Diaspora During the Belle Époque: the Netherlands

Home , Gijsbert van Tienhoven, Houtgracht, Jodenbreestraat, Kherson Governorate

DIASPORA DURING

THE BELLE ÉPOQUE: THE NETHERLANDS AND Al ice van Zinnicq Bergmann 11930063 JEWISH MIGRANTS FROM Religious Studies EASTERN EUROPE, 1880-1914 Graduate School of Humanities University of Amsterdam Research into the reception and attitude in Dutch-Jewish periodicals

DIASPORA DURING THE BELLE ÉPOQUE: THE NETHERLANDS AND JEWISH MIGRANTS FROM EASTERN EUROPE, 1880-1914 Research into the reception and attitude in Dutch-Jewish periodicals Alice van Zinnicq Bergmann 11930063 Supervisor: Mr. Dr. F.S.L. Schouten First Examiner: Mr. Prof. Dr. J.W. van Henten Second Examiner: Ms. Prof. Dr. I.E. Zwiep ‘Religious Studies Master’s Thesis’ October 14, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ...... 1

1 The Westward mass migration of East European Jews ...... 6

1.1 Pogroms, anti-Jewish legislation, and a mass exodus ...... 6

1.1.1 Repression and restriction ...... 6

1.1.2 The calamitous 1900s ...... 8

1.1.3 Stateless Jews in Rumania ...... 9

1.2 The reception by Western authorities and populations ...... 10

1.2.1 A broad spectrum of migrants ...... 11

1.2.2 Implementation of control measures ...... 11

1.3 The reception by native Jews ...... 12

1.3.1 Western versus Eastern Jewry ...... 14

1.3.2 Jewish aid committees ...... 15

1.3.3 Repudiating and expatriating ...... 16

2 Jews in the Netherlands ...... 18

2.1 From Jewish ‘nation’ to Jewish congregation ...... 18

2.1.1 The first steps to assimilation ...... 19

2.1.2 Separation of Synagogue and State ...... 20

2.1.3 The NIK ...... 21

2.1.4 Dutch-Jewish population distribution ...... 23

2.1.5 Jews in Amsterdam ...... 24

2.2 Social and political compartmentalisation ...... 25

2.2.1 The SDAP and the ANDB ...... 26

2.2.2 The NZB ...... 27

2.2.3 From Dutch Jews to Jewish Dutchmen ...... 28

2.3 East European Jewish migrants in Amsterdam ...... 29

2.3.1 Registered Jewish migrants ...... 30

2.3.2 Jewish aid committees ...... 33

2.3.3 Settlement of East European Jewish immigrants ...... 35

2.3.4 The second migrant city of the Netherlands: Rotterdam ...... 36

2.3.5 Destination country or transit cities? ...... 37

3 Dutch-Jewish periodicals ...... 38

3.1 Weekblad voor Israëlieten / Nieuwsblad voor Israëlieten ...... 38

3.1.1 News coverage pertaining to East European Jewish migrants ...... 41

3.1.2 Peak year 1882 ...... 43

3.1.3 Destination: America? Palestine? Suriname? The Netherlands? ...... 46

3.1.4 Hagnosath Orchim ...... 48

3.1.5 Perspectives of the WI/NI and its readers ...... 50

3.1.6 Distinctions between the editors-in-chief ...... 53

3.1.7 Comparison with the NIW ...... 54

3.2 De ,,Alliance”: Orgaan van de Nederlandsche Afdeeling der ,,Alliance Israélite Universelle” ..56

3.2.1 News coverage pertaining to East European Jewish migrants ...... 57

3.2.2 Internationally focussed ...... 58

3.2.3 Proposal for an umbrella committee for transmigrants ...... 60

3.2.4 The perspective of the Alliance ...... 61

4 Kinship, philanthropy, or detachment? ...... 63

Appendix I ...... 67

Appendix II ...... 71

Abbreviations ...... 72

Bibliography ...... 73

Preface From 1881 to 1914, approximately two million East European Jews migrated westward due to continual pogroms, anti-Semitic regulations, economic strangulation, and the subsequent deteriorated living condition.1 Refuge was sought in Central and Western Europe, although most migrants only passed through there to embark for the United States. Many governments implemented measures regarding migration control due to the influx of migrants who travelled through or wanted to settle in their country. To coordinate the mass migration, as well as providing aid, national and private organisations were established across the world. The arrival of these needy East European Jewish migrants also caused commotion within native Jewish communities. The – assumed – arduous relationship between the ‘ghettoised’, impoverished Jews from Eastern Europe and the emancipated and acculturating Western Jews is the subject of many studies. However, relatively little is known about the reception of East European Jewish migrants by the native Jewish population in the Netherlands between 1881 and 1914. Although far fewer foreigners entered the Netherlands, than, for instance, Germany, England, or France, this still could have had an impact on the Dutch-Jewish communities.

One of the first elaborated studies is that of Paul Visser, Broeders en vreemdelingen: Een studie van de opvang van Oost-Europese joodse migranten in Nederland in de jaren 1881- 1933 tegen de achtergrond van het Nederlands-joodse acculturatieproces (1988). His PhD thesis is about the establishment and activities of the aid committees in the Netherlands during 1881 and 1933. A year later, Joël J. Cahen (b. 1945) points to the fact that “the topic of ‘Ost-Jidden-, i.e. Eastern European Jews, has, however, not been studied systematically in the framework of Dutch-Jewish History: it is one of the remaining tasks for historians.” 2 Cahen introduces hereby the essay “Migration versus ‘Species Hollandia Judaica’” of Dan Michman (b. 1947) in a special edition of Studia Rosenthaliana. Michman focuses on the relations that developed between Dutch Jews and East European Jewish migrants as well as with other West European

1 In the period before the end of the nineteenth century, the reliability of demographic sources is not as reliable as those from more recent times. For instance, in the United States, the category “Hebrews” was included in official migration data only since 1899. Furthermore, it is possible that not all Jewish migrants were listed as such. The statistics concerning the total volume of East European Jewish emigrants, international and intercontinental, in this study are based on conjectures of different scholars. 2 The publication followed “the Fifth International Symposium on the History of the Jews in the Netherlands” (Joël J. Cahen, “Introduction,” Studia Rosenthaliana 23 [special issue] (1989): 5).

Jews through international Jewish aid organisations concerning transmigrants. He covers the period from 1880 until the Second World War, concluding with its aftermath.

Recently, the gap detected by Cahen has been addressed by Peter Tammes’ edited volume Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers: Aankomst, opvang, trasmigratie en vestiging van joden uit Rusland in Amsterdam en Rotterdam, 1882-1914 (2013). This volume contains chapters of three authors: Tammes (b. 1972), Karin Hofmeester (b. 1964), and Justus van der Kamp (b. 1954). Examining articles from the Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad (‘New Israelite Weekly’; NIW, 1865 – present-day), Tammes focusses on how East European transmigrants were perceived and received by ‘the’ Jewish community in the Netherlands. He analyses the perspective of the NIW on the deteriorating situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe, which stimulated the establishment of local aid organisations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. NIW represented the view of the – on what retrospectively can be seen as the – ‘liberal’ Jews. While the periodical had national distribution, the emphasis was on Amsterdam. By solely studying the NIW, Tammes only sheds light on the ‘liberal’ Jewish perception and representation of the East European Jewish migrants in the Netherlands. Thereby, a part of the Dutch-Jewish population is not considered in this perspective – for instance, orthodox Jews and Zionists. Hofmeester presents information on the East European Jewish immigrants in Amsterdam. This is based on her demographic research of the ‘Vreemdelingenregister 1849- 1922’ (‘Foreigners Registers’) of the Amsterdam City Archive (SAA).3 She outlines the sizes and the background of the Jewish immigrant groups; their age, gender, and occupation; type of migration; and the establishment and group formation in Amsterdam. A detailed analysis, like that of Tammes on the reception of and the aid regarding the East European Jewish transmigrants by the native Jewish population in Amsterdam, is not applied to the immigrants by Hofmeester. Tammes conducted similar quantitative research on the Vreemdelingenregisters of the City Archive Rotterdam for the situation in Rotterdam. Van der Kamp complements the offered factual data by recounting the life of five successful and well-known Russian-Jewish immigrant families based on biographical sketches. The immigrants’ perspective is established,

3 As a result of the Dutch Vreemdelingenwet (‘Foreigners Law’) of 1849 – only people with a valid passport and with sufficient resources were accepted – personal data was registered as well as information related to admission and issue of the travel- or residence card by the police. The website of the SAA offers the possibility to examine the digitalised Vreemdelingenregisters (Louk Pöckling and Marlou Schrover, “Registers van verstrekte en geweigerde reis- en verblijfpassen (1849-1923),” in Broncommentaren 5: Bronnen betreffende de registratie van vreemdelingen in Nederland in de negentiende en twintigste eeuw, edited by Marlou Schrover (Den Haag: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 2002), 37-47).

2 while no attention is paid to how the native Jews perceived the East European immigrants in the Netherlands.

My Master thesis explores a more integral image of the different Jewish communities in the Netherlands, and specifically in Amsterdam. My focus is not only on the ‘liberal’ Jews but also the ‘orthodox’ Jews. It would be also interesting to see how Zionists reacted to the arrival of East European Jews. However, due to the limited schedule, their perspective is not studied. It certainly is an interesting subject for a follow-up study. While Tammes only focusses on the transmigrants in Amsterdam, I will pay attention to those who settled in Amsterdam and to the interest of Dutch Jews in these immigrants. While Hofmeester provides a demographic overview, she does not pay attention to this perception. In doing so, I aim to complement the perspective by Tammes and Hofmeester. In the present study, East European Jews includes subjects of the Russian Empire and Rumania.

How did the native Jewish population of the Netherlands, and Amsterdam specifically, face the East European Jewish migration between 1881 and 1914, and what was their image of these migrants?

For my thesis, I explored two types of sources. First, I scrutinised the abovementioned Vreemdelingenregisters. Most of the registers are digitalised. By searching on East European city names, all the registered – Jews and Gentiles – people coming from these places appear. Because religious persuasions are included, the Jewish migrants can be located. Not all foreigners were documented at the municipality, being exempt or withheld from registration. The inventories, nonetheless, give insight into the migration pattern, the socio-economic structure, and perhaps even in the motives of the East European Jews who settled – whether temporary – in Amsterdam. Secondly, I analysed Dutch-Jewish periodicals in the broad context of the East European Jewish mass migration. In the period between 1880 and 1918, more than forty Jewish periodicals were published in the Netherlands, of which twenty-eight in Amsterdam alone. To cover all these journals would go beyond the scope of this thesis. Many of the magazines did not even pay attention to the East European Jews, their atrocious situation and the mass migration. In selecting the newspapers, the period in which it was published naturally played

3 an important role. One had to cover the period of the outbreak of the first pogroms and subsequent influx of migrants from Eastern Europe, from 1880 to 1887, and another the second stream, which occurred between 1903 and 1907. Did the image of East European Jews change over time? Was there from the onset attention for the situation of these Jews, and has this attention been retained? To provide a more comprehensive view about the perception of East European Jews by various Jewish communities in the Netherlands, and in Amsterdam specifically, as well as to complement Tammes’ research, I selected the following two periodicals:

Nieuwsblad voor Israëlieten (‘Newspaper for Israelites’; NI, 1884-1894), previously Weekblad voor Israëlieten (‘Weekly for Israelites’; WI, 1855-1884),

and De ,,Alliance”: Orgaan van de Nederlandsche Afdeeling der ,,Alliance Israélite Universelle” (‘The ,,Alliance”: Publication of the Dutch Department of the ,,Alliance Israélite Universelle”; Alliance, 1906-1920).

The WI/NI covered the first wave of the East European Jewish mass migration and its aftermath. The news coverage can demonstrate to what extent the support for the East European Jews persisted over time. The Alliance was established during the end of the second stream. This can be an indication that although the unrest in Eastern Europe had quietened down, it was still necessary and important to pay attention to the East European Jewish state of affairs – while the intensity of the East European Jewish coverage and its prominence in the NIW decreased over time.4 Furthermore, since the NIW was founded in opposition to the WI/NI, the periodicals lend itself for an intriguing comparison. To establish the context in which the reportage concerning East European Jews was published, I researched the background of the journals and its editors. While studying the periodicals, I searched for articles concerning East European Jews. My focus was on the deteriorated situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe; the migration of East European Jews abroad and within the Netherlands; the reception of these Jewish migrants; and the involvement of Dutch Jewish communities in – local, national, or international – relief committees and organisations. Furthermore, I looked at the manner and amount of attention that was paid to these different subjects.

4 Peter Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang van Oostjoden in Amsterdam en Rotterdam,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers: Aankomst, opvang, transmigratie en vestiging van joden uit Rusland in Amsterdam en Rotterdam, 1882-1914, edited by ibid. (Amsterdam: Menasseh ben Israel Instituut, 2013), 24.

All the volumes of the Alliance are in the holding of the University of Amsterdam, offering a complete image of the perception and representation of the East European Jewish migrants by the Dutch Department of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU). Unfortunately, not all the volumes of WI/NI are held by the University of Amsterdam or any other library in the Netherlands. Within the period 1881 and 1918, volumes 25 (1879/80) and 26 (1880/81) of the WI are missing, and the holding of the NI stops at volume 3 (June 1887). The periodical still provides an image, only a fragmented one.

The Westward mass migration of East European Jews discusses the circumstances under which the westward mass migration of East European Jews emerged as well as the alteration in the socio-political situation of the Jewish population in Western versus Eastern Europe, and its influence on the stance of the West European Jews. The position of the Dutch-Jewish population just before and since their legal emancipation in September 1796 is studied in Jews in the Netherlands. The demographic situation, the migration pattern and the socio-economic structure of the East European Jewish migrants will further be presented to get a better understanding of the impact of their mass migration in the Netherlands between 1881 and 1914. In Dutch-Jewish periodicals, I discuss my analysis of the periodicals. Each paragraph will be assigned to one of the two periodicals, in which publications concerning East European Jews – such as physical and financial assistance by the Dutch Jews as well as the frequency and place of such items – are reviewed.

Were the Dutch Jews products of an outlined acculturation process and could they not rid themselves of the almost archetypal image of East European Jews as objects of Western philanthropy and civilisation work? Came the extended aid towards the East European Jewish migrants purely from a philanthropic-paternalistic attitude of the indigenous Jewish aid workers? Or was there a change visible in the representation and reception, illustrated in the periodicals, of the East European Jewish migrants by the Dutch Jewish population? In how far perceived the Dutch-Jewish population the East European Jewish migrants as “backward, superstitious, dirty – and certainly inferior in culture and breeding” strangers, as, according to Jack Wertheimer (b. 1948), German Jews regarded them?5 These questions I aim to answer in my thesis.

5 Jack Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany (New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, 1987), 3.

1 The Westward mass migration of East European Jews

1.1 Pogroms, anti-Jewish legislation, and a mass exodus

On March 31, 1881, the tsar of the Russian Empire, Alexander II (1818-1881) was assassinated in Saint Petersburg.6 Eventuating from this assassination was the end of the – somewhat – improved living circumstances of the Jews in the Russian Empire. During his reign, Alexander II had revoked several of the anti-Jewish decrees of his father, Tsar Nicholas I (1796-1855). Consequently, new Jewish communities developed in large cities, such as Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and increasing involvement of Jews in the cultural and intellectual life in the Russian Empire ensued. In the course of Alexander II’s reign, the Russian-Jewish population almost dared to hope for a better future. However, his son and successor, Tsar Alexander III (1845- 1894) – a profoundly conservative man – condemned the liberal attitude of his father. He reversed several of his predecessor’s reforms, including the abolishment of the restrictions regarding Jews, and exacerbated the Jewish condition.

1.1.1 Repression and restriction

Social and economic instability – the ramifications of Alexander II’s reform attempts – marked the inauguration of the regime of the new Tsar. The Gentile population commonly inculpated the Jews for these negative aspects, since they arose from the changes which were most beneficial for Jews.7 Combined with the already strong anti-Semitic feelings harboured by the Russian population, previous violent conflicts between Gentile and Jew, and the resentment emanating from Jewish commercial competition, this ultimately culminated on April 15, 1881. A vicious pogrom erupted in Elizabethgrad in the Kherson Governorate.8 Pogroms occurred on a massive scale and spread throughout the southwestern regions of the Russian Empire – within and outside of the Pale of Settlement.9 Within one year, tens of thousands of Jews became

6 Édvard Radzinsky, “Death of the Tsar,” in Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar, translated by Antonina W. Bouis (New York [etc.]: Free Press, 2005), 413-417. 7 Sam Johnson, “Uses and Abuses: ‘Pogroms’ in the Anglo-American Imagination, 1881-1919,” in Jews in the East European Borderlands: Essays in Honor of John D. Klier, edited by Eugene M. Avrutin and Harriet Muray (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012), 152. 8 Howard Sachar, A History of the Jews in the Modern World (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 245-247. 9 After the second and third partition of Poland, respectively in 1793 and 1795, a substantial increase of the – Polish – Jewish population in Russia engendered the expulsions of Jews from the rural areas and led to the establishment of the Pale of Settlement. In 1881, more than half of the total Jewish population of the Russian Empire – approximately 2,920,000 of the estimated 4,100,000 – lived in the Pale of Settlement (John D. Klier, “Russian Jewry on the Eve of the Pogroms,” in Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History, edited by John D. Klier and Shlomo Lambroza (Cambridge: University Press, 1992), 5).

6 homeless and impoverished.10 Although suspicions of government involvement were raised, recent research, especially by John D. Klier (1944-2007), has shown that “Russian officials neither desired, encouraged, nor tolerated pogroms.”11 Nonetheless, pogromists utilised the speculation of governmental involvement in their advantage, exploiting it to justify their actions.12 The belief that the lives and property of the Jews did not enjoy, or even deserve, any legal protection further upheld the pogroms. It was clear to the Jewish population that Russia would not be a haven for them.13 A regime of repression and restriction, of segregation rather than assimilation, was again implemented in the Russian Empire. Supposedly to avert conflicts between the Jews and Gentiles. The constraints took further shape in the ‘May Laws,’ instituted in May 1882, enunciating that: Jews no longer were allowed to settle outside the borders of the Pale of Settlement and rural areas within the Pale were declared forbidden territory; it became prohibited for Jews to own or lease property; on Sundays, or any Christian holiday, Jewish businesses had to be closed; and at academia strict quotas were implemented on the admission of Jewish pupils and students, as well as quotas on medical and legal professions.14 The ‘May Laws’ – which were supposed to be temporary regulations concerning the Jews, but were ultimately in force until the downfall of the Russian Empire in 1917 – were just the beginning of long series of anti-Jewish measures to socially degrade and economically destroy its Jewish population. The pogroms and the ‘May Laws’ catalysed an emigration of more than half a million Russian Jews. Destitute Jews predominated among the émigrés, whereas middle-class Jews mainly migrated nationally.15

10 John P. Williams, “Exodus from Europe: Jewish Diaspora Immigration from Central and Eastern Europe to the United States (1820-1914),” Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 16, no. 1-3 (April 2017): 88. 11 John D. Klier, Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881-1882 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 384. For significant studies concerning the Russian pogroms between 1881 and 1910, see: on the speculations and considerations of Russian bureaucrats concerning the Jewish question: Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right- Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (Berkeley [etc.]: University of California Press, 1986); on the conjectured role of the Russian press: John D. Klier, “The Russian Press and anti-Jewish Pogroms of 1881,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies/Revue Canadienne-Américaine d’Études Slaves 17, no. 2 (July 1, 1983): 199-221; on the geographical and economic impact: Michael Aronson, Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990); Heinz-Dietrich Löwe, “Pogroms in Russia: Explanations, Comparisons, Suggestions,” Jewish Social Studies 11, no. 1 (2004): 16-24. 12 Klier, “The Russian Press,” 200-201. 13 Renate G. Fuks-Mansfeld, “Verandering en continuïteit in het Oosteuropese jodendom, 1772-1897,” in Het onvoltooide verleden: Twee eeuwen Oost-Europa en het joodse vraagstuk, edited by André W.M. Gerrits and Harm Ramkema (Utrecht: Werkgroep Oost-Europa Projekten, 1993), 29. 14 Charles Lowe, “The Tsar Persecutor,” in Alexander III of Russia (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895), 212-213. 15 Williams, “Exodus from Europe,” 89.

