Most people know little more than fragments of Dutch Jewish history: the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam; Jewish socialism; the devastating years of the Second World War. So where is the storyline? What happened to the Jews in the Netherlands from the moment they first settled there permanently? This book answers that question. It presents the central points of 700 years of Jewish history in the Netherlands briefly and succinctly. One hundred elements of the story have been chosen that taken as a whole create a balanced and representative picture. Each relates to a central event, place, person or object that helps to illuminate one important aspect of the history of the Jews in the Netherlands, and each is linked to a striking, iconic image. They are grouped by century around unifying themes that make them part of an ongoing story.

Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld is an independent scholar in early modern European Jewish History, concentrating in particular on social and cultural aspects of the Jews in the western Sephardi diaspora.
Bart Wallet is professor of early modern and modern Jewish history at the University of Amsterdam. He is co-editor-in-chief of Studia Rosenthaliana: Journal of the History, Culture and Heritage of the Jews in the Netherlands and editor of the European Journal of Jewish Studies.

Introduction by the authors
1295 Middle Ages: Jodenstraat in Maastricht
1600 The seventeenth century: the century of ‘New Jews’
1700 Eighteenth century: a time of expansion and stability
1800 Nineteenth century, the century of integration
1900 Twentieth century: a century of extremes
2000 Twenty-first century
Glossary
Bibliography
Acknowledgements