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Hanukkah in the Liberal Synagogue, Amsterdam, Holland, 1985
Hanukkah in the Liberal Synagogue, Amsterdam, Holland, 1985

The Jewish Community of Amsterdam

Amsterdam

The most populous city and the constitutional capital of the Netherlands.

After the northern provinces of the Netherlands proclaimed their independence of Catholic Spain (1579), Crypto-Jews ("Marranos") of Spanish and Portuguese origin were attracted to Amsterdam where little inquiry was made as to their religious beliefs.

Portuguese Jewish merchants began to settle in Amsterdam in about 1590.

The intellectual life of the community, in both its religious and secular aspects, attained a high level. As a center of Jewish learning throughout the Marrano Diaspora, Amsterdam Jewry wielded a powerful influence and became a focus of intellectual ferment. It flourished during the 17th century under the leadership of Saul Levi Morteira, and subsequently under the Chakham Isaac Aboab de Fonseca.

Pupils from the Talmud Torah school officiated as rabbis in numerous Sephardim communities in western Europe and the Mediterranean countries. Most of the religious literature in Spanish and Portuguese intended for the guidance of the Sephardi communities was composed and printed in Amsterdam.

The first Jewish printer there was Manasseh Ben Israel, who began printing in 1627 and produced more than 70 books. The community included such diverse personalities as the rabbis Manasseh Ben Israel, Jacob Sasportas, the physicians Abraham Zacutus Lusitanus and Ephraim Bueno, the Kabbalist Abraham Cohen Herrera, the playwright Antonio Enriquez Gomez, the physician and thinker Isaac Orobio de Castro, the poet Daniel Levi de Barrios, and the rebel-philosophers Uriel da Costa and Baruch Spinoza. Jewish attachment to messianic hopes and yearning for a change from exile existence were powerfully demonstrated in the ferment aroused by Shabbetai Tzevi in the middle of the 17th century. The majority of the community in Amsterdam became ardent followers of the pseudo-messiah, and the leadership of the community remained for a long time in the hands of former Shabbateans.

Jewish merchants in Amsterdam were one of the first groups to engage in recognizably modern capitalist-type activities. Their foreign interests included trade with the Iberian Peninsula, England, Italy, Africa, India, and the east and west Indies. Jews in Amsterdam also engaged in industry, especially in the tobacco, printing, and diamond industries. By the end of the 17th century many Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam were active in the stock market, owning a quarter of the shares of the east India company. The economic position of the Sephardi Jews was jeopardized during economic crises in the republic, especially critical in 1763. After the French conquest of the Netherlands in of the 3,000 members depended on relief.

The first Ashkenazi settlers in Amsterdam arrived in the 1620s and their first synagogue was acquired in 1640. Their number rapidly increased and soon exceeded the Sephardi community. Jews from Poland found their way to Amsterdam after the Chmielnicki massacres in 1648-49, and after the Swedish invasion in 1655. The Polish Jews founded their own congregation in 1660, which maintained ties with the Council of the Four Lands. In 1671 a large and luxurious synagogue was built, and to meet the needs of the growing population, additional Ashkenazi synagogues were built in 1686, 1700, and 1730. Prominent Ashkenazi rabbis included David Ben Aryeh Leib of Lida, Eleazar Ben Samuel of Brody, Tzevi Hirsch Ben Jacob Ashkenazi ("Chakham Tzevi"), his grandson Saul Loewenstamm, and Saul's son Moses. At first the Ashkenazi Jews were in poor economic circumstances, and some became peddlers and old clothes dealers. Later, they developed trade with eastern Europe and Germany. Many served as agents in
procuring loans for the German states from Dutch banks on comparatively cheap terms. Others acted as diamond brokers for foreign courts. The cultural activity of the Ashkenazi Jews followed traditional Ashkenazi patterns of religious learning. Of special interest were publications in Yiddish, including a newspaper, the first in Yiddish that appeared twice weekly, the "Dienstagische und Freitagishe Kurant" (1686-87). The first newspaper for Jews was the Spanish weekly "Gazeta de Amsterdam" (1675-90).

After Holland was conquered by the French in 1795, Jewish civic emancipation was granted. In 1798 Moses Moresco became the first Jew to sit on the municipal council of Amsterdam. As the leaders of the community refused to permit revolutionaries to conduct propaganda among their members, the revolutionaries left the community and established a new "Adass Jeshurun" congregation (1797-1808).

King Louis Napoleon (1806-10) ordered the two Ashkenazi communities to reunite, and the leadership was henceforward retained by supporters of emancipation. The reestablished Dutch monarchy (1815) left the question of Jewish emancipation unaffected.