1.1.2 The calamitous 1900s

At the turn of the century, modernisation, industrialisation, and urbanisation reached Russia, where its people and government struggled with these changes. Vicissitudes marked the early years: the countryside was afflicted with violent unrest and chaos, incited by poor yields, while in the urban areas the increasing unemployment resulted in labour unrest with strikes and riots. The defeat of the Russo-Japanese War (February 1904 – September 1905) aggravated the political and public situation even more, along with ‘Bloody Sunday’ on January 22, 1905, and the ensuing – unsuccessful – Russian Revolution (January 1905 – June 1907).16 The Russian Empire found itself in an internal conflict: resolute absolutism which was confronted with inescapable change; impoverishment of its population ensuing from a weakening economy; and subsequent radical political extremism. A second wave of anti-Jewish swept through the Empire between April 1903 and September 1906.17 The most ferocious pogrom occurred in Odessa, November 1905, eventuating in the death of at least eight hundred Jews.18 Table 1.1 shows the number of pogroms and its casualties in the different Russian governorates between 1905 and 1906 – the most brutal year of this second anti-Jewish rampage. In one year, 657 pogroms occurred – only forty-two less than in the whole period between 1903 and 1906 – and approximately 3,593 Jews lost their lives. The total during this whole period amounted to around 3,800 fatalities.19 The thousands of deaths, the destruction of Jewish property by arson, vandalism, and looting, the damage that cumulated in millions of roubles – all gave new impetus to the emigration of Russian Jews. The upsurge was, further, accelerated by the economic crisis in the industrial areas, the dropping prices due to the stiff competition between various transatlantic shipping companies, and the increasing demand for labour in America.20 In a period of five

16 ‘Bloody Sunday’ was the massacre of unarmed demonstrators who were marching towards the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg to present their Workers’ Petition to Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918). The Workers’ Petition of January 22 (January 9, O.S.) called, among other things, for an improvement of the working conditions and the authorization to form trade unions, as well as the termination of the Russo-Japanese War (Reginald E. Zelnik, “Russian Workers and Revolution,” in The Cambridge History of Russia Volume II: Imperial Russia, 1789-1917, edited by D. Lieven (Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 629-630). 17 Shlomo Lambroza, “The Pogroms of 1903-1906,” in Pogroms, ed. by Klier and Lambroza, 195. 18 The pogrom took place between October 31 and November 2 (October 18 and 22 O.S.) (Robert Weinberg, “The Pogrom of 1905 in Odessa: A Case Study,” in Pogroms, ed. by Klier and Lambroza, 248). 19 Lambroza, “Pogroms of 1903-1906,” in Pogroms, ed. by Klier and Lambroza, 215-231. 20 Mark Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety: The Story of Jewish Migration since 1800 (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1948), 98.

8 years, from 1903 to 1907, more than 600,000 Russian Jews sought a safer, and economically favourable, home abroad.21

Governorate No. of pogroms Jewish deaths Governorate No. of Pogroms Jewish Death

Chernigov 251_____ 76____- Vitebsk 10_____ 80____

Kherson 82_____ 817__-__ Grodno 10_____ 356____

Bessarabia 71_____ 942__-__ Volhynian 9_____ 49____

Poltava 52_____ 53__-__ Taurida 8_____ 131____

Yekaterinoslav 41_____ 285__-__ Vilna 5_____ 0____

Kiev 41_____ 167__-__ Kovno 5_____ 2)))))_

Podolia 37_____ 35__-__ Minsk 5_____ 100____

Mogilev 15_____ 48__-__

22 Congress Poland 15_____ 452__-__ Total 657____ 3,593___

Table 1.1. The number of pogroms and Jews killed during pogroms in the Pale of Settlement, 1905-1906. Source: Lambroza, “Pogroms of 1903-1906,” in Pogroms, ed. by Klier and Lambroza, 228.23

1.1.3 Stateless Jews in Rumania

In Rumania, a similar deterioration of the position of its Jewish population occurred towards the end of the nineteenth century.24 The Jewish population, no matter how long they had resided

21 Paul Visser, Broeders en vreemdelingen: Een studie van de opvang van Oost-Europese joodse migranten in Nederland in de jaren 1881-1933 tegen de achtergrond van het Nederlands-joodse acculturatieproces (PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 1988), 135. 22 At the end of the eighteenth century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795) was divided by three partitions – 1772, 1793, and 1795 – by Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The Russian Empire annexed the majority of Poland, which was demoted to Russian governorate since 1863. Congress Poland, or Russian Poland, comprised: Warsaw, Lublin, Płock, Kalisz, Piotrków, Kielce, Radom, Siedlce, Suwałki, Łomża, and Augustów. 23 The data on the number of pogroms varies in different source. Especially concerning the Odessa pogrom in 1905. Even Shlomo Lambroza (b. 1954) works with different numbers in his essay: in the text, he mentions a total of eight hundred Jewish fatalities (pages 231, 233), though, in the table (page 228), this number is reduced to three hundred. In a footnote, Lambroza explains that contemporary police reports “underestimated the extent of the damage.” In the table of this thesis, the estimated eight hundred is employed (Lambroza, “Pogroms of 1903-1906,” in Pogroms, ed. by Klier and Lambroza, 228, 231, 233, 246 footnote 105). 24 While Rumania only gained independence in 1877 and was officially recognized by the great powers at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, abhorrence towards Jews was already expressed since mid-sixteenth century in Moldavia – one of the principalities of modern Rumania – primarily fostered by commercial competition. In 1856, after the implementation of the Treaty of Paris, granting Moldavia and Wallachia semi-sovereignty – they remained vassal states of the Ottoman Empire – a new legislation ordered that “all the inhabitants, irrespective of religion, should enjoy religious and civil liberties (the right to own property and to trade) and might occupy political posts. Only those who had foreign citizenships were excluded from political rights.” However, the Rumanian authorities ruled that it was only applicable for its Christian population, granting no citizenship to the Rumanian Jews (Theodor Lavi et al., “Romania,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 14, 2nd ed., edited by Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA in Association with the Keter Publishing House, 2007), 376-378).

9 in Rumania, were legally not acknowledged as Rumanian citizens and considered foreigners.25 Regardless of the numerous attempts of other, mainly Western, European countries, the unyielding Rumanian government rebuffed to grant its Jewish population the same civil rights, denying them emancipation.26 Due to heightened anti-Jewish legislation and regular extensive expulsions combined with famine ravaging the country during 1899, more than fifty thousand Rumanian Jews saw in emigration the only possibility of escaping oppression and poverty in the period 1900 to 1907.27

1.2 The reception by Western authorities and populations

The westward migration of East European Jews started at the western frontier of the Russian Empire. Brody, a city in Galicia along the Russian border, was for most the first stop and evolved into a centre for emigrants. Within a year, the city already welcomed more than nine thousand Russian-Jewish refugees for a temporary stay.28 The advancements in transportation – a good railroad network and steamship lines to the desired destinations – accommodated the waves of migrants. The majority of the Jewish emigrants travelled through the German Empire to reach other German or West European seaports. In Germany, the most crucial transit port centres were in Hamburg and Berlin. Of these cities, the latter acquired a central position in this transatlantic and -national migration network, as Berlin was the closest urban centre with a haven to the western frontier of the Russian Empire. For East European Jewish emigrants travelling from Odessa was Paris a vital transfer point, particularly in 1892. The work of the French shipping companies expanded following the shutdown of Hamburg’s haven, induced by a cholera epidemic and the temporary restrictions on the acceptance of immigrants into America, attributable to the fear of typhoid.29 Other significant transit cities included London, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and New York.

25Dana Mihăilescu, “Images of Romania and America in Early Twentieth-Century Romanian-Jewish Immigrant Life Stories in the United States,” East European Jewish Affairs 42, no. 1 (April 1, 2012): 28. 26 Ezra Mendelsohn, “Romania,” in The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 174. 27 Zosa Szajkowski, “Jewish Emigration Policy in the Period of the Rumanian Exodus 1899-1903,” Jewish Social Studies 13, no. 1 (January 1, 1951): 70. 28 Cecil Bloom, “The Politics of Immigration, 1881-1905,” Jewish Historical Studies 33 (1992-1994): 188. 29 Nancy L. Green, “Immigrant Jews in Paris, London, and New York: A Comparative Approach,” Judaism 49, no. 3 (June 22, 2000): 284.

1.2.1 A broad spectrum of migrants

Between 1881 and 1918, most East European Jewish migrants moved to the United States, followed by England, Argentina and Canada. During the first peak of the mass migration, mainly peddlers and tailors embarked for the United States.30 During the next two decades, this formation shifted. Students and intelligentsia, as well as a variety of skilled labourers, were among the emigrating East European Jews. That these migrants represented a uniform community was, thus, an incorrect assumption. Diverse groups arrived in the transit- and host countries, sometimes even being as far removed from each other as the indigenous Jews anticipated to be from the East European Jews as a whole.31

1.2.2 Implementation of control measures

The arrival of a continuous flow of East European Jewish migrants confronted Western governments with some serious hurdles. The absence of general management of the emigration from Eastern Europe made it quite challenging to take control of the situation. There neither was any indication of abatement on the horizon. As Wertheimer fittingly states, “No sovereign state can permit the unregulated movement of tens and even hundreds of thousands of foreigners across its national frontiers; and no responsible government can ignore the presence of migrants who seek to do business, acquire an education, or find permanent haven within its territory.”32 The migrants could not be disregarded, but that did not mean that the host countries genuinely welcomed them. Often influenced by the stereotypical image of the destitute, dirty, East European beggar Jew, the authorities involved increasingly viewed themselves as “victims of an alien invasion.”33 More efficient laws concerning migrants were enacted, to ‘protect’ local communities from these unwanted foreigners.34 Germany, for instance, was a popular destination for emigrants, even reachable by foot from Russia. Consequently, the German government took control measures such as increased border control.35 The primary purpose of these regulations was to avert a possible settlement of these foreign Jews. The measures taken at the borders were of crucial, and dual, importance.

30 Williams, “Exodus from Europe,” 89. 31 Steven E. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 45-46. 32 Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, 23. 33 Aristide R. Zolberg, “Global Movements, Global Walls: Responses to Migration, 1885-1925,” in Global History and Migrations, edited by Wang Gungwu (New York: Routledge, 2018), 293. 34 Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, 12. 35 Tobias Brinkmann, “From Hinterberlin to Berlin: Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in Berlin Before and After 1918,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 7, no. 3 (November 3, 2008): 347.

On the one hand, the primary task of the guards at the borders was to hinder East European Jewish migrants from settling in the German Empire. Only, on the other hand, to the advantage of German shipping companies who cognised the financial opportunities, they also had to grant migrants to enter the country. A system was constructed which made sure that the incoming East European Jewish migrants would be transported as quickly as possible from the control posts to the port cities, and then on their way to, predominantly, the United States.36 As a result of this efficient shipping system, around two million Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe passed through Germany between 1870 and 1914.37 Every state government, even local authorities, were relatively free in their decisions concerning the regulation of East European Jewish migrants. The Prussian authority was particularly rigorous in its approach to the Jewish migrants. By sharing a direct border with Russia, and thereby being the first to deal with the East European Jews, they employed severe policies to restrict the unwanted Jewish migrants.38 Not only in Germany did the arrival of Jewish foreigners provoke antagonistic responses. The annual arrival of almost one hundred thousand East European Jewish migrants engendered agitation in the United States between 1900 and 1914.39 Restrictions were placed on the professional market, Jews were excluded from labour unions, and quotas were applied to student admissions at academia.40 In England, demonstrations against unrestrained immigration were nothing out of the ordinary. The continuous migrant stream and the subsequent protests culminated in the Aliens Act of 1905 – allegedly constituted to avert criminals and beggars who were probably a communal liability.41 However, the underlying concept was to ostracise the Jewish immigrants, taking control over and limiting the influx of unwanted aliens. The establishment of systems and the enactment of legislation regulating migration streams of East European Jews was inevitable.

1.3 The reception by native Jews

In the period before the emancipation, the mitzvoth of tzedakah (‘justice’, ‘righteousness’) and hachnasat orchim (the duty of hospitality) played a vital role in the reception and care for

36 Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, 50-51. 37 Ibid., 51. 38 For an extensive analysis on the role of the Prussian authority regarding the governmental measures concerning the treatment of the East European Jewish migrants during 1881 till 1886, see ibid., 42-49; and on the legislation enforced in the whole of Germany, see ibid., 42-74. 39 Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 120. 40 Williams, “Exodus from Europe,” 97-99. 41 Zolberg, “Global Movements, Global Walls,” in Global History and Migrations, ed. by Gungwu, 301.

12 incoming Jewish migrants. Tzedakah can be understood as the religious obligation to provide – financial – aid to those in need.42 In adherence of these mitzvoth, local Jewish communities or individuals provided food, shelter, or other necessities for foreign Jews. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the ideas of the enlightenment, accompanied by a pursuit of legal and social emancipation, gradually changed this.43 The Jewish emancipation in the West often entailed that they consciously, or unconsciously detached themselves from all kinds of traditional Jewish elements and characteristics. This stemmed, in part, from the attitude of governments. Authorities, expressing ‘enlightened’ ideas and modern expectations about emancipation and integration, wanted Judaism only to be a confession. For many, this resulted in a reduction of the role of Judaism to a purely religious sphere of life. Former feelings of Jewish solidarity were repressed and substituted by nationalist sentiments regarding their country of residence.44 In the period before the emancipation, Jewish communities throughout Europe were in a more or less similar socio-political situation and connected by a shared system of norms and values.45 The aim of the emancipation, however, was a progressive process of acculturation among the West European Jews: they tried to conform as much as possible to the ethical and aesthetic standards, and the social conduct applicable in the Gentile society.46 According to Steven E. Aschheim (b. 1942), emancipation inevitably brought about not only an alteration of the perception of the Jewish identity but also of the traditional notions of Jewish solidarity. Aschheim argues that the – political – equality of the Jews in Western Europe necessitated the emergence of “a new kind of Jew whose identity was so closely interwoven with the modes of his particular society that he would be recognisable only within that specific society,” resulting in the birth of, for example, the Dutch Jew.47 Aschheim continues, describing the situation of European Judaism at the end of the eighteenth century as “on the one hand, emancipation and Jewish Enlightenment in the West; on the other the continuation of political

42 Elise M.J. van Schip, “Montefiore Vereeniging tot ondersteuning van behoeftige passanten: Een onderzoek naar het functioneren in de periode 1883-1914,” Rotterdams jaarboekje 4, no. 10 (1996): 399. 43 Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, “Ashkenazim in Europe since the Early Modern Period,” in The Encyclopedia of Migration and Minorities in Europe: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present, edited by Klaus J. Bade et al. (Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 242. 44 Jonathan Frankel, “Assimilation and the Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Towards a New Historiography?” in Assimilation and Community: The Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe, edited by Jonathan Frankel and Steven J. Zipperstein (Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 12-14. 45 Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 3. 46 Dan Michman, “Migration versus ‘Species Hollandia Judaica’: The Role of Migration in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in Preserving Ties Between Dutch and World Jewry,” Studia Rosenthaliana 23 [special issue] (1989): 54. 47 Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 4.

13 disenfranchisement and traditional Jewish culture in Eastern Europe.”48 However, this opposition is a representation of the Western view. Similar phenomena took place in Eastern Europe, however, on a smaller scale and not as extreme. Although industrialisation did not occur in Russia until around 1880, they experienced economic growth since 1875. Polarisation and urbanisation also took place among Russian Jews. Something that was not illuminated from the Western point of view. Jewish children were even granted access to public schools. Despite that their isolation from the Gentile population slightly diminished, they still gathered strongly in cities.

1.3.1 Western versus Eastern Jewry

The emancipation- and acculturation process had profound ramifications for the relationship between West- and East European Jews. A strong urge to conform to the Western and Central European cultural standards of the Jews led to the fact that most of them felt at odds or uncomfortable with East European Jewish customs as it reminded them of a part that they wished to take distance from.49 In some cases, this cumulated even in feelings of antipathy, harboured by Western Jews against their East European brethren, who became the embodiment of everything that these ‘cultivated’ West European Jews no longer were or wanted to be.50 Especially in Germany, animus towards East European Jews was palpable: with the full realisation of Jewish emancipation only being since 1871, a feeling of still having to prove oneself to the non-Jewish population predominated among the German Jews.51 The fate of the East European Jews, nonetheless, remained a concern for their brethren in the Western countries – although having its limits. Their dependency on the tolerance and protection extended by the governmental and local functionaries placed pressure on their relationship with the indigenous Jews. The concern of a recrudescence of anti-Semitism attributable to the presence of East European Jewish migrants was a dominant factor in the shaping of the relationship between the native and foreign Jews.52 A sense of solidarity prevailed, especially when it concerned foreign Jews abroad. When it involved immigrants in the Jews’ own country, this was, to a lesser extent the case:

48 Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 4. 49 Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, 147-148. 50 Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 59. 51 Ibid., 3. 52 Williams, “Exodus from Europe,” 92.

“Our fair fame is bound up with theirs; the outside world is not capable of making minute discrimination between Jew and Jew, and forms its opinion of Jews in general as much, if not more, from them than from the Anglicised portion of the Community. … By improving their dwellings, attracting them to our synagogues, breaking down their isolation in all directions and educating their children in an English fashion, we can do much to change our foreign poor into brethren, who shall not only be Jews but English Jews.”53

1.3.2 Jewish aid committees

In the absence of institutionalised help of the government, native Jewish communities took up this task. These relief committees were primarily focussed on the translocation of the migrants to another country, disinclined to have an influx of needy Jews establishing themselves. As Zosa Szajkowksi (1911-1978) remarks, “the principle of every European committee was to facilitate the migration of refugees, but not to their own country.”54 Their approach concerning the arrival of foreign Jews could vary greatly, and the reception depended on the circumstances of the native Jewish community in the host country itself.55 Many relief groups offered aid at, or close to, frontiers posts and railway stations. These places, virtually the starting point of the East European Jews’ migration, and the way the migrants were received, presented a pivotal moment for the continuations of their voyage. Native Jews provided guidance, clothes, water and kosher food. They helped to mediate between the migrants and the governmental officials on-site, made travel arrangements as well as providing a medical examination. The magnitude of the westward migration of the East European Jews necessitated an enhanced concerted – national and international – coordination. The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) was one of the first to come into action following the pogroms in 1881. An office of the AIU was installed in Brody, in order to coordinate the international, but mostly intercontinental, migration. The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society (HEAS) was established in New York in the same year, “for the reception, aid, support and distribution of Jewish refugees arriving in the United States.”56 Later on, this organisation consisted of predominantly Russian-Jewish immigrants, whom, alongside a reorganisation, renamed the organisation the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). In April 1882, the German Central Committee for the Russian-Jewish Refugees (GCC) convened a conference for a sustained approach regarding the migration influx and to avert the

53 Jewish Chronicle, August 12, 1881, quoted in William J. Fishman, East and Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914 (London: Duckworth [for the] Acton Society Trust, 1975), 67-68. 54 Zosa Szajkowksi, “The European Attitude to East European Jewish Immigration (1881-1893),” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 41, no. 2 (December 1, 1951): 137. 55 For a comparative analysis of the Jewish migration ‘experience’ in different cities – in this case, Paris, London, and New York – between 1880 and 1924, see Green, “Immigrant Jews,” 280-291. 56 Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 45.

