Sunday 14 - Thursday 18 of May, 2006

Closing Some Circles In Amsterdam

German Farewell

We rolled west out Hameln just as a major thunderstorm rolled in. We passed through a number of heavy downpours, but, nothing like the storm we encountered on our way from Ferrara to Venice.

After spending our last night in Germany at this pretty campsite

about a couple hours from the Germany/Netherlands border (not that you'd ever know you've crossed a border when you get to it) we returned to Amsterdam.

Arriving in Amsterdam

Is It A Synagogue? Is It A Beit Knesset? No, It Is Yet Another Jewish Museum

Jewish Historical Museum. The Jewish Historical Museum has many interactive video stations which give much information through recollections, history, observances, film clips and music in a compact space. Sadly, once again the Nazi-destroyed Ashkenazi synagogue (How many synagogues are now museums and not living houses of worship because of the Nazis?) now houses the museum which contains rich information about the Dutch Jewish community. One of the clips portrays a man's recollections of his childhood in the synagogue--where there was a "police warden" to keep everyone quiet, especially also one for the women's gallery. It was, apparently, a position with much authority.

Is photography allowed?

Not seeing any sign, and disappointed not to have photographic record of some of the items we'd seen in other locations, Mark took a number of photos of things that help close the circle:

• 
  
  This dish is for eating meat on Pesach. So you shouldn't make a mistake, it's written right there on the face of the plate in bold letters!

• In order to help us see and understand our world better, there, in a case devoted to Spinoza, was a lens (presumably one he had ground himself)!
  
  It's approximately 10CM in diameter. That means it's not for someone's spectacles. Perhaps it was for a telescope to view the heavens.

• Amsterdam was an early center of Hebrew printing (remember nearby Antwerp the home of Daniel Bomberg and those statues of Gutenberg), and a hot-bed of Sabbatianism and Kabbalism… for a while. The Jews who returned to Judaism after being hidden Jews/conversos in the Iberian peninsula who came to Amsterdam may have been susceptible to these ideas. In any case, here's a case of Hebrew letters
  
  and an early printing of the classic work of Jewish mysticism, the Sefer Yetzirah
  
  with a reproduction of the standard amulet for protection against Lilith.

• Continuing our interest in time (remember all those clocks in Prague?)… here we found another "clock" indicating the times of services
  

• "The modern world" began early in Amsterdam, results of the spread of printing and knowledge. A good place to plug the Gutenberg Project)). Here are two instances of that:
  • A Hebrew version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
    
    The beginning of the text translates: "These are the words of the covenant; the laws and the statutes between one man [sic] and another man [sic]"

  • An illustration of Justice leaning on the 10 Commandments as she brings "everyone" together in peace
    

The "Shul" Across the Street

We also enjoyed our visit to the Portuguese Synagogue, the Esnoga where we were reminded that this was not a Spanish population and that the architecture is not Moorish. On Shabbat they light candles all around the building and it must be glorious. We took our "official" portrait there that day. Other than all the candles, the place is relatively simple. It's good to know that the shop there sells Judaica made from Delft..

Mark has been interested in places that are known as "the Jerusalem of…" or "The Little Jerusalem" and has long wondered (along with other puzzlements) how a particular place acquires that title. In a little two-room museum in the low building surrounding the Esnoga he found a document dated September 1, 1927 declaring Amsterdam to be the Little Jerusalem!

Flurries in May

Then, suddenly we noticed flurries. There were flurries the day we left Amsterdam and drove to The Hague and here, ten weeks later in mid May:

The stuff accumulated on the ground

and did not melt when it hit the water in the canals.

Mark picked up a sample. The following day, we asked a number of people--proprietors of bookstores, street cleaners, clothing store owners, clerks at the Post Office--what it was.

Finally, someone explained that these are Linden fruit. It is an annual event. Entire street-cleaning crews were out collecting the stuff.

The main street along which we promenaded in Berlin is lined with and named for these trees. And at the end of the trip [… flurries of the "fruit" of the] Linden Tree.

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