Rotterdam
In 1610, the city fathers of Rotterdam issued permits to engage
in trade within the city to small number of Portuguese Jewish
merchants. The permits guaranteed freedom of worship and the right
to build a synagogue and establish a cemetery. In 1612, these
provisions were challenged by the local Remonstrant Church. This
prompted a number of Jewish families to depart Rotterdam for
Amsterdam. Those Jews who remained in Rotterdam prayed together in
the attic of a private home and buried their dead in a cemetery in
Rubroek, located in what later became the Jan van Loonlaan. A
second group of Portuguese Jews arrived in Rotterdam in 1647. Their
numbers included a forefather of the De Pinto family, a family that
was to become prominent within Dutch Jewry.
In 1647, the city council of Rotterdam awarded local Jews all of
the rights enjoyed by their coreligionists in Amsterdam. The
Rotterdam Jewish community grew quickly thereafter and soon opened
a synagogue in a house at the corner of the Wijnhaven and the
Bierstraat. The community also founded a school for the study of
Talmud, the Jesiba de los Pintos (the Yeshiva of the Pintos). The
school moved to Amsterdam in 1669. During the second half of the
17th century, most of the leading Portuguese Jewish families in
Rotterdam engaged in international trade.
During the final decades of the 17th century, the community's
synagogue was moved from the Wijnhaven to new quarters on the
Scheepmakershaven and then on De Boompjes. The Jewish cemetery was
filled to capacity in 1693, soon after, the Portuguese community
opened two new cemeteries one after another in the Crooswijk
quarter. The newer of the two, located on the Oostzeedijk, was
transferred to the Ashkenazi community of Rotterdam during the 17th
century.
Membership in the Portuguese-Jewish community declined over the
first decades of the 17th century. By 1736, the community ceased to
exist. Thereafter, the few Portuguese Jews who remained in
Rotterdam attached themselves to the Ashkenazi community.
Ashkenazi Jews had arrived in Rotterdam from
Germany in Poland during the mid-seventeenth century. By the
1660's, their numbers were large enough for them to organize a
community of their own. By the 1670's, the Ashkenazim of Rotterdam
had their own rabbi, synagogue, and cemetery. The synagogue,
located on the Glashaven, was consecrated in 1674.
In their early years in Rotterdam, Ashkenazi Jews were out-shadowed
by their Portuguese coreligionists. The situation changed following
the outset of the eighteenth century as the Ashkenazi community
grew in size and the Portuguese community declined. By the close of
the seventeenth century, the Ashkenazi community had outgrown its
first synagogue and, in 1702, replaced it with a new synagogue
nearby. That synagogue was soon replaced by the synagogue on De
Boompjes which was consecrated in 1725. In the very same year, the
Ashkenazi community published its statutes.
The basement of the synagogue on De Boompjes contained a hall for
the celebration of festivities. The kosher butcher shop of the
Ashkenazi community was located behind the synagogue. In 1784, an
annex synagogue was built adjacent to the rear of the synagogue on
De Boompjes. The structure fell into disrepair and was replaced
with a new annex fifteen years later. At the time, the majority of
Jews in Rotterdam resided in the immediate surroundings of the De
Boompjes synagogue.
The Ashkenazi community at Rotterdam founded a Jewish school of its
own in 1737. Also in 1737, the community opened a new cemetery on
the Dijkstraat in the present-day quarter of Kralingen. The
Kralingen cemetery was expanded several times and remained in use
until the opening in 1895of a new cemetery located on the Toepad in
Rotterdam. This cemetery remains in use until today. Another Jewish
cemetery also existed in the town (now quarter) of
Delfshaven.
At the close of the eighteenth century, 2500 Jews lived in
Rotterdam, comprising the largest Jewish population in the
Netherlands outside of Amsterdam. At the time, the majority of the
Jews residing in Rotterdam worked as small retailers or traders.
The exclusionary practices of local guilds insured that the
economic status of most of the city's Jews remained poor. The
granting of full civil rights to Jews in 1796 caused this situation
gradually to change. Newly found civil equality also occasioned
number of conflicts within the Jewish community. Beginning in 1814,
under the reign of King Willem I of the Netherlands, the Jewish
community at Rotterdam confirmed its regional importance by being
named as the seat of the provincial chief rabbinate.
The Jewish population of Rotterdam grew fourfold over the course of
the nineteenth century. This mainly was due to the economic
emergence of Rotterdam which attracted many Jews to the city. Their
numbers were augmented by Eastern European Jews emigrating to
America via the port of Rotterdam, quite a number of whom chose to
remain in the city rather than travel onward.