15 situation becoming more disorderly. The presence of numerous Jewish representatives from both sides of the Atlantic, including London, Paris, New York, and Amsterdam, suggested a constructive outcome. The GCC proposed a rather ambitious strategy to join forces, with every aid organisation its own task in an international migration regulation.57 Despite the proposal being too ambitious, it triggered the establishment of multiple ad hoc committees internationally. When the influx diminished, these local associations were abolished. Permanent aid organisations, such as HIAS and AIU, were left with the question of how to handle and manage possible occurrences of other migration streams in the future. Meetings were held between such organisations, to be prepared and to manage it more smoothly. In the course of the decades, the collaboration of Jewish relief organisation from different countries somewhat improved. Multiple conferences were being held, establishing an international and -continental aid network. The Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden (‘Relief Organisation of German Jews’) – founded in 1901 mainly to aid East European Jewish refugees – became the central office, intermediating between relief organisations, governments, transport corporations and Jewish migrants – within Germany itself, but also with countries in Europe and overseas.58

1.3.3 Repudiating and expatriating

Occasionally, Jewish communal leaders abroad discouraged East European Jewish migrants from making the long journey to their country. If these migrants still decided to come, unemployment would await them, as well as – although lesser than in their homeland – antagonism.59 Especially in America and England, Jewish officials pressured relief organisation to cease the flow of migrants to their respective country. In 1882, American Jews frequently explained that they were not equipped to aid this kind of influx of East European Jews properly, and requested to stop the migration to their side of the Atlantic. Organisations in Europe maybe wanted to comply with the plea of their brethren in New York. However, there was no desire to harbour a flood of migrants in their own countries. Thus, when New York made their request, the Mansion House Fund in London extended a sum of 25,000 pounds to the HEAS if the immigration to America was not halted. A few months later, the AIU and the Paris-based Comité de secours pour les Israélites de Russie (‘Committee to help the Russian Jews’) proposed another conditional offer: a contribution of 100,000 francs to HEAS if they put an earnest effort

57 Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 45-46. 58 Brinkmann, “From Hinterberlin to Berlin,” 348. 59 Llyod P. Gartner, “The Great Jewish Migration 1881-1914: Myths and Realities,” Shofar 4, no. 2 (January 1, 1986): 17.

16 in counteracting the East European Jewish re-migration flow. The French committee feared that, instead of going back to the Russian Empire, the migrants would linger in Western Europe and eventually settle in there. However, the HEAS, or the Jewish communal leaders in the United States, did not revise their stance: “The New York Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society felt that all that the European Jewish leaders wanted was to rid themselves of the emigrants.”60 Throughout the period under consideration, friction between the different organisations was not unusual. The occasional squabble could mostly be attributed to differences in the perspective on how the migration flow should be managed. From time to time, the United States threatened to accept only a minimum number – preferably none – of East European Jewish immigrants, while in Western and Central Europe the opposite occurred. They tried to embark as many Jewish refugees to America in order to remove the possibility of them settling in Europe. These tacks were not beneficial for further international cooperation.61

60 Szajkowski, “The European Attitude,” 128-130. 61 For a comprehensive survey on the manner how relief organisations in London, Paris and New York, especially, but also Vienna and Berlin, tried to manage the East European Jewish migration flow in their favour, see Szajkowski, “The European Attitude,” 127-135.

2 Jews in the Netherlands

2.1 From Jewish ‘nation’ to Jewish congregation

The year 1796 marked a fundamental change in the legal position of the approximately 20,355 Jews residing in the Batavian Republic (1795-1806).62 Influenced by the French Revolution and the ideas of the Enlightenment, a small group of Jews – and some Gentiles – assembled in the patriotic association Felix Libertate (1795-1798). A year later, they presented the proposition to grant civil rights to the Dutch-Jewish population in the National Assembly.63 Surprisingly enough, much resistance came from within the Jewish section. Civil equalisation clashed with their exceptional position within Dutch society. Since Jews composed a separate entity, a tendency to integration and assimilation would emerge. Such assimilation into – mainly Christian – Dutch society could jeopardise their Jewish identity.64 Nevertheless, on September 2, 1796, the motion was unanimously approved.65 Before the emancipation decree, the Ashkenazi – from Central and Eastern Europe – and Sephardic – of Spanish and Portuguese descent – communities were regarded as a national minority, as members of the Jewish ‘nation’ – by the Gentile population as well as by themselves.66 Thereby still viewed, socially and legally, as (semi-)foreigners. After September 1796, these Dutch Jews had to become Jewish Dutchmen: they had to integrate into the non- Jewish environment to the highest degree possible. Their municipalities were now required to be nothing more than a congregation. Since, for the government, Judaism was merely a religious

62 Jonathan I. Israel, “De Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden tot omstreeks 1750: Religieus, cultureel en sociaal leven,” in Geschiedenis van de joden in Nederland, edited by Hans Blom et al. (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 2017), 115. 63 Hans Blom, “‘Wij waren joden, wij werden Israeliëten. Wij zijn weer joden.’ Appreciaties van de emancipatie van de joden in Nederland,” Ons Erfdeel 39 (1996): 507. 64 Arend H. Huussen, “The Legal Position of the Jews in the Dutch Republic: 1590-1796,” in Dutch Jewry: Its History and Secular Culture (1500-2000), edited by Jonathan I. Israel and Reinier Salverda (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 41. 65 This granting of civil rights to the Jewish citizens were not engendered from an appreciation of Judaism or to compensate for past injustice towards them, but simply came from the principles of the Enlightenment: also Jews could become fine, ‘enlightened’ citizens (Jan Stoutenbeek and Paul Vigeveno, Joods Amsterdam: Een geïllustreerde gids (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bas Lubberhuizen), 21). Furthermore, the proclamation followed only a few weeks after the edict of the separation between State and Church, which meant “equal rights for all the (Christian) religious denominations.” Since the Batavian Republic knew a rich religious diversity, and most of the state divided within itself, including adherents of Protestantism, Calvinism, the Ramon Catholic Church, and Lutherans (Huussen, “Legal Position of the Jews,” in Dutch Jewry, ed. by Israel and Salverda, 41). 66 Bart Wallet and Irene E. Zwiep, “Locals: Jews in the Early Modern Dutch Republic,” in Cambridge History of Judaism: Vol. 7: The Early Modern World, 1500-1815, edited by Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliff (Cambridge: Cambridge University), 903.

18 business.67 The first alterations were primarily in the internal structure of the Jewish communities: from a (semi-) autonomous Portuguese or High German ‘nation’, where much was arranged within one's community, to a part of a Jewish congregation.68 However, the daily lives of the Jewish proletariat were not marked by significant visible changes. The political turbulence, which characterised these years, made it challenging to enact elaborated legislations.69 The orthodox elite was not extremely interested in the whole emancipation matter. Instead, they just ignored it and pretended that nothing had changed.70 Contrary to the wealthy bourgeoisie who profited from this alteration. Halachic customs and habits became increasingly marginalised for this group. They assimilated in the non-Jewish environment and became a part of the Gentile bourgeoisie.

2.1.1 The first steps to assimilation

It was only from the first decades of the nineteenth century onwards that the everyday lives of the Dutch-Jewish population changed substantively. The first half of the century was characterised by a high degree of government involvement in the Jewish communities and Jewish life. The autonomy of Jewish municipalities ceased and the parnassim's – leaders of a Jewish community – power reduced. The administrations of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (1778- 1846) and William I (1772-1843) were actively involved in the acceleration of the social integration of the Jews.71 The government resolutions affected the organisation of synagogues, which were remodelled after ecclesiastical example.72 The ‘Israelite congregation’, which

67 Bart Wallet, “Dutch National Identity and Jewish International Solidarity: An Impossible Combination? Dutch Jewry and the Significance of the Damascus Affair (1840),” in The Dutch Intersection: The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History, edited by Yosef Kaplan (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 319. 68 Within a Jewish community, Dutch Jews could practice their beliefs, maintain their language (Portuguese or Yiddish) and culture (Hans Knippenberg, “Assimilating Jews in Dutch Nation-Building: The Missing ‘Pillar’,” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 93, no. 2 (May 2001): 194). The parnassim functioned as intermediaries between the community and the local government. They were empowered to govern areas as social relief and the observance of religious customs and laws. The parnassim even had judiciary power to a certain degree – to issue fines, or, in extreme cases, to excommunicate members. Through taxes, contributions, donations, and fines, the municipalities also remained financially independent (Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno, Joods Amsterdam, 18-20; Yosef Kaplan, “De joden in de Republiek tot omstreeks 1750: Religieus, cultuur en social leven,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 135). 69 Salvador Bloemgarten and Jaap van Velzen, Joods Amsterdam in een bewogen tijd 1890-1940: Beeldverhaal (Zwolle: Waanders, 1997), 7. 70 Michman, “‘Species Hollandia Judaica’,” 56. 71 Ludo Abicht, Geschiedenis van de joden van de Lage Landen (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 2006), 158-159; Bart Wallet, Nieuwe Nederlanders: De integratie van joden in Nederland (1814-1851) (Amsterdam: Bakker, 2007), 97- 100, 137-138. 72 Sylvain Wijnberg, De Joden in Amsterdam: Een studie over verandering in hun attitudes (PhD diss., Utrecht University, 1967), 3.

19 included both the Sephardic and the Ashkenazi Jews, had full authority on a religious level, while the administrative and social side now fell under the responsibility of the Dutch authorities. To make sure everything would run as efficiently as possible an intermediary committee between the Dutch government and local Jewish communities was established in 1817, the Hoofdcommissie tot Zaken der Israëlieten in Nederland (‘Supreme Committee for Israelite Affairs’, 1814-1870). Relevant here is the term ‘Israelite’, introduced by enlightened Jews. The term indicated the purely religious character of Judaism, which signifies the transition from a Jewish nation to a Jewish denomination.73

2.1.2 Separation of Synagogue and State

Whereas the first half of the nineteenth century was characterised by governmental involvement, the government gradually withdrew from and insisted on rapid independence of the Jewish ‘denomination’ during the second half. The separation of church and state, legislated in the revision of the constitution of 1848, brought an end to active government interference. The full enactment of the emancipation decree was at last implemented in every aspect of Dutch society – only about eighty years later than the legal edict. For the Jewish citizens – as a population, as individuals, and as minorities – the new circumstances entailed more opportunities for self-development. The new statutes of the Nederlands-Israëlietisch Kerkgenootschap (‘Dutch-Israelite Denomination’; NIK), instituting an ecclesiastical organisation corresponding with the promulgated separation, was finally enacted in 1870. From then on, the districts of the NIK, which roughly corresponded with the Dutch provinces, were – to a great degree – able to individually manage their congregation. The Sephardic communities of Amsterdam and The Hague detached themselves from the NIK and constituted their community, the Portugees-Israëlietisch Kerkgenootschap (‘Portuguese-Israelite Denomination’; PIK), in the same year.74 Although they previously had operated relatively independently from each other, they formally belonged to the same community. Now, the Ashkenazi community and the Sephardic community were officially two separate institutions, albeit in general similarly organised. The structure, as well as terms like Kerkgenootschap, which means ‘church denomination’, were adopted mainly from Christian – Protestant –

73 Irene E. Zwiep, “Yiddish, Dutch and Hebrew: Language Theory, Language Ideology and the Emancipation of Nineteenth-Century Dutch Jewry,” Studia Rosenthaliana 34, no. 1 (2000): 56. 74 Wallet, “‘Godsdienstzin, beschaving en arbeidzaamheid.’ De centralisatie en nationalisering van de Nederlandse joden (1814-1870),” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 235-237.

20 denominations.75 This ‘Dutchification’ of the Jewish religious organisation demonstrated the desire to acculturate.

2.1.3 The NIK

The Dutch-Israelite Denomination was supervised by a Central Committee (CC), and a Permanent Committee (PC) served as the executive committee. The CC consisted of representatives from all the districts, who were selected by the municipalities and no longer appointed by the government.76 The PC, appointed by the CC, comprised three members, all from Amsterdam. Though, a return to the hegemony enjoyed by the Amsterdam Jews was not in the cards. Every municipality had a high degree of autonomy, in which the CC had no say in the religious, financial, and family affairs. Mostly under the supervision of orthodox rabbis, local communities turned out to be strong enough to limit the influence of ‘Amsterdam’ in their affairs wherever possible.77 This high degree of independence induced, however, a lack of coordination and contact. Joseph Hirsch Dünner (1833-1911), the Chief Rabbi of the Nederlands-Israëlietische Hoofdsynagoge (‘Dutch-Israelite Supreme Synagogue’; NIHS) of Amsterdam, managed to make an impact on the religious and ‘ecclesiastical’ Jewish life that would last several decades. Hans Blom (b. 1943) and Cahen describe this imprint as “characterised by a combination of orthodoxy in religion, a ‘proper’ progression of the synagogue service, and the acceptance that large groups of members observed the Jewish laws only to a limited extent as a sign of secularisation also in their own Jewish circle.”78 Dünner, born in Krakow and educated in Germany, was brought to the Netherlands to revive the rabbinical education in 1862. As rector of the Nederlands Israëlietisch Seminarium (‘Dutch Israelite Seminarium’), a position he filled since 1865, he trained many Dutch rabbis. Hereby Dünner ended the long tradition of bringing foreign rabbis to the Netherlands – in particular from Germany. He aimed to rid traditional orthodoxy from its mystical elements, moving towards a more rationalist, moderate orthodoxy.79 Dünner had a – somewhat surprising – companion in Jewish banker Abraham

75 Hans Blom and Joël J. Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders, Nederlandse joden en joden in Nederland (1870-1940),” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 300. 76 Wallet, “De centralisatie en nationalisering,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 236. 77 Abicht, De Lage Landen, 167. 78 Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 276. 79 Bart Wallet, “‘The Great Eagle, the Pride of Jacob’: Jozeph Hirsch Dünner in Dutch Jewish Memory Culture,” in The Religious Cultures of Dutch Jewry, edited by Yosef Kaplan and Dan Michman (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 304-305; Evelien Gans, “Image(s) of ‘The Rav’ through the Lens of an Involved Historian: Jaap Meijer’s Depiction of Rabbi Jozeph Hirsch Dünner,” in ibid., 321.

Carel Wertheim (1832-1897), the chairman of the NIHS (1886-1897). Wertheim, a highly integrated and largely secularised Jew, was a prominent figure in Amsterdam society. He was very active in the social and cultural life of the city as well as in the liberal political field– even making it into the Senate of North Holland. Although Judaism did not play a significant role in his personal life – he was not pious, nor did he observe kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, or Shabbat – Wertheim was still very involved with the fate of his unfortunate brethren in Amsterdam and the Mediene.80 He advocated a strict public-private duality: at home, or in the synagogue, one had the choice to be an Israelite, in public, however, one must be a fellow Dutch citizen in every aspect of the word – political, social, and cultural.81 These two men were a perfect example of the collaboration between orthodox rabbis – like Dünner – and the, often, non-pious administrators – such as Wertheim. Both believed that it was best to hold on to orthodoxy, for the Jewish congregation as well as for its members – thereby maintaining the fragile unity of the community. The inclination to remain one congregation was a tendency that was firmly maintained. Although the Jewish congregation was formally orthodox, its members were pretty much free in their degree of Jewish religiosity. Different religious movements could, therefore, function alongside each other in one congregation. This co-existence sprang from the ‘Hollandse middelmaat’ (‘Dutch average’) – a term applied by Bart Wallet (b. 1977) on this specific Dutch- Jewish situation, indicating the adaptation of one of the leading Dutch characteristics: "aversion to extremes and a preference for the moderate middle ground."82 Wallet explains how the Dutch-Jewish congregation typifies itself through this ‘Dutch average’: “…both orthodox and reform desires were kept together; changes were made only in the way of gradualism, with small steps. They went too far for the one and not far enough for the other but were so gradual that they did not lead to separation and schism.”83 Contrary to other West European countries, especially Germany, there was no sign of reform Judaism or liberal Jewish organisation during this period. After a failed effort by a small group of liberal Jews in 1860, it took them seventy more years to finally assemble and institutionalise. Although a reform movement was absent in the Netherlands, that did not mean that the community represented a unity. The contrast between conservatives and progressives, orthodox and liberal Jews became increasingly 84 apparent. <

80 Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 303. 81 Abicht, De Lage Landen, 178, 187. 82 Wallet, “De centralisatie en nationalisering,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 256. 83 Ibid., 259. 84 Wallet, Nieuwe Nederlanders, 175-176.

2.1.4 Dutch-Jewish population distribution

The Jewish population in the Netherlands had increased considerably since the beginning of the seventeenth century.85 A prospective intellectual and prosperous life along with religious tolerance allured many Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews to the Dutch Republic (1588-1795).86

Dutch-Isr. Port.-Isr. % of the Increase % Increase % Year Religious Religious Total Dutch pop. Israelites Dutch pop.

Community Community

1869 64,478_-_ 3,525___ 68,003_-_ 1.90___- -__-_ -___-

1879 78,075_-+ 3,618___ 81,693_-_ 2.04___- 20.13___ 12.10___

1889 92,524---) 5,070___ 97,324_-_ 2.15___- 19.13___ 12.43++_

1899 98,343_-_ 5,645___ 103,988+-_ 2.04___- 6.85___ 13.14___

1909 99,785_-_ 6,624___ 106,409_=- 1.81___- 2.32___ 14.77___

1920 109,293_-_ 5,930___ 115,223_-_ 1.68___- 8.29___ 17.19___

Table 2.1. Jewish population growth in the Netherlands between 1869 and 1920. Source: Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 278.87

The substantial increase between 1869 and 1889 explains Emanuel Boekman (1889-1940) as a result of the immigrant influx of East European Jews. He acknowledges that most of these migrants departed again for the United States or England. Still, a significant amount of them

85 The available data for this period are only approximations. In 1830, more than a century later, through the execution of decennial censuses, there was – for the first time – reliable data regarding the number of Jewish people living in the Netherlands. By making a distinction between the religious denominations, the censuses provided the religious composition of the country. In the two first censuses, the division was between four groups: Protestants, Catholics, Israelites, and others. Hereafter, a more precise distinction was made concerning the Protestants and the Israelites. Dutch-Israelites and Portuguese-Israelites were henceforth regarded as two categories. The numbers represented the size of Jews whom, according to their own statements, belonged to the NIK or PIK. However, these numbers did not indicate the degree of involvement, or heart for, their Jewish community (Emanuel Boekman, Demografie van de Joden in Nederland (Amsterdam: Hertzberger, 1936), 16-17). 86 On January 23, 1579, multiple Dutch Northern provinces - including Holland, Utrecht, Guelders, the Ommelanden, Zeeland, and Zutphen - signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they agreed to unify against the Spanish domination. With the intolerant Spanish rule in the back of their minds, the treaty also laid down that persecutions based on faith would not be tolerated. Although Jews were not taken into consideration at that time, they still benefited from it when they settled in the Republic. The Sephardic Jews, immigrating as marranos – ‘New Christians’, descendants from Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity in Spain and Portugal between 1391 and 1497 – were once again able to practice Judaism openly (Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno, Joods Amsterdam, 14-15). 87 Blom and Cahen, in turn, based their data on the population registration of these years and decennial censuses as well on the following sources: Boekman, Demografie van de Joden; Philip van Praag, “Demografische ontwikkeling van de Joden in Nederland sinds 1830,” Mensch en Maatschappij 47, no. 2 (1972): 167-183; R. Cohen, “Boekman’s Legacy: Historical Demography of the Jews in the Netherlands,” in Dutch Jewish History I, edited by Jozeph Michman and T. Levie (Jerusalem: Tel Aviv University, 1984), 519-540; Peter Tammes, “Demografische ontwikkeling van joden in Nederland vanaf hun burgerlijke gelijkstelling tot aan de Duitse bezetting,” in Leven in de Lage Landen: Historisch-demografisch onderzoek in Vlaanderen en Nederland: Jaarboek 2010, edited by Koen Matthijs (Leuven [etc.]: Acco, 2010), 239-269.

