Deventer
According to an old German chronicle, the Jewish community of
Deventer was amongst those destroyed during an outbreak of the
plague in 1349. Although some Jews did reside in Deventer off and
on during the centuries that followed, it was only toward the end
of the eighteenth century that Jews could obtain official
permission to settle there.
A Jewish community was founded in
Deventer in 1797. At the start, it consisted of seven families. In
1798, the fledgling community purchased a house on the Golstraat
and converted it into a synagogue. Not long after, the community
began construction of a new synagogue on the Roggestraat.
During the nineteenth century, the Jewish community of Deventer
grew rapidly. By 1811, it numbered twenty families. In 1805, the
community purchased land for a cemetery just outside of the
Brinkpoort, along the Lange Rij near the Beestenmarkt. The cemetery
was cleared away in 1870 during an expansion of the city, and the
community was offered a new plot of land on the
Diepenveenseweg.
In 1868, a conflict resulted in a split in the community that
lasted until 1883. In 1892, a new and larger synagogue was built on
the site of the old Golstraat synagogue to accommodate the
re-united community.
Jewish education in Deventer dates to the outset of the nineteenth
century. The Jewish school given new quarters in 1864 and in 1897
was moved to the synagogue building on the Roggestraat.
The
Deventer community maintained a number of voluntary organizations
including burial societies for men and for women, a society for
Torah study, and a women's society that cared for the synagogue's
interior and ceremonial objects. Other organizations provided aid
to the poor, support to needy new mothers, and circumcision
ceremonies for the sons of needy families. Cultural institutions
included a synagogue choir and a literary society.
Many of the Jews of Deventer traded in textiles and hides, or were
pedlars in the city's markets. A large part of the community lived
in the Noorderberg quarter of
the city near the Golstraat synagogue.
During the early twentieth century, Deventer had emerged as a
vibrant center of Jewish life and an attractive city for Jews to
live in. New voluntary organizations arose including two youth
clubs, a theater society, a branch of the Netherlands Zionist Bund,
and a Zionist youth organization. In 1918, The Deventer Society, a
vocational school providing training for young people emigrating to
Palestine, was established. During the years between the two World
Wars, hundreds of young people from the Netherlands and abroad
passed through the school. The Deventer community also provided
generous aid to refugees from Germany and Eastern Europe.
Following the German conquest of the Netherlands in 1940, members
of the Dutch National Socialist Party (NSB) molested the Jews of
Deventer and their property. In Deventer, as throughout Europe,
strong anti-Jewish measures were applied. Deportations commenced in
August, 1942 and were completed by April, 1943. The majority of the
pre-war Jewish population of Deventer perished.
After the war, Jewish life in Deventer blossomed anew. The
synagogue - the interior of which had been destroyed in 1941 - was
repaired in 1945. In 1948, the Jewish populations of Raalte and
Holten were merged into the Deventer community. In 1952, a new
synagogue was consecrated on the Lange Bisschopstraat. That
synagogue served the community until 1984. By then the activities
of the Deventer community had been dramatically curtailed, in part
due to emigration to Israel, and, in 1987, the synagogue was sold.
A moment to the murdered Jews of Deventer that had stood in the
synagogue was moved to Deventer's city hall. In 1985, a monument in
memory of Dutch Jewish writer Etty Hillesum was installed on the
bank of the river IJssel. A monument at the corner of the
Papenstraat and Ankersteeg commemorates the murdered Jews of the
Netherlands.
Today, all of Deventer's former synagogues have been given new
uses. The former synagogue on the Golstraat housed a Reformed
church until 2009. Since May 2010 the Jewish group Beth
Shoshanna has its synagogue services in the building. In 2011
the synagogue will be bought by the city of Deventer to rent it to
the Etty Hillesum Centre.
Since 1996, the former synagogue and Jewish school on the
Roggestraat has housed the Etty Hillesum Centre. The Centre
contains a permanent exhibition tracing the history of Jewish life
in Deventer.
Since 2000, the Jews of Deventer, together with those of Apeldoorn and Zutphen, comprise the
Joodse Gemeente Stedendriehoek (Urban Triangle Jewish
Community). The combined community, in which that of Zutphen plays
the central role, holds numerous social and cultural events.
The old Jewish cemetery on the Lange Rij was cleared in 1960 and
the remains of the buried re-interred in the cemetery on the
Diepenveenseweg. A replica of the memorial monument that stands in
the city hall was placed in the cemetery in 1993. The cemetery's
house for the ritual cleaning of the dead was restored in
1995.
Over the past 200 years, small numbers of Jewish families had also
lived in the towns and villages that surround Deventer, including
Twello, Bathmen, Wijhe, Olst, and Gorssel.
Jewish population of Deventer:
| 1809 | 270 |
| 1840 | 320 |
| 1869 | 396 |
| 1899 | 540 |
| 1930 | 442 |
| 1951 | 144 |
| 1971 | 70 |
| 1998 | 27 |
Collectie en mediatheek
Orde van dienst
1924-04-05
Orde van de gezangen en gebeden voor te dragen ter gelegenheid van de inwijding
van de nieuwe wetsrol geschonken aan de NIG van Deventer door L. Keijzer, 1925.
Collectie > Documenten > 00009870
meer treffers in Collectie > Documenten
[Ph. van Praag jr.]
1937
In het midden van de afbeelding een ruiter op een wit paard dat naar links beweegt.
Op de voorgrond links bloemen en rechts tandwielen. Op de achtergrond huizen ...
Collectie > Museumstukken > 07881
meer treffers in Collectie > Museumstukken
Groepsfoto
1934-1941
Foto's (9) van zomerkamp en districtdag van Mizrachie, Benee
Amenoe en Joodse Jeugdfederatie, 1934-1941.
Collectie > Fotos > 40000379
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
De Ondergrondse : illegaliteit in Overijssel 1940-1945
1998
De Ondergrondse : illegaliteit in Overijssel 1940-1945.
Collectie > Literatuur > 12006318
meer treffers in Collectie > Literatuur
[opnamen t.b.v. film "de Verdwenen Mediene"]
2002
Ruw materiaal voor de film "de Verdwenen Mediene". Opnamen gemaakt in bejaardenhuis
Beth Juliana, Herzlia, Israel. Gesprek met Max van Dam en Hettie Godschalk-Samuel ...
Collectie > Audiovisueel > 40001899
