Jewish Amsterdam

In this tour Mark gives an overview of Amsterdam's rich and varied 400 years of Jewish history. In the late 1500s, Sephardic refugees were welcomed into the city and in the decades that followed, Ashkenazi refugees fleeing the 30 years war and pograms in Eastern Europe arrived making Amsterdam a melting pot of different Jewish traditions. There was relative freedom from persecution here and Amsterdam became kown as the Jerusalem of the West. There was much integration into Dutch society and, with the rights granted during the French period and with the boost of a booming diamond industry, the community flourished.

The Second World War and Holocaust was devastating to Dutch Jewry and is one of the saddest and darkest parts of Amsterdam's history. Many people helped but most looked the other way. We we cover this period with talk about the various post war monuments and memorials, ending at the very thought provoking, new, National Holocaust Memorial.