23 had to have stayed in the Netherlands, since, “the correctness of [his] assumption becomes greater if borne in mind that the absence of decline of the increasing percentage cannot be a result of natural causes.”88 However, merely 2,100 Jewish immigrants settled in Amsterdam alone during the period from 1880 to 1914. Half of whom only came from Eastern Europe – which will be explained in further detail in East European Jewish migrants in the Netherlands. Given this relatively low number of immigrants, immigration could not have had such an impact on the substantial population growth. Blom and Cahen mainly attribute the growth to precisely a natural cause, namely a decrease in the death rates among the Jews.89

Rest Holland / Year Amsterdam Rotterdam The Hague North East South Utrecht 1849 43.0 5.9 6.0 12.7 13.2 12.7 6.5

1879 49.5 8.1 5.0 9.3 12.2 10.8 4.9

1909 58.0 9.5 6.1 5.9 8.6 9.0 2.9

Table 2.2. Regional distribution of the Jewish population, 1849 – 1909 (percentages). Source: Wallet, “De centralisatie en nationalisering,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 225.

More than half of the Jews resided in North Holland, mainly in Amsterdam. Between 15 and 20 per cent lived in South Holland, and the other nine provinces beneath 7 per cent. The low population density in the other areas is striking, particularly when looking at the spread of the non-Jewish inhabitants in the Netherlands. Then the most densely populated was South Holland, with a population between 18 and 25 per cent of the total population. North Holland came second, with ‘only’ between 16 and 18 per cent. Jews mainly settled in major cities, although the move to the countryside in the period between 1814 and 1870 also ensured the establishment of small, close-knit Jewish communities there.90

2.1.5 Jews in Amsterdam

Amsterdam remained the centre of Dutch Jews. In the Netherlands between 1881 and 1914, there were no ghettos – neighbourhoods where Jews were forced to live by governments. Down the line, the word ‘ghetto’ referred to an area where large numbers of Jews resided.91 In Amsterdam, the Jewish quarter can be indicated as such an uncompelled ghetto – they lived there with significant numbers, voluntary, in a largely closed-off environment by their own

88 Boekman, Demografie van de Joden, 18. 89 Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 279-280. 90 Wallet, “De centralisatie en nationalisering,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 225. 91 Maurits Verhoeff, Thijs Wierema, and Selma Leydesdorff, Ochenebbisj: Verhalen en geintjes over het Amsterdamse getto (1870-1925) (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bas Lubberhuizen, 1999), 7.

24 doing. This quarter was formed due to clustering of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews during the seventeenth and eighteenth century (Appendix I, plate 2.1). They mainly settled in the areas around Waterlooplein and Jonas Daniël Meijerplein; Muiderstraat, Jodenbreestraat, and Sint Antoniesbreestraat; on Uilenburg, Marken, and Rapenburg, and, for those who could afford it, the neighbourhood between Nieuwe Heren- and Keizersgracht. The Jewish quarter expanded over the course of the nineteenth century, first with the streets surrounding Weesperstraat as a result of the move of – predominant – Jewish proletariat. The vast majority of Dutch Jews lived in this eastern part of the old city centre before 1870. After the Kaapse Tijd (1870-1880), when wealthy Jews moved to more spacious homes, the neighbourhoods around Sarphatistraat and the Plantage were added.92 Between 1890 and 1940, a significant number of the wealthier Jewish proletariats, as well as a group of middle-class Jews, left the old city centre to settle between Vijzelstraat and Amstel, and in the Pijp. Nonetheless, whichever part of the city they moved to, most Jews still settled close to each other, creating their new small Jewish neighbourhoods.93

2.2 Social and political compartmentalisation

Accelerated change, expansion, and prosperity characterised Dutch society in the period between 1870 and 1914. Industrialisation finally took place in the Netherlands, accompanied by a welcome increase in economic growth after the stagnation of the previous decades. Urbanisation and the emergence of many labour movements and trade unions ensued from the Industrial Revolution. With these associations, politics became progressively accessible for – almost – all layers of society. Whereas patriotism, nationalism, and intense feelings of national individuality kept growing as convictions within society, a process of segmentation of that same society occurred. Political divisions, with the rise of liberalism and socialism, triggered the rift. As did the simultaneous secularisation and intensification of religious life. However, the predominant cause was the verzuiling, ‘pillarisation’ – a vertical separation between Dutch citizens based on religious and political beliefs.94 Dutch society knew three pillars: Protestant,

92 The Kaapse Tijd was a period in which the diamond industry flourished in the Netherlands. This resulted from the exploitation of new mines in South-Africa and the subsequent large influx of diamonds (Bloemgarten and Van Velzen, Joods Amsterdam in een bewogen tijd, 10). 93 Ibid., 73. 94 The Constitutional Reform of 1848 imposed, among others, the freedom of education. People were free to establish schools; however, the government henceforth funded only public schools. This triggered the schoolstrijd (‘school struggle’) – the political and cultural fight for separate subsidised denominational schools. The conflict took over almost seventy years, ending with the constitutional amendment, the Pacification of 1917, which included that the special education was equally entitled to financial support from the government as public

Catholic, and social-democratic. A liberal, or general, ‘sub’-pillar can also be perceived, despite their objection to pillarisation as an organisation ‘open to everyone’. However, a Jewish pillar did not exist. According to Hans Knippenberg (b. 1945), one of the main reasons for this was the size of the Jewish population. They were not with enough to form their own pillar.95 In practice, this meant that when Dutch Jews were involved in social activities outside their circle, they participated in one of the existing pillars. Which, in general, was the social-democratic or liberal (sub-) pillar.

2.2.1 The SDAP and the ANDB

After the institution of the parliamentary system in 1848, the liberals gained power in the Netherlands. They dominated Dutch politics during the second half of the nineteenth century. The emphasis on individual rights and personal development ensured that liberalism could count on the support of the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie. The Jewish proletariat, on the other hand, was more drawn to the socialist movement. While this party emerged in the 1860s, it only gained more momentum during the last two decades of the century.96 The Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (‘Social Democratic Workers’ Party; SDAP) was especially popular among Jewish diamond workers – which was roughly equal to the majority of the Jewish proletariat. Among them was Henri Polak (1868-1943), a renowned member of the SDAP. Polak cofounded with other prominent members of the SDAP the trade union of the diamond industry, the Algemeene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerkersbond (‘General Dutch Diamond Workers’ Union’; ANDB).97 The ANDB, a neutral religious union founded in 1894, was a perfect example

schools. Moreover, pillarization was achieved by the establishment by people from the same zuil (‘pillar’) of, amongst others, distinct trade unions, separate political parties, their own social and cultural organisations (Knippenberg, “The Missing ‘Pillar’,” 192-193). 95 For a detailed study on the pillarization process in the Netherlands, on why there was almost no possibility for a Jewish pillar, and, if there was, how the Dutch Jews “missed the boat”, see Knippenberg, “The Missing ‘Pillar’,” 191-207; Ivo Schöffer, “The Jews in the Netherlands: The Position of a Minority through Three Centuries,” in Veelvormig verleden: Zeventien studies in de vaderlandse geschiedenis, edited by Ivo Schöffer and Petrus M. B. Blaas (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1987), 152-157. 96 Schöffer, “The Jews in the Netherlands,” 151. 97 For in-depth studies on the role of the Jewish diamond workers in the founding of, and involvement in, the ANDB, as well as the significance of the union, see: Selma Leydesdorff, Wij hebben als mensen geleefd: Het Joodse proletariat van Amsterdam, 1900-1940 (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1987), 80-88; Huibert Schijf and Peter Tammes, “Verbondenheid en lidmaatschapsduur: De leden van de Algemeene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerkersbond (ANDB) in de eerste decennia van zijn bestaan, 1898-1913 / Connectedness and Membership Duration: The Members of the General Dutch Diamond Workers’ Union (ANDB) during the First Decades of its Existence, 1898-1913,” Mens en Maatschappij 88, no. 3 (September 1, 2013): 300-323; Saskia C.

26 of the Jewish participation in one of the existing pillars. Before the ANDB, there was a sharp division between Jewish and non-Jewish labourers in the diamond industry. However, after a joint strike over working conditions and wages by the various labour union combined with the positive outcome that led to the establishment of the ANDB, the Jews and Gentiles started to work together.98 Almost 90 per cent of the diamond workers became members of the union within a year after its founding. Although the Jews were well represented in this branch, the ANDB espoused the demands of all its members. Contrary to other associations or communities in the ‘pillarised’ Dutch society, at the ANDB, the “membership was not determined by faith, ethnicity, or gender but by profession and class.”99 The impact of the connection between the socialist party and the diamond union was unmistakable. Its embedded cultural and educational aspiration individuated the ANDB from other trade unions, which emanated from the SDAP. A socialistic future became the dream, in which development, modernity, and better education started to provide upward social mobility for the Gentile as well as the Jewish proletariat.100 Some Jewish workers even managed to relocate from the Jewish quarter to areas, for example in Amsterdam, as the Pijp. Mingling with socialist non-Jewish residents in their new neighbourhoods, and interoperating within the union, proselytised the assimilation process of some Jews even further.

2.2.2 The NZB

Just before the turn of the century, a new movement reached the Netherlands: Zionism. Two years after the First Zionist Congress in Basel (1897), the Dutch branch was instituted and the Nederlandsche Zionistenbond (‘Dutch Zionist Union’; NZB) was a fact. At first, Dutch Zionism did not attract a large following. The membership did increase over the years, especially before the Eighth Zionist Congress in The Hague in 1907 and after the abominable pogroms in Eastern Europe. However, the NZB remained relatively modest in size. This was partly due to a sense of security that was generally felt by Dutch Jews. A relative weak anti-Semitism combined with the high degree of acculturation and integration of Jews into Dutch society, plus, at the same time, the maintenance of a separate Jewish religious life, ensured that that sense could arise and

Snyder, “‘As Long as It Sparkles!’: The Diamond Industry in Nineteenth-Century Amsterdam,” Jewish Social Studies 22, no. 2 (January 1, 2017): 38-73. 98 Schijf and Tammes, “ANDB,” 303. 99 Snyder, “‘As Long as It Sparkles!’,” 59. 100 Ibid., 60.

27 remain.101 The majority of NZB’s members came from the Jewish bourgeoisie, which related to the global secularised nature of Zionism. For many, their motivation was of a philanthropic nature. They viewed Zionism not as something that concerned them on a personal level, but as a way to help their less fortunate brethren in other countries.102 Zionism was therefore easy to combine with their Dutch nationality. They were not planning to leave the Netherlands for Palestine, that was for those who lived in dreadful situations elsewhere. The support that Zionism received on some occasions by non-Zionist Jews stemmed from this same philanthropic attitude.

2.2.3 From Dutch Jews to Jewish Dutchmen

Between 1870 and 1918, the Jewish community went from a, seemingly, tight and closed-off ‘nation’, to one that was dispersed and actively integrated into Dutch society at many different levels and in varied ways. The new position of the Jews within the Dutch nation, as well as their interaction with their fellow Dutch citizens, redefined Judaism for Dutch Jews. The last decades of the nineteenth century were characterised by strong tendencies of the Jewish population towards emancipation, assimilation, and acculturation.103 Through a gradual process of adaptation and assimilation was ‘Dutch’ Jewry formed. The specific Dutch character comprised elements from both the traditional Jewish and the Gentile culture, making it socio-culturally and linguistically distinguishable from Jewish populations elsewhere in the world.104 The Dutch-Jewish population went – in the eyes of their non-Jewish fellow citizens – from a distinct and closed group to generally acculturated individuals who blended in, making it more difficult to speak of the Jewish population or the Jews. The members of the Jewish ‘nation’ in the Netherlands evolved into Dutchmen of the Israelite religion, members of an Israelite denomination. Although at that time, it probably seemed like a clear break with traditional Judaism and the community, however, the situation was not as clear-cut as that. Almost all Jews remained members of the NIK or PIK and held on to – several – Jewish traditions and habits. Most marriages were still blessed in synagogues, the practice of circumcisions continued, and many

101 Ludy Giebels, De Zionistische beweging in Nederland 1899-1941 (Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V., 1975), 16, 23. 102 Giebels, De Zionistische beweging, 23-26. 103 Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 276. 104 Visser, Broeders en vreemdelingen, 32.

Jews were laid to rest at separate Jewish cemeteries.105 The High Holidays were celebrated by – almost – all, while Sabbath rest was largely neglected.106 A general connection to other Dutch Jews, Jews abroad, or Judaism, still survived, albeit less apparent, actively contemplated, or explicitly promulgated. One of the circumstances in which this Jewish solidarity re-emerged – led by the traditional notion of tzedakah in combination with a philanthropic and patronising attitude – was when they gathered to help unfortunate foreign Jews, abroad or the migrants who arrived in the Netherlands. Dutch-Jewish periodicals will present a portrayal on precisely this matter.

2.3 East European Jewish migrants in the Netherlands

Unlike other European countries, the Dutch government did not pay much attention to the arrival of East European Jewish migrants. No immigration laws were enforced, not even as the years passed and, thus, the number of foreigners increased. Municipal authorities regarded the influx as an internal Jewish issue that had to be resolved as such and kept completely aloof. The reception and relief were entirely in the hands of private organisations – Jewish as well as non-Jewish.107 However, as a result of the Vreemdelingenwet (‘Foreigners Law’) of 1849, all foreigners had to register at the involving municipality for admission and by the police for the issuance of travel- or residence cards. The data on the number of East European Jewish migrants who arrived in the Netherlands during 1880 and 1914 is not absolute. In the first place, there is a difference between migrants who – temporary – settled and officially registered in the concerned city and the transmigrants who were only registered by local Jewish aid commissions. Undoubtedly, there was another group of undocumented Jewish migrants who stayed for such a limited period that it was deemed unnecessary to register them. Other undocumented were potentially aided by non-Jewish organisations. Additionally, the incoming Jewish migrants were not all from Eastern Europe, but various countries – although most of the refugees did come from Russia and Russian Poland (hereinafter Poland). Annual reports of the established aid committees for Jewish migrants provide insight into the Jewish migrants who were helped in that year or a specific period. These aid committees assisted East European Jews in general, but they did not turn their back on other Jewish migrants or even non-Jewish. A

105 Boekman, Demografie van de Joden, 52, 68-70, 104, 119-120. 106 Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 299. 107 Marij Leenders, Ongenode gasten: Van traditioneel asielrecht naar immigratiebeleid, 1815-1938 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1993), 125, 128.

29 distinction between different countries of origin, however, was not always provided in the annual reports. Furthermore, there is inadequate data available for the whole country. The focus will be, therefore, on the statistics from Amsterdam and, to some extent, Rotterdam. The given information regarding the migrants in Amsterdam is based on the Registers van verstrekte reis- en verblijfpassen (‘Registers of issued travel- and residence cards’) of the SAA, on the annual reports of concerning aid committees, as well as on the research conducted by Tammes and Hofmeester and that of Visser.

2.3.1 Registered Jewish migrants

In the registers of issued travel- and residence cards, alongside much other background and personal information, the religious conviction of the concerning foreigner was recorded.108 The number of Jewish migrants registered at the municipality of Amsterdam in the same period was considerably lower than those helped by the different aid committees, see Jewish aid committees (page 35). Between 1880 and 1914, a total of 2,158 Jewish migrants were documented in Amsterdam, of whom 1,026 were from Eastern Europe (table 2.3, page 33). In her study, Hofmeester makes a distinction between Austria-Hungary and Galicia. During my research on the registers, I noticed that the distinction between the two states is inconsistent. For example, Brody and Krakow are both documented as part of Austria, while they were officially in Galicia. The city Stanislau is recorded twice as the place of birth of two Jewish migrants in the registers between 1880 and 1914, only in two different spellings: Stanislawow (Polish) and Stanislau (German). The former is registered as a city in Austria (Vreemdelingenregister NL-SAA-26872140), while the latter in Galicia (Vreemdelingenregister NL-SAA-26851550). Therefore, despite the anti-Jewish eruptions and the subsequent mass migration of Galician Jews between 1881 and 1900, Galicia is in this paper included in Austria-

108 Registers van verstrekte reis- en verblijfpassen, number 914 to 931, are part of the Archief van de Gemeentepolitie (5225) (‘Archive of the Municipal Police’), Vreemdelingenregisters 1849-1922 of the SAA. In the registers, in eleven columns, of which some subdivided, thoroughgoing details are given: (1) Registration – serial number, date; (2) Foreigner – name, surname, profession, place of birth, former place of residence; (3) Foreign Passport – date, serial number, issuing authority, place of issue, visa from the Dutch diplomat agent; (4) Permits or other grounds for admission; (5) Purpose of stay; (6) Visa here – date, location of destination, signature, on which ground; (7) Domestic travel- and residence card – date, serial number, issuing authority, place of issue; Appearance – age, length, colour of hair and eyes, facial features, religious conviction, characteristics; (8) Current residence – name, surname, profession, place of residence; (9) Extension of the travel- and residence card; (10) Signature; (11) Comments. This last column was used to document in which register the card was previously registered, under which number and when a card was returned (Pöckling and Schrover, “Reis- en verblijfpassen,” in Broncommentaren, ed. by Schrover, 37-47). Usually, when foreigners were accompanied by their spouse or joined by them later on, they were written underneath their registered partner’s name. The same applied to children, when brought from their country of origin or when born in Amsterdam.

Hungary, of which it was a crown land since the first Polish Partition in 1772. The virtual absence of Rumanian migrants in Amsterdam is remarkable – which may be the reason why Hofmeester does not pay attention to them in her study. Perhaps that among the East European Jewish migrants who were helped by local aid committees more than two Rumanian Jews existed. We can only speculate about this since there is no documentation of such a division. They even only made a distinction between East and West European Jews in a few years.

Number of Total of Number of Country of origin travelling documented Jewish registered Jews companions migrants German Empire 457 211 668 Russia 338 367 705 Poland 133 163 296 Austria-Hungary 101 67 168 England 43 25 68 The Netherlands 42 64 106 Belgium 27 12 39 France 7 4 11 Palestine 7 5 12 Rumania 2 5 7 Other countries 43 35 78 Total 1,200 958 2,158 Table 2.3. Documented Jewish migrants in Amsterdam by country of origin between 1880 and 1914. Sources: Registers van verstrekte reis- en verblijfpassen 914 to 931, Archief van de Gemeentepolitie (5225), SAA; Karin Hofmeester, “De immigratie van Oost-Europese joden in Amsterdam: Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 55.

If we look at the registered Jewish migrants, the German group was the biggest. When considered the travelling companions, then the Russian migrants were the largest group. The way of travelling – alone or with family – coupled with the previous and next destination of transmigrants situated in the Netherlands, can offer some insight into the type of migration involved. A little more than half of the Jewish migrants from Russia as well as from Poland travelled alone. Sixty per cent of the Russian migrants came directly from Russia, without first staying for an extended period in another country. For the Jews from Poland, this laid a little lower, around 40 per cent.109 In contrast were the German-Jewish migrants, of whom more than 80 per cent travelled without any family. Around 77 per cent of the German transmigrants re-

109 Hofmeester, “Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 63.

migrated to Germany, indicating that they were, in all probability, labour migrants (table 2.4). In the case of the Russian and Polish transmigrants, only 18.2 and 10.9 per cent returned to their country of birth. Based on this information, combined with the transmigrants documented by the aid committees, it strongly indicates that most of the East European Jews were asylum seekers. In the period under consideration, around 12,700 – documented – Jewish migrants were received in Amsterdam. Most of whom again migrated within a short period, mainly to America or England.

