הסיפור של Hoogeveen Synagogue (1799)
Jews are first mentioned in Hoogeveen at the end of the seventeenth century, and they began to settle permanently in the early eighteenth century, although the local authorities took various measures during that century to make settlement difficult. An organised community existed by 1755, when services began in a private house on what is now the Hoofdstraat. According to the Geheugen van Drenthe, the Jews of Hoogeveen met there weekly on the Sabbath.
After Jews were granted civil equality at the end of the eighteenth century, Hoogeveen and Meppel were officially allowed to build synagogues, and in 1799 a synagogue was consecrated on the present-day Schutstraat. It was one of a small number of Drenthe synagogues, together with those of Meppel, Coevorden and Dwingeloo, that existed before 1800. During the next sixty years the congregation grew from 163 people in 1809 to 286 in 1840 and 484 in 1869, becoming the second largest in the province after Meppel. In 1865-1866 the 1799 building was demolished and replaced by a new synagogue on the same site. No description, plan or picture of the older building was found, and the reason for its replacement is not stated in the sources read, although the growth of the congregation makes it likely that it had become too small.
Where it stood for nearly 70 years
Historic: present-day Schutstraat, Hoogeveen, Drenthe (house number unknown). Today: site of the 1865-1866 synagogue, Schutstraat 147, 7907 CD Hoogeveen (approximate: same plot, exact footprint of the 1799 building unknown).
פתיחת מפה גדולה ←הקהילה היהודית
The Jewish community of Hoogeveen formed in 1755, more than forty years before the synagogue was built, and for those decades it worshipped in a house synagogue on the present Hoofdstraat. Around 1800 about 700 Jews lived in Drenthe, roughly 400 of them in Hoogeveen, Coevorden and Meppel. The figures for Hoogeveen and its surroundings were 163 in 1809, 286 in 1840 and 484 in 1869, so the congregation nearly tripled while the 1799 synagogue was in use. After 1814 the Jews of Assen came under the synagogue district of Hoogeveen. By the middle of the nineteenth century Hoogeveen had the second largest Jewish community in Drenthe, after Meppel. The same period brought internal quarrels: for a time a split into two communities was discussed or took place, and the disputes were only settled in 1871. The community buried its dead first in a cemetery near the Grote Kerk, then from 1804 to 1831 at the Krakeelse Opgaande, and from 1831 at the Zuiderweg. No rabbi, teacher, cantor or warden of the period 1799-1866 is named in the sources read.
אדריכלות ועיצוב
Nothing is known about the appearance of the 1799 synagogue. No drawing, plan, photograph or written description of it was found, and its architect, builder, cost, size and seating capacity are unknown. The only facts recorded are its location on the present-day Schutstraat and the dates of its consecration and demolition. Its successor of 1865-1866, a neoclassical building with a pedimented front and large round-arched windows, was built on the same site, so the earlier synagogue stood on or within the plot now numbered Schutstraat 147. Rural Dutch synagogues of around 1800 were usually modest brick halls, but whether this applied in Hoogeveen cannot be confirmed from the sources consulted, and the postcards and photographs of a synagogue in Hoogeveen all show the later building.
החיים בבית הכנסת
Very little is recorded about worship in the 1799 building. The Geheugen van Drenthe describes Hoogeveen as one of the ring synagogues of Drenthe, together with Coevorden and Meppel, with Assen joining in 1840; that is, a synagogue serving as a centre for Jews from the surrounding villages. When the province was organised under a chief rabbi after 1814, Meppel, not Hoogeveen, was chosen as the seat of the chief rabbinate, and Rabbi Hillesum of Meppel held the office. The JCK encyclopedia notes that the community supported several societies for charity, care of the sick and burial, but does not say when they were founded. A new Jewish school building opened in 1872, after the old synagogue had gone. The names of the prayer leaders, teachers and wardens who served in the 1799 synagogue were not found.
הרס
The 1799 synagogue was not destroyed by war or persecution. According to the JCK encyclopedia, the building was demolished in 1865-1866 and replaced by a new synagogue on the same spot, and the Geheugen van Drenthe likewise says the present synagogue on the Schutstraat was built in 1865-1866 on the site of the synagogue of 1799. The national monuments register dates the new building to 1865. Neither source gives the exact date of the demolition, the reason for it, or the condition of the old building at the time, and who carried out the demolition is not recorded. The demolition was the congregation's own decision, made in order to build the larger synagogue that replaced it.
גורל הקהילה
The congregation that had built the 1799 synagogue went on worshipping in its successor until the Second World War. In 1930 Hoogeveen and its surroundings had 237 Jews, and in the 1930s about ten Jewish refugees from Germany settled in the town. Between January and October 1942, 200 Jewish men were held at a forced-labour camp in the woods near Gijsselte. In October 1942, in a single raid under the Nazi German occupation, almost all the Jews of Hoogeveen were arrested and sent through the Westerbork transit camp to the extermination camps; none of them returned. A few dozen Jewish residents survived by going into hiding. In February 1944 the Nazi German occupiers looted and badly damaged the 1866 synagogue. Only 27 Jews were counted in 1951 and 17 in 1971. A small congregation continued after the war and since 1988 has been part of the Liberal Jewish community NIG Drenthe, which merged with Assen and Emmen.
האתר כיום
The site of the 1799 synagogue is occupied by its replacement, the synagogue built in 1865-1866 at Schutstraat 147, which is a national monument (rijksmonument 22258). After the war it was sold in 1948 and used as a church by a Reformed congregation, and since the mid-1990s it has been the church of the Baptist congregation De Schutse. Nothing of the 1799 building is known to survive above ground, and whether any of its foundations lie under the present building is unknown. A memorial stone near the former synagogue on the Schutstraat honours the murdered Jews of Hoogeveen.
יש לכם משהו לתרום?
תמונות, מסמכים, סיפורי משפחה וזיכרונות מבית הכנסת ומהקהילה שלו עוזרים לשמור על ההיסטוריה שלו בחיים.
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