(JTA) — As one of Europe’s oldest and most impressive Jewish buildings, this city’s Portuguese Synagogue is known far and wide for its majestic beauty. Its architect is said to have drawn inspiration from Solomon’s Temple. While the Portuguese Synagogue was later eclipsed by even larger and more magnificent shuls — like the one on…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Livraria Ets Haim is the world’s oldest functioning Jewish library. As such, it is no stranger to the prospect of imminent destruction. Founded in 1616 by Jews who fled Catholic persecution in Spain and Portugal, the three-room library is adjacent to Amsterdam’s majestic Portuguese Synagogue in the Dutch capital’s center. The 30,000-volume collection…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — An electrician from the Netherlands discovered during repair work a suitcase containing visa applications to the United States that Holocaust victims filled out 76 years ago. The electrician, Guus Braam, and the owner of the home where he discovered the suitcase wrapped in newspaper inside a crawl space, gave the objects to…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — City workers dislodged and relocated a postcard-sized memorial plaque from the entrance to the former home in Amsterdam of a Holocaust victim following complaints by residents. The plaque — a brass cobblestone bearing the name of Joachim Elte that in 2014 was embedded into the sidewalk of 3 Nicolass Maes Street —…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — For someone who produces and sells masks for a living, it makes sense to set up shop in the center of this city’s famed Red Light District. After all, there are countless masks and costumes on sale in the many adult toy shops that dot this part of the Dutch capital, which…
(JTA) — The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam had a record number of visitors for the seventh consecutive year. In 2016, nearly 1.3 million people visited the Anne Frank House, located at the site where the teenage diarist hid from the Nazis with her family, according to a statement from the memorial site. This year’s number was…
(JTA) — A Dutch rapper who sang that he “sits on money like a Jew” and “deports” greedy women defended the text as a “compliment” devoid of any anti-Semitic undertones. Ali Bouali, a best-selling performer of Moroccan descent who is also known in the Netherlands as an activist against discrimination, defended these lines from his…
In a rare move, a Dutch watchdog on anti-Semitism called on the City of Amsterdam to rename a municipal hall bearing the name of a former official who helped deport Jews to their deaths. The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, on Saturday urged the city government of the Dutch capital to…
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