Destination

- Country

Total

The

Other Other

States

Russia

United

Poland

Russian

Austria

Belgium England

Country Hungary

Palestine

Germany countries

registered % of % total of origin Netherlands Russia 24 21 20 15 15 5 1 2 7 110 32.5 Russian Poland 17 10 3 5 2 2 5 2 46 34.6 Rumania 1 1 2 100.0 Germany 4 12 154 5 6 2 17 200 43.8 Austria-Hungary 2 2 2 15 2 2 12 37 36.6 Total 48 45 25 190 24 15 15 5 2 26 395 Table 2.4. Trans- and re-migrants registered in Amsterdam between 1880 and 1914. Sources: Registers van verstrekte reis- en verblijfpassen 914 to 931, Archief van de Gemeentepolitie (5225), SAA; Hofmeester, “Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 64.

The male-female ratio, as well as the age structure of the registered Jewish migrants, is mapped out by Hofmeester. She groups together the Jewish migrants from Russia, Poland, and Galicia from the 1,200 registered Jewish migrants. Of the total of 482, 408 were male, and 73 were female. Hofmeester splits the group up again and looks at the travelling companions – but only at the spouses. Seventy of the Russian men and five of the Russian women travelled with their spouses to Amsterdam. For the Polish-Jewish migrants, this was twenty-seven wives and four husbands respectively.110 Of the remaining 292 Russian and 132 Polish travelling companions, there is no mention. While the data offered by Hofmeester gives an indication, it is only to a certain extent.

110 According to Hofmeester eleven Jewish migrants from Galician were registered with a total of seven travelling companions. She does not mention the figures of the accompanied spouses and families, only that “of the Galicians, no one only brought a partner.” Subsequently, she states that we now know of 702 of the 1,019 – both registered as companions – the gender. However, the sum of the – by Hofmeester identified genders of the – Russian and Polish migrants is 590, meaning that the remaining 112 must be Galician Jews. There are only, according to Hofmeester’s table, 18 Jewish migrants from Galicia (Hofmeester, “Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 55, 59).

The incoming East European Jewish migrants were active in various professions. The majority worked in trade – about 38 per cent – and in the diamond industry – almost 30 per cent. Among the East European Jews, as well as all the other Jewish migrants, agriculture was the field in which they were heavily underrepresented.111 This was similar to native Jews, of whom two-thirds worked in the trade sector and diamond industry and underrepresentation in the agricultural sector around 1900.112

2.3.2 Jewish aid committees

Reports of the WI/NI and the NIW revealed that the Comité ter tijdelijke verzorging en bevordering der emigratie van verdrukte Russische Israëlieten, die te Amsterdam toevlucht zoeken (‘Committee for temporary care and advancement of the emigration of oppressed Russian Israelites, who seek refuge in Amsterdam’; AHC) aided about nine hundred Russian- Jewish migrants between April and October 1882.113 Of these nine hundred, only 126 Russian Jews remained in the Netherlands. Almost 50 per cent embarked for New York, and the rest migrated further to Germany, England, Belgium, and France.114 From October 1882 until December 1883, the number of registered Russian-Jewish emigrants at the AHC had risen to 1,441. About 150 migrants were not registered, because of the brief duration of their stay.115 Eight years later, the second influx of migrants arrived in Amsterdam. There was a lack of organisation concerning the reception of these East European Jewish migrants after the cessation of the AHC. To ensure that the assistance went as smooth as possible, the Dutch department of the AIU instructed the establishment of the Comité ter ondersteuning van doortrekkende Russische Israëlieten (‘Committee in support of passing Russian Israelites’) in 1891.116 In September that year, the committee had aided 1,500 Jewish migrants – of whom the majority was from Eastern Europe (chart 2.1, page 36).117 Following the Kishinev pogrom in 1903, and with subsequent more anti-Jewish rioting in other areas of the Russian Empire, Amsterdam received a third stream of East European Jewish refugees. Between November 1903

111 Hofmeester, “Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 60. 112 Peter Tammes, “‘Hack, Pack, Sack’: Occupational Structure, Status, and Mobility of Jews in Amsterdam, 1851- 1941,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 43, no. 1 (2012): 13-14. 113 WI 28, no. 24 (December 8, 1882); Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 25-35. 114 WI 28, no. 24 (December 8, 1882); Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 32. 115 WI 29, no. 44 (April 25, 1884). 116 Leenders, Ongenode gasten, 127. 117 Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 36.

33 and June 1904, 425 Jewish transmigrants arrived in Amsterdam, who were mainly assisted by individuals regarding their transit. At that moment, there was no aid committee to support these incoming migrants. Because of the arrival of considerably more migrants, the association Hachnosas Ourechiem (‘Support for Transmigrants’; HO) was established in June 1904. Their task was to manage this stream and to provide – financial – support to the transiting Jewish refugees. In the succeeding years, HO had aided almost 7,500 Jewish migrants.118

2000

1800

1600

1400

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0 1905-'06 1906-'07 1908 1909 1910 1911 1913-'14

Total of Jewish migrants East European Jewish migrants

Chart 2.1. Overview of aided Jewish migrants by the association Hachnosas Ourechiem between 1905 and 1914. For the years 1908, and 1909, there is no data available about how many East European Jews were among the migrants. As for 1912, there is no data at all. Sources: Visser, Broeders en vreemdelingen, 140; Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 39.

Between 1882 and 1914, aid committees in Amsterdam assisted approximately 11,000 Jewish migrants. Most of them originated from Eastern Europe – with a slight change in the balance after the second half of 1914, when large numbers of Jewish refugees from Belgium arrived in the Netherlands prompted by the outbreak of the First World War.119 In Dutch-Jewish periodicals, Dutch-Jewish aid committees and the reception of East European Jewish migrants are further discussed.

118 Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 37-39. 119 Michman, “‘Species Hollandia Judaica’,” 64.

2.3.3 Settlement of East European Jewish immigrants

The group of migrants which settled in Amsterdam was not of such a significant size that an East European Jewish ‘ghetto’ arose. It was certainly not a situation similar to France or England, with tight East European Jewish communities in the ‘Pletzl' (‘little square’) of Paris, or the East End in London.120 However, due to a strong tendency to settle near each other – particular among Russian immigrants – two distinct East European Jewish neighbourhoods could be distinguished (Appendix I, plate 2.2). One of the quarters, concentrated around Nieuwe Kerkstraat, was part of the pre-existing Jewish neighbourhoods. There lived five or more East European Jewish immigrants in seven streets. The most concentrated were Nieuwe Kerkstraat (fourteen families), Manegestraat (thirty-four families), and Plantage Muidergracht (nineteen families).121 Surprising was the number of families living on Manegestraat, a narrow and short backstreet between Nieuwe Kerkstraat en Nieuwe Prinsengracht. This small street was home to many Jewish migrants, East as well as West and Central European Jews. The majority was from Russia, earning the nickname ‘Russenstraatje’ (‘Little Russian Street’). In 1903, after their regular migrant shelter on Nieuwe Prinsengracht became overcrowded, HO rented a new building in this street to accommodate the expected flow of East European Jewish migrants. The stream was even larger than anticipated, which, again, caused a shortage of space in 1905. This time it was the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland (‘Dutch Steamship Company’) who stepped in. By their donation, a third migrant shelter was rented on Weesperstraat 2.122 Furthermore, there was a ‘Russensjoel’ (‘Russian Shul’), located at Nieuwe Kerkstraat 149 since 1889, established by the Nidchei Yisroel Yekhanes (‘He will unite the exiled of Israel’), an association founded five years earlier by Jewish immigrants from Poland and Galicia.123 The neighbourhood around Blasiusstraat was the second most densely populated by East European Jewish migrants. There were four streets in which more than five registered East Europeans had settled with their families, of which Blasiusstraat was far ahead with forty-one families. On the corner of this street, at the intersection with Swammerdamstraat, another

120 David Feldman, “Eastern European Jews in London since the late 19th Century,” in Encyclopedia, ed. by Bade et al., 337; Nancy L. Green, “Eastern European Jews in Paris since the late 19th Century,” in ibid., 340. 121 Hofmeester, “Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 66-67. 122 Leo Fuks, “Oosteuropese joden in Nederland tijdens het interbellum,” in Het onvoltooide verleden, ed. by

Gerrits and Ramkema, 60. 123 Hofmeester, “Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 67-68.

35 synagogue was established in 1890 by the Russian-Jewish association Kehilas Yahgkev (‘Jakob Community’).124

2.3.4 The second migrant city of the Netherlands: Rotterdam

The data on East European Jewish migrants who arrived in Rotterdam is already more fragmented than Amsterdam, starting only from 1893 instead of 1849.125 The number of Jews who remained in Amsterdam was already on the low side, whereas only 155 Russian-Jewish migrants were registered at the municipality office of Rotterdam.126 Nonetheless, many more transmigrants were aided, mainly by the Rotterdamsch comité tot verzorging der vervolgde en hulpbehoevenden Israëlieten uit Rusland (‘Rotterdam’s committee for the care of persecuted and needy Israelites from Russia’), and by the Montefiore association. The former aided around 274 East European Jewish transmigrants.127 Only a few of them settled in Rotterdam. Montefiore was a prominent organisation, which focussed almost exclusively on assisting transmigrants. They liaised with the AIU in Vienna (founded in 1873), Jewish Colonisation Association (established in 1891; ICA) and the Hilfsverein in Berlin.128 The association provided food, clothing, asylum shelter, and medical assistance for the incoming East European Jews. They also acted as spokespersons for these emigrants, arranging matters concerning the continuation of the immigrants’ journey.129 Between 1883 and 1914, Montefiore helped more than forty thousand Jewish migrants. Contrary to Amsterdam, around 15,730 Rumanian Jews were among these migrants in the period from 1901 to 1907. Roughly half of all the Rumanian emigrants came to Rotterdam to embark for America.130 Montefiore assisted these migrants with the financial aid of the ICA – which was established to monitor the Jewish mass migration from Eastern Europe and to ship them overseas, relocating them on land bought by the association.131 Approximately 42,200 Jewish migrants were aided in Rotterdam.

124 Hofmeester, “Omvang, aard en vestiging,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 69. 125 Annual reports of aid committees together with the study of Elise van Schip and that of Tammes are employed to collect the data. A similar register as that of Amsterdam, which included the documentation of religious conviction, is absent for Rotterdam. However, for his research, Tammes made use of three different sources in order to identify the Russian-Jewish migrants who stayed in Rotterdam between 1893 and 1914 – there is no such data available for before 1893 (Peter Tammes, “Vestiging van joden uit Rusland in Rotterdam,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 74-75). 126 Ibid., 75. 127 Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 41. 128 Michman, “‘Species Hollandia Judaica’,” 62. 129 Visser, Vreemdelingen en broeders, 55. 130 Szajkowski, “Rumanian Exodus,” 70. 131 Van Schip, “Montefiore,” 405-412.

2.3.5 Destination country or transit cities?

The total of aided Jewish migrants in Amsterdam and Rotterdam amounted to around half a million people between 1880 and 1914. In comparison to other Western countries, relatively few East European Jews immigrated to the Netherlands. Merely 2,158 Jewish migrants were officially registered in Amsterdam. Of this group, only 46.7 per cent migrated from Eastern Europe. All the immigrants represented about 3.8 per cent of the entire Jewish population in Amsterdam and the East European Jews just 1.8 per cent. When we compare these numbers with England and France, the two European countries to which most East European Jews immigrated, the role of Amsterdam within the international migration system is apparent. The number of Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe who settled in London and Paris comprised around 50 per cent of the total Jewish population of both cities. London had become a haven for approximately 95,000 Jewish migrants from Russia, Poland, and Rumania by the time of 1911.132 In 1914, around 35,000 Russian Jews had immigrated to Paris.133 England and France also acted as important ports for transmigrants, whereas Amsterdam was above all a transit city. One-third of the East European Jewish migrants even emigrated from Amsterdam before 1915. Due to which the Netherlands – Amsterdam and Rotterdam – obtained a significant place as a transit country in the international mass migration of East European Jews between 1881 and 1914.

132 Llyod P. Gartner, “Notes on the Statistics of Jewish Immigration to England 1870-1914,” Jewish Social Studies 22, no. 2 (April 1960): 98; Bloom, “The Politics of Immigration,” 193. 133 Nancy L. Green, “Jewish Migrations to France in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Community or Communities?” Studia Rosenthaliana 23 [special issue] (1989): 136, 140.

3 Dutch-Jewish periodicals Jewish journals, distributed on Friday evening to be read on Shabbat, kept their public informed about various subjects and played an important role in the interconnection of Dutch Jews. However, to what extent was there attention for the dreadful situation of Jews in Eastern Europe? Did the arrival of East European Jews within the Dutch borders capture the interest of Dutch Jews? What kind of image of East European Jews emerged from the Dutch-Jewish press? Through a thorough analysis of the following two periodicals, I aim to provide a comprehensive view of the perception and representation of East European Jewish migrants by Jews in the Netherlands, and Amsterdam specifically.

3.1 Weekblad voor Israëlieten / Nieuwsblad voor Israëlieten

The very first Dutch-Jewish family weekly, the Nederlandsch Israëlietisch Nieuws- en Advertentieblad (‘Dutch-Israelite News and Advertising Magazine’), was founded in Amsterdam in the Autumn of 1849. The periodical – renamed to Israëlietisch Weekblad (‘Israelite Weekly’; IW) in 1851 – ceased publication within just six years. The Sephardic rabbi Aron Mendes Chumaceiro (1810-1882), briefly the editor-in-chief of the IW in 1852, took the occasion to establish a new periodical in 1855: the Weekblad voor Israëlieten (WI). According to him, and many others, the IW apostatised authentic Judaism after “being entrusted to the hands of strangers.”134 The editors aimed to revive the perception of ‘ancient’ Judaism: “our colour is our ancient Judaism, not to be confused with outdated Judaism – Judaism as it has been in the day when stars of the first size shone in the Israelite sky. That Judaism is not yet extinct, and many in the land will gather around us to work for the true salvation of Israel.”135 With the WI/NI, Chumaceiro wanted to provide a forum for rabbis, who had a cardinal task: the rabbinic rabbis – opposed to liberal rabbis and who aspired “to preserve the good, the holy, the divine” – should provide “help and assistance” through text to stimulate “the religious, moral, and social interests of the Israelites in the Netherlands.”136 The editors considered the contemporary situation alarming – they compared it to a sickly, exhausted, neglected child – and hoped that rabbis from the old guard would fill the periodical with healing words. Chumaceiro’s position as editor-in-chief was, once again, short-termed. After being appointed rabbi in Curaçao, he emigrated in the same year as the establishment of the WI/NI.137

134 Weekblad voor Israëlieten 1, no. 1 (August 17, 1855). 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid. 137 Isaac Lipschits, Honderd jaar NIW: Het Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, 1865-1965 (Amsterdam: Polak & Van Gennep, 1966), 9.

Interestingly enough, his son, Jacob Mendes Chumaceiro (1833-1900), held the position of chief editor of the NIW from 1867 until 1875 – the magazine that was founded as opposition to the WI in 1865. In the opinion of Jacob Chumaceiro’s predecessor, and founder of the NIW, Meyer Marcus Roest (1821-1889), the WI had become an advocate for the “false doctrine,” the Reform movement, and was reshaped into a liberal magazine – the same condemnation given by the editors of the WI/NI about the IW.138 In the eyes of some, the WI/NI had not succeeded in mending its predecessor and upholding ancient Judaism. A task that was, therefore, according to themselves, in the hands of the NIW.

Joseph Cohen Belinfante (1812*) was the chief editor of the WI/NI, and held this position from April 28, 1876, until June 22, 1883. In the last issue of the twenty-eighth volume, Belinfante retired from the editorship with a short final message. Herein, he expressed that he had not achieved the objectives he had set – or at least his readers thought so – and deemed it would be sensible to resign.139 What precisely these goals were, remains a question for the time being. The University of Amsterdam cannot locate volume twenty-one of the WI/NI, and, therefore, cannot be consulted. Nonetheless, Belinfante’s successor, D. Gans (n.d.), thanked him extensively and promised to uphold the “true interests of our religion” and to handle “objections, disappointments, and opposition.”140 Gans wanted to maintain, to a great extent, the same direction of the magazine, along with the old employees. He aimed to “present an honest and impartial discussion of the interests of [their] religion in Amsterdam and the Netherlands” in the WI/NI.141 The renaming of the journal to Nieuwsblad voor Israëlieten (NI) was the result of a legal decision by the publisher S.M. Coutinho Jr. (n.d.), a Sephardic Jew who also handled the printing of the NIW. Coutinho Jr. and the editors of the WI quarrelled about the ownership rights, jointly sharing the benefits as well as carrying the loads. The dispute got out of hand and headed for a legal process that Coutinho Jr. could not and did not wanted to pursue.142 Hence he stopped publishing the WI from Friday, June 27, 1884. Under new legal conditions, Coutinho Jr. made a restart with the paper under a different name. Although with the same content and the same objectives – plus a few small additions such as book announcements and discussions – as the

138 Lipschits, Honderd jaar NIW, 12; Meyer Marcus Roest, “Ons Programma,” Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, 1 (1); Leo Fuks, “Meijer Roest Mz., De Eerste Conservator van de Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana,” Studia Rosenthaliana 1, no. 1 (1967): 10-11. 139 WI 28, no. 52 (June 22, 1883). 140 WI 29, no. 1 (June 29, 1883). 141 Ibid. 142 WI 29, no. 52 (June 20, 1884).

WI. The state of affairs of the editorship presumably was a publisher who was covertly also an editor and with semi-permanent employees. Since he did not break with the WI’s objectives, only with its legal form, Coutinho Jr., as a publisher, could, therefore rely on the same reporters when he recommenced the periodical under a new name. The same correspondents indeed remained employed by the WI/NI throughout the various editorial staffs. The chief editor first discussed, Belinfante, covered together with his brother Isaac Belinfante (1815-1898) the correspondence from The Hague. Belinfante even remained a reporter for the WI/NI after stepping down as chief editor. The brothers came from a wealthy Sephardic family who had made significant contributions to the field of Dutch journalism.143 For the reportage from Rotterdam, two different parties were responsible: M.B. Elze (n.d.) and the brothers Haagens, Kalman (1836-1895) and Emanuel (1830-1907). The Haagens were publishers of Jewish as well as non-Jewish – mostly liturgical – texts. Additionally, they ran a paper business and reported for both the WI/NI and NIW.144 The search for information on M.B. Elze came up empty, as well as for the journalist from Groningen, S.M. Meijer (n.d.). For foreign news, the WI/NI mainly relied on a news agency in Frankfurt auf Main, G.L. Daube and Co. The WI/NI knew three different office locations in Amsterdam during the period under consideration: Zwanenburgwal 29, Houtgracht 57, to which they relocated at the beginning of May 1882, and, Waterlooplein 57, after the alteration to NI at the end of June 1884.145 The WI/NI consisted of four pages – of which the fourth was generally dedicated to all sorts of advertisements – and an occasional supplement of two pages. For almost forty years, a new issue of the WI/NI was available every Friday. The WI launched twenty-nine volumes, from 1855 until 1984, and the NI ten volumes, from 1884 until 1894. Since each volume started at the end of June or the beginning of July, the used data of 1881 and 1887 can, therefore, not be regarded as a full representation of these years. However, it still offers vital information.

