Jewish Cultural Quarter

Explore the Jewish Historical Museum, the JHM Childrens Museum, the Portuguese Synagogue, and the National Holocaust Memorial. Stunning synagogues, striking buildings and impressive memorials grace the streets of Amsterdams old Jewish quarter. In the heart of the neighbourhood, an area of less than one square kilometre, is the Jewish Cultural Quarter, which includes the Jewish Historical Museum with the engaging JHM Children’s Museum, the stately Portuguese Synagogue, the moving National Holocaust Memorialand the National Holocaust Museum. Here visitors can find out all about Jewish culture, history and traditions, all with just one ticket. JEWISH HISTORICAL MUSEUMDiscover the Jewish history and culture of the Netherlands.Any trip to Amsterdam should include a visit to the Jewish Historical Museum. This modern, trend setting museum, housed in four monumental synagogues, offers a unique look at Jewish life in the Netherlands past and present in all its complexity. The museum has a large multimedia collection ranging from paintings to films and from everyday objects to 3D presentations and always offers one or two temporary exhibitions. For young visitors there is also an exciting childrens museum. JHM CHILDREN’S MUSEUM A playful way to learn about Jewish life.Inside the Jewish Historical Museum is another museum, just for children. It is set up as a Jewish family home with six rooms, where children aged 6 to 12 can play games that will teach them about Jewish culture sometimes seriously and sometimes with humour. Children can bake rolls in the kosher kitchen, learn Hebrew in the study or make music together in the music room.Every week the JHM Childrens Museum hosts special activities like painting workshops and birthday parties. Check our website to find out what we have planned. PORTUGUESE SYNAGOGUE A stately building from 1675 with a centuries old library.In the centre of the Jewish Cultural Quarter stands the magnificent Portuguese Synagogue. The building is still used as a house of worship, but it is also open to the public, and concerts are held there regularly. The 17th century interior is still fully intact and illuminated by hundreds of candles. The other buildings in the complex include treasure chambers where visitors can admire a unique collection of ceremonial objects made of silver, gold, silk and brocade. The complex also includes the oldest functioning Jewish library in the world, Ets Haim Livraria Montezinos, which is included in UNESCOs Memory of the World Register. National Holocaust Memorial (closed for renovation from 1 June 2020) The former theatre the Hollandsche Schouwburg used as a deportation centre.During the Second World War, the occupying forces made Jews assemble in this former theatre. Tens of thousands of men, women and children were held here, not knowing what fate awaited them, until they were deported to concentration and extermination camps. The Hollandsche Schouwburg is now a memorial site with a wall of names commemorating the Jewish victims. It also holds an exhibition about the Holocaust in the Netherlands. National Holocaust Museum (closed for renovation from 3 February 2020) A historic site where the story of the Holocaust is told in temporary exhibitions and events.Through this former teacher training school hundreds of Jewish children, who were held captive in the creche next door, were smuggled to relatively safe places with the help of the resistance during the Second World War. At this historic site, in the National Holocaust Museum, the story of the Holocaust is told in changing exhibitions and events in an artistic form and based on personal accounts.