05-02 Jewish Historical Museum

Started off this morning with a walk through the Waterlooplien Market (about 5 minutes from our apartment); about 75% of the stalls are open this morning. There are old clothes, bicycle parts and accessories, scarves, and various souvenir items. Nothing exciting. It's open almost every day and on half of our days we have to walk through it to get to someplace else.

Before spending a couple of hours in the museum we find a place for lunch using Google Maps. Cute little cafe, Café 't Hooischip, on a corner with nice indoor seating. We needed it, because, yes, it's raining. I had a ham and cheese panini and Pat a ham and cheese on a roll and we split a delicious, very hot, bowl of tomato soup. With 3 bottles of Coke Light, the bill only came to $15e.

Now on to the Amsterdam Jewish Historical Museum, about a block away from lunch. This museum is in a former synagogue and tells about the Jewish religion and Jews in the Netherlands. It uses an audio tour for the downstairs portion, where the main temple was, but not the upstairs.

In this lower area in display cases are many of the items used each week in a Jewish service. Our headsets explain some of them and why, historically, they are significant to the Jewish people.

We are able to stand where the Rabbi stands (bimah), right there in the middle, to read the Jewish Bible (Tanakh) and walk up to the place where the ark (cabinet) that holds the Torah scrolls would be, up there by where all the marble is. The men would be sitting on the left and right. The women would sit upstairs.

Upstairs, in a regular museum-like area, are about 14 video areas where you can listen to Amsterdam Jewish history before, during, and after World War II. All the commentaries on the videos are closed caption in English which made it easier to follow along. There was construction going on next door in the upper sanctuary so we couldn't tour there and it was noisy from hammering.

The displays highlighted some of the jobs they would have in the area. Bankers, clothes makers, and diamond cutters were just a few. Here's an old diamond cutter and a display of mother of pearl buttons.

The last video we watched was a discussion among adult Jews who had been in the concentration camps, hiding in the city, or shipped off to Netherlands farms where it was easier to hide. One gentleman, late 60's, was happy he didn't "look" Jewish after the war, because it allowed him not to have to admit he WAS Jewish. He never attended synagogue or identified with Jews after the war. Others went back to leading a normal Jewish lives, but in lesser numbers. BUT, the extent to which Jews flourished in Jewish communities or were a part of the Amsterdam community before the war, never happened after the war. One 20-something lady thought that the only way for her Jewish-ness to survive was through her children (she had none) so she was moving to Israel.

We walked down to the Hop On Hop Off Canalboat dock to check it out for tomorrow in sunshine. Then it’s on to home with a stop at the grocery store, of course. It's so easy when we are walking every day. We get some chips to go with croissants, ham, and cheese that we already have in the fridge for our dinner tonight. Also get some milk and water. Then home for dinner at 5.