On the East side of the city the Jewish Amsterdam Quarter is located and here lived and worked Jewish refugees from all Europe.
The Sephardic community of Amsterdam founded in 1657 the so called Portuguese Synagogue. At that time it was the largest Jewish buiding in the world.
The German speaking Ashkenazi Jewish Amsterdam built the High German Synagogue, which is nowadays the Jewish Historical Museum.
End of the 16th century Protestant and Jewish from Antwerp fled for the Spanish suppression. They brought their business and art of diamonds polishing.
Until now Amsterdam kept it’s name as a diamond city.
The diamond company Gassan, founded in 1878 was the first one to use steam power for the cutting and polishing.
Coster Diamonds, founded in 1852, did finish the Koh-i-Noor, the famous Indian diamond of the British Crown.
Shortly before World War 2 in Amsterdam of the total population of 800.000, 140.000 were Jewish.
See a lot of Jewish Amsterdam. Join our Amsterdam Private City Tour.