Sneek Synagogue

The Jewish community

Jewish families lived in Sneek off and on from the early eighteenth century, but a community large enough to hold services formed only after 1809, when 13 Jews were counted. Its members were mostly traders, with some butchers. In 1817 Sneek became a bijkerk, a subsidiary congregation, of Leeuwarden, and in 1824 it was raised to a ring synagogue responsible for the smaller Jewish settlements of its district; Jews lived in nearby IJlst and Stavoren but never formed congregations there. The kehilla was led by two parnassim, and the parnassim of Leeuwarden sometimes intervened in its affairs, for example over the communal tax. The community bought a cemetery on the Leeuwarderstraatweg outside the Oostpoort in 1823 and enlarged it in 1890. A dispute over the church tax in the late nineteenth century led a group to open a second Jewish burial ground at the general cemetery on the Kerkhoflaan before the two sides were reconciled. Numbers stood at 144 in 1840, 127 in 1869, 132 in 1899 and 49 in 1930. In the early twentieth century Sneek had a branch of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and a Zionist group.

Architecture and design

The first purpose-built synagogue was begun in July 1835 on a house plot the community had bought in 1833, after a building attempt in 1827 had failed for lack of money; the authorities approved it in 1834 only once the congregation showed that contractors and suppliers could be paid. A stone laid at its foundation, bearing the names of Aron Joseph Frijda and Chaim (Joachim) Sanders, is kept in Sneek town hall. The municipal heritage route names Albert Breunissen Troost as the synagogue's architect without saying which building he designed. In 1880 a new synagogue was built on the same site. A photograph dated 1911 shows a narrow brick street front under a steep gable with a stepped, arcaded brick frieze and stars of David. Slender turrets with onion caps stand at both corners and on the apex. A large round arch encloses a tablet with four lines of Hebrew above a group of six tall windows glazed with stars of David, and two round-arched doorways open at street level behind a railing and two trees. The capacity and the plan of the interior are unknown.

Life inside the synagogue

The synagogue served a small provincial congregation led by two parnassim. A mikveh, a ritual bath, was installed in 1823, before the first synagogue was built. Communal societies looked after Torah study, poor relief and burials, and a women's society cared for the parochet, the curtain of the Torah ark, and the Torah mantles. In the nineteenth century the cantor, who was also the teacher, proposed that Dutch be used in the synagogue. Around 1900 a single teacher served as cantor and shochet, the ritual slaughterer, which was common in congregations of this size. Members gave the synagogue silver ritual objects; among them was a silver havdalah dish presented in 1880, the year of the new building, by Chaim Sanders and his wife, which is now in the collection of the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam. The names of the community's rabbis, cantors and teachers were not found.

Destruction

The municipality of Sneek's heritage route states that during a raid on 3 November 1944 the synagogue was completely wrecked and looted by members of the NSB, the Dutch Nazi party; the Jewish Cultural Quarter likewise says that NSB members destroyed it so thoroughly that only the walls remained. The Torah scrolls were saved. The synagogue's silver ritual objects were taken by the Nazi German occupiers and were recovered after the war. The roofless shell stood until 1949, when, according to the Jewish Cultural Quarter and nljewgen.org, the remains were pulled down. No source read says who ordered or carried out the demolition, or whether the plot was sold by the community before or afterwards. The congregation was not refounded, and in 1950 it was merged into the Jewish community of Leeuwarden. The nine-branched candelabrum, a curtain and, according to dutchjewry.org, the Torah scrolls were later given to the youth village of Kfar Batya in Israel.

The community’s fate

Sneek's Jewish community was already small before the war; it had numbered 49 in 1930, down from 132 in 1899. During the German occupation the Jews of Sneek were divided between those who found a hiding place and those who did not. According to the Jewish Cultural Quarter, a little more than half of them went into hiding with local people and survived, and the rest were deported and murdered. The history of the community on dutchjewry.org gives the toll as 43 Jews of Sneek killed in the camps and 25 survivors. The dates of the arrests and the transports, and the camps to which the victims were taken, were not found in the sources read for this entry. The congregation's minutes and correspondence were lost during the war. After the liberation the survivors were too few to restore congregational life. The community was not refounded, and in 1950 it was formally joined to the Jewish community of Leeuwarden. The Jewish cemeteries of Sneek are maintained by the local authority.

The site today

The synagogue stood on the Wijde Burgstraat, a pedestrian shopping street in the centre of Sneek. After the ruin was cleared in 1949 a shop building was put up on the plot; the municipality's heritage route places the site at the C&A store, under whose bay window a Star of David can still be seen. No part of the synagogue survives above ground. The foundation stone of 1835 is kept in the town hall, and the 1880 havdalah dish is in the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam. A memorial stone on the Wijde Burgstraat marks where the synagogue stood. The two Jewish cemeteries survive: the old one outside the Oostpoort is now part of the Burgemeester De Hooppark, and the other lies within the general cemetery on the Kerkhoflaan.

Notable names