Amsterdam - Jewish Historical Museum Joods Historisch Museum
In 1987 the Jewish Historical Museum moved into its new premises - four redundant synagogues right next to the Waterlooplein. The first of the four synagogues, the Grote Synagoge, or Grote Sjoel, was built in 1670 but soon after its consecration was already proving too small. In 1686, therefore, a second, smaller synagogue, the Obbene Sjoel, was built behind the Great Synagogue and over the kosher slaughterhouse.
The third synagogue, the Dritt Sjoel, was added in 1700 and finally, in 1752, the new synagogue, the Neie Sjoel, completed the complex. This was sold in its entirety to the City of Amsterdam by the Jewish Community in 1955. In the mid-1970s the city decided that it should be put to a new use. The buildings were restored for a budget of over £8 million, and joined together using steel and glass to create a very attractive, highly accessible building that now houses what is probably the most important Jewish museum outside Israel.
In the square in front of the Jewish Historical Museum there is the statue of "the Docker". This is a monument commemorating the dockers' strike in February 1941 when they refused to co-operate with the deportation of their Jewish fellow citizens.
The Great Synagogue in Amsterdam houses the ritual objects in the collection - silver Torah containers, Torah robes and decorated Torah headdresses, hangings and baldaquins - and on the eastern wall of the synagogue, pointing towards Jerusalem, the white marble "Holy Shrine". The permanent exhibits are supplemented by temporary exhibitions. The museum also has a mediatheque full of books, tapes, and audio-visual material, and in the Upper Synagogue, the Obbene Sjoel, there is a kosher restaurant.
The tour of the Jewish Historical Museum complex begins in the New Synagogue where the visitor is introduced to "Aspects of the Jewish identity". Here the five crucial elements are seen as being religion, Zionism, persecution and survival under the Nazis, culture, and the influence of the Dutch environment.
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