Gouda
Few Jews were permitted to settle in Gouda prior to the granting
of full civil equality to the Jews of the Netherlands in 1796.
Indeed, in 1746 the municipal council of Gouda resolved totally to
bar Jews from settling in the town. Despite this, there was a
sufficient number of Jews in Gouda at the close of the 18th century
to permit the founding of an organized community.
During the early years of the community, the Jews of Gouda gathered
to pray in a private residence on the Lange Groenendaal. In 1798,
the community purchased a former Anabaptist church building on the
Turfmarkt and refurnished it as a synagogue. The building
eventually fell into disrepair and was replaced with a new
structure built on the same site in 1827.
In 1815, the Gouda community received permission to establish a
cemetery of its own on the Boelekade, near the present-day
Kleiwegplein. Prior to then, the Jews of Gouda had buried their
dead in the Jewish cemetery at Rotterdam. The cemetery on the Boelekade was
expanded in 1846 and once again in 1856. In 1930, the Gouda
community opened a new cemetery located on the Bloemendaalse
Verlaat in the direction of Waddinxveen.
The Gouda community was governed by a community directorate and
council, the second of which also served as council for
distributing aid to the poor. Jewish voluntary organizations in
Gouda included a burial society, a fellowship for the study of the
Talmud, and a women's organization. The Gouda community also
maintained a poorhouse, a home for the elderly, and a Jewish
school. During the nineteenth century, most Jews in Gouda worked as
street vendors, as traders in hides, and in rope-making
factories.
In 1910, Jacobus
Kann, a banker and Zionist leader in The Hague, established the
Joodsche Tuinbouw-, Veeteelt- en
Zuivelbereidingsvereeniging (Jewish Horticultural, Cattle, and
Dairy Association) at Gouda for the training of pioneers for
Palestine. In its early days, the number of students at the
association's farm, the Catharinahoeve, was small. The
association was revitalized during the 1930's and went on to train
many Jewish emigrants to Palestine, both before and in the years
immediately following World War II.
The rolls of the Jewish community at Gouda were augmented in 1935
when the community at Woerden was merged into its ranks. The Jewish
population of Gouda also increased during the first year of the
German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War.
In 1940, a number of the many foreign Jewish refugees who had taken
up residence in the Netherlands arrived in Gouda following the mass
expulsion by the Germans of foreign Jews from cities and towns in
the coastal regions of the Netherlands.
A separate school for Jewish children was established at Gouda
following the Germans' wartime barring of Jewish pupils from the
town's public schools. The school remained open until April of 1943
and the completion of the deportation of Jews from Gouda.
Deportations of Jews from Gouda commenced late in August of 1942.
Local members of the Dutch collaborationist party NSB joined the
Germans in implementing the deportations. Almost all the Jews
living in Gouda, including the residents of the Jewish old age
home, were deported and later murdered. The interior of the
synagogue was vandalized and destroyed during the war; the
synagogue's Torah scrolls were hidden and later recovered, as were
a number of its ceremonial objects.
Jewish life in Gouda did not resume following the end of the war.
The farm school at Catharinahoeve was sold a few years after the
war, as were the synagogue and Jewish home for the aged. The Jewish
community at Gouda was formally abolished in 1964 and subsequently
was administratively merged into the Jewish community at
Rotterdam.
In 1976, rising groundwater levels in the region led to the
clearing of Gouda's Jewish cemeteries and the removal of the
remains of the dead to the Jewish cemetery at Wageningen. The entrance gate of the former
cemetery at the Boelekade and a portion of its walls have been
included in memorial monument that stands at the Raoul
Wallenbergplantsoen. A plaque identifies the monument as dedicated
to the memory of the Jews of Gouda murdered during the war.
A plaque mounted on the façade of the a youth work center at the
corner of the Boelekade and the Jan van der Heijdenstraat in 2001
marks the site of the former cemetery Jewish cemetery at the
Boelekade.
Also in 2001, a Jewish religious service - the first to be held in
Gouda since 1943 - was conducted in the building on the Turfmarkt
that had once served the Gouda community as its synagogue.
Oudewater
Jewish life at nearby Oudewater fell under the jurisdiction of the
Jewish community at Woerden beginning in 1821. The Oudewater
community achieved independent status in approximately 1835 but was
merged into the community at Gouda in 1877. The synagogue at
Oudewater dated to 1910 and remained in use only briefly. During
its existence, the Oudewater community maintained a women's'
society for the upkeep of the interior and accoutrements of its
synagogue.
Moordrecht
A monument erected at Moordrecht near Oudewater in 1999 is
dedicated to the memory of four Jews who had gone into hiding in
the village during the war but who eventually were apprehended,
deported, and murdered.
Jewish population of Gouda and surroundings:
| 1795 | ca. 100 |
| 1809 | 169 |
| 1840 | 347 |
| 1869 | 396 |
| 1899 | 413 |
| 1930 | 223 |
Collectie en mediatheek
Verslag omtrent den toestand en de werkzaamheden der Vereeniging Centraal Israëlietisch...
1897-08
Verslag van de toestand en werkzaamheden van de Vereniging Centr. Isr. Oude- Mannen-
en Vrouwenhuis voor Nederland en de kolonieën gevestigd in Gouda, 1897.
Collectie > Documenten > 00009843
meer treffers in Collectie > Documenten
Voorzittershamer
1898
object, voorzittershamer. maker, anoniem. materiaal, hout & ivoor & zilver. datering,
1898. plaats, Gouda & Nederland. hoogte, 9.0. breedte, 29.0. diepte, ø 4.5 ...
Collectie > Museumstukken > 01451
meer treffers in Collectie > Museumstukken
Fotoalbum
Twee losbladige fotoalbums met 148 kleurenfoto's van joodse
begraafplaatsen in Nederland, jaren '80.
Collectie > Fotos > 40006664
meer treffers in Collectie > Fotos
[Binnenland] : Amsterdam
1906
Verslag van de jaarvergadering van het hoofdbestuur met de commissie van toezicht
van de vereniging "Centr. Isr. Oude Mannen- en Vrouwenhuis" in Gouda.
Collectie > Joodse pers > 20060367
meer treffers in Collectie > Joodse pers
Gouda en de Joden
1972
Gouda en de Joden.
Collectie > Literatuur > 11000086
meer treffers in Collectie > Literatuur
Interview met Bernard van Tijn (Gouda 1900-01-06).
1983
Over zijn jeugd te Gouda, zijn orthodoxe opvoeding, socialisme,
Poale Zion en de kampen in Nederlands-Indie.
Collectie > Audiovisueel > 30000020
