The Western Jerusalem

Jewish migrants changed Amsterdam — and the city changed them

This is a story not only about events, but above all about people: their choices, their faith, their strength and their ability to build life anew.

We will follow the path of the Jewish community in Amsterdam: from the first migrants and the years of flourishing, to the moments that changed the fate of the quarter and of the city forever.

You will learn how the life of the community was arranged, both secular and religious, how strikingly it differed from other European cities, and why it was here, in Amsterdam, that the Jewish quarter became so remarkable.

And, with respect and care, we will touch upon the difficult and tragic part of this history. Events that cannot be passed over if you truly want to understand this place.

“The Western Jerusalem” — that is exactly what Jewish migrants and their descendants called Amsterdam for centuries, with gratitude and warmth.

A magnificent snow-white house in the centre of Amsterdam still bears the name of its owner, one of the wealthiest citizens, a true Amsterdam “patrician”. How did it happen that at a time when the Jewish population of Europe was suffering terrible persecution, in Amsterdam they owned houses like palaces?

The Portuguese Synagogue. Life pulsed here. Here the residents of the Quarter prayed, studied, went to court, and at times faced curse and excommunication. But why is a Jewish synagogue in Amsterdam called Portuguese? And what about it was… not quite right?

The Jewish quarter and financiers — logical. Jewellers — natural. Merchants — obvious. Philosophers — oh, and what philosophers! Spinoza alone is worth it. But the Jewish quarter and… pirates? As it turns out, it could boast at least one outstanding and quite remarkable pirate.

And did you know that the first black Amsterdammers were residents of the Jewish quarter? By the seventeenth century the black community had grown large enough that someone had to take on organising and ordering their lives. And a highly unconventional young woman took up that task.

Anyone who has read Dumas’s immortal “The Three Musketeers” will remember the story of the queen’s diamond studs, skilfully and urgently copied by the Duke of Buckingham’s jewellers. And those were Amsterdam jewellers! And not by chance: right up to the twentieth century Amsterdam was the world centre of diamond cutting and trade, precisely thanks to its Jewish jewellers.

The Jewish Theatre is one of those places in Amsterdam where the heart tightens and it becomes hard to breathe — if you know what its walls witnessed during the Second World War. For it was here that the tragedy of the Holocaust unfolded. With polished pedantry, on a precise schedule, thousands of Amsterdammers of Jewish origin were taken to the death camps — from this very theatre.