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