Zaltbommel
According to archival evidence, Jews resided in Zaltbommel on
and off during the Middle Ages. The archives contain no mentions of
a permanent Jewish settlement at Zaltbommel during the
period.
The first individual Jew on record to have permanently resided in
Zaltbommel was Kosman Gompers, who was granted a lease on the local
bank in 1679. In his offer to lease the bank, Gompers demanded that
he be the only Jew permitted to live in Zaltbommel. This may have
been out of fear of potential competition. Enforcement of Gompers's
request obviously had lapsed by 1748, the year in which a Jewish
cemetery was opened in a former vegetable garden plot adjacent to
the town walls of Zaltbommel. Beginning in the same period, Jewish
religious services were held openly at locations including a
synagogue in a private home on the Gasthuisstraat.
In 1785, a conflict over the community's statutes
led the Jews of Zaltbommel to split into two factions. The split
led to the establishment of a second cemetery in the Oliemolen. In
the centuries that followed, two additional Jewish cemeteries were
established in Zaltbommel: one near the Bossche Poort in 1823, and
the second on the Maarten van Rossumsingel in 1901.
The first actual synagogue to be opened in Zaltbommel was
consecrated in 1804. The building also contained a classroom in
which the Zaltbommel community's children received Jewish religious
instruction. As the decades passed, the building aged and the
Jewish population of Zaltbommel grew, leading to the construction
of a new house of worship. The new synagogue was inaugurated in
1864; its construction was financed in part by donations from
Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands and from the Rothschilds.
The official board of the Jewish community at Zaltbommel also
served as the board for administering aid to the community's poor.
Local voluntary organizations included a burial society, a women's
society for the maintenance of the synagogue, and a Torah study
fellowship. The Alliance Israélite Universelle maintained a branch
in Zaltbommel. A sub-committee of Centraal Israelitisch
Weeshuis (Central Israelite Orphanage) in Utrecht was also
active in the town.
The conversion to Christianity of three Jewish families from
Zaltbommel in 1826 caused a local sensation. One of the converts,
an off-spring of the Philips family, later became the founder of
the company that grew to be one of the world's major electronics
manufacturers.
In 1845, a religious school for the poor was established at
Zaltbommel offering both Jewish and general education. Even though
enrollment at the school declined from the late-19th century
onward, a new school building was inaugurated in 1903. Membership
in the Jewish community at Zaltbommel continued to fall over the
course of the first decades of 20th century. At the start of the
Second World War, community membership was approximately half of
what it had been at the outset of the century.
Under the World War II German occupation of the Netherlands,
deportation of Jews from Zaltbommel to the detention and transit
camp at Westerbork began in November 1942. The last Jews remaining
in Zaltbommel were forcibly removed to the transit and prison camp
at Vught in April, 1943. Eighty percent of the Jews of Zaltbommel
were murdered during the war. The synagogue building itself came
through the war undamaged although a large part of its contents was
stolen. What remained of the contents of the synagogue was donated
after the war to the synagogue at 's-Hertogenbosch. When in 2003 the
completely rebuilt synagogue in Sliedrecht was consecrated, these
objects were donated to the Sliedrecht synagogue.
Jewish life did not resume in Zaltbommel in the post-war years.
The Jewish community at Zaltbommel was officially dissolved in 1947
and the locale placed within the jurisdiction of the Jewish
community at 's-Hertogenbosch. The synagogue building was sold and
subsequently was used as commercial space.
A monument to the memory of the murdered Jews of Zaltbommel was
unveiled in 1969. The former community's ritual bath, located in
the Minnebroederstraat was restored in 1996. The Jewish cemeteries
at Zaltbommel currently are maintained by the local authorities.
Restoration of 130 gravestones at the Bossche Poort, Maarten van
Rossumsingel, and Oliemolen cemeteries was completed in
2002.
Jewish population in Zaltbommel:
| 1809 | 109 |
| 1840 | 226 |
| 1869 | 254 |
| 1899 | 140 |
| 1930 | 71 |
Collectie en mediatheek
Jad
1700-1724
Levi (de) Hartog, oorspronkelijk afkomstig uit Druten bij Nijmegen, vervulde een
belangrijke rol in de joodse gemeente van Zaltbommel en woonde in een groot huis ...
Collectie > Museumstukken > 02000
meer treffers in Collectie > Museumstukken
Dossier
Dossiers (158) van de Commissie voor Oorlogsschade mbt 155 joodse
gemeentes (Amsterdam en mediene), 1945-1950.
Collectie > Documenten > 00005954
meer treffers in Collectie > Documenten
Overzichtsfoto
1927 (ca.)
Tante Betje van Dijk uit Geffen naast een rijtuigje, circa 1927.
Collectie > Fotos > 40011371
meer treffers in Collectie > Fotos
[Binnenland] : Amsterdam
Vermelding van benoemingen met betrekking tot de Ned. Isr. schoolbesturen.
Collectie > Joodse pers > 20031385
meer treffers in Collectie > Joodse pers
Joodse oorlogsmonumenten in de provincie Gelderland : alsmede algemene...
2005
Joodse oorlogsmonumenten in de provincie Gelderland : alsmede algemene
oorlogsmonumenten waarop joodse namen voorkomen.
Collectie > Literatuur > 12013463