143 For more information on the Belinfante family and their impact on Dutch (Jewish) journalism, see Sal Stam, “Familie Belinfante: Gezichtsbepalend voor de journalistiek in Nederland,” published September 13, 2017, accessed July 28, 2019, https://www.joodserfgoeddenhaag.nl/familie-belinfante-gezichtsbepalend-voor-de- journalistiek-in-nederland/; I.B. van Creveld, “Belinfante in Den Haag,” initially published in Misjpoge 18, no. 2 (2005), accessed July 28, 2019, https://www.joodserfgoeddenhaag.nl/familie-belinfante-gezichtsbepalend-voor- de-journalistiek-in-nederland/. 144 “Weekblad voor Israëlitische Huisgezinnen,” last modified October 22, 2016, accessed July 28, 2019, https://www.joodserfgoedrotterdam.nl/weekblad-voor-israelietische-huisgezinnen/. 145 WI 27, no. 46 (May 12, 1882); 27, no. 45 (May 5, 1882); Nieuwsblad voor Israëlieten 1, no. 1 (June 27, 1884).

3.1.1 News coverage pertaining to East European Jews

Between July 1881 and June 1887, volume 27 (WI) to volume 3 (NI), the WI/NI published a total of 718 articles pertaining to the East European Jews. The content of these reports can be divided into items about the situation of Jews in Eastern Europe; aid organisations, donations as well as appeals for donations; East European Jews in the Netherlands; the immigration influx in the Netherlands, and mass migration abroad. The situation of Jews in Eastern Europe covered the pogroms as well as the anti-Jewish environment and the related deteriorated circumstances.

0 July 1881 July 1882 July 1883 July 1884 July 1885 July 1886 July 1887 Chart 3.1. The number of reports pertaining to East European Jews in the WI/NI between July 1881 and June 1887 (reports on donations excluded).

During 1882, the East European Jews and their situation received the most attention: a total of 311 items, of which 107 concerned collected donations of various types. Almost 30 per cent of these articles graced the front page, whereas this number was only between 3 and 8 per cent in 1881 and from 1883 to 1887. The WI/NI regularly published elaborated reports about the demand for and the activities of aid committees in 1882 – contrary to the other years. After 1882, the attentiveness declined considerably. Especially donations, or at least the announcement thereof, decreased drastically: from 107 to between 1 and 5. From 1883 to 1886, the WI/NI published between eighty and hundred articles concerning the East European Jews.

In August 1884 and April 1886, the number of articles was higher than average – fourteen and sixteen reports, respectively. The peak in August corresponded with the last pogrom outbursts in the spring and summer of 1884. The articles in this month particularly highlighted the arson attacks ravaging Russia, especially in the governorates of Minsk,

Mogilev, Kovno, and Kyiv. Although the Russian government enacted strict measures to prevent the outbreak of anti-Jewish riots, this, according to the reporters, exacerbated the anti- Jewish excesses even more. In Bragin, in the Minsk governorate, alone were more than 1,250 Jewish properties destroyed by the flames. Only six houses survived, and approximately one thousand Jewish families became homeless.146 The WI/NI also enclosed elaborated reports about the Rumanian Jews and their situation for the first time.147 The significant announcements in April 1886 regarded the ‘Ritter case’ in Krakow, a family who was falsely accused and behind bars for four years. Every week of this month, the front page displayed articles on the situation, mentions of the generous donators, and appeals for more financial support.148

In 1881, the reports published concerned temporary aid organisations, initiated activities to collect money, and donations for their “vicious persecuted fellow believers in southern Russia.”149 However, the Amsterdam department of the AIU rejected an initiative of a Jewish group from Amsterdam, to form a temporary committee to organise a collection for their unfortunate fellow believers. According to the AIU, the objections associated with the implementation of this plan were too big.150 Striking is that there were almost no extensive articles about the atrocious events in Russia. Instead, when mentioned, such reports mainly accompanied the aforementioned items to emphasise the dire need of financial support.151 None of the news regarding the situation of the East European Jews made it to the front page of the WI/NI. Most of the published announcements concerned various ad hoc committees who raised money for the persecuted Jews in southern Russia, for example, by organising music or theatre performances, of which often the profit was donated to their tormented brethren. Collections were even held at the end of festivities, including a high school party in Rotterdam and a celebration of the liberation from the Spanish rule.152 There was, according to the WI/NI, “no better way to end a celebration of freedom than with such a sign of involvement in the fate of those who lack freedom.”153

146 NI 1, no. 8 (August 15, 1884). 147 NI 1, no. 10 (August 29, 1884). 148 NI 2, no. 41 (April 2, 1886) to no. 45 (April 30, 1886). 149 WI 27, no. 1 (July 1, 1881). 150 Ibid. 151 See, for example, WI 27, no. 1 (July 27, 1881); 27, no. 8 (August 19, 1881). 152 See, for example, WI 27, no. 1 (July 1, 1881); 27, no. 2 (July 8, 1881) 27, no. 13 (September 23, 1881). 153 WI 27, no. 7 (August 12, 1881).

Between 1881 and 1887, most of the articles covered the numerous evictions, anti- Jewish measures and acts of violence, as well as arson, demolition, and plunder of Jewish houses and businesses. In 1886, for example, the authorities in Moscow expelled 178 Jewish families on the grounds that they did no longer have the right of residence, and, two months later, no less than 30,000 Jews became homeless in southern Russia.154 Meanwhile, in Jassy, an evicted Jew, who had not immediately left his property, was, by order of the authorities, “beaten up” – so severely that this resulted in the death of the man.155 From the end of August 1884 onwards, there was a massive increase in the reports about the Jews in Rumania and their dreadful situation, prompted by the economic strangulation of the Rumanian Jews and their migration westward, which was partly stimulated by the establishment of a travel agency in Jassy. In 1885, the Rumanian announcements nearly covered half of the reports concerning East European Jews, with an almost weekly column “From Rumania,” and in 1886, this was about one-third. The longer articles, as well as a large part of the short items, concerning Jews in Russia and Rumania, were almost all translated from other, foreign newspapers. Frequently employed magazines were the Berlin-based Jüdische Presse, the Kölnische Zeitung, the Mainzer Israelit, from Frankfurt auf Main – the city of the correspondence agency of the WI/NI – and the Jewish Chronicles from London. The reliance on other sources could delay the publishing of the news considerably. A translated item about the persecution of Russian Jews from Die Jüdische Presse of July 5, by their correspondent from Saint Petersburg, was recorded in the WI/NI on July 22, 1881 – almost two weeks later.156

3.1.2 Peak year 1882

Throughout the country, Jews, and non-Jews the like, established temporary aid committees for the persecuted Russian Jews since mid-1881. However, it was only from the beginning of the next year that the establishment, or at least the intention, of such a committee was announced in Amsterdam. In the WI/NI of February 24, the – not yet established – association to support needy Israeli foreigners, who sojourned in Amsterdam, exhorted the Dutch Jews to cooperate in the constitution and maintenance of this committee.157 It was partly a response to a submitted letter, originally published in the Dutch-liberal newspaper Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant

154 NI 2, no. 50 (June 4, 1886); NI 3, no. 10 (August 27, 1886). 155 NI 2, no. 1 (June 26, 1885). 156 WI 27, no. 4 (July 22, 1881). 157 WI 27, no. 35 (February 24, 1882).

(1844, and renamed NRC Handelsblad in 1970) which was included in WI/NI’s latest January issue. The writer, a Gentile, called upon his fellow citizens to establish a committee to raise money for the persecuted Jews in Russia.158 In the subsequent month, the question arose what was “being done in the Netherlands – the cradle of religious and civil freedom and equality – for the persecuted, oppressed, abused Russian Jews?”159 During the rest of 1882, the WI/NI aimed to answer this question.

Items on the front page Items on other pages

Chart 3.2. The number of publications concerning Dutch relief organisations and donations on the front page as well as the other pages of the WI/NI during 1882.

In the months April (twenty-five reports), May (forty reports), June (twenty-six reports) as well as December (twenty-three reports), the WI/NI frequent published announcements involving the East European Jews. These reports were primarily items about the activities conducted by the Dutch population to support these unfortunates. The arrival of the first groups of East European Jews in the Netherlands, and specifically Amsterdam, further induced the high number of articles in April, May, and June. In April, the editors introduced a new column – “Verrichtingen ten behoeve der vervolgde Russische Israëlieten” (‘Activities for the persecuted Russian Israelites’) – in which the WI/NI encapsulated all that pertained to “the philanthropic work done, to their knowledge, in the Netherlands.”160 The section covered the various activities of committees, which were established in cities and villages throughout the

158 WI 27, no. 31 (January 27, 1882). 159 WI 27, no. 35 (February 24, 1882). 160 WI 27, no. 41 (April 7, 1882).

44 country for the benefit of Russian Jews. From April 7 until August 25, 1882 – except from August 4 – the column reoccurred every week. Much was written about the AHC, which commenced its activities also in April, in this column. The committee consisted of fifty-one members, Jews and non-Jews, among whom the mayor of Amsterdam, Gijsbert van Tienhoven (1841-1914), Dünner, and Wertheim.161 Since throughout the country, ever-increasing groups of Jews and Gentiles established relief committees, the chance of fragmentation and working towards different goals was very high. The AHC emphasised the importance of acting in unity so that the money raised would be spent as effectively as possible. The editors of the WI/NI already expressed the necessity of and need for such collaboration on February 24, 1882, “cooperation after mutual consultation is, after all, infinitely more effective than all isolated attempts.”162 At the end of May, the AHC announced that it would act as the central committee for the Netherlands. The money raised by other committees throughout the country could be sent to the capital, where the AHC would ensure that the funds were used most suitably.163 The appeals for and the donations were sky-high this year. The AHC provided advertisements urging the readers to donate money as well as clothes (Appendix I, plate 3.1).164 However, as can be seen in chart 3.2, the number of articles within this section declined sharply again after May. This decrease can be an indication of a lowering of the attention of Dutch Jews regarding the East European Jews abroad and residing in the Netherlands. The inclusions of the proceedings of the AHC of the past year caused another peak in December 1882. From November 28 to December 29, the periodical dedicated a separate column to this, because “we [WI/NI] gladly grant space in our paper, convinced that the details contained therein about this philanthropic work would to a large extent arouse the interest of many who have contributed morally and materially to that work in the country.”165 From June 11 to mid-October, the AHC had already aided more than 720 Jewish refugees.166 The migrants generally arrived in small groups in Amsterdam, which made it easier for the committee to handle their reception without any excessive difficulties. However, on June 23, 1882, a total of 218 Russian Jews entered Amsterdam. An agent in Brody had lured these refugees to the

161 WI 27, no. 43 (April 21, 1882). 162 WI 27, no. 35 (February 24, 1882). 163 WI 27, no. 48 (May 19, 1882). 164 WI 27, no. 47 (May 19, 1882); 27, no. 48 (May 26, 1882); 27, no. 49 (June 2, 1882). 165 WI 28, no. 22 (November 24, 1882). 166 Ibid.

Netherlands by false pretence to obtain money. The AHC faced a knotty situation: within a few days the number of migrants rose to 230, which was more than their shelter could accommodate, and they could not manage the influx with their members alone.167 In order to provide the required assistance, sub-committees were established. One group registered the incoming Jews, while another oversaw the inventory of donations and received clothes, the requirements, and the distribution of the resources. A medical team performed examinations on the incoming refugees, since the emigrants first had to pass a thorough health inspection to enter America. Some local shops even contributed food and beverages to help.168

3.1.3 Destination: America? Palestine? Suriname? The Netherlands?

Already before Amsterdam simultaneously harboured a total of 230 migrants, difficulties had arisen concerning their possible future homeland. The initial aim of the AHC was to assist the incoming Jewish foreigners on their embarkation abroad, mainly to America. While this country was the number one destination, the committee deemed it ineligible based on numerous received pleads of immigrants who wished to return to Europe.169 Hundreds of Russian Jews, who returned from America and sought aid in Amsterdam, validated these messages. The AHC had to decide if they could and would send these 230 Jewish migrants to America while knowing what would await them there and squander the strenuous raised money on a futile attempt. Palestine was first suggested as a substitute immigration country. Although this plan was quickly aborted. Even the Mainzer Israelit, one of the foremost advocates of migration to Palestine, did not support this proposal. According to them, the circumstances were no better than in America and, when entering Palestine, their unfortunate brethren were met by English missionaries.170 Instead, Suriname was considered as a great alternative. The AHC envisaged numerous employment opportunities – on different plantations and in the mines – and voiced their plans to the Israelite denomination there. It was, however, strongly discouraged by the Jewish community in Suriname – their plantations were no place for European Jews; they would not last long.171 The AHC faced a difficult choice: should the migrants still be sent to America or should efforts be made to place the refugees, mostly labourers, in the Netherlands and provide them with a livelihood here?

167 WI 28, no. 22 (November 24, 1882). 168 WI 28, no. 24 (December 8, 1882). 169 WI 27, no. 50 (June 9, 1882). 170 WI 28, no. 9 (September 1, 1882); 28, no. 10 (September 8, 1882). 171 WI 28, no. 5 (July 28, 1882); 28, no. 24 (December 8, 1882); 28, no. 25 (December 15, 1882).

The AHC did not proceed lightly to the establishment of the Jewish refugees in the Netherlands. They believed that the Netherlands could not support and accommodate everyone. All those who, in the opinion of the committee, would only increase the proletariat were refused. On the ground of this deliberation, it was that of the approximately nine hundred who entered the country between April and October 1882, no more than 126 Jewish migrants were permitted to take up residence in the Netherlands. While most of them settled in Amsterdam, another part was scattered throughout the country – from the bigger cities of The Hague and Groningen to smaller villages as Frederiksoord.172 A placement office was founded along with the formation of the different sub- committees of the AHC. Their first task was to send telegrams to their sister committees in Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, and Brody requesting that they no longer – at least temporary – send any refugees to Amsterdam until the current group of migrants had been accommodated.173 In this way, the committee would not be surprised by new groups of refugees and could devote all their attention to the placement of those already present. It was possible, although with much effort, for these migrants to be accommodated in the Netherlands. After all, “good workers are not only mouths that take the bread off the table, but also hands that ensure that new provisions pour in – a benefit for every society.”174 After the primary care of their accommodation, food, and – for some – clothing, the committee understood that for the establishment of these foreigners, it was necessary to teach them the for them unknown Dutch language. Four evenings a week – the men and boys on two of these evenings, the women and girls on the other two – the East European Jewish migrants received education to learn to talk, read, and write in Dutch.175 The committee responsible for their placement recorded the profession wherein the refugees were qualified, contacted possible employers, and visited potential factories for employment. Throughout the country, advertisements were placed in magazines for the recruitment of East European Jews (Appendix I, plate 3.2). The migrants were first sent on probation, and, when hired, they were permitted to settle in the Netherlands. The committee – financially – assisted the foreigners with obtaining a home and the most necessary household goods.176 Considering the unfamiliarity with the local conditions and the difficulties associated with every new beginning, the newly established immigrants did not initially earn enough

172 WI 28, no. 24 (December 8, 1882). 173 WI 28, no. 22 (November 24, 1882). 174 Ibid. 175 WI 29, no. 44 (April 25, 1884). 176 WI 28, no. 23 (December 1, 1882).

47 money so that they could completely, and continuously, provide for themselves. Now and then, they visited the placement office for financial support. However, the money granted was as a means to make their future better and more secure – not as alms.177 Among the last migrants who arrived in Amsterdam in 1882, sixty-three of them had been sent from Brody where they had been denied asylum. Reportedly, the AHC encountered multiple challenges because of these East European Jews.178 There was no elaboration or further mention about these troubles, nor in the police reports of the Vreemdelingenregisters. Of the 126 East European Jews who were permitted to settle in the Netherlands, only ten to twelve families, and a few unmarried people stayed in the country.179

3.1.4 Hagnasath Orchim

At the end of 1882, the AHC rhetorically asked if their services were still needed, or that their job was done. The committee believed that it was just the beginning of a continuous stream of refugees and that they were just getting started.180 The AHC ceased its activities two years later. In their third and final report, they announced that the circumstances in Russia were improved and that most of the East European Jewish migrants returned to their homeland. They even went as far as proclaiming that “the unfortunates were now saved.”181 The WI/NI praised the committee on how they had handled their task, with so much patience and perseverance. Although the desire to assure a future for the migrants from Russia, who were seeking refuge in Amsterdam, was not achieved, the committee had fulfilled its primary goal: the temporary care and advancement of the emigration of the Russian Jews. The responsibilities of the AHC did not wholly cease; they still had to contend with assisting the migrants in their return to Russia. In the two years that the AHC was active, the committee obtained a considerable amount of 123,478.53 guilders – what today would be equal to more than 1,5 million euro. Their expenses were lower, leaving them with a credit balance of almost 9,500 guilders – around 115,000 euro.182 The committee decided to set this amount aside for possible future support for foreign Jews before altogether ceasing their activities in April 1884. Two years later, on October 22, the WI/NI included the report of a general meeting of another aid committee, indicated as the Hagnasath Orchim (HOM) – an alteration of Hachnosas

177 WI 28, no. 24 (December 8, 1882). 178 WI 29, no. 44 (April 25, 1884). 179 Ibid. 180 WI 28, no. 22 (November 24, 1882). 181 WI 29, no. 43 (April 18, 1884). 182 WI 29, no. 44 (April 25, 1884).

Ourechiem. The association referred to probably was the Vereeniging tot ondersteuning van behoeftige Israelietische vreemdelingen, die tijdelijk in Nederland verblijven (‘Association to support needy Israelite foreigners who are temporarily staying in the Netherlands’). This committee was mentioned in the WI/NI for the first time on February 24, 1882. In 1886, the HOM merely counted 147 members, and at the meeting of October 10, only a small number of them was present. The committee commenced its activities around the same time as the AHC. Whereas the AHC ended its operation in 1884, the HOM remained active for two more years. However, the obtained funds and the aided Jewish migrants by the HOM did not come near that of the AHC.

Number of Jewish migrants supported by means of Year Received funds (ƒ) Accommodation Financial aid 1882 1,039.13 186 112 1883 871.82 135 59 1884 659.34 88 41

1885 540.55 97 76 1886* 171.34 47 31 Total 3,282.18 553 319 Table 3.1. The received funds and the number of Jewish migrants supported by the H.O. between 1882 and 1886. * The first three months of 1886. Source: Nieuwsblad voor Israeliëten 3, no. 18 (October 22, 1886).

Since 1882, the finances of the HOM were reduced by half. This decline was only partly due to the less favourable economic conditions. The HOM attributed it further to the fact that since the persecutions of the Jews in Russia, everyone labelled Jewish foreigners as ‘Russian’ in the Netherlands. According to them, many of the Jews from Russia had left a less favourable impression in Amsterdam, and consequently, people no longer wanted to support an association affiliated with Russian Jews.183 They did not elaborate on why this could be. The HOM, however, was not only, or even mainly, an organisation which helped Russian Jews. They provided aid to foreign Jews of all nationalities. The committee even went as far as declaring that they supported Russians only by exception. Since the AHC was founded specifically to aid Russian Jews, and, albeit their dissolution in 1884, there still was excess to their large cash reserve, the HOM did not deem it as a primary task to financially support these Russian-Jewish refugees. When looking at the funds of the association, this refusal was not that odd. The total

183 NI 3, no. 18 (October 22, 1886).

49 costs of providing accommodation were 1,344.86 guilders (around 17,500 euro nowadays), and the financial aid accumulated to 1,202.13 guilders (approximately 15,700 euro).184 Thereby were the received donations and, consequently, aided migrants unequivocally lower than that of the AHC.

