The Portuguese Synagogue uses candlelight in its sanctuary on Yom Kippur, when dignitaries visit the historic site, and during the occasional concert.
ancient Hebrews crossed on their way to Canaan. (In truth, sand was a common 17th-century means of cleaning and main- taining wooden floors.) The Yom Kippur service features prayers by Santo Servicio, the synagogue’s resident choir, which curates the special tunes that have evolved here over the centuries. Sung in Hebrew in the Portuguese inflection, the tunes are melodic because they were com- posed in the 16th and 17th centuries to please the ear and compete with Christian choirs, Wallet says—part of a broader effort by community leaders to rehabilitate and preserve in Amsterdam what the Inquisition destroyed in Iberia. That effort is also evidenced in the thou- sands of manuscripts of the Ets Haim Jewish library, the oldest institution of its kind still in operation, which is part of the Portuguese Synagogue compound. “You can see in the books their enthusiasm about being able to reconnect with their Jewish traditions openly and resume the study of it,” says Ruth Pe- eters, a senior cataloger at the library. The library’s central role in the daily life of synagogue-goers is evident in the name that locals use for this house of worship: Es- noga—a mashup of the Portuguese words for school ( escola ) and synagogue ( sinagoga ). At times, enthusiasm led worshippers and even the community leaders astray. Around the time the synagogue was built, the community was split between followers and opponents of Shabbetai Zevi, the Tur- key-born Jewish eccentric who divided the Jewish world with his claim that he was the Messiah. (He would go on to Islam, under duress, in 1666.) Even this community’s founding father and rabbi for 40 years, Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, was for a time a follower. Wallet said the debate on the issue was “a crisis for the community,” and largely purged from its official records. The community’s ultimate test came in 1940, when Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands, initiating racist policies that ended with the murder of 75 per cent of the Netherlands’ Jewish population of 140,000. The Portuguese Synagogue was sealed, its library and treasures looted. But while Amsterdam’s Ashkenazi syna- gogue was gutted, the Portuguese Syna- gogue remained essentially unharmed. “I think they didn’t quite know what to do with it,” Wallet sys. “Ultimately even they didn’t dare destroy it.” n
Some Jews, including Lipika Pelham, a London-based author and journalist with Indian roots, travel with their families espe- cially to attend the Yom Kippur service here. Tickets cost just $22 but need to be ordered well in advance. On Yom Kippur, the service is essentially conducted by the community’s men, who are seated around the bimah, or pulpit, in the central section of the main hall. Male guests sit in pews surrounding the central section. Women sit upstairs, in the women’s section, “where we struggle to follow the reading of the text below, which is not easy because of the acoustics,” Voet says. Still, while it may be less than ideal for reading prayers, the acoustics at the Portu- guese Synagogue work beautifully for musi- cians and singers—something that was key to the synagogue board’s decision 10 years ago to host occasional concerts here. Dur- ing those events, non-Jewish audiences can get a taste of the Yom Kippur atmosphere because all the candles are lit. The candles are also lit when important dignitaries visit, including Dutch royals and world leaders such as the late President of Israel Shimon Peres. On Yom Kippur, the men of the commun- ity put on the traditional Portuguese Jewish top hats, worn by Jews who immigrated here from Portugal, Spain, and their colonies when they adopted the church’s anti-Jewish Inquisition as policy. The wood used for the Torah ark was brought from Recife by Jews who fled the Brazilian city for Amsterdam. Flanking the ark are two 16th-century sofas from the Middle East. “The interior makes for a very cosmopol- itan mix,” Wallet says. “You have artifacts from many corners of the world.” Nowhere else in 17th-century Europe were Jews allowed to build a synagogue quite as large and impressive as the Portuguese Synagogue, Wallet explains, which makes the building a testament also to the relative tol- erance that Jews enjoyed in the Netherlands for centuries, before the Nazis and local col- laborators nearly wiped out the community. With so much history in view, folklore inevitably grew around almost every as- pect of the synagogue—even the fine sand that is strewn on its floor, which some be- lieve is a reference to the desert that the
found and beautiful sights,” says Esther Voet, a regular visitor to the synagogue and the managing editor of the Dutch-Jewish Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad (New Israel- ite Weekly). On Yom Kippur, entering the candlelit synagogue “has a cleansing ef- fect—which is what Yom Kippur is all about.” It’s like “stepping into a time machine,” she adds. “You feel that you are a link in a very long chain of Jewish tradition.” Few congregants experience this inter- generational dimension more than Ronit Palache, whose ancestors were among the early leaders of the synagogue. “Coming there means being a part of history, and it’s my history,” says Palache, whose great- great-grandfather was a chief rabbi of the Portuguese Jewish community. But you don’t need a personal connection to appreciate the historical dimensions of Yom Kippur services at the synagogue, ac- cording to Bart Wallet, a University of Am- sterdam historian and author of the book History of Jews in the Netherlands . “There is growing interest in attending on Yom Kippur and, in response, the commun- ity only a few years ago started assigning pre-ordered tickets,” he said.
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