After the struggle for emancipation, the trend toward assimilation among the upper classes was intensified. Many, especially among the Portuguese community, adopted Christianity, notably Isaac da Costa. Leaders of the Ashkenazi community endeavored to introduce use of the Dutch language among their members and to uproot Yiddish.

Religious differences intensified. An attempt was made to introduce Reform Judaism. The appointment of Joseph Hirsh duenner to the directorship of the rabbinical seminary, and in 1874 as chief rabbi, inaugurated a marked change. Although strictly preserving the orthodox character of the community, he raised the academic level of the college and educated a group of rabbis who achieved a high standard of scholarship. He also included representatives from all sectors in the leadership, even the nonobservant such as the banker A.C. Wertheim. Jews now began to occupy important positions in Holland. Noted was the jurist Jonas Daniel Meyer (1780-1834), the Asser family, M.H. Godefroi, who became minister of justice, and the physician and economist Samuel Sarphati (1813-66), who contributed much to the industrial and cultural development of Amsterdam.

From the end of the 19th century, Amsterdam became a cultural center of the Netherlands. Writers included Herman Heyermans (1864-1924), Israel Guerido (1872-1932), J.I. de Haan (1881-1924), and Carry Van Bruggen de Haan (1881- 1932). The jurist T.M.C. Asser (1838-1913) won the Nobel Prize.

The favorable economic conditions after 1870, migration from the provinces to Amsterdam, and a high birth rate led to the growth of the Jewish population in Amsterdam from 30,000 in 1870 to 60,000 in 1900. Between 1905 and 1932, a sharp decline occurred in the birth rate.

The Holocaust Period

The Nazi rise to power in Germany immediately affected the Jews of Amsterdam by the influx of refugees to the city. On May 16, 1940 the Germans entered Amsterdam. In November, 1940, Dutch Nazis supported by German soldiers started demonstrations and riots in the Jewish quarter. These demonstrations were accompanied by violence against the inhabitants. Jewish resistance came into being. The civil governor of Amsterdam then appointed a Jewish council for Amsterdam. Their first task was to encourage the Jews to surrender their weapons. On February 22-23, 1941, a reprisal raid for resisting the riots was carried out on Himmler's Buchenwald. A few months later those who survived were sent to Mauthausen. On February 25, as a protest against the raid, a strike was carried out by almost all public employees and many private enterprises in Amsterdam and in several outlying districts. The Germans were interested in concentrating the Jews as far as possible into one city, Amsterdam, and in Amsterdam itself they concentrated the Jews into certain sections. When the "final solution" was to be implemented, the Jews were asked to volunteer for transport to the "east", supposedly in order to work there. In three massive raids (in May, June, and September 1943) approximately 13,000 people were arrested and transported to Westerbork from where almost all were sent to the extermination camps Auschwitz and Sobibor. During the last winter of the war many of the oldest Jewish buildings were severely damaged by the population, which used all available material as fuel for stoves, including the Ashkenazi "great synagogue" (built 1671) and the "new synagogue" (built 1750).

In recent years, practically the entire "Jewish quarter" has been demolished by the municipal authorities in the interest of modern traffic requirements. At the Jonas Daniel Meyer square, three synagogues are still standing, but the Ashkenazi great synagogue and the new synagogue were not reopened after the war and in 1955 were sold to the municipality. The Portuguese synagogue is still in use. The adjoining "Etz Chayyim" library is also still extant.

Of the estimated 12,000 Jewish inhabitants of Amsterdam, 5,000 are members of the Ashkenazi congregation, about 600 are affiliated with the Sephardi congregation, and some 750 are in the liberal congregation.

Amsterdam is the only city in Holland with Jewish day schools, all of which are owned by a private foundation, Joods Bijzonder Onderwijs (J.B.O.), with four day nurseries, two elementary schools, and a high school - the Maimonides Lyceum. Together, these seven schools had 450 pupils in 1969.

The only Jewish weekly in Holland, the Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad, is published in Amsterdam and has a circulation of about 4,000. The diamond industry, which was predominantly in Jewish hands before the war, is now largely owned and run by non-Jews. Jews are well-represented in the textile industry. In addition, many Jews are found in the professions, especially in medicine. The Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the Judaica and Hebraica department of the University of Amsterdam library, is not maintained by Jewish auspices. The Hollandse Schouwburg, the monument to the 80,000 Jews who were deported from this place, is maintained by the municipality, and the Anne Frank house is supported by a private foundation.

