Jewish Amsterdam
Descripción
Jewish Amsterdam, known by the Jews of old as ‘the Jerusalem of the North’. Jewish immigration started in 1600, and quickly a large Sephardic community was formed, and the city became the main home of Jewish learning world wide. Although Jews mixed with Christians and others, most preferred to settle in the new quarter in the east of town, which came to be known as the Jewish Quarter.
The Sephardim were eventually outnumbered by Ashkenazim from Eastern Europe, who settled in the same area, but had to build their own synagogues, and, as required by the municipality, their own orphanages, old age homes, and other institutions.
Jewish life was destroyed by the nazis in WW2, and re-emerged on a much smaller scale after the war. The synagogues and a number of institutional buildings are still standing and have been restored.
The tour includes a number of synagogues and Jewish institutions, monuments to the deported and murdered, but also to the big names, like Baruch Spinoza, the best known Dutch philosopher of all time, and Abraham Tuschinski, the Polish immigrant who built the largest and fanciest cinema in the country.