Enjoy Your Dam Tour

Last week I visited Rotterdam and Amsterdam. While I've been to Amsterdam countless times, I made my first and last visit to Rotterdam. I think the former is the best dam city.

A brief history: Rotterdam was officially made a city of Holland by Count Willem IV of (you guessed it) Holland in 1340, and shortly after a shipping canal was constructed, making the area a key port for access between northern Holland and England and Germany. The city was therefore able to urbanize and become one of the most important in the country, remaining significant through the centuries, including the magnificent "Dutch Golden Age" in the 17th century. All of this Golden grandeur could be seen throughout Rotterdam...til the German's bombed them to bits in 1940. This statue, inscribed with "Unbroken Resistance" is one of many landmarks in Holland memorializing the spirit of resistance the Dutch had during their occupation/the war. Not much of the original city remains, and instead it is now a "modernized" city. But since it was modernized decades ago, it just looks like a dumpy 70s concrete-and-glass jungle. Beautiful.

There is one true gem of the city, the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. It's incredibly well organized, so that each room takes you through art history from the middle ages to modern day, and placards on the walls of each room explain the period and artistic significance. I found the evolution of art fascinating, especially since there were not only works by famous Dutch painters (I've seen so much Rembrandt the past few weeks I think we're technically involved), but Degas, Monet, and Dali. I really appreciated the way this museum is organized, and I encourage anyone who is going to Rotterdam (sorry) to visit this museum. Oh- and it's free on Wednesdays!

On the opposite end of the pleasant scale, Rotterdam has a lot of random modern art laying
around. If you're not aware, I loathe modern art. So to have a city littered with it was not my kopje thee (cup of tea). I also saw this odd trailer-thing painted with what I imagine is supposed to be a traditional Dutch scene, but this picture has the most diversity I've seen in the whole of the Netherlands. It is cute though...
Back in the pretty parts of the country, I decided to pop back into A'dam for an afternoon and do a tour of Jewish Amsterdam. Many people don't know this, but Jews have been in Amsterdam for nearly 400 years, which is much longer than the country of the Netherlands has existed. It has always been Holland's main Jewish community, and the history of the Jews there is very rich. Holland had the highest percentage of Jews killed in the Holocaust of any country, except maybe Germany itself. At least 80 percent of the Dutch Jewish population was killed in the Holocaust, including Anne Frank. It is why I am so grateful and proud that the Dutch have protected and retained their Jewish history, and why I had to go visit it myself. Most of the old Jewish quarter is based around Jodenbreestraat, or Jewish Broad Street.

Oh Rembrandt, I cannot escape thee. In case you doubted the seriousness of our relationship, I have been to his house! Easily one of the most fascinating places I've visited in the country, Rembrandt's house has been restored and reconstructed into what it looked like when he lived there. While the painter himself wasn't Jewish, most of his neighbors were and a good amount of his paintings are actually of these neighbors. I'm posting many of my pictures so you can see for yourself inside his home. They include his bedroom, his halls filled with paintings (ones by him and his students), his etching studio (with the big wheel thingy), and his painting studio, which had windows facing North for optimal lighting.
































































The next stops on my self-guided tour were of monuments. The remnants of the Jewish quarter are marked in various ways, and these markers are often all that is left. The Dutch are very proud to have helped the Jews as much as they could during the war/occupation. The Jewish Resistance Fighters Memorial is dedicated to the Jews who tried to evade Nazi control and to the Dutch citizens who helped. It reads (I think) in Dutch: "As a reminder of the resistance to the fallen Jewish citizens." I'm going to guess that's what it says in Hebrew, but I'm not the rabbi of the family.














On a similar note, "The Dockworker" is a bronze statue in one of the areas where Jews were to wait before being departed for the camps. In February 1941, Amsterdam workers held one of Europe's largest anti-Nazi strikes to protest the persecution of the city's Jews. This statue, which simply says the date of the strike, commemorates this event. You can see the pained look on the dockworker's face...it's both touching and painful at the same time.
My next two stops housed Jews. Megadlei Yethomin was an orphanage for German and Eastern European Jewish boys for over a hundred years before the war came and sent all the orphans and their caretaker to Sobibor concentration camp. After the war, it became an orphanage for Jewish boys seeking placement in Israel, and was successful until its close in 1955. Now only the facade remains while a new building is below, but this frame stands to commemorate the orphans and their caretaker who were killed in the camp. My other stop was to a former Portuguese Jewish seniors residence, which had its own Synagogue inside. The threshold is still in Hebrew, meaning something I'd like one of my Heebs speakin peeps to fill me in on. (Toda).























Okay, I know this is a very long post, but if I don't do the Jewish quarter justice I will hear it from family members in this life AND the next. Only two more stops on the tour, and then you get a gold (Jewish) star. The Jewish Historical Museum- the name says it all. Incredibly rich with artifacts from Jews who came from all over the world, this house of Jewphernalia also encompasses an old four-synagogue complex built by German and Polish refugees in the 17th and 18th centuries. It remains intact despite the war and includes Europe's oldest public synagogue. Nearby is the Portuguese Synagogue, which I've been to many times but never been IN since I always seem to make it after closing hours. 4pm, what is it always Shabbas? Anyway, Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal fled to A'dam in the 16th and 17th centuries and built this synagogue, where they were free to worship freely for the first time in centuries.

And there you have it, Jewish Amsterdam. There's more to see (the Anne Frank House is on the other side of the city), but I'm hoping that's enough to get me out of going to the High Holidays this year. Thank you for reading, it's dam appreciated.

xoxo
kosher waffle