Jacques Presser (1899-1970), professor of history at University of Amsterdam, Holland, writer and poet best known for his book on the history of the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands during World War II, born in Amsterdam to a secular Jewish family. When he was young, his family lived for some time in Antwerp, Belgium, where his father found work as a diamond cutter.

After finishing a vocational college and working for a few years he attended the University of Amsterdam where he studied history and art history. He graduated in 1926 and then taught history at the newly founded Vossius Gymnasium in Amsterdam. In 1930 he became a lecturer at the Instituut voor Historische Leergangen. In 1939 he published an article “Anti-Semitism as a historical Phenomenon”. When Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, he tried to flee to England. When this attempt did not succeed he tried to commit suicide. As a Jew he was dismissed from the Vossius Gymnasium, but was permitted to teach at a Jewish school. In early 1943, his wife Deborah Apple was arrested and deported to the Sobibor death camp, where she was murdered. He managed to escape a similar fate by hiding out in four different addresses in a small town in the countryside. During this time he wrote a history of America which was published in 1949.

After the end of World War II, Presser was reinstated at the Vossius Gymnasium, and became also a lecturer in political history, didactics, and the methodology of history at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Amsterdam. In 1947 he also began to teach at the University's politico-social faculty of law and the following year he was appointed professor at the Faculty of Arts. Holding left-wing views, he spoke out on several sensitive political issues such as the Dutch police actions in Indonesia, and the activities of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy against suspected Communists. He also contributed to the leftist magazines like "Vrij Nederland", and "De Waarheid". In 1952 he was appointed full professor. In 1950 Presser was requested by the Dutch government to produce a study about the fate of Dutch Jews during the war. "Ondergang", published in English as “Ashes in the Wind: The destruction of the Dutch Jews”, appeared in 1965, became his most important and best known work. Besides history books, Presser also wrote novels. His book "The Night of the Girondists", which was based on his war time experiences, received literary prizes, and became an international best-seller. Set in the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork, the leading character of this book is an assimilated Jewish teacher who collaborated with the Nazis. His job was to select Jews for transportation to Auschwitz; later he realised that, as a Jew, he was also bound to share the fate of those whom he had selected for deportation.

Abraham Caceres (18th century ), composer, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was a descendant of a Portuguese family. In 1718 his name appears for the first time, as a composer of music for the annual celebration of the Amsterdam Talmud study fraternity Lekah Tov. In 1726 he provided the music for the consecration of the Honen El Synagogue in The Hague. In 1731 two of Caceres’ melodies were included in Ricchi’s Sefer Hon Ashir. Caceres appeared in 1738 as composer of the cantata LE’EL ELIM. He himself accompanied its performance at the Simhat Toraי festival. Caceres also composed the choral piece HISHKI HIZKI, which was performed in 1775 at the inauguration of the Amsterdam synagogue. He died in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Moses Ben Mordecai Zacuto (1620-1697), poet and kabbalist, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, to a Portuguese cryto-Jewish family. Zacuto first studied under Saul Levi Morteira, and then traveled to Warsaw to further his studies at yeshivot there. From there he moved to Verona, Italy, and settled in Venice in 1645. He became the head of the kabbalah scholars in Italy. After the apostasy of Shabbetai Zevi he openly opposed the movement. From 1673 until his death Zacuto served as rabbi in Mantua.
He wrote extensively on halakhic and kabbalistic subjects. His poetry is devoted to kabbalistic subjects and appeared in the books Hen Kol Hadash (1712) and Tofteh Arukh (1715). Zacuto is the author of the first biblical drama in Hebrew literature, entitled Yesod Olam (1874). He died in Mantua, Italy.

David Aharon de Sola (1796-1860), cantor and composer, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. De Sola took up his position at the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London in 1818. He served the London community until his death in 1860, gaining the cognomen “Learned Hazzan of English Sephardic Jewry.”
The anthology he assembled, in cooperation with composer Emanuel Aguilar of London, published in London in 1857, largely reflects the traditional music legacy of the Amsterdam Synagogue.

Ernst Julius Cohen (1869-1944), chemist, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He became professor of inorganic and general chemistry at Utrecht. He researched iodides and explained the nature of 'tin disease'. Cohen established the Dutch Society for the History of Medicine, Natural Sciences and Mathematics and was the first president of the Dutch Chemical Society. chairman of the Dutch Committee on Coinage and president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He was the author of many works including medical textbooks. In 1941 he was sent to a concentration camp but released on the appeal of the Dutch Chemistry Society. He refused to flee the country and in 1944 was taken to his death in Auschwitz.

