History of the Jews in the Netherlands
The history of the Jews in the Netherlands largely dates to the late 16th century and 17th century, when Sephardic Jews from Portugal and Spain began to settle in Amsterdam and a few other Dutch cities, because the Netherlands at that time was a rare center of religious tolerance. Since Portuguese Jews had not lived under rabbinic authority for decades, the first generation of those embracing their ancestral religion had to be formally instructed in Jewish belief and practice. This contrasts with Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe, who, although persecuted, lived in organized communities. Seventeenth-century Amsterdam was referred to as the "Dutch Jerusalem" for its importance as a center of Jewish life. In the mid 17th century, Ashkenazi Jews from central and eastern Europe migrated. Both groups migrated for reasons of religious liberty, to escape persecution, now able to live openly as Jews in separate organized, autonomous Jewish communities under rabbinic authority. They were also drawn by the economic opportunities in the Netherlands, a major hub in world trade.
The Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire, as part of the Burgundian inheritance of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1581, the Northern Dutch provinces declared independence from Catholic Spain, touching off an extended conflict with the Spanish. A principal motive was to practice Protestant Christianity, then forbidden under Spanish rule. Religious tolerance, "freedom of conscience", was an essential principle of the newly independent state. Portuguese Jews, "Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation", strongly identified ethnically as Portuguese and viewed Ashkenazi Jews with ambivalence in the early modern period. The fortunes and size of the Portuguese Jewish community declined after Dutch trade was undermined by wars with the English in the late 17th century. Simultaneously the Ashkenazi population rapidly grew and has remained dominant in numbers ever since.
Following the end of the Dutch Republic, the French-influenced Batavian Republic, emancipated the Jews in 1796, making them full citizens. Under the monarchy established by Napoleon Bonaparte, King Louis Napoleon removed all disciplinary powers of the Jewish communal leaders parnasim over their communities, making them functionaries of the state.
By 1940, there were around 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands. During Nazi occupation in World War II, the Holocaust in the Netherlands was particularly brutal, with approximately 75 percent of the Jewish population deported to concentration and extermination camps, most famously Anne Frank, whose German Jewish family fled to Amsterdam. Only around 35,000 Jews in Dutch soil survived the war. The Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, housed in a former synagogue, has a major collection relating to Jewish history in the Netherlands. Starting in the late twentieth century, there are official public spaces marking the Holocaust in the Netherlands, including the Dutch National Holocaust Museum, inaugurated by the Dutch king in 2024.
Before the Dutch Republic
It was likely that the earliest Jews arrived in the "Low Countries" during the Roman conquest early in the common era. Little is known about these early settlers, other than they were not very numerous. For some time, the Jewish presence consisted of, at most, small isolated communities and scattered families. Reliable documentary evidence dates only from the 1100s; for several centuries, the record reflects that the Jews were persecuted within the region and expelled on a regular basis. Early sources from the 11th and 12th centuries mention official debates or disputations between Christians and Jews, in which attempts were made to convince the Jews of the truth of Christianity and to try to convert them. They were documented 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. As of the 13th century, there are sources that indicate that Jews were living in Brabant and Limburg, mainly in cities such as Brussels, Leuven, Tienen and the Jewish street of Maastricht from 1295 is another old proof of their existence.Sources from the 14th century also mention Jewish residents in the cities of Antwerp and Mechelen and in the northern region of Geldern.
Between 1347 and 1351, Europe was hit by the plague or Black Death. This resulted in a new theme in medieval antisemitic rhetoric. The Jews were held responsible for the epidemic and for the way it was rapidly spreading, because presumably they were the ones who had poisoned the water of springs used by the Christians. Various medieval chronicles mention this, e.g., those of Radalphus de Rivo of Tongeren, who wrote that Jews were murdered in the Brabant region and in the city of Zwolle because they were accused of spreading the Black Death. This accusation was added to other traditional blood libels against the Jews. They were accused of piercing the Host used for communion and killing Christian children to use as a blood offering during Passover. Local Jewish communities were often murdered in part or entirely or exiled in hysterical pogroms. In May 1370, six Jews were burned at the stake in Brussels because they were accused of theft and of desecrating the Holy Sacrament. In addition, documentation can be found of instances in which Jews were abused and insulted, e.g., in the cities of Zutphen, Deventer and Utrecht, for allegedly desecrating the Host. Rioters massacred the majority of the Jews in the region and expelled those who survived.
