a strike to protest against the pogrom as well as the forced labour in Germany. The Communist Party of the Netherlands, made illegal by the Germans, printed and spread a call to strike throughout the city the next morning. The first to strike were the city's tram drivers, followed by other city services as well as companies like De Bijenkorf and schools. Though the Germans immediately took measures to suppress the strike, which had grown spontaneously as other workers followed the example of the tram drivers, it still spread to other cities. The strike did not last long. By February 27, much of it had been suppressed by the German police. Although ultimately unsuccessful, it was still significant in that it was the first direct action against the Nazis' treatment of Jews.
The strike is remembered each year on February 25, with a march past the Dokwerker, the memorial made for the strike in 1951 and first revealed in December 1952. All political parties, as well as the city public transport authorities and organisations of Holocaust survivors, participate in the remembrance. Although three communist organizers were shot to death after the strike and 12 communist organizers were sent to jails in Germany, during the cold war, the communists were forced to remember the strike separately. For many years Dutch officials publicly denied the organization of the strike by the communists.

Amsterdam Nieuwmark (New Market) area - Border of the Jewish ghetto

In January 1942, the Germans began the relocation of provincial Jews to Amsterdam. Within Amsterdam, Jews were restricted to certain sections of the city. Foreign and stateless Jews were sent directly to the Westerbork transit camp.

Jews reporting to Muiderpoort railway station

Of the 7,000 Jews summonsed by the Germans, 500 reported for transportation to Camp Westerbork. They waited for hours for the special train that would transport them from Muiderpoort railway station to Westerbork.

In July 1942, the Germans began mass deportations of Jews to extermination camps in occupied Poland, primarily to Auschwitz, but also to Sobibor. The city administration, the Dutch municipal police, and Dutch railway workers all cooperated in the deportations, as did the Dutch Nazi party (NSB).

German and Dutch Nazi authorities arrested Jews in the streets of Amsterdam and took them to the assembly point for deportations - the municipal theater building, the Hollandsche Schouwburg. When several hundred people were assembled in the building and in the back courtyard, they were transferred to Westerbork. In October 1942, the Germans sent all Jews in forced-labour camps and their families to Westerbork. All were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau within a few weeks.
In May 1943, German authorities ordered 7,000 Jews, including employees of the Judenrat in Amsterdam, to assemble in an Amsterdam city square for deportation. Only 500 people complied. The Germans responded by sealing the Jewish quarter and rounding up Jews. From May through September 1943, the Germans launched raids to seize Jews in the city.
The Germans confiscated the property left behind by deported Jews. In 1942 alone the contents of nearly 10,000 apartments in Amsterdam were expropriated by the Germans and shipped to Germany. Some 25,000 Jews, including at least 4,500 children, went into hiding to evade deportation. About one-third of those in hiding were discovered, arrested, and deported. In all, at least 80 percent of the prewar Dutch Jewish community perished.
In the spring of 1945, the Canadian Forces liberated Amsterdam.

Hollandsche Schouwburg Amsterdam

The Hollandsche Schouwburg (the Dutch Theatre) was a collecting point and deportation centre for Jews. The theatre was situated in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. The unfortunate people were transported to Westerbork camp in Holland, and from there to death camps. In 1962 this site was designated as a war memorial, in remembrance of the Jews who perished under the Nazi regime.The theatre auditorium has been replaced by an open courtyard with an obelisk where the theatre stage once stood. The entrance hall leads into a memorial chapel where an eternal flame burns. Engraved on the Wall of Remembrance you can read the names of more than 100,000 victims who never returned.

Yom HaShoah

Yom HaShoah in the Hollandsche Schouwburg (Dutch Theatre), Amsterdam, 2002
Left to right: David Simon (Chairman of the Jewish Community of Amsterdam), Mayor Job Cohen; Israel's Ambassador Eitan Margalit; Rob Wurms (Chairman Central Jewish Consultation), and Rabbi Raphael Evers (Dutch-Israeli Church - NIK.)


Jewish community in the 21st Century
Most of the Amsterdam Jewish community (excluding the Progressive and Sephardic communities) is affiliated to the Ashkenazi Nederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (NIK). These congregations combined form the Nederlands-Israëlietische Hoofdsynagoge (NIHS) (the Dutch acronym for the Jewish Community of Amsterdam). Some 3,000 Jews are formally part of the NIHS. The Progressive movement currently has some 1,700 Jewish members in Amsterdam, affiliated to the Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom. Smaller Jewish communities include the Sephardic Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (270 families in and out of Amsterdam) and Beit Ha'Chidush, a community of some 200 members and 'friends' connected to Jewish Renewal and Reconstructionist Judaism. Several independent synagogues exist as well. The glossy Joods Jaarboek (Jewish Yearbook), is based in Amsterdam, as well as the weekly Dutch Jewish newspaper in print: the Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad.

Amsterdam Jewish cemetery Zeeburg (1714-1942)

Jewish Cemeteries
Six Jewish cemeteries exist in Amsterdam and surroundings, three Orthodox Ashkenazi (affiliated to the NIK), two linked to the Progressive community and one Sephardic. The Askhenazi cemetery at Muiderberg is still frequently used by the Orthodox Jewish community. The Orthodox Ashkenazi cemetery at Zeeburg, founded in 1714, was the burial ground for some 100,000 Jews between 1714 and 1942. After part of the ground of the cemetery was sold in 1956, many graves were transported to the Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish cemetery near Diemen (also still in use, but less frequent than the one in Muiderberg).

A Sephardic cemetery, Beth Haim, exists near the small town of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, containing the graves of some 28,000 Sephardic Jews. Two Progressive cemeteries, one in Hoofddorp (founded in 1937) and one in Amstelveen (founded in 2002), are used by the large Progressive community.

Beth Haim Cemetery

A Sephardic cemetery, Beth Haim, exists near the small town of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, containing the graves of some 28,000 Sephardic Jews. Two Progressive cemeteries, one in Hoofddorp (founded in 1937) and one in Amstelveen (founded in 2002), are used by the large Progressive community.

Amsterdam weeps
(Lyrics in Dutch by Tom Manders, translated by Jack Vanderwyk.)
("Tip-Top" was the name of the Jewish Theatre, 27 Jodenbreestraat, Amsterdam )

When father is browsing in his photo-album
Then you're amazed when he tells again
Of the Weesperstraat and the Jewish Quarter
As he recounts how daily life began
Waking up, trade and business
Humour and fun, that was the source of life
And if there was a day when you had no luck
Then at night at the Tip-Top you forgot all your troubles
Sometimes someone called in the late hours:
"I've got great olives and pickled onions!"

Amsterdam weeps, where there once was laughter
Amsterdam weeps, still it feels the pain
Amsterdam weeps, where there once was laughter
Amsterdam weeps, because the chein is gone

As father recounts how the Sabbath began
Then you're amazed when he tells again
How the khazn sang "A-dei shem eilye nova"
At Hannukah the candles were lit again
Then there were wishes, bensht by God
And that they all will be well again
Before there was looting and eradication
Having shtuyid Yiddish Yeleds
They called them a race, oh Gott, oh Gott
Why can't it be like it was?

Amsterdam weeps, where there once was laughter
Amsterdam weeps, still it feels the pain
Amsterdam weeps, where there once was laughter
Amsterdam weeps, because the chein is gone

On Friday night kugel with pears
Anyone who does'nt nash that can't appreciate it
The book closes with a tear in his eyes
And he whispers, "Mazzel und broche, für die ganze mishpoche"
"Mazzel und broche, für die ganze mishpoche"