The two decades since the last authoritative general history of Dutch Jews was published have seen such substantial developments in historical understanding that new assessment has become an imperative. This volume offers an indispensable survey from a contemporary viewpoint that reflects the new preoccupations of European historiography and allows the history of Dutch Jewry to be more integrated with that of other European Jewish histories. Historians from both older and newer generations shed significant light on all eras, providing fresh detail that reflects changed emphases and perspectives. In addition to such traditional subjects as the Jewish community’s relationship with the wider society and its internal structure, its leaders, and its international affiliations, new topics explored include the socio-economic aspects of Dutch Jewish life seen in the context of the integration of minorities more widely; a reassessment of the Holocaust years and consideration of the place of Holocaust memorialization in community life; and the impact of multiculturalist currents on Jews and Jewish politics. Memory studies, diaspora studies, postcolonial studies, and digital humanities all play their part in providing the fullest possible picture. This wide-ranging scholarship is complemented by a generous plate section with eighty fully captioned colour illustrations.

This acclaimed history of the Jewish role in Dutch society through the ages, now available in English, considers the internal evolution of the Jewish community as well as the social, cultural, and economic interaction with the wider population. 'This general survey should appeal to a wide public interested in the history of the Jews of the Netherlands.' Het Parool

How did Jews in the Netherlands view themselves and how were they viewed by others? This is the single theme around which the twenty-five essays in this volume, written by scholars from the Netherlands, Israel and other countries, revolve. The studies encompass a variety of topics and periods, from the beginning of the Jewish settlement in the Dutch Republic through the Shoah and its aftermath. They include examinations of the Sephardi Jews in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jews in the periods of Emancipation and Enlightenment, social and cultural encounters between Jews and non-Jews throughout the ages, the image of the Jew in Dutch literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the churches' attitudes toward Jews. Also highlighted are the second World War and its consequences, Dutch Jews in Israel and Israelis in the contemporary Netherlands.

The articles of this volume deal with the connections between the history and culture of the Jews of the Netherlands from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the Holocaust and its aftermath, and phenomena and processes that distinguish all of Jewish history in the modern period.

For review see: L.J. van der Steen, in Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, jrg. 49 (1973); p. 174-175; Victor A. Mirelman, in Jewish social studies, vol. 33 (1971); no. 4, p. 320-323.

Bevat o.a. een biografische schets over de Nederlandse vakbondsleider en politicus Henri Polak (1868-1943).

This volume, consisting of seventeen studies by leading experts in the field, constitutes an important new survey of Dutch jewish history.