Page 84 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2016 - Amsterdam

82 ❯❯ Amsterdam Area by Area

cantor leads the service. A splendid
MODERN-DAY TOLERANCE collection of brocades, ceremonial
In line with the city’s tradition of silverware and manuscripts is on
tolerance, the authorities overlook the display in the treasury (see p50).
personal possession and consumption
Joods Historisch
of small quantities of cannabis or 7
marijuana, although they are illegal. Museum
Their sale and use at regulated coffee- MAP Q5 • Nieuwe Amstelstraat 1
shops (see p67) is officially accepted, • 020 531 0310 • Open 11am–5pm daily
but hard drugs and advertising are not. • Closed Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah
Visit the Hash Marihuana & Hemp
Museum (below) for a history of hemp. • Admission charge • www.jhm.nl
Abel Cahen’s prize-winning design
for the Jewish Historical Museum
(1987) is a perfect marriage of old
and new: the four synagogues that
house it, built by Ashkenazi Jews
during the 17th and 18th centuries,
are linked by glass-covered internal
walkways. This multimedia museum
explains the history and culture of
the Jewish community in Holland.
Youngsters will enjoy the Children’s
Portugese Synagoge
6 Museum (see pp50–51).
MAP R5 • Mr Visserplein 3
Montelbaanstoren
• 020 531 0380 • Open Apr–Oct: 8
10am–5pm Sun–Thu, 10am–4pm Fri; MAP R3 • Oudeschans 2
Nov–Mar: 10am–4pm Sun–Thu, The Montelbaanstoren fortified
10am–2pm Fri • Closed Sat and tower was built in 1512 just outside
Jewish hols • Admission charge the city wall. Its original purpose was
• www.portugesesynagoge.nl to defend the Dutch fleet; now it
The Sephardic Jews, who settled in houses the Amsterdam water
Amsterdam from the late 16th authority. The open-work steeple
century, celebrated their new lives in was added by the prolific Hendrick
a tolerant society a century later by de Keyser in 1606, when the city
commissioning Elias Bouman to fathers felt that they could at last
build this imposing synagogue. It afford the icing on the proverbial
follows a traditional design with the cake. It overlooks the Oudeschans
Hechal (Holy Ark), facing Jerusalem, (see p56), a lovely canal that also
opposite the bema, from where the dates from the early 16th century.

Extinguishing candles at the Portugese Synagoge

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