Anton Berljin (1817-1870), composer and conductor, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, as Aron Wolf. He was for many years conductor and director of the Royal Theater. Berljin founded numerous choral groups, wrote liturgical music for the synagogue and composed many other works. His compositions include nine operas (among them Die Bergknappen and Proserina), the oratorio Moses On Nebo, seven ballets, a symphony, a cantata and chamber music. He died in Amsterdam.

Carel Asser (1780-1836), jurist, the son of Moses Salomon Asser, born in Amsterdam and died in The Hague, Holland. Asser studied law and philology at the Athenæum at Amsterdam. After obtaining his doctor's degree in 1799 Asser practiced law in Amsterdam; he was one of the first Jews to become lawyers after the establishment of the Napoleonic Batavian republic. His reputation was established when he conducted a brilliant defence of a certain Mascel of Dordrecht who had been accused of blasphemy when expressing doubts about the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.

When he was sixteen years old he helped his father to found the Felix Libertate, a society which worked for the emancipation of the Jews of Holland and he joined his father in signing a petition on the matter which was sent to the States General in 1796. This step was vigorously opposed by Daniel Cohen d'Azevedo, rabbi of the Portuguese community of Amsterdam, and also by Jacob Moses Loewenstamm, rabbi of the Ashkenazim, who were afraid that political emancipation would result in the assimilation of the Jews. As a result of the petition the National Assembly passed a law conferring full civil rights on the Jews. Another result of the emancipation was a split between the orthodox and reformed minded Jews of the city. Carel and his father became members of the new Reform congregation, Adath Jeshurun. In 1807 Asser was one of three delegates sent by the new congregation to the Sanhedrin in Paris. On his return home he was commissioned by Napoleon to write a report of the condition and wishes of the Jews in Amsterdam, and to investigate the the possibility of the reunification of the congregations.

Asser recommended the establishment of a central consistory for the Jews in Holland. This was authorized by royal decree in 1808. He drew up the constitution of the consistory at the request of Louis Napoleon. The same year Asser was appointed director of the second division of the Ministry of Public Worship. After Holland regained its independence in 1813 he became a member of the Amsterdam consistory and he was appointed a member of the commission to draft regulations for the Jewish community. In 1828 he was appointed president of the Supreme committee of the Jewish congregations of Holland.

In 1811 Asser was made justice of the peace in the first district of Amsterdam. For twenty-one years from 1815 Asser held senior positions in the Department of Justice at The Hague and from 1831-1836 he was appointed secretary of the Department of Justice. n 1827 he wrote "Précis Historique sur l'Etat des Israélites du Royaume des Pays-Bas", a historical review of the condition of the Jews in Holland. He also wrote several books on aspects of Dutch law including a comparison of the Dutch and French civil codes.

His wife Rose Levin was the sister of well-known German -Jewish writer Rahel Varnhagen von Ense (1771–1833) who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celebrated biography, "Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess" (1958) by Hannah Arendt. Arendt cherished Varnhagen as her "closest friend, though she had been dead for some hundred years."

Oheb Isaac Brandon (1830-1902) Cantor. Born in Amsterdam, Holland, he served the city’s congregation from 1861 until his death. The guide he wrote for cantors, Seder Hazzanut, includes very detailed information about the melodies to be used on various occasions. It also deals with traditions of the Amsterdam Portuguese synagogue concerning allocations of functions during services. Brandon exerted a strong influence on his successors. He died in Amsterdam.

Baruch Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677), philosopher, born in Amsterdam to where his parents had fled to escape the Portuguese Inquisition. He received a Jewish education and also studied Latin, becoming acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics, the physical sciences and the philosophy of Descartes to which he was greatly attracted.

Spinoza began to distance himself from the Jewish community. In 1656, he was summoned to a religious court, accused of heresy and publicly excommunicated. He moved to Rhijnsburg near Leyden and joined a Mennonite sect, earning his living as a lens polisher. Later he lived in Voorburg and from 1670 in The Hague. Spinoza wrote two great works, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus which laid the foundations for biblical criticism, and Ethics, one of the classics of world philosophy which developed a rationalistic pantheism.

Harry Elte (1880-1945), architect, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 1914 he won the international competition for designing a stadium in Amsterdam. He also designed several Dutch synagogues and the Jewish war veterans home in Amsterdam. In 1927 he renovated the Amersfoort synagogue first built in 1727. During the German occupation of Holland in World War 2 he was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp where he was killed.

