We are honored by the private visit of Barbra Streisand and her family to the Jewish Cultural Quarter last weekend.

The group arrived at the Portuguese Synagogue and after a tour  they visited the old library Ets Haim. There were a few remarkable manuscripts to view. She wrote in the Golden Book of Ets Haim the wonderful words: "Thank you for letting me see the beauty of our people - Barbra Streisand'. Afterwards, they visited the Jewish Historical Museum and the JHM Children's Museum.

Barbra Streisand was in the Netherlands this week for two concerts at the Ziggo Dome. In between, she visited a few museums. She was very impressed and enthusiastic about everything she saw here.


© Photos: PHoto : Dirk P. H. Spits / DPHOTO

The Belgian photographer Dan Zollmann (b. 1964) has been visually documenting the Hasidic Jewish community in his home town of Antwerp for many years: their daily lives, their rituals, their religious services, and their festivals.

Zollmann opens a window onto a world normally invisible to outsiders, with engagement and respect, while maintaining his sense of humour and an occasional hint of irony.

His photographs offer a rare look at the Orthodox way of life of this closed group with its old Eastern European traditions.

The guided tour of Ets Haim includes a brief talk about the first Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam, with an emphasis on the educational system and Ets Haim's role in it, as well as a detailed account of the library's history. This is followed by a presentation of a few highlights from the collection.

Length: 45 - 60 minutes

Start: 10:30 (gather at the entrance of the Portuguese Synagogue, before 10.25 am)

Costs: € 7,50 per person (This not does include admission to the Jewish Cultural Quarter).

Reservations: Reservations forthe walk-in tour is required. Phone (020) 5 310 380 or e-mail Service & Sales

The walk-in tours will take place on 10 June, 8 July, 26 August , 16 September, 7 October, 11November, 9 December (all 2013).

The guided tour of Ets Haim includes a brief talk about the first Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam, with an emphasis on the educational system and Ets Haim's role in it, as well as a detailed account of the library's history. This is followed by a presentation of a few highlights from the collection.

Length: 45 - 60 minutes

Start: 10:30 (gather at the entrance of the Portuguese Synagogue, before 10.25 am)

Costs: € 7,50 per person (This not does include admission to the Jewish Cultural Quarter).

Reservations: Reservations forthe walk-in tour is required. Phone (020) 5 310 380 or e-mail Service & Sales

The walk-in tours will take place on 10 June, 8 July, 26 August , 16 September, 7 October, 11November, 9 December (all 2013).

The guided tour of Ets Haim includes a brief talk about the first Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam, with an emphasis on the educational system and Ets Haim's role in it, as well as a detailed account of the library's history. This is followed by a presentation of a few highlights from the collection.

Length: 45 - 60 minutes

Start: 10:30 (gather at the entrance of the Portuguese Synagogue, before 10.25 am)

Costs: € 7,50 per person (This not does include admission to the Jewish Cultural Quarter).

Reservations: Reservations forthe walk-in tour is required. Phone (020) 5 310 380 or e-mail Service & Sales

The walk-in tours will take place on 10 June, 8 July, 26 August , 16 September, 7 October, 11November, 9 December (all 2013).

The guided tour of Ets Haim includes a brief talk about the first Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam, with an emphasis on the educational system and Ets Haim's role in it, as well as a detailed account of the library's history. This is followed by a presentation of a few highlights from the collection.

Length: 45 - 60 minutes

Start: 10:30 (gather at the entrance of the Portuguese Synagogue, before 10.25 am)

Costs: € 7,50 per person (This not does include admission to the Jewish Cultural Quarter).

Reservations: Reservations forthe walk-in tour is required. Phone (020) 5 310 380 or e-mail Service & Sales

The walk-in tours will take place on 10 June, 8 July, 26 August , 16 September, 7 October, 11November, 9 December (all 2013).

Auschwitz prisoners, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were tattooed with serial numbers, first on their chests and then on their left arms. An estimated 400,000 numbers were tattooed in Auschwitz and its sub-camps; only some several thousand survivors are still alive today.

