page_title: History of the Jews in the Netherlands
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in the Netherlands / Religion
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: De Synagoge in de Gerard Doustraat, Amsterdam This is an image of rijksmonument number 527843
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in the Netherlands is considered to begin largely in the 16th century, when they began to settle in Amsterdam and other cities. It has continued to the present. Following the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in May 1940, the Jewish community was severely persecuted. About 70% of its members were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust during World War II.
  The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces declared independence. A principal motive was the wish to practice Protestant Christianity, then forbidden under Spanish rule. Religious tolerance was effectively an important constitutional element of the newly independent state. This inevitably attracted the attention of Jews who were religiously oppressed in different parts of the world. In pursuit of religious freedoms, many Jews migrated to the Netherlands where they flourished.
  During the German Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, 70 percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands was killed during the Holocaust, which included deportation to concentration and extermination camps.
context_section_description: Some 9,000 Dutch Jews, out of a total of 30,000 (some 30%), are connected to one of the seven major Jewish religious organizations. Smaller, independent synagogues exist as
  well.
caption: The Gerard Doustraat Synagogue in Amsterdam, Netherlands
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