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The Jewish Community of Amsterdam

Amsterdam

The most populous city and the constitutional capital of the Netherlands.

After the northern provinces of the Netherlands proclaimed their independence of Catholic Spain (1579), Crypto-Jews ("Marranos") of Spanish and Portuguese origin were attracted to Amsterdam where little inquiry was made as to their religious beliefs.

Portuguese Jewish merchants began to settle in Amsterdam in about 1590.

The intellectual life of the community, in both its religious and secular aspects, attained a high level. As a center of Jewish learning throughout the Marrano Diaspora, Amsterdam Jewry wielded a powerful influence and became a focus of intellectual ferment. It flourished during the 17th century under the leadership of Saul Levi Morteira, and subsequently under the Chakham Isaac Aboab de Fonseca.

Pupils from the Talmud Torah school officiated as rabbis in numerous Sephardim communities in western Europe and the Mediterranean countries. Most of the religious literature in Spanish and Portuguese intended for the guidance of the Sephardi communities was composed and printed in Amsterdam.

The first Jewish printer there was Manasseh Ben Israel, who began printing in 1627 and produced more than 70 books. The community included such diverse personalities as the rabbis Manasseh Ben Israel, Jacob Sasportas, the physicians Abraham Zacutus Lusitanus and Ephraim Bueno, the Kabbalist Abraham Cohen Herrera, the playwright Antonio Enriquez Gomez, the physician and thinker Isaac Orobio de Castro, the poet Daniel Levi de Barrios, and the rebel-philosophers Uriel da Costa and Baruch Spinoza. Jewish attachment to messianic hopes and yearning for a change from exile existence were powerfully demonstrated in the ferment aroused by Shabbetai Tzevi in the middle of the 17th century. The majority of the community in Amsterdam became ardent followers of the pseudo-messiah, and the leadership of the community remained for a long time in the hands of former Shabbateans.

Jewish merchants in Amsterdam were one of the first groups to engage in recognizably modern capitalist-type activities. Their foreign interests included trade with the Iberian Peninsula, England, Italy, Africa, India, and the east and west Indies. Jews in Amsterdam also engaged in industry, especially in the tobacco, printing, and diamond industries. By the end of the 17th century many Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam were active in the stock market, owning a quarter of the shares of the east India company. The economic position of the Sephardi Jews was jeopardized during economic crises in the republic, especially critical in 1763. After the French conquest of the Netherlands in of the 3,000 members depended on relief.

The first Ashkenazi settlers in Amsterdam arrived in the 1620s and their first synagogue was acquired in 1640. Their number rapidly increased and soon exceeded the Sephardi community. Jews from Poland found their way to Amsterdam after the Chmielnicki massacres in 1648-49, and after the Swedish invasion in 1655. The Polish Jews founded their own congregation in 1660, which maintained ties with the Council of the Four Lands. In 1671 a large and luxurious synagogue was built, and to meet the needs of the growing population, additional Ashkenazi synagogues were built in 1686, 1700, and 1730. Prominent Ashkenazi rabbis included David Ben Aryeh Leib of Lida, Eleazar Ben Samuel of Brody, Tzevi Hirsch Ben Jacob Ashkenazi ("Chakham Tzevi"), his grandson Saul Loewenstamm, and Saul's son Moses. At first the Ashkenazi Jews were in poor economic circumstances, and some became peddlers and old clothes dealers. Later, they developed trade with eastern Europe and Germany. Many served as agents in
procuring loans for the German states from Dutch banks on comparatively cheap terms. Others acted as diamond brokers for foreign courts. The cultural activity of the Ashkenazi Jews followed traditional Ashkenazi patterns of religious learning. Of special interest were publications in Yiddish, including a newspaper, the first in Yiddish that appeared twice weekly, the "Dienstagische und Freitagishe Kurant" (1686-87). The first newspaper for Jews was the Spanish weekly "Gazeta de Amsterdam" (1675-90).

After Holland was conquered by the French in 1795, Jewish civic emancipation was granted. In 1798 Moses Moresco became the first Jew to sit on the municipal council of Amsterdam. As the leaders of the community refused to permit revolutionaries to conduct propaganda among their members, the revolutionaries left the community and established a new "Adass Jeshurun" congregation (1797-1808).

King Louis Napoleon (1806-10) ordered the two Ashkenazi communities to reunite, and the leadership was henceforward retained by supporters of emancipation. The reestablished Dutch monarchy (1815) left the question of Jewish emancipation unaffected.

