La historia de Naarden Synagogue
Naarden is a small fortified town in the Gooi region of Noord-Holland, east of Amsterdam. Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam settled there in the seventeenth century and at first held services in a private house. In 1727 they consecrated a synagogue on the Gansoordstraat, a street inside the ramparts of the fortress. During the eighteenth century an Ashkenazi (High German) congregation also formed in the town. It had no building of its own and worshipped in the Portuguese synagogue, where the Portuguese rite was followed until late in the nineteenth century.
The Portuguese community gradually dwindled and was eventually dissolved, and in 1887 the synagogue was formally transferred to the Ashkenazi congregation. That congregation was shrinking too: the Jewish population of Naarden and its surroundings fell from 206 in 1840 to 64 in 1899. Meanwhile Jews were settling in the growing neighbouring village of Bussum, and in 1917 they founded their own independent congregation, against the wishes of Naarden. After that, services in the Naarden synagogue stopped. The congregation was formally dissolved in 1933, and the empty building, left without maintenance, collapsed in 1935. No photograph, drawing or plan of it was found, and its exact plot on the Gansoordstraat has not been identified.
Where it stood for 208 years
Historic: Gansoordstraat, Naarden (house number unknown). Today: Gansoordstraat, 1411 Naarden, Gooise Meren, Noord-Holland; exact plot unknown, pin approximate.
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The Jewish presence in Naarden began in the seventeenth century, when Portuguese (Sephardi) Jews from Amsterdam settled in the fortress town. Their community was placed under the authority of the Portuguese congregation of Amsterdam. An Ashkenazi congregation grew up beside it in the eighteenth century; in the 1820s it numbered seven families. The two groups shared one synagogue, the Portuguese building on the Gansoordstraat. Figures for Naarden and its surroundings show 151 Jews in 1809 and a peak of 206 in 1840, followed by a steep decline to 86 in 1869, 64 in 1899 and 36 in 1930. Until 1825 the community buried its dead outside the town, at Ouderkerk, Muiderberg or Zeeburg; after that it had a cemetery within the fortifications, and a Star of David on the front of the building at Kloosterstraat 78 still recalls it. In the early twentieth century a new cemetery was opened on the Amersfoortsestraatweg in Bussum. The rise of Bussum as a commuter village drew the regional Jewish population away from the old town, and in 1917 Bussum's Jews formed their own congregation.
Arquitectura y diseño
No description, photograph, drawing or plan of the building was found in the sources read, so its size, appearance and internal arrangement are unknown. What can be said is limited to the documentary record. It stood on the Gansoordstraat, a residential street in the south-western part of the fortified town of Naarden, among the closely built streets inside the ramparts. It was consecrated in 1727 as a synagogue for a Portuguese congregation that was dependent on the Portuguese community of Amsterdam, and it remained in use for nearly two centuries, first under the Portuguese rite and, from 1887 at the latest, as the synagogue of the Ashkenazi congregation. The building contained several chandeliers; after the congregation was dissolved, the Dutch Ashkenazi umbrella organisation, the Nederlands-Israëlietisch Kerkgenootschap (NIK), lent some of them to the local council. The architect, builder, seating capacity, style and building materials are unknown. A search of picture archives for a view of the building was not possible in this round of research.
La vida dentro de la sinagoga
For most of its history the synagogue was home to two congregations. The Portuguese founders followed their own Sephardi rite, and the Ashkenazi congregation that formed in the eighteenth century used the same building and kept to the Portuguese rite there until late in the nineteenth century, an unusual arrangement for a Dutch provincial town, where Ashkenazi practice normally prevailed. As the Portuguese community faded away the Ashkenazim became the effective users of the building, and in 1887 it was formally handed over to them. No rabbis, cantors or teachers who served in the building are named in the sources read, and nothing is recorded of its school or societies. The synagogue's working life ended in 1917, when the Jews of the neighbouring village of Bussum set up a separate congregation; services in Naarden then ceased. When the Naarden congregation was dissolved in 1933, its last administrator burned all the synagogue's archives, which is one reason so little is known about the life of the community inside the building.
Destrucción
The synagogue was not destroyed by violence. Services ended after 1917, when the Jews of Bussum formed their own congregation, and the building then stood unused. The Naarden congregation was formally dissolved in 1933 and its last administrator burned the archives, so no records of the building's final years survive from the community itself. According to the Jewish Historical Museum's community encyclopedia, the neglected building collapsed in 1935. The sources read do not say whether the collapse was total or partial, whether anyone was hurt, who owned the building at the time, or who cleared the remains afterwards. Some of the chandeliers survived because the NIK lent them to the local council. The loss of the synagogue therefore predates the Nazi German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940 by five years, and there is no evidence linking its end to the war.
El destino de la comunidad
By 1930 only 36 Jews were counted in Naarden and its surroundings, and the organised congregation was dissolved in 1933, two years before its synagogue collapsed. Remaining Jewish residents of the area belonged in practice to the Bussum congregation, which had its own synagogue and the cemetery on the Amersfoortsestraatweg. The sources read for this entry do not describe what happened to the Jews living in Naarden during the Nazi German occupation of 1940 to 1945, how many were deported or how many survived, and none of them record any later Jewish community in the town. The fate of the Jews of Naarden during the Holocaust is therefore unknown from the material consulted and needs further research, for example in the Joods Monument records for Naarden and in the Bussum community history.
El lugar hoy
The exact plot where the synagogue stood on the Gansoordstraat has not been identified in the sources read, so it is not known what occupies it today. The Gansoordstraat is a residential street inside the fortress of Naarden, now part of the municipality of Gooise Meren. No remains of the building and no marker on its site are recorded. The one visible trace of the old community inside the fortress is the Star of David on the facade of Kloosterstraat 78, which marks the former Jewish cemetery. The map pin for this entry is the midpoint of the Gansoordstraat and should not be read as the precise location.
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