Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [60]
Scroll in the Joods Historisch Museum
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands | The Old Jewish Quarter |
The Joods Historisch Museum
Across the square from the Esnoga, on the far side of the main road, the Joods Historisch Museum (Jewish Historical Museum; daily 11am–5pm; closed Yom Kippur; €10; www.jhm.nl) is cleverly shoehorned into four adjacent Ashkenazi synagogues dating from the late seventeenth century. For years after World War II these buildings lay abandoned, but they were finally refurbished – and connected by walkways – in the 1980s, to accommodate a Jewish resource and exhibition centre. The first major display area, just beyond the reception desk on the ground floor of the Nieuwe Synagoge, features temporary exhibitions on Jewish life and culture with vintage photographs usually to the fore. Close by, also in the Nieuwe Synagoge, the Print Room concentrates on the many Jewish-Dutch musicians who kept Amsterdammers entertained before World War II. There are potted biographies of the leading performers and an audioguide offers a chance to listen to them in full voice and throttle.
Moving on, the ground floor of the capacious Grote Synagoge, which dates from 1671, holds an engaging display on Jewish life. There is a fine collection of religious silverware here, plus all manner of antique artefacts illustrating religious customs and practices, alongside a scattering of paintings and portraits. The gallery up above, reached via a spiral staircase, holds a finely judged social history of the country’s Jewish population from 1600 to 1900, with an assortment of bygones, documents and paintings tracing their prominent role in a wide variety of industries, both as employers and employees. A complementary history of the Jews in the Netherlands from 1900 onwards occupies the upper level of the neighbouring Nieuwe Synagoge. Inevitably, attention is given to the trauma of World War II, but there is also a biting display on the indifferent/hostile reaction of many Dutch men and women to liberated Jews in 1945.
For more on Amsterdam during the German occupation, visit the Dutch Resistance Museum (see "Verzetsmuseum").
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands |
The Plantagebuurt
Laid out in the middle of the nineteenth century, the pleasant, leafy streets of the Plantagebuurt, falling to either side of Plantage Middenlaan boulevard, were developed as part of a concerted attempt to provide good-quality housing for the city’s expanding middle classes. Although it was never as fashionable as the older residential parts of the Grachtengordel, the new district did contain elegant villas and spacious terraces, making it the first suburban port of call for many upwardly mobile Jews. Nowadays, the Plantagebuurt is still one of the more prosperous parts of the city, in a modest sort of way, and boasts two especially enjoyable attractions – the Hortus Botanicus (Botanical Gardens) and the Verzetsmuseum (Dutch Resistance Museum). Nearby, just over the Plantage Muidergracht canal, and stretching west to the River Amstel, is a small parcel of old Amsterdam, dating back to the late seventeenth century. The main attraction here is Hermitage Amsterdam, which showcases temporary exhibitions of fine and applied art loaned from St Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum.
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands | The Plantagebuurt |
Starting at Centraal Station, trams #9 and #14 run along Plantage Middenlaan, passing by – or near – all the district’s main attractions.
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands | The Plantagebuurt |
The Amstelhof and Hermitage Amsterdam
During the second phase of the digging of the Grachtengordel, the three main canals that ringed the city centre were extended beyond the River Amstel up towards the Oosterdok – hence