After the struggle for emancipation, the trend toward assimilation among the upper classes was intensified. Many, especially among the Portuguese community, adopted Christianity, notably Isaac da Costa. Leaders of the Ashkenazi community endeavored to introduce use of the Dutch language among their members and to uproot Yiddish.

Religious differences intensified. An attempt was made to introduce Reform Judaism. The appointment of Joseph Hirsh duenner to the directorship of the rabbinical seminary, and in 1874 as chief rabbi, inaugurated a marked change. Although strictly preserving the orthodox character of the community, he raised the academic level of the college and educated a group of rabbis who achieved a high standard of scholarship. He also included representatives from all sectors in the leadership, even the nonobservant such as the banker A.C. Wertheim. Jews now began to occupy important positions in Holland. Noted was the jurist Jonas Daniel Meyer (1780-1834), the Asser family, M.H. Godefroi, who became minister of justice, and the physician and economist Samuel Sarphati (1813-66), who contributed much to the industrial and cultural development of Amsterdam.

From the end of the 19th century, Amsterdam became a cultural center of the Netherlands. Writers included Herman Heyermans (1864-1924), Israel Guerido (1872-1932), J.I. de Haan (1881-1924), and Carry Van Bruggen de Haan (1881- 1932). The jurist T.M.C. Asser (1838-1913) won the Nobel Prize.

The favorable economic conditions after 1870, migration from the provinces to Amsterdam, and a high birth rate led to the growth of the Jewish population in Amsterdam from 30,000 in 1870 to 60,000 in 1900. Between 1905 and 1932, a sharp decline occurred in the birth rate.

The Holocaust Period

The Nazi rise to power in Germany immediately affected the Jews of Amsterdam by the influx of refugees to the city. On May 16, 1940 the Germans entered Amsterdam. In November, 1940, Dutch Nazis supported by German soldiers started demonstrations and riots in the Jewish quarter. These demonstrations were accompanied by violence against the inhabitants. Jewish resistance came into being. The civil governor of Amsterdam then appointed a Jewish council for Amsterdam. Their first task was to encourage the Jews to surrender their weapons. On February 22-23, 1941, a reprisal raid for resisting the riots was carried out on Himmler's Buchenwald. A few months later those who survived were sent to Mauthausen. On February 25, as a protest against the raid, a strike was carried out by almost all public employees and many private enterprises in Amsterdam and in several outlying districts. The Germans were interested in concentrating the Jews as far as possible into one city, Amsterdam, and in Amsterdam itself they concentrated the Jews into certain sections. When the "final solution" was to be implemented, the Jews were asked to volunteer for transport to the "east", supposedly in order to work there. In three massive raids (in May, June, and September 1943) approximately 13,000 people were arrested and transported to Westerbork from where almost all were sent to the extermination camps Auschwitz and Sobibor. During the last winter of the war many of the oldest Jewish buildings were severely damaged by the population, which used all available material as fuel for stoves, including the Ashkenazi "great synagogue" (built 1671) and the "new synagogue" (built 1750).

In recent years, practically the entire "Jewish quarter" has been demolished by the municipal authorities in the interest of modern traffic requirements. At the Jonas Daniel Meyer square, three synagogues are still standing, but the Ashkenazi great synagogue and the new synagogue were not reopened after the war and in 1955 were sold to the municipality. The Portuguese synagogue is still in use. The adjoining "Etz Chayyim" library is also still extant.

Of the estimated 12,000 Jewish inhabitants of Amsterdam, 5,000 are members of the Ashkenazi congregation, about 600 are affiliated with the Sephardi congregation, and some 750 are in the liberal congregation.

Amsterdam is the only city in Holland with Jewish day schools, all of which are owned by a private foundation, Joods Bijzonder Onderwijs (J.B.O.), with four day nurseries, two elementary schools, and a high school - the Maimonides Lyceum. Together, these seven schools had 450 pupils in 1969.

The only Jewish weekly in Holland, the Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad, is published in Amsterdam and has a circulation of about 4,000. The diamond industry, which was predominantly in Jewish hands before the war, is now largely owned and run by non-Jews. Jews are well-represented in the textile industry. In addition, many Jews are found in the professions, especially in medicine. The Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the Judaica and Hebraica department of the University of Amsterdam library, is not maintained by Jewish auspices. The Hollandse Schouwburg, the monument to the 80,000 Jews who were deported from this place, is maintained by the municipality, and the Anne Frank house is supported by a private foundation.

Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People
Jacques Presser

Jacques Presser (1899-1970), professor of history at University of Amsterdam, Holland, writer and poet best known for his book on the history of the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands during World War II, born in Amsterdam to a secular Jewish family. When he was young, his family lived for some time in Antwerp, Belgium, where his father found work as a diamond cutter.