In 1349, the Duke of Guelders was authorized by the Emperor Louis IV of the Holy Roman Empire to receive Jews in his duchy, where they provided services, paid a tax, and were protected by the law. In Arnhem, where a Jewish physician is mentioned, the magistrate defended him against the hostilities of the populace. When Jews settled in the diocese of Utrecht is unknown, but rabbinical records regarding Jewish dietary laws speculated that the Jewish community there dated to Roman times. In 1444, Jews were expelled from the city of Utrecht. Until 1789, Jews were prohibited from staying in the city overnight. They were tolerated in the village of Maarssen, two hours distant, though their condition was not fortuitous. But, the community of Maarssen was one of the most important Jewish settlements in the Netherlands. Jews were admitted to Zeeland by Albert, Duke of Bavaria.
In 1477, by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to the Archduke Maximilian, son of Emperor Frederick III, the Netherlands were united to Austria and its possessions passed to the crown of Spain. In the sixteenth century, owing to the persecutions of Charles V and Philip II of Spain, the Netherlands became involved in a series of desperate and heroic struggles against this growing political and Catholic religious hegemony. In 1522, Charles V issued a proclamation in Gelderland and Utrecht against Christians who were suspected of being lax in the faith, as well as against Jews who had not been baptized. He repeated such edicts in 1545 and 1549, trying to suppress the Protestant Reformation, which was expanding. In 1571, the Duke of Alba notified the authorities of Arnhem that all Jews living there should be seized and held until their fates were determined.
At Dutch request, Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor established religious peace in most of the provinces.
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Golden Age of the seventeenth century was also the golden age of Portuguese Jews in the Netherlands. From the early migration of Portuguese immigrants, establishment of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam, prosperity and commercial networks connecting Amsterdam to the larger Atlantic world, and precipitous decline of the community after the series of Anglo-Dutch wars in the late seventeenth century, Amsterdam was called the "Dutch Jerusalem".Migration to the Netherlands
Two events brought Jews to the Netherlands. The 1579 Union of Utrecht of the Northern provinces of the Netherlands guaranteed freedom of conscience in article 13 formalizing their political arrangement. In 1581, the deputies of the United Provinces declared independence from Spain by issuing the Act of Abjuration, which deposed King Philip as their sovereign. Philip was a fierce defender of Catholic orthodoxy and was now also the monarch of Portugal, invigorating the Portuguese Inquisition. Portuguese Jews sought a religious haven, which the northern Netherlands appeared to be, as well as a location with commercial opportunities. In the late sixteenth century, the Dutch Republic was not necessarily the obvious destination, since there was no established Jewish community for Portuguese New Christians to move if they wished to re-judaize after outwardly living as Christians.The early history of Sephardi community formation in the Netherlands is "a matter of speculation", but is rooted in Spanish and Portuguese religious history. In Spain under the Catholic Monarchs Jews who refused conversion to Christianity were expelled in 1492 under the Alhambra Decree, with many leaving for the more tolerant Kingdom of Portugal. However, Portuguese Edicts of 1496 and 1497 of King Manuel forced Jews to convert but also blocked their leaving the kingdom. In Spain, converted Jews called conversos or New Christians came under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, which was vigilant against their continuing to practice Judaism in secret, as crypto-Jews, or the pejorative term Marrano. In Portugal there was no already established Portuguese Inquisition. Jews forced to convert did not immediately face penalties for privately practicing Judaism while publicly being Catholics, so that there continued to be a strong Jewish presence there.
The Portuguese Jewish men migrating to Amsterdam, many of whom were merchants, had an extremely high literacy rate compared to Dutch men in the general population. Portuguese Jewish merchants had already settled in Antwerp in the southern Netherlands, an entrepôt for trade in Iberian commodities, such as sugar, silver bullion, spices, and tobacco. They also settled in France; Hamburg, and a few in London. Amsterdam was not necessarily the obvious destination in the late sixteenth century for Jewish merchants. As the Spanish Netherlands became a hub of international commerce, Portuguese Jews moved to Antwerp and later Amsterdam to pursue commercial opportunities.
As the northern provinces became a Protestant stronghold, Dutch rebels fought for their independence from Spain and religious tolerance as a principle, effectively achieving autonomy, which was finally recognized by Spain in 1648 after the Eighty Years' War. In the late 16th century, some Sephardic Jews from the Iberian peninsula started to settle in the Netherlands, especially Amsterdam, gaining a foothold, but with an unclear status. A few Ashkenazi Jews had migrated from Germany to the Ommelands in the 1570s and in the mid to late 17th century Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe begin to migrate in greater numbers. Although persecuted in central Europe, Ashkenazi Jews had lived as Jews before migrating to the Netherlands. The first group of Jews of any numbers in Groningen was in Appingedam in 1563, where they came into conflict with Dutch guilds for sales of meat and cloth. Emden provided the Amsterdam Portuguese emigrants with their first rabbi, Moses Uri Halevi, until that community was established enough to begin training Portuguese men for the rabbinate. The two communities were ethnically distinct within Judaism, with separate religious organizations.