Maarsseveen Ashkenazi Synagogue (Maarssen)

RESUMEN

La historia de Maarsseveen Ashkenazi Synagogue (Maarssen)

Maarssen, on the river Vecht about seven kilometres from Utrecht, became a Jewish settlement because the city of Utrecht did not let Jews live within its walls. Wealthy Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam came first, in the seventeenth century, and built their own synagogue in Maarssen in 1720. Late in the seventeenth century High German, or Ashkenazi, Jews were also allowed to settle, and they made their home in Maarsseveen, on the opposite bank of the Vecht. They first prayed in a private house. In 1759 they obtained permission to build a synagogue on the Diependaalsedijk, and this building served them for more than a century and a half. It was the house of worship of the community later known as the Nederlands-Israëlietische Gemeente of Maarssen, whose archive covers the years 1750 to 1923. An early twentieth-century inventory of monuments in Maarsseveen still lists the synagogue's eighteenth-century ark and furnishings. The community's decline began in 1789, when Utrecht opened its gates to Jews, and by 1930 only 38 Jews lived in Maarssen and its surroundings. In 1923 the congregation was absorbed into the Jewish community of Utrecht, and four years later the synagogue was sold and pulled down. A house was later built on the plot, and in 2002 the remains of the synagogue's ritual bath were excavated beneath it.

UBICACIÓN

Where it stood for nearly 170 years

Historic: Diependaalsedijk, Maarsseveen (house number unknown). Today: Diependaalsedijk, 3601 Maarssen, Stichtse Vecht, Utrecht province; private house on the former plot (approximate).

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La comunidad judía

Utrecht barred Jews from living in the city and, for much of the eighteenth century, from staying there overnight, although they could trade there by day. Maarssen and Maarsseveen, just outside its jurisdiction, therefore became the main Jewish settlement of the area. Portuguese families from Amsterdam arrived first, followed late in the seventeenth century by Ashkenazi Jews, who settled on the Maarsseveen side of the Vecht and formed their own congregation. Together the Jews of Maarssen and its surroundings numbered 217 in 1809. The Portuguese congregation dwindled from the middle of the eighteenth century and ended by 1839, leaving the Ashkenazi congregation as the only one. Numbers then fell steadily: 130 in 1840, 103 in 1869, 43 in 1899 and 38 in 1930. The decline followed the opening of Utrecht to Jews in 1789, after which many families moved into the city. The congregation's records from 1750 to 1923 are kept at Het Utrechts Archief. A small cemetery with three gravestones dated 1756 to 1808 survives on the Machinekade, and the Jews of the area were also buried at Tienhoven.

Arquitectura y diseño

No photograph, drawing or plan of the Ashkenazi synagogue was found in this research, and its size, appearance and builder are unknown. What is known comes from documents. The community received permission to build in 1759, which places construction in or soon after that year, on the Diependaalsedijk in Maarsseveen. An early twentieth-century inventory of historic monuments, listing the possessions of the synagogue of the Nederlands-Israëlietische Gemeente in Maarsseveen, records an ark dating from the middle of the eighteenth century, two Torah curtains from the beginning and end of that century, a seventeenth-century brass hanging candelabrum with three crowns, many eighteenth-century candlesticks and four silver Torah finials with pointers. The ark would fit the date of the building. A ritual bath belonged to the complex: its remains were found in 2002 beneath the house that later replaced the synagogue, which shows that the mikveh lay on or beside the synagogue plot. No image of the building has been identified, so its style is recorded as unknown.

La vida dentro de la sinagoga

Before 1759 the Ashkenazi Jews of Maarsseveen held services in a private house, and the new synagogue gave them a permanent place of worship together with a ritual bath on the same site. The furnishings listed in the early twentieth-century monuments inventory give an idea of the interior as it was used: a mid-eighteenth-century ark for the Torah scrolls, two curtains to hang before it, silver finials and pointers for the scrolls, a brass hanging candelabrum with three crowns and many brass candlesticks. Most of these objects date from the century in which the synagogue was built, and the candelabrum is older still. The names of the congregation's rabbis, readers, cantors and wardens were not found in the sources consulted, although the community archive at Het Utrechts Archief, with records from 1750 to 1923, should contain them. In its last decades the congregation was very small, with fewer than fifty Jews in the whole district from about 1900, and it gave up its independence in 1923.

Destrucción

The synagogue was not destroyed by violence. It became redundant when the dwindling congregation was merged into the Jewish community of Utrecht in 1923, and in 1927 the building was sold and demolished. The sources consulted give only the year: they do not name the seller, the buyer, the price, or who carried out the demolition, and whether the building was pulled down because of its condition, for its materials or simply to clear the plot is not recorded. A private house was afterwards built on the site. What became of the eighteenth-century ark, curtains, candelabrum and silver listed before the demolition was not confirmed in this research.

El destino de la comunidad

By the time the synagogue was demolished there was hardly any community left to lose it. In 1930 only 38 Jews were counted in Maarssen and its surroundings, and from 1923 they belonged to the Jewish community of Utrecht. The fate of these remaining Jewish residents during the Nazi German occupation of the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945 was not documented in the sources consulted, and no figure for the number deported from Maarssen or for survivors was found. In the nearby village of Kamerik two Jewish women who were in hiding were arrested during the occupation. No Jewish congregation was re-established in Maarssen after the war. The old cemetery on the Machinekade and the Portuguese cemetery at Tienhoven, known locally as the Jodenbosje, remain the main traces of Jewish life in the area; the latter was reported to be in poor condition, and a restoration was proposed in 2004.

El lugar hoy

The synagogue stood on the Diependaalsedijk in what was Maarsseveen, now part of Maarssen in the municipality of Stichtse Vecht. After the demolition of 1927 a private house was built on the plot. In 2002 the remains of the synagogue's mikveh, the ritual bath, were found and excavated beneath that house, which is the only physical trace of the building known. The exact house number was not found in the sources consulted, so the map pin marks the Diependaalsedijk rather than the plot itself. No marker on the site is recorded.

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