Although the economic emergence of Rotterdam attracted Jews,
poverty remained rife amongst the city's Jewish population. A
six-member council to aid the poor and various other aid
organizations were founded by the community to address this
situation. Jewish voluntary and social organizations bloomed as the
city's Jewish population expanded. Priority was given to Jewish
education and the education of the children of the community's
poor. Rotterdam Jews maintained burial societies, societies for
aiding the sick, travelers' aid societies, and societies providing
aid to orphans and the aged. Religious organizations proliferated
and, on the secular front, the Jews of Rotterdam maintained a wide
variety of social, and political organizations as well as sport and
recreational clubs.
The nineteenth century also witnessed the ongoing integration of
the Jews of Rotterdam into public life society at large. Jews
participated in municipal affairs and also became active in the
press, legal affairs, education, and medicine. Many Rotterdam Jews
rose to the tops of these fields.
As the Jewish population of Rotterdam left traditional Jewish
neighborhoods and began to reside throughout the city, a number of
small new synagogues were founded. A separate Portuguese Jewish
community came into existence in Rotterdam during the middle of the
nineteenth century but maintained itself only for twenty years.
During its brief revival, the Portuguese community had a synagogue
and cemetery of its own in Crooswijk. In 1891, the Jewish community
of Rotterdam opened a new central synagogue located on the
Botersloot. The central synagogue building was restored in 1939 and
in the same year became home to the community's archives.
As the nineteenth-century moved towards its close, tensions emerged
between conservative factions of the community and factions pushing
for change internally and within society at large. Jewish
newspapers arose reflecting such splits. Following its founding in
1908, the Nederlandse Zionistenbond (Union of Dutch
Zionists) exercised a strong influence on a portion of the
Rotterdam community.
During
the first decades of the twentieth century, the growth of Jewish
Rotterdam peaked. Nevertheless, a number of smaller synagogues
continued to be built including the Lev Jam synagogue located on
Joost van Geelstraat, inaugurated in 1927. The arrival of large
numbers of German Jewish refugees in Rotterdam during 1930's caused
the ranks of the community to swell anew. A portion of the
newly-arrived refugees was housed by the Dutch government in a camp
located at Hook of Holland.
The German bombardment of Rotterdam on May 14, 1940 laid waste to
the center of the city and destroyed the synagogues on De Boompjes
and Botersloot. Under the German occupation of the Netherlands
during the Second World War, the Jews of Rotterdam suffered under
the same measures as Jews throughout the country. Jewish children
were expelled from Rotterdam's public schools in September, 1941.
The community then founded separate Jewish schools as well as
establishing a network of social organizations. An attempt also was
made to continue the religious life of Jewish Rotterdam.
Deportation of Jews from Rotterdam began late in July 1942 and was
completed by the end of June 1943. Almost all of Rotterdam Jews
were forced to assemble for deportation in the harbor of the city,
at Loods 24 (Shed 24). Before the war was over, most of the Jews of
Rotterdam perished in Nazi death camps. Only 13% of the prewar
Jewish population of the city was alive at the end of the war,
these having survived the camps or come through the war in
hiding.
After the war, Jewish life in Rotterdam arose anew with the Lev Jam
synagogue as its center. In 1954, a new synagogue was consecrated
the A.B.N. Davidsplein. A Liberal Jewish community was founded in
Rotterdam in 1968. The Liberal community shares a cemetery in
Rijswijk with the Liberal Jewish community of The Hague. The Jewish
communities at Rotterdam maintain a number of voluntary and social
service organizations.
A monument to the Jews of Rotterdam murdered during the Second
World War was unveiled in 1981in the garden of Rotterdam's city
hall. A monument to the deported was unveiled at the site of Loods
24 in 1999. The entranceway to the former Jewish hospital on the
Schietbaanlaan was restored in 2001 and now serves as a memorial
monument as well.
Jewish population of Rotterdam and surroundings:
| 1674 | approx. 50 |
| 1795 | approx. 2.000 |
| 1796 | approx. 2.500 |
| 1809 | 2.113 |
| 1840 | 2.823 |
| 1869 | 5.297 |
| 1899 | 9.019 |
| 1930 | 10.515 |
| 1951 | 780 |
| 1971 | 771 |
| 1998 | 246 |
Collectie en mediatheek
Pinkas mibeit haknesset hajesjana deKahal Kadosj Asjkenaziem jatsoe beAmsterdam
1759
boek met gaatjes, waarin met behulp van een touwtje op sjabbat de
geldelijke bijdragen voor de eretaken vastgelegd worden.
Collectie > Museumstukken > B0177-02
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
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
[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
Schilders van Parijs 1870-1940 : de verzameling Oscar Ghez
2004
Schilders van Parijs 1870-1940 : de verzameling Oscar Ghez.
Collectie > Literatuur > 12011025
meer treffers in Collectie > Literatuur
Roets in Rotterdam : Toen de bommen vielen
Ooggetuigen vertellen over de strijd die in Rotterdam plaatsvond
en over het bombardement van 14 mei 1940.
Collectie > Audiovisueel > 40000452