3.1.5 Perspectives of the WI/NI and its readers

Before the formation of the AHC or the HOM, a small group of Jews contemplated opening a shelter for refugees in Amsterdam. Providing asylum was crucial, especially for the destitute refugees from Eastern Europe. Most of the time, these Jews lacked the proper documents which the city, and even some aid associations, required for registration. The fear that such a foundation could work counterproductive hampered the execution. They worried that some Jews reckoned their duty fulfilled by merely being a member of an aid association and paying the contribution. Any further support was considered optional and, consequently, disregarded by many.185 A payment alone, however, was insufficient. The committee still required aid after accommodating East European Jewish migrants. Thankfully, various people in Amsterdam contributed to the cause, albeit in silence. The offering of help when needy Jews arrived in Amsterdam while remaining anonymous, accorded with tzedakah. This message, however, was the only one in the WI/NI that mentioned – financial – support whereby the benefactors remained unacknowledged. In every other issue with an appeal for donations, the WI/NI clearly stated that the donor would be disclosed with their name and their gifted amount in the paper. In 1881 and 1882, the WI/NI published lists of received donations for the persecuted Jews in Russia almost every week. Granting people visibility and consequential status worked as encouragement. It appeared that there was no desire to contribute anonymously; people wanted to be recognised for their philanthropic deeds. Whenever the WI/NI discussed an initiative or activity to aid the unfortunate East European Jews, the goodness of the heart of the person(s) in question was signified and their actions prized. Each time the WI/NI appealed to the generosity of their fellow citizens; Jews were eulogised. The editors deemed it even unnecessary to ask because benevolent, compassionate, and faithful people would contribute without a second thought. The conclusion of one of the appeals perfectly demonstrated these exaltations:

184 NI 3, no. 18 (October 22, 1886). 185 WI 27, no. 36 (March 3, 1882).

“Benevolence has always been one of the main virtues of the Jewish soul – and luckily, it has always remained undiminished. It can be said without exaggeration that the Israelite is indefatigable in doing good, always generous and willing to give, no matter how many, many times, calls are made on his heart and his purse. Undoubtedly, we need only draw attention to it to be convinced that many of our readers, each according to the extent of his powers, will contribute to alleviating that need.”186

Not only Jews themselves were panegyrised, but their homeland received a similar narration. Especially in 1882, a frequently utilised description of the Netherlands was that of the “cradle, or the prototypical country, of religious and civil freedom and equality.”187 Another noteworthy example came from an annual report of the Amsterdam Department of the AIU: “In our homeland, respect for the beliefs of dissenters and a united love for our homeland are entrenched in our society in such a way that there is no need to fear that hatred and persecution will be able to put a shame on our civilisation here as well. We are proud to be Dutch and to be able to say that we, respecting the love of the fatherland and dedication to its interests, need not be inferior to anyone.”188 The reality, however, was that a severe division remained between Jews and non-Jews. The Jewish emancipation may have been legally instituted hundred years earlier in the Netherlands, that did not mean that it was directly followed by social emancipation. By exalting the Netherlands, promoting patriotism, and enunciating that they were Dutch Jews, they emphasised their Dutch nationality and stressed that they were part of the state – not a separate minority. Some even proclaimed that, for a large part, the Jews themselves were the cause of the social separation, not the Gentiles.189 A submitted letter and the subsequent reaction of the editors furthermore demonstrated the vulnerable position of Dutch Jews as well as the stance of – some – Jews on East European migrants. In this letter, the Jewish writer – S. – recalled a moment in a café in Rotterdam. Two men – both Jewish – “used all their strength and wit” singing offensive Jewish melodies, thereby placing Russian and Polish Jews in ridiculous daylight as possible.190 The author wondered why someone would make such detrimental statements about fellow believers in the already fragile position of the Dutch Jews in the Netherlands. Why would someone, as part of a minority, give material to non-Jews to ridicule their East European brethren, and, thus, also oneself? The

186 WI 27, no. 25 (December 16, 1881). 187 See, for example, WI 27, no. 35 (February 24, 1882); 27, no. 38 (March 17, 1882); 27, no. 43 (April 21, 1882); 28, no. 15 (October 6, 1882). 188 NI 1, no. 4 (July 18, 1884). 189 WI 27, no. 3 (July 15, 1881). 190 WI 27, no. 9 (August 26, 1881).

51 editors of the WI/NI concurred with the writer: Jews should be aware that the non-Jewish society “still tends to place less pleasing or ridiculous peculiarities of some Jews on account of all Judaism.” The writer was not so much as concerned about the potential harm conflicted to his East European coreligionists as he was for his own position. Whereas the editors discussed only the possible ramification of such actions for Dutch Jews and their place in society while leaving any mention of the East European Jews out of their response. While discussing the emigration of Russian Jews, the editors proposed that an international central committee had to arrange that the placement of the East European migrants was as dispersed, and equitable, as possible over the different West European countries. Dutch Jews, considering their number, would have an exemplary role herein. At the same time, the feelings of Gentile Dutch citizens had to be closely monitored to ensure that anti-Semitic feelings were not nourished.191 In other cases, when the focus of an article was on aiding Jewish migrants, support was offered and given – if it did not come too close to home. For instance, Dünner summoned Dutch Jews to act in a passionate monologue.192 According to him, every Jew should fulfil three tasks: to pray and fast, to collect money, and to donate daily. With the money raised, the Russian refugees could be aided so “that they may find a new fatherland that, more just and more humanely than their old country, will appreciate them, their diligence, their talents, their loyalty, their patriotism.”193 There was no proposal of the Netherlands as a potential new homeland, and, instead of encouraging native Jews to open their own homes, the refugees would sojourn in refugee shelters. Therefore, when they did welcome 126 East European Jewish immigrants, there was some displeasure about the fact that of these refugees, only a handful remained in the country.194 The rest chose the return to Russia over the safer life in the Netherlands. Some native Jews regarded “all the money, the care, the labour, the efforts, and the sacrifices that were spent on these re-emigrated Russian Jews was, as it were, thrown away.” In the “humble opinion” of the AHC, it did not matter, and the accusations of, among other things, impatience and ingratitude were unjust. Instead, the committee viewed the return as bearing witness to a noble drive, that it provided striking evidence of love for and attachment to the fatherland. Prejudices and negative assumptions about the East European Jews shone through in several articles in the WI/NI. In a report, the AHC expressed its astonishment about the highly satisfactory health of the Jewish foreigners who arrived in Amsterdam. Initially, doctors feared

191 WI 28, no. 3 (July 14, 1882). 192 WI 27, no. 35 (February 24, 1882). 193 Ibid. 194 WI 29, no. 44 (April 25, 1884).

52 the worst since “the refugees came from areas where thousands of Jews lived together.”195 Even though almost all Jews lived in the same neighbourhood in Amsterdam during this period, that was deemed far less unsanitary than Jewish quarters in Eastern Europe. Moreover, while condemning the “human abominable atrocities” in Russia, the WI/NI referred to the East European Jewish community as a “weak and defenceless minority.”196 One time, the AIU even ascribed the need for support of Russian and Rumanian Jews – as well as those in Asia and Africa – to their “low level of knowledge and civilisation.”197 Although the rest of the report urged its readers to donate, it nevertheless was communicated with clear superiority.

3.1.6 Distinctions between the editors-in-chief

Under the editorship of J.C. Belinfante, reports about the East European Jews, their atrocious situation, and the need for help were written in a very compassionate and fervent manner. The articles described the anti-Jewish violence in Russia with an intensity to grasp the severity of the situation. “Degrading atrocities,” “cruel persecutions,” “the rape of law and humanity,” “deplorable conditions,” and “the horrendous suffering scene,” were just a few examples of such descriptions. The WI/NI called the East European Jews almost always their fellow believers under Belinfante’s direction. Adjectives such as “unfortunate,” “ferocious persecuted,” “hapless,” “unrecognised,” and “heavily tested,” accompanied this designation. The editors regularly responded to articles or letters concerning the East European Jews. Often these reactions, especially the long-winded ones, were only signed by “J.C.B.” In these cases, Belinfante spoke on behalf of himself and not for the entire editorial staff. After his resignation as chief editor, the elaborated responses were omitted, and the impassioned descriptions disappeared almost entirely in the periodical. The writing style of the reports apropos East European Jews reflected the shift in editor-in-chief. As mentioned, the next chief editor, Gans, aimed to present an honest and impartial discussion of the interests of Judaism – something that he missed during Belinfante’s editing. Henceforward, the WI/NI rarely described Jewish foreigners as “fellow believers,” rather as “Jews” and sometimes only as “the persecuted.” When referring to themselves, or their fellow Dutch Jews, the indication “Israelite(s)” was occasionally preferred. This term occurred approximately two hundred times in items concerning East European Jews, of which more than eighty per cent during the

195 WI 28, no. 22 (November 24, 1882). 196 WI 27, no. 32 (February 2, 1882). 197 NI 1, no. 37 (March 6, 1885).

53 editorship of Belinfante. The WI/NI adopted a more emotionally estranged – neutral – tone regarding the circumstances in Eastern Europe. The use of language was far less theatrical, from “abominable cruelty” and “the rape of justice and humanity” to “sorrowful religious persecution.”198 In 1882, the WI/NI described the situation in Russia as “an almost more terrible fate than the slavery in Egypt,” whereas in 1884, in the peroration of the new year’s speech, only one sentence was dedicated to these atrocities since they could “continue to list many more things, that now belong to the past, were it not that they, dear readers, might make you too sad.”199 The focus was instead on a future that would bring them “nothing but joy,” and in which they and “our dear fatherland and the beloved royal family, be spared from suffering and disaster.” While under the supervision of Belinfante, the WI/NI regularly published about activities undertaken by Dutch Jews to aid their East European brethren. In the years after him, the focus shifted to almost solely articles on the circumstances abroad. The manner of reporting went from an active to a more passive point of view. The reportage in the WI/NI became increasingly lurid during the anti-Jewish excesses in 1881 and 1882. The periodical entered the so-called “realm of sensationalism,” in which, according to Sam Johnson, “newspaper coverage more than willingly strayed into.”200 However, with the switch of chief editors, the WI/NI swerved away from this realm and sometimes even challenged the accuracy of foreign reports on the incidents in Eastern Europe. For instance, they questioned the veracity of a report derived from the Mainzer Israelit about a Rumanian man who was acquitted for killing a Jewish citizen.201 Conflicting accounts on the conditions in Eastern Europe further engendered a sceptical attitude: “What a contradictory report, one week one reads of the construction of a four million synagogue and the other of such sad ones [the anti-Jewish excesses in Russia]. It is, indeed, ambivalent.”202

3.1.7 Comparison with the NIW

The year 1882 was for both magazines their peak year: 157 articles in the NIW and no less than 204 reports in the WI/NI. Both periodicals also experienced a steep fall in the press coverage after the summer months of that year. The NIW knew three other peaks: 1881 (160 articles),

198 WI 27, no. 32 (February 3, 1882); NI 3, no. 18 (October 22, 1886). 199 WI 27, no. 38 (March 17, 1882); NI 1, no. 13 (September 19, 1884). 200 Johnson, “Uses and Abuses” in East European Borderlands, ed. by Avrutin and Muray, 156. 201 NI 2, no. 44 (April 23, 1886). 202 NI 2, no. 25 (December 11, 1885).

54 and, to a lesser extent, 1883 (129 articles) and 1886 (118 articles).203 The years 1881, 1882, and 1883 corresponded with the outburst and the escalation of the pogroms in Eastern Europe. The NIW actively reported about the anti-Jewish excesses, the initiatives of Dutch Jews, and otherwise enjoined its readers to undertake action and to donate during these three years. Whereas the WI/NI disclosed mainly small lists with benefactors and their donation, and, to a far lesser extent, reports concerning Russian Jews in 1881 and 1883. Not one of these announcements even made it to the front page. For instance, on February 24, 1882, both papers published an announcement regarding the establishment of the association to support needy Israeli foreigners in Amsterdam. However, the NIW had already urged its readers to form such a committee back in June 1881.204 The final initiative for the AHC came from, among others, the chief editor of the NIW himself, Philip Elte (1844-1918), who also became the chairman of the association. The peak in 1886 of the NIW correlated with the pogroms transpiring in Odessa. However, significantly less attention was paid here than to the pogroms in 1881 and 1882. Between 1881 and 1883, highlighted articles about a specific pogrom occasionally appeared on the front page of the NIW. In the WI/NI, there was not one particular outburst or pogrom that received more attention than others. They were merely an item in a list of anti-Jewish atrocities. Only trials, like that the Tisza-Esslar trial in Hungary in 1883 and the Ritter-case in Krakow in 1886, were attentively observed and reported in the WI/NI.205 Most of the foreign news coverage published in the WI/NI corresponded to that of the NIW. However, the deliverance of the messages was not always similar. The choice of words, as well as the editorial responses, diverged in the two periodicals. The NIW used more neutral terms, for example, East European Jews were regularly named “distressed Jews in Russia” and “Russian-Jewish refugees,” while “our fellow believers in Russia” was considerably less frequent applied. Whereas the WI/NI employed a more personal style, predominantly designating the East European aliens as “our fellow believers.” Although, this dissimilitude was chiefly between the NIW and the WI/NI under Belinfante’s editorship. The NIW deemed that sympathy for the persecuted Russian Jews was not significant among their non-Jewish fellow citizens.206 Whereas some Dutch Gentiles were applauded in the WI/NI, mainly in 1881 and

203 Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passenten en Blijvers, ed. by Tammes, 18. 204 NIW 16, no. 47 (June 3, 1881); 16, no. 49 (June 17, 1881). 205 For the Tisza-Esslar trial, see WI 29, no. 5 (July 29, 1883) to no. 9 (August 25, 1883); 29, no. 42 (April 11, 1884). For the Ritter-case, see NI 2, no. 41 (April 2, 1886) to no. 49 (May 28, 1886). 206 NIW 17, no. 48 (June 9, 1882); 18, no. 1 (July 14, 1882); 18, no. 2 (July 21, 1882); 18, no. 6 (August 18, 1882).

1882. The periodical printed the names of non-Jews who initiated activities to aid Jewish refugees abroad and remained very patriotic.

3.2 De ,,Alliance’’: Orgaan van de Nederlandsche Afdeeling der ,,Alliance Israélite Universelle’’

In January 1906, the Dutch department of the AIU launched its own association publication: De ,,Alliance’’: Orgaan van de Nederlandsche Afdeeling der ,,Alliance Israélite Universelle”. At their general meeting of December 1905, the AIU decided to publish this journal to increase interest in the union. The purpose of the AIU – article one from the statutes of the association – was displayed underneath the masthead: “to endeavour the emancipation and moral progress of Israelites everywhere; to give vigorous support to those who suffer because of their Israeli status; and, to encourage any proclamation capable of promoting this purpose.”207 The objective of the Alliance was to contribute to this goal. The Alliance generally published about the activities of the AIU – by both the Dutch and foreign departments. Mid-year, the journal published the program of, and abstracts from, the annual or general meeting of the Dutch department. The magazine further informed its readers of the terrible circumstances in which Jews were living in Eastern Europe and the countries “around the old ocean” – which included Morocco, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Persia, Bulgaria, and Algeria.208 The editors of the Alliance were two esteemed members of the AIU: Benjamin Blok (1841-1918) and Julius Ephraim van der Wielen (1868-1942). Aside from being the editor of the Alliance, Blok was a parliamentary reporter for multiple non-Jewish newspapers. He was the office manager of the Dutch Correspondence Office for twenty-three years (1889-1912) and secretary of the Israelite Hospital in The Hague. Van der Wielen also reported for multiple non- Jewish journals. He was on the board of the B’nai B’rith Hollandia of the Hague – an international Jewish organisation which helped new emigrants with, among others, housing. Blok and Van der Wielen were both board members of the Religious Community as well as the department of the AIU in The Hague.209 The publisher of the Alliance came from the influential

207 De ,,Alliance’’: Orgaan van de Nederlandsche Afdeeling der ,,Alliance Israélite Universelle’’ 1, no. 1 (January 1906). 208 Alliance 4, no. 7-8 (July-August 1909), 39. 209 For more information on Benjamin Blok, see “Blok, Benjamin 1841-1918,” n.d., accessed August 20, 2019, http://www.jodeninnederland.nl/id/P-3236; NIW 47, no. 23 (November 10, 1911); 47, no. 31 (January 5, 1912). For more information on Julius Ephraim van der Wielen, see “Wielen, Julius Ephraim van der 1868-1942,” n.d., accessed August 20, 2019, http://www.jodeninnederland.nl/id/P-1380; NIW 37, no. 30 (January 10, 1902); 58, no. 47 (April 13, 1923).

56 journalist family Belinfante: Frederik Jozef Belinfante (1843-1910).210 After his death, Bookstore Belinfante remained the publisher of the Alliance. At the end of almost every month, a new number of the Alliance was available. The members of the AIU received the magazine for free, for non-affiliated, the price was one guilder per year and ten cents for single issues. All contributions, intended for the editors or publisher, were to be sent to the Belinfante bookstore, located on Wagenstraat, and, from 1907 onwards, on Kneuterdijk in The Hague. Most issues consisted of four pages, although it could also vary between six and fourteen pages. The larger editions contained an abstract of the agenda and the assembly of general or annual meetings of the AIU and its member list. At the end of 1920, the Alliance ceased publication after fifteen years and fifteen volumes.

3.2.1 News coverage pertaining to East European Jews

The Alliance published a total of 423 articles pertaining to the East European Jews between January 1906 and December 1914, respectively volume 1 to 15 (Appendix II, chart 3.3). The content of these publications can be subdivided similarly to those of the WI/NI. More than 60 per cent of the reporting concerning East European Jews treated their deplorable circumstances in Russia and Rumania (chart 3.4, page 61). The subjects included pogroms and persecutions, anti-Jewish regulations as well as anti-Jewish propaganda. The Alliance extensively wrote about the iniquitous attitude of Rumanians towards its Jewish citizens. During 1909, not a single Jew was granted naturalisation.211 The Alliance expressed that there was “no indication affirming the right to hope that Rumania is inclined to act more righteously or humanely towards Jews. Those who are currently in charge of the country pretend that there is no Jewish problem.”212 Reports at the end of 1914 confirmed this presumption. Rumanian Jews still did not enjoy equal rights, and there was “nothing hopeful about the future.”213 The pogroms and persecutions in Eastern Europe remained a central topic. The Alliance even included an inventory of the “costs of the pogroms of 1905” in September 1910 (Appendix

210 Frederik Jozef Belinfante was the son of Isaac Belinfante, one of the reporters for the WI/NI. See “Belinfante, Frederik Jozef 1843-1910,” n.d., accessed August 20, 2019, http://www.jodeninnederland.nl/id/P-75l; Stam, “Familie Belinfante,” https://www.joodserfgoeddenhaag.nl/familie-belinfante-gezichtsbepalend-voor-de- journalistiek-in-nederland/; Van Creveld, “Belinfante in Den Haag,” https://www.joodserfgoeddenhaag.nl/familie-belinfante-gezichtsbepalend-voor-de-journalistiek-in- nederland/. 211 Alliance 5, no. 1 (January 1910), 2. 212 Alliance 4, no. 5-6 (May-June 1909), 30. 213 Alliance 9, no. 9 (September 1914), 59; 9, no. 10 (October 1914), 64.

I, plate 3.3).214 Per Russian governorate, it showed the number of humans who were murdered, injured, widowed, and orphaned. Adding up the victims of the pogroms in Gomel and Siedlce Białystok of 1906, the total enumerated in 5,596 Jewish casualties. On balance, the Jews, directly and indirectly, suffered damage of sixty-two million roubles from the pogroms. While no pogroms occurred during 1910, there were large-scale expulsions as a result of the legislation on the residence permit. In February 1911, the police continued their “purification work” – nocturnal raids to verify the entitlement to the residence of Jewish families in Kyiv.215 Three months later, the Alliance reported about the eviction of six hundred Jewish families out of the city – “no day goes by without a Jewish family being harshly woken in the middle of the night to check of they have legitimate residence permits.”216 Until the end of 1914, the Alliance regularly published accounts on, or intentions of, expulsions in Kyiv. Many reports also dealt with the public anti-Jewish propaganda – in Eastern as well as Western Europe. In Russia, on the approach of Easter in 1912, malicious, ghastly postcards were distributed with the caption “Christians, guard your children” above an image of a murdered child – to warn people about Jewish ritual murder.217 Sadly, blood libels were the topic of too many reports in the Alliance. Especially the ‘Beilis-Affair’, the accusation and persecution of the Russian Jew Mendel Beilis (1874-1934) in Kyiv, was followed closely in the paper. From June 1911 until the end of 1914, almost every issue of the Alliance contained an account on, or mention of, the affair – the investigation, the trial, and the aftermath; everything was covered.

