Hasselt Synagogue

סקירה

הסיפור של Hasselt Synagogue

Hasselt is a small fortified town on the Zwarte Water north of Zwolle, now part of the municipality of Zwartewaterland. Jews were allowed to settle there in the eighteenth century, and the religious freedom imposed under French rule allowed the community to found a synagogue of its own. According to the Joods Cultureel Kwartier, it was consecrated in the Ridderstraat in 1802. The local history society Histovisie describes it as standing in the Ridderstraat, the second building on the left as seen from the bridge, and a photograph of the street near the Sluisbrug shows it in the background.

The congregation was never large and often poor. It lost its independence twice, between 1820 and 1835 and again from 1853 for about twenty years, but a short period of improvement in the late 1830s allowed it to renovate the building. A women's society looked after the synagogue. By 1930 only seven Jews lived in Hasselt and its surroundings, and the community was formally dissolved and joined to Zwolle in 1947. Its Torah scrolls, ritual objects and furnishings were lost during the war. The empty building was sold by the much-reduced community after 1945 and pulled down in 1954 to make way for a supermarket. No description of its architecture and no clear photograph of it were found.

מיקום

Where it stood for 152 years

Historic: Ridderstraat, Hasselt, second building on the left from the bridge (house number unknown). Today: Ridderstraat, 8061 Hasselt, municipality of Zwartewaterland, Overijssel; plot not identified (approximate).

פתיחת מפה גדולה ←

הקהילה היהודית

Two Jewish physicians and their families were allowed to live in Hasselt in 1563, despite the 1546 decree barring Jews from the Spanish Netherlands, but they left around 1570. In 1720 the town offered free settlement to Portuguese Jews to stimulate trade; they did not come, but Ashkenazi (Hoogduitse) Jews settled soon afterwards, and in the late eighteenth century a Jew leased the municipal lending bank. In 1774 the council gave the community a burial plot outside the Veenepoort; after the flood of 1825 destroyed it, a new cemetery was laid out on the Bolwerk behind the Van Stolkpark. The community counted 47 people in 1795, 42 in 1809, 40 in 1840, 36 in 1869, 35 in 1899 and only 7 in 1930. Around 1813 there were eight families, and most breadwinners were butchers or traders. Poverty cost the congregation its independence from 1820 to 1835 and again from 1853 for about two decades.

אדריכלות ועיצוב

Almost nothing is recorded about the building itself. The Joods Cultureel Kwartier gives only its street and its consecration in 1802, and says that the community was able to renovate it in the late 1830s, during a brief improvement in its finances. Histovisie places it in the Ridderstraat as the second building on the left from the bridge, which suggests a modest building set in the row of houses rather than a free-standing monument. A street photograph in the Schmidt collection, published by Histovisie as a view of the Ridderstraat near the Sluisbrug, is said to show the synagogue in the background on the left, but that photograph could not be obtained in this research. No plan, drawing or interior view was found. The architect, builder, materials, style and seating capacity are unknown. Given a congregation that never exceeded about fifty people, the prayer hall must have been small.

החיים בבית הכנסת

The congregation kept a traditional pattern of small-town Dutch Jewish life. Histovisie names two societies: Gemiloes Chasodim, the burial society, and Bigdei Koudesj, a women's society that cared for the synagogue and its textiles. The ritual bath was on the Prinsengracht. The community had its own cemetery, first outside the Veenepoort and from 1825 on the Bolwerk. Because the congregation was so small and so often poor, it could rarely support officials of its own, and for long periods it was attached to a larger neighbouring community; no rabbi, teacher or cantor is named in the sources read. One object from the synagogue is documented: a Torah mantle with crown, photographed in 1916, which shows an embroidered crown and the priestly blessing hands above Hebrew inscriptions. Both the Joods Cultureel Kwartier and Histovisie reproduce this photograph as coming from the Hasselt synagogue.

הרס

According to the Joods Cultureel Kwartier, the synagogue's Torah scrolls, ceremonial objects and furniture were lost during the Second World War, and its English text describes the synagogue as destroyed together with its contents. Who took or wrecked the contents is not recorded in any source read, and no source describes damage to the building during the occupation. Histovisie, the Hasselt local history society, gives a different and more precise account of the building's end: after the war the much-reduced Jewish community sold the synagogue, and in 1954 the building was demolished to make way for a supermarket. The buyer, and whoever carried out the demolition, are not recorded. The synagogue had stood without a congregation since the deportations, and the formal merger of the Hasselt community into that of Zwolle in 1947 left no local body to maintain it. The two accounts can be reconciled if the contents were lost in the war and the empty shell was sold and demolished later.

גורל הקהילה

Histovisie records that about ten Jews still lived in Hasselt in 1940. Under the Nazi German occupation they were deported. Five were taken first to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz: Bernard Marcus, born in Hasselt in 1876, and his wife Henriëtte Marcus-Keizer were killed on 28 September 1942, on the same date as their daughter-in-law Zientje Henriëtte Marcus-Vos and her son Bernard Jacob Marcus, who was not yet three years old; Philip Marcus died at Monowitz on 31 January 1943. Simon Keizer, born in Hasselt in 1876, and Saartje Keizer-Marcus were deported through Vught and murdered at Sobibor on 14 May 1943. David Meijer Keizer, born in Hasselt in 1903, died in Central Europe on 31 March 1944. Two Hasselt Jews survived, some in hiding. In 1947 the community was dissolved and merged into the Jewish community of Zwolle. A Hebrew inscription on the town's war memorial on the Markt commemorates the murdered.

האתר כיום

The synagogue stood in the Ridderstraat in the old centre of Hasselt, as the second building on the left from the bridge according to Histovisie. It was pulled down in 1954 and replaced by a supermarket; whether that building still stands, and what occupies the plot today, could not be established in this research, and no house number is given in any source read. No part of the synagogue is known to survive. The Jewish cemetery on the Bolwerk still exists and is maintained by the municipality. A Hebrew inscription on the war memorial on the Markt recalls the town's murdered Jews. The map pin marks the middle section of the Ridderstraat and is approximate.

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