Topics: Synagogues, Rabbis, Jewish Leadership, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Continuity, Religious Observance and Practice, Religious Denominations, Sephardi Jews, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Artefacts and Material Culture
Abstract: This article explores how rabbis, directors and members of Amsterdam’s Jewish religious communities view the heritagisation of Jewish religious life by analysing how they interact with Amsterdam’s main synagogues and their collections of ceremonial objects. It focuses on the synagogues of the Jewish Cultural Quarter – the Portuguese Synagogue with its accompanying Sephardi community, and the former Ashkenazi synagogue complex, now the Jewish Museum. From a dynamic heritage perspective, this heterogeneous constellation raises questions about how and why heritage making occurs here. Following a Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology, concurrent data collection and analysis let emerge interrelated conceptual categories that explain how communities interact with these functioning and musealised synagogues and objects: Embodying the transmission of tradition; Instrumentalising the heritage of Jewish religious life; Transforming the beauty of holiness; and Assembling in heritagised synagogues. These categories intersect in the core category of the Jewish religious heritage continuum, which this article presents as a dynamic embodiment of remembering, reconnection, and revival of Jewish tradition. For the interviewees, these performances, and the deployment of functioning and musealised synagogues and collections, form a cultural apparatus that marks their present, diverse and living material culture and grafts a Jewish future onto a Jewish past.
Abstract: This book focuses on the development of bilateral Jewish-Muslim relations in London and Amsterdam since the late-1980s. It offers a comparative analysis that considers both similarities and differences, drawing on historical, social scientific, and religious studies perspectives. The authors address how Jewish-Muslim relations are related to the historical and contemporary context in which they are embedded, the social identity strategies Jews and Muslims and their institutions employ, and their perceived mutual positions in terms of identity and power. The first section reflects on the history and current profile of Jewish and Muslim communities in London and Amsterdam and the development of relations between Jews andMuslims in both cities. The second section engages with sources of conflict and cooperation. Four specific areas that cause tension are explored: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; antisemitism and Islamophobia; attacks by extremists; and the commemoration of wars and genocides. In addition to ‘trigger events’, what stands out is the influence of historical factors, public opinion, the ‘mainstream’ Christian churches and the media, along with the role of government. The volume will be of interest to scholars from fields including religious studies, interfaith studies, Jewish studies, Islamic studies, urban studies, European studies, and social sciences as well as members of the communities concerned, other religious communities, journalists, politicians, and teachers who are interested in Jewish-Muslim relations.
Abstract: This article is a discussion on my research that examines the social and musical aspects of orthodox women’s Rosh Chodesh groups. These groups, both past and present, are not a widespread phenomenon and have remained very much on the periphery of Jewish practices which, apart from communities based in Israel, already operate on the periphery of non-Jewish societies. As such, my research has required a broad, international focus. My discussion is largely based on groups in North America and Europe (specific locations examined include New York, Montreal, Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, which is also the site for fieldwork on the relatively recent phenomenon called the ‘Partnership Minyan’). I also conducted preliminary fieldwork with the much-discussed group Women of the Wall (WoW) based in Jerusalem.
Abstract: Relations between Jews and Muslims in Amsterdam grew tense after the conflicts between Gaza and Israel in 2014, the violent attacks on Jewish targets in Brussels (2014), Paris (2015) and Copenhagen (2015) and local incidents of online, verbal and sometimes physical discrimination. Nevertheless, these factors also inspired Jews and Muslims to launch cooperation projects and strengthen the bonds already existing between them. Cooperation in turbulent times is not always easy. The data collected for this research show how Jews and Muslims in cooperation projects use to strategies to solve some of the problems confronting them. The three most widely used strategies that were found are ‘searching for similarities’, ‘decategorizing’ and ‘avoidance’. These strategies do not emerge in a vacuum, however, but at a certain moment in time, in specific fields. Therefore, this article, will describe the usage of the three strategies and explain the interaction between strategies and their contexts.
Abstract: Mokum is 'Amsterdam' in the local dialect of Yiddish. Deriving from the Hebrew word makom, meaning 'place', Mokum affectionately designates the Dutch capital as 'the place' for Jews. Judith Belinfante, director of Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum from 1976 to 1998, explained: 'Amsterdam was, for a long time, the only place where Jews could come without any restrictions'. Already in the early seventeenth century, Jews began arriving, from Portugal and from Central and Eastern Europe. And, in contrast to the rest of Europe, in Amsterdam, they were given unlimited freedom to settle, and were never confined to ghettos, or forced to wear a distinctive sign. The extent of Jewish institutional integration in Amsterdam, and today, throughout the Netherlands, is nowhere more evident than in the history and exhibitions of Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum. It's a classical Heimat or 'home town' museum. It celebrates the city, and displays Amsterdam and Dutch Jewry as a dynamic, loyal and well-integrated minority
Abstract: The Liberal Jewish Congregation of Amsterdam is a flourishing and growing community. However, there is a tension between the needs of the members and the opinions of the rabbi and the board leading the community. This paper describes the views of all the participants, referring to the question of how should the congregation function and on what aspect should it focus? i.e., is the religious aspect the most important? or maybe it is the social aspect?
There is a saying: “two Jews, three opinions” – this shows how hard it is to have one community, and it surely represents the case in Amsterdam;
The paper describes in short the interesting history of the Jews in Holland, especially in Amsterdam, a history which is different than that of most Jewish communities in the world. It shows a centuries' long process of integration, emancipation and assimilation, in which the Holocaust (Shoah) caused a dramatic hiatus. Today, more and more Jews in Holland are returning to their roots, and young Jews are once again proud of their religion and tradition.