NUMBERED is an explosive, highly visual, and emotionally cinematic journey, guided by testimonies and portraits of these survivors. The film documents the dark time and setting during which these tattoos were assigned as well as the meaning they took on in the years following the war. In fact, the film's protagonist is the number itself, as it evolves and becomes both a personal and collective symbol from 1940 to today. These scars, paradoxically unanimous and anonymous, reveal themselves to be diverse, enlightening, and full of life.

This screening is collaboration between the Jewish Cultural Quarter and Filmisreal.

Where: Cinema het Ketelhuis Amsterdam
When: Sundag 16 june 2013
Reservations: Tickets
More information: Filmisreal
Official website movie: Numbered

Trailer:

The Jewish Cultural Quarter regularly presents concerts in the Portuguese Synagogue. You can enjoy a wide range of musical styles in a synagogue illuminated by hundreds of candles. The Portuguese Synagogue is unheated, and it can be cool inside even in the spring, so make sure to bring a coat with you! The concerts are about one hour long. 

Yuri Honing is a well-known Dutch saxophonist who has performed with various groups since the 1990s. He has played with some of the biggest names in the business, such as Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, Charlie Haden, and Pat Metheny.

Mark Haanstra plays bass in the Barnicle Bill Trio and in Yuri Honing's band Wired Paradise. In addition, he has taken part an impressive list of projects over the past fifteen years, mainly in the areas of jazz and modern music.

Yuri Honing - saxofoon
Mark Haanstra - bas

When: 20 juni, 21:30 (doors open at 21:00).

Admission: € 13,50 for sale during openingshours at the cash register of the Portuguese Synagogue and the Jewish Historical Museum, or buy your e-ticket online (€ 14,50 inclusive €1,00 administrationfee).

Reservations are not possible
More information: evenementen@jhm.nl

De Nederlandse Franz Kafka-Kring and the Menasseh ben Israel Institute for Jewish Social and Cultural Studies present:

Prof. Mark H. Gelber - Does Kafka's heritage belong to Israel?

In October 2012 an Israeli judge ruled that the legacy of Kafka's friend, Max Brod which is said to contain some unknown Kafka manuscripts, should be made accessible to the general public in Israel. This ended a long debate between Germany and Israel.

Professor Mark Gelber (University of Beer Sheba, Israel) will discuss the central question of this debate, whether the right place for Kafka's legacy would indeed be Israel. Dr. Niels Bokhove, co-founder of the Nederlandse Kafka-Kring will respond to Mark Gelber, later the audience can participate in the discussion.

The lecture will be held in English

Where: Jewish Historical Museum, Auditorium
Date: Sunday may 19 2013
Time: 14:00
Admission: 12,00 (normal admission for Jewisj Cultural Quarter), free for holders of a museumkaart. Friends of Franz Kafka-kring and MbII (on the condition of reservation by mail) € 9,00
Reservations:  All reservations via Franz Kafka-Kring: m.vandorst@inter.nl.net

Provenance Unknown, An Imaginary Family Portrait is an installation about an unknown Jewish optician and his imaginary family. It is a homage to a 'fantasy' family, representing a lost Jewish generation.

The idea for this work was inspired by the discovery of a collection of spectacles of an unknown optician at a flea market in Amsterdam.

The installation consists of five portraits, a family tree, two portraits of the optician and his son and a box with a clipping from an Israeli newspaper. The abstract portraits represent Jewish culture: Authority, Science, Wisdom, Grace and Pleasure.   

Tonie van Marle studied at the Akademie voor Kunst en Industrie in Enschede and gained her master's in English and Anglo-Irish literature in Dublin. Her work comprises installations, objects and drawings with references to archaeology, history and natural history. In her 'In Memoriam' projects, including Provenance Unknown, Van Marle places herself in the position of people who are not documented in official histories.  She uses 'sympathetic imagination' to make these unknown characters visible and to give them a place in our collective memory.