After finishing a vocational college and working for a few years he attended the University of Amsterdam where he studied history and art history. He graduated in 1926 and then taught history at the newly founded Vossius Gymnasium in Amsterdam. In 1930 he became a lecturer at the Instituut voor Historische Leergangen. In 1939 he published an article “Anti-Semitism as a historical Phenomenon”. When Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, he tried to flee to England. When this attempt did not succeed he tried to commit suicide. As a Jew he was dismissed from the Vossius Gymnasium, but was permitted to teach at a Jewish school. In early 1943, his wife Deborah Apple was arrested and deported to the Sobibor death camp, where she was murdered. He managed to escape a similar fate by hiding out in four different addresses in a small town in the countryside. During this time he wrote a history of America which was published in 1949.

After the end of World War II, Presser was reinstated at the Vossius Gymnasium, and became also a lecturer in political history, didactics, and the methodology of history at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Amsterdam. In 1947 he also began to teach at the University's politico-social faculty of law and the following year he was appointed professor at the Faculty of Arts. Holding left-wing views, he spoke out on several sensitive political issues such as the Dutch police actions in Indonesia, and the activities of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy against suspected Communists. He also contributed to the leftist magazines like "Vrij Nederland", and "De Waarheid". In 1952 he was appointed full professor. In 1950 Presser was requested by the Dutch government to produce a study about the fate of Dutch Jews during the war. "Ondergang", published in English as “Ashes in the Wind: The destruction of the Dutch Jews”, appeared in 1965, became his most important and best known work. Besides history books, Presser also wrote novels. His book "The Night of the Girondists", which was based on his war time experiences, received literary prizes, and became an international best-seller. Set in the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork, the leading character of this book is an assimilated Jewish teacher who collaborated with the Nazis. His job was to select Jews for transportation to Auschwitz; later he realised that, as a Jew, he was also bound to share the fate of those whom he had selected for deportation.

Abraham Caceres

Abraham Caceres (18th century ), composer, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was a descendant of a Portuguese family. In 1718 his name appears for the first time, as a composer of music for the annual celebration of the Amsterdam Talmud study fraternity Lekah Tov. In 1726 he provided the music for the consecration of the Honen El Synagogue in The Hague. In 1731 two of Caceres’ melodies were included in Ricchi’s Sefer Hon Ashir. Caceres appeared in 1738 as composer of the cantata LE’EL ELIM. He himself accompanied its performance at the Simhat Toraי festival. Caceres also composed the choral piece HISHKI HIZKI, which was performed in 1775 at the inauguration of the Amsterdam synagogue. He died in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Moses Ben Mordecai Zacuto

Moses Ben Mordecai Zacuto (1620-1697), poet and kabbalist, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, to a Portuguese cryto-Jewish family. Zacuto first studied under Saul Levi Morteira, and then traveled to Warsaw to further his studies at yeshivot there. From there he moved to Verona, Italy, and settled in Venice in 1645. He became the head of the kabbalah scholars in Italy. After the apostasy of Shabbetai Zevi he openly opposed the movement. From 1673 until his death Zacuto served as rabbi in Mantua.
He wrote extensively on halakhic and kabbalistic subjects. His poetry is devoted to kabbalistic subjects and appeared in the books Hen Kol Hadash (1712) and Tofteh Arukh (1715). Zacuto is the author of the first biblical drama in Hebrew literature, entitled Yesod Olam (1874). He died in Mantua, Italy.

David Aharon de Sola

David Aharon de Sola (1796-1860), cantor and composer, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. De Sola took up his position at the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London in 1818. He served the London community until his death in 1860, gaining the cognomen “Learned Hazzan of English Sephardic Jewry.”
The anthology he assembled, in cooperation with composer Emanuel Aguilar of London, published in London in 1857, largely reflects the traditional music legacy of the Amsterdam Synagogue.

Ernst Julius Cohen

Ernst Julius Cohen (1869-1944), chemist, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He became professor of inorganic and general chemistry at Utrecht. He researched iodides and explained the nature of 'tin disease'. Cohen established the Dutch Society for the History of Medicine, Natural Sciences and Mathematics and was the first president of the Dutch Chemical Society. chairman of the Dutch Committee on Coinage and president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He was the author of many works including medical textbooks. In 1941 he was sent to a concentration camp but released on the appeal of the Dutch Chemistry Society. He refused to flee the country and in 1944 was taken to his death in Auschwitz.