3.2.2 Internationally focussed

Only a quarter of the reporting concerning East European Jews treated the activities initiated by Dutch Jews – of which almost half appeared in the first two years of the Alliance (chart 3.4, page 61). After 1906 and 1907, items on national aid dropped to an average of eight articles per year. This might indicate attenuation of the attentiveness of Dutch Jews for their East European brethren in the subsequent years. Consequently, the organisation of activities decreased, and so did the reports about it. The diminution in interest was further reflected in the agenda of the general and annual meetings of the AIU. Except for the first assembly of 1906, the circumstances in Eastern Europe were not deemed pressing enough to be one of the main items

214 Alliance 5, no. 9 (September 1910), 46. 215 Alliance 6, no. 2 (February 1911), 8. 216 Alliance 6, no. 5 (May 1911), 28. 217 Alliance 7, no. 4 (April 1912), 22.

58 on the program. Only the first issues of the Alliance explicitly mentioned received funds for the benefit of the Jewish victims of the Russian atrocities. At the end of May, a total amount of 30,398.33 guilders (roughly 377,000 euro nowadays) was raised. The Dutch department distributed a part of this money to the Central Committee of the AIU in Paris. The rest was partly used for emigrants who crossed the Dutch borders, and they reserved a portion for the next stream of Jewish migrants from Russia who could always be expected.218

0 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914

Total of articles pertaining to East European Jews Articles about aid organisations, activities, and donations Articles about the situation of Jews in Eastern Europe

Chart 3.4. The publications concerning East European Jews in the Alliance between January 1906 and December 1914.

Contrary to the WI/NI, the Alliance reported seldom about donations and hardly ever appealed to its readers. Whereas the WI/NI broadcasted donations and the names of benefactors, especially in 1882, the Alliance included a comparable list only one time. Although this inventory of donations on behalf of the “Balkan-Jews” filled almost two pages, it contained solely the initials of the benefactors, subdivided by municipalities.219 Direct request for financial and physical support appeared merely six times in the journal. The first, on the front page and in bold, was a short punchy appeal, enumerating the balance of 1906: a total of “639 pogroms in Russia! Jews, support the work of the Alliance!”220 In April 1907, four of the pleas

218 Alliance 1, no. 1 (January 1906), 3-4; 1, no. 2 (February 1906), 7; 1, no. 3 (March 1906), 12; 1, no. 4 (April 1906), 16; 1, no. 5 (May 1906), 20; 1, no. 6-8 (June-August 1906), 22. 219 Alliance 8, no. 3 (March 1913), 13-14. 220 Alliance 1, no. 12 (December 1906), 45.

59 appeared in the same issue and concerned the same subject: the Jews in Rumania.221 The Dutch department of the AIU appealed to “all the reasonable people in the country” to support the victims of the latest rampage in Rumania, an announcement that did “not require neither exhortation nor explanation – not in the least to Jews,” because:

“Here, support is not benevolence, no expression of humanity alone; it is a given duty! Explanations could also be held back. Jews are immersed in misery there, robbed of their homes and possessions – it is enough to know that. Because we know what it means. […] The Jew, who holds his hand on his wallet, disregards any notion of solidarity, as expressed in what we have learned from our fathers: that all Jews are our brothers. And the Alliance-member, who failed to support, would do worse: [(s)he] would become unfaithful to the motto of this union to which (s)he belongs. There can be no hesitation; it may be said and repeated here that whoever helps soon, doubly helps.”222

Nonetheless, the impetrations to raise funds for Rumanian Jews were inefficacious. The editors presumed that the lack of success was a result of reports announcing that the attacks against the Jews ceased fairly quickly nor had they arisen from hostility against them – therefore, the urge to donate did not arouse.223 Nearly two years later, on January 1909, the Nederlandsche Grenscomité voor Emigranten (‘Dutch Border Committee for Emigrants’; NGVE) submitted a solicitation of funds through becoming a member of their newly founded association.224 With the vast contributions, at a minimum of 2.50 guilder per year, they hoped to finance and continue their activities so that they can “alleviate, at least, the greatest misery, and in most cases, by providing boat tickets, preventing a cruel return to their homeland.”225

3.2.3 Proposal for an umbrella aid committee for transmigrants

In September 1907, the AIU department in Leiden proposed to form an emigration committee which was responsible for providing financial and moral support to Jewish migrants on their transit through the Netherlands.226 The intention was, on the one hand, to bring the matter of emigration under the direct management and supervision of the AIU, and, on the other hand, to centralise forces that were dispersed – every committee managed the transmigration at their discretion. At that moment in time, there were three leading aid associations in the Netherlands: Montefiore in Rotterdam, Hachnosas Ourechiem in Amsterdam, and the Grenscomité Zevenaar

221 Alliance 2, no. 2 (April 1907), 5-8. 222 Ibid., 7 223 Alliance 2, no. 3-4 (July-August 1907), 10. 224 Alliance 4, no. 1 (January 1909), 3. 225 Ibid. 226 Alliance 2, no. 5-6 (September 1907), 22-24.

(‘Border Committee Zevenaar’; GCZ). Since all three associations lacked a stable income and suffered from a chronic money scarcity, their future was not guaranteed. Their financial status even forced them to refuse any more Jewish migrants. The Leiden department proposed that the three existing committees should unite, with the help and supervision of the AIU. There was no intention to abolish them, only to provide them with the means to continue their work. The formation of an umbrella committee would join the forces and make negotiations between different committees unnecessary, saving time and, therefore, money. Higher costs could be avoided, and the East European Jewish migration would more efficiently be systematised. Although the committee was established, it did not really get off the ground – mainly because the larger committees as Montefiore and Hachnosas Ourechiem refused to be placed under the supervision of a by the AIU appointed committee.227 Various border committees did, however, combine their forces in the NGVE.228 The necessity of centralisation was repeatedly encouraged to prevent fragmentation of forces and funds, however, to no avail. In January 1912, emigration organisations still held gatherings with delegates from various committees and cities to discuss the transmigration and to come up with a comprehensive plan for organising aid to be granted to their East European brethren.229

3.2.4 The perspective of the Alliance

In the introductory statement, the editors of the Alliance expressed hope that the sense of solidarity would be strengthened – especially now that the situation of their fellow believers in Russia was so terrible.230 This declaration could not be viewed separately from the purpose of the AIU, which was displayed directly above. It was a direct link to why this journal existed in a country where Jews enjoyed the freedom of religion and profession – unlike Russia, Rumania, and other countries in Eastern Europe. In the magazine, entreaties could be made for moral and financial support from fellow believers of the Dutch department of the AIU. However, as mentioned above, few explicit appeals were made during the period under consideration. An – almost – more urgent matter was the relatively low number of members of the association, between 1,650 and 1,800 – because the more members the Alliance had, the more reach and the more money could be collected. Although there appeared only a few direct requests for – financial – aid in the journal, many implicit expectations unmistakably were published. In

227 Alliance 3, no. 11-12 (December 1908), 40-41. 228 Alliance 4, no. 10 (October 1909), 48. 229 Alliance 7, no. 2 (February 1912), 12. 230 Alliance 1, no. 1 (January 1906).

61 passionate perorations, the editors emphasised “the outrageous condition of the East European Jews” and the importance of the AIU to help their distressed brethren.231 In the column “The mission of the AIU” in December 1906, Blok described the two aspects of the association, represented in the emblem of the two hands of the journal: one hand illustrated “the perceptive, believing, and combative Jewish spirit who speaks and works on all navigating for true full equivalence of Jews,” and the other hand symbolised the “offering of consolation in solidarity, in whatever way, to assist the Jewish people who suffer because of our faith.”232 The AIU was an Israelite Union that could only stand down when both hands had done their job. However, the existence of the AIU remained a sad necessity. Therefore, the Alliance continued with perorations which emphasised the importance of their work and the task that lay ahead of every Jew, because “the feeling of co-responsibility, the sense of solidarity, the best form of altruism, most become stronger than ever with those who live as free citizens in a free country.”233

231 Alliance 8, no. 6-7 (July-August 1913), 45. 232 Alliance 1, no. 12 (December 1906), 48. 233 Alliance 1, no. 6-8 (June-August 1906), 22.

Kinship, philanthropy, or detachment? As in other Western countries, a thorough acculturation process coincided with the emancipation of Jews in the Netherlands. Through a gradual process of adaptation and assimilation emerged Dutch Judaism, bringing together indigenous and traditional Jewish cultural elements. It distinguished itself – both linguistically and socio-culturally – from Jewish populations elsewhere in the world. This development could have led to a diminution of the connection between Dutch Jews and Jewish communities abroad. A sense of solidarity towards East European Jews prevailed, however, this was not the sole motivation for aiding them. Local Jewish communities, driven by a philanthropic-paternalistic attitude as well as self-interest, formed aid committees from the outset of the first migration wave. Since missionaries and the Salvation Army became actively involved in the reception of the incoming migrants, Dutch Jews wanted to prevent possible conversions by founding aid committees.234 Furthermore, the organisations averted the situation of East European Jews wandering the street and causing nuisance by accommodating them. Their national and international reputation worked as an incentive. As the Dutch-Jewish community of the ‘land of freedom’, they could not stay behind other countries. Such as England, where many actions were undertaken from the onset of the pogrom eruption in 1881. A same sort of competitiveness also transpired between Jewish communities in different cities in the Netherlands. The founding of the AHC was no less than half a year after the first committees were established in small towns – something that must have been shameful for the Amsterdam Jews.

With the outburst of the first pogroms of 1881 in Russia, the WI/NI mainly reacted by beseeching its readers to donate. Elaborated items on the pogroms itself remained on the background. That attention arose at the beginning of the next year. The periodical enjoined Dutch Jews to donate and take actions. They published substantially about the numerous inland movements for the benefit of East European refugees. This was unparalleled in the subsequent years. After 1882, there still appeared articles, but no longer with the same devotion. The WI/NI continued to inform its readers, although they only sporadic encouraged them to undertake action or to donate. In the first years of the mass migration, Dutch Jews donated sums of money, all to help Jewish migrants on their way to their future homeland – which was not the Netherlands. After the first migrant wave, these donations reduced drastically. This decrease

234 Fuks, “Oosteuropese joden,” 60.

63 could be a consequence of an unfavourable impression of dismissed East European Jewish migrants.235 However, as mentioned, the WI/NI did not elaborate on encountered problems, nor was there any mention in police reports. Articles regarding East European Jews rarely appeared on the front page of the WI/NI. The column “Verrichtingen ten behoeven der Russische Israëlieten” shrank with every issue, the items disappeared from the front page, and the last column comprised only one subject. In 1885 and 1886, the NI published monthly reports from the AIU. Apart from this, with occasional exceptions, there was no extensive reporting about East European Jews. The emphasis shifted to the aid activities and the East European Jewish migrants abroad rather than in the Netherlands. Based on the publications in the WI/NI and the Alliance, it can be said that East European Jewish immigrants possibly took an insignificant position in the area of interest of Dutch Jews. Aside from the reports of the AHC in 1882, virtually none wrote about the Jewish migrants who remained in the Netherlands. This might suggest that Dutch-Jews responded rather indifferent than vehemently to the establishment of Jewish foreigners. That it was not verbalised in the periodicals can indicate that if there was an aversion, it would have been relatively mild. That only a small number of Jewish migrants settled in the Netherlands could further contribute to this. Transmigration was the main concern, and aim, of Dutch aid committees. The number of immigrants was significantly lower than in other Western countries. When a migrant expressed that (s)he wanted to join the local Jewish community, they had to be selected. The privilege of permanent residence often derived from the functionality of the foreign Jew for the community concerned. Immigrants had to add something to Dutch-Jewish society and not augment the proletariat. Additionally, Dutch Jews perhaps derived a certain sense of confidence from their relatively smooth integration into the Gentile environment and from the absence of virulent anti-Semitism.236 Dutch Jews possibly considered the arrival of their East European coreligionists less quickly as a serious threat to their position as a Jewish minority in a non-Jewish society than, for example, in Germany where its entire Jewish population was granted civil equalisation only in 1871. Strong negative responses which can be found in German-Jewish sources were absent in the periodicals.

The difference between the editors of the WI/NI was especially remarkable. Belinfante was very committed to the crusade against Russia’s anti-Jewish politics and excesses. He

235 WI 29, no. 44 (April 25, 1884). 236 Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 324.

64 entreated Jews everywhere to come together, to act as one, and to combat the anti-Semitic violence occurring in Eastern Europe.237 Belinfante’s dedication was heightened by the loosening of involvement with the subsequent chief-editors. Gans and Coutinho Jr. seldom responded to messages from Eastern Europe, and, when they did, the reactions were brief. The word choice went from fervent descriptions to a more neutral stance. After the initial shock had passed about the pogroms of 1881 and 1882, and the situation seemed to be – to a certain extent – quieted down, the activity and attention of the WI/NI dropped. Only the first two-and-half- year there was an active and passionate involvement and strife to aid the Jewish refugees. In the subsequent years, this disappeared practically to the background. In general, the news coverage concerning East European Jews focussed on their abominable situation in their homeland. The Jewish westward mass migration directly resulting from it induced an increase in reporting about aid committees in the Netherlands during 1882. After this year, much less attention was paid to the internal developments and activities by Dutch relief organisations. The circumstances of the East European Jewish migrants were still monitored – although less extensive – however not with the same sentimental tone as can be observed at the beginning of the eighties. It seemed that the there was a diminishing interest in the East European Jews and their fate. Whereas the attention for the East European Jewish situation decreased in the NIW during the second mass migration between 1903 and 1906, the Alliance was founded precisely because of this scantiness of news coverage.238 However, there was not quite as much interest in becoming a member of the AIU among Dutch Jews. Their initiative to unite the different aid organisations was unsuccessful. At first, many of the relief committees were only temporary and went into liquidation whenever the situation abroad seemed to alleviate. However, there was an increasing institutionalisation in the field of aid committees during 1881 and 1914. Through national coordination of relief, it was attempted to make the East European Jewish transmigration through the Netherland as smooth and quick as possible. The reports on the different aid committees in the WI/NI and Alliance offered a quite clear image of their procedure and activities. About the stance of the relief workers towards the East European Jewish migrants, the periodicals carried no information. It cannot be deduced whether they regarded the incoming Jews as brothers or strangers, or as a potential threat. If there was any fear among Dutch Jews for a flare-up of anti-Semitism because of the presence of East European Jewish migrants, they barely gave voice to these feelings.

237 WI 28, no. 1 (June 30, 1882). 238 Tammes, “Aankomst en opvang,” in Oostjoodse Passanten en Blijvers, ed. by ibid., 22.

For further research, it will be interesting to analyse Dutch-Zionist periodicals, such as De Joodsche Wachter (‘The Jewish Guard’, 1905 – present-day) of the NZB, to see if they took a more vocal stance towards East European Jewish (im)migrants in the Netherlands. Furthermore, according to Blom and Cahen, the refugee problem in the Netherlands during the 1930s and 1940s reflected the ambivalence of attitude of Dutch Jews towards the arriving Jewish migrants from Germany.239 On the one hand, Jewish solidarity prevailed, however, on the other hand, a fear that the refugees could jeopardise the position of the Dutch Jews and evoke anti-Semitism emerged.240 It appears that what happened in Germany with the arrival of East European Jews in the period between 1880 and 1914, occurred a few decennia later in the Netherlands. To see whether this change in attitude was also clearly reflected in the news coverage, it will be interesting to compare Dutch-Jewish periodicals from these two periods.

239 Blom and Cahen, “Joodse Nederlanders,” in Geschiedenis van de joden, ed. by Blom et al., 340-348. 240 Ibid., 344.

Appendix I – Plates

Plate 2.1. Jewish quarters in Amsterdam, between 1850-1914. A: The ‘old’ Jewish quarter, including the Jodenbreestraat, Jonas Daniël Meijerplein, and Rapenburg; B: Expansion in neighbourhood around the Weesperstraat; C: Expansion area surrounding Sarphatistraat and De Plantage. Modification of “Wegwijzer door Amsterdam naar de Bloemisterij, Boomkwekerij en Bloemenwinkels van Groenewegen & Co,” printed by Tresling & Co., published by Company Groenewegen & Co. Orientation: north- northeast top. Source: Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Collectie Atlas Kok (10095), inv. no. KOKA00314000001 (Image Database).

Plate 2.2. Jewish quarters in Amsterdam around 1900. A: Old Jewish quarter; B: First expansion of the Jewish quarter; C: Second expansion of the Jewish quarter; D: The first East European Jewish neighbourhood surrounding the Nieuwe Kerkstraat; E: The second East European Jewish neighbourhood surrounding the Blasiusstraat. 1: Manegestraat; 2: Plantage Muidergracht; 3: Nieuwe Kerkstraat; 4: Blasiusstraat; 5: Sint Antoniesbreestraat. a: The Nidchei Jisroel Jechanes synagogue; b: Migrant shelter of Hachnoses Ourechim; c: Migrant shelter Weesperstraat 2; d: The Kehillat Ja’akow synagogue. Modification of “Amsterdam 1890 (recto),” edited by A.J. van der Stok, published by Tj. Van Holkema, and printed by Tresling & Co., 1890. Orientation: northeast top. Source: Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Collectie Atlas Kok (10095), inv. no. KOKA00520000001 (Image Database).

Plate 3.1. Advertisement of the AHC for clothes for Russian-Jewish migrants. Source: WI 27, no. 48 (May 26, 1882).

Plate 3.2. Advertisement of the AHC promoting East European Jewish immigrant workers. Source: WI 28, no. 2 (July 7, 1882).

Plate 3.3. Inventory of the casualties and costs of the pogroms in the Russian Empire from 1905 to 1906. Source: Alliance 5, no. 9 (September 1910), 46.

Appendix II – Chart 3.3

Chart 3.3. The number of reports pertaining to East European Jews in the Alliance between January 1906 and December 1914.

Abbreviations

AHC Comité ter tijdelijke verzorging en bevordering der emigratie van verdrukte Russische Israëlieten, die te Amsterdam toevlucht zoeken (‘Committee for temporary care and advancement of the emigration of oppressed Russian Israelites, who seek refuge in Amsterdam’) AIU Alliance Israélite Universelle ANDB Algemene Nederlandse Diamantbewerkersbond (‘General Dutch Diamond Workers’ Union’) CC Central Committee of the NIK GCC German Central Committee for the Russian-Jewish Refugees HEAS Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society HIAS Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society HO Hachnosas Ourechiem HOM Hagnosath Orchim ICA Jewish Colonisation Association IW Israëlietisch Weekblad (‘Israelite Weekly’) NGVE Nederlandsche Grenscomité voor Emigranten (‘Dutch Border Committee for Emigrants’) NI Nieuwsblad voor Israëlieten (‘Newspaper for Israelites’) NIHS Nederlands-Israëlietische Hoofdsynagoge (‘Dutch-Israelite Supreme Synagogue’) NIW Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad (‘New Israelite Weekly’) NZB Nederlandsch Zionistenbond (‘Dutch Zionist Union’) O.S. Old Style dates PC Permanent Committee of the NIK PIK Portugees-Israëlietisch Kerkgenootschap (‘Portuguese-Israelite Denomination’) SAA Stadsarchief Amsterdam (‘Amsterdam City Archive’) SDAP Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij (‘Social Democratic Workers’ Party’) WI Weekblad voor Israëlieten (‘Weekly for Israelites’) WI/NI Weekblad voor Israëlieten / Nieuwsblad voor Israëlieten

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