Anton Berljin

Anton Berljin (1817-1870), composer and conductor, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, as Aron Wolf. He was for many years conductor and director of the Royal Theater. Berljin founded numerous choral groups, wrote liturgical music for the synagogue and composed many other works. His compositions include nine operas (among them Die Bergknappen and Proserina), the oratorio Moses On Nebo, seven ballets, a symphony, a cantata and chamber music. He died in Amsterdam.

Carel Asser

Carel Asser (1780-1836), jurist, the son of Moses Salomon Asser, born in Amsterdam and died in The Hague, Holland. Asser studied law and philology at the Athenæum at Amsterdam. After obtaining his doctor's degree in 1799 Asser practiced law in Amsterdam; he was one of the first Jews to become lawyers after the establishment of the Napoleonic Batavian republic. His reputation was established when he conducted a brilliant defence of a certain Mascel of Dordrecht who had been accused of blasphemy when expressing doubts about the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.

When he was sixteen years old he helped his father to found the Felix Libertate, a society which worked for the emancipation of the Jews of Holland and he joined his father in signing a petition on the matter which was sent to the States General in 1796. This step was vigorously opposed by Daniel Cohen d'Azevedo, rabbi of the Portuguese community of Amsterdam, and also by Jacob Moses Loewenstamm, rabbi of the Ashkenazim, who were afraid that political emancipation would result in the assimilation of the Jews. As a result of the petition the National Assembly passed a law conferring full civil rights on the Jews. Another result of the emancipation was a split between the orthodox and reformed minded Jews of the city. Carel and his father became members of the new Reform congregation, Adath Jeshurun. In 1807 Asser was one of three delegates sent by the new congregation to the Sanhedrin in Paris. On his return home he was commissioned by Napoleon to write a report of the condition and wishes of the Jews in Amsterdam, and to investigate the the possibility of the reunification of the congregations.

Asser recommended the establishment of a central consistory for the Jews in Holland. This was authorized by royal decree in 1808. He drew up the constitution of the consistory at the request of Louis Napoleon. The same year Asser was appointed director of the second division of the Ministry of Public Worship. After Holland regained its independence in 1813 he became a member of the Amsterdam consistory and he was appointed a member of the commission to draft regulations for the Jewish community. In 1828 he was appointed president of the Supreme committee of the Jewish congregations of Holland.

In 1811 Asser was made justice of the peace in the first district of Amsterdam. For twenty-one years from 1815 Asser held senior positions in the Department of Justice at The Hague and from 1831-1836 he was appointed secretary of the Department of Justice. n 1827 he wrote "Précis Historique sur l'Etat des Israélites du Royaume des Pays-Bas", a historical review of the condition of the Jews in Holland. He also wrote several books on aspects of Dutch law including a comparison of the Dutch and French civil codes.

His wife Rose Levin was the sister of well-known German -Jewish writer Rahel Varnhagen von Ense (1771–1833) who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celebrated biography, "Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess" (1958) by Hannah Arendt. Arendt cherished Varnhagen as her "closest friend, though she had been dead for some hundred years."

Oheb Isaac Brandon

Oheb Isaac Brandon (1830-1902) Cantor. Born in Amsterdam, Holland, he served the city’s congregation from 1861 until his death. The guide he wrote for cantors, Seder Hazzanut, includes very detailed information about the melodies to be used on various occasions. It also deals with traditions of the Amsterdam Portuguese synagogue concerning allocations of functions during services. Brandon exerted a strong influence on his successors. He died in Amsterdam.

Baruch Benedict Spinoza

Baruch Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677), philosopher, born in Amsterdam to where his parents had fled to escape the Portuguese Inquisition. He received a Jewish education and also studied Latin, becoming acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics, the physical sciences and the philosophy of Descartes to which he was greatly attracted.

Spinoza began to distance himself from the Jewish community. In 1656, he was summoned to a religious court, accused of heresy and publicly excommunicated. He moved to Rhijnsburg near Leyden and joined a Mennonite sect, earning his living as a lens polisher. Later he lived in Voorburg and from 1670 in The Hague. Spinoza wrote two great works, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus which laid the foundations for biblical criticism, and Ethics, one of the classics of world philosophy which developed a rationalistic pantheism.

Harry Elte

Harry Elte (1880-1945), architect, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 1914 he won the international competition for designing a stadium in Amsterdam. He also designed several Dutch synagogues and the Jewish war veterans home in Amsterdam. In 1927 he renovated the Amersfoort synagogue first built in 1727. During the German occupation of Holland in World War 2 he was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp where he was killed.