Diving into history ~ Visit to Jewish Cemetery in The Hague #MondayBlogs #History

As many of you know, I’m slightly obsessed with Judaism and Jewish history. My history studies focused on modern history with a special emphasis on Nazi Germany, and it’s impossible to study that time period without diving into the history of anti-Semitism and the Jewish diaspora. My obsession has absolutely nothing to do with working down the block from the synagogue in The Hague for seven years and noticing they were always partying. (It was only years later that I discovered the parties weren’t always for Jewish festivities, but the building itself was rented out to third parties. My disappointment was profound.) I’m also currently working on an historical novel, which takes place in Istanbul during the war and deals with the escape of Jews from Nazi occupied lands through Turkey en route to Palestine.

Jewish cemeterty 1So, yeah, I’m totally buried in Jewish history at the moment. You can imagine my excitement then, when I discovered the Jewish cemetery here in The Hague was open yesterday as part of the annual Open Monument Days. Once a year, monuments in the country open their doors to visitors for free. Many of these monuments – like the Jewish cemetery – are not usually open to the public. They often offer free guided tours as well! It’s a great opportunity to dive into history.

 

I jumped on my bike and made sure I was at the cemetery in time for the first tour. The first thing I noticed about the cemetery is that most of the grave markers are flat stones. In other Jewish cemeteries, the stones are upright. It turns out that this cemetery was started by the Portuguese Jewish community and their tradition is to lay stones flat. The Germanic Jewish community in The Hague followed this tradition, except for a few upright stones.

Our guide told us an interesting tidbit about the cemetery during the war. The cemetery is currently surrounded by a brick wall, but during the Second World War, the wall had a gate in it. One night during the war, a group broke into the cemetery to bury some Jewish persons who had died while in hiding. No one is sure who the persons are who are buried, but there are some slight mounds near the former gate where everyone assumes the men were buried. (The surrounding wall has been renovated and closed off in recent years.)

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FYI: The grave in the middle is that of Jozef Israels, a famous Dutch painter

 

I also learned about several traditions regarding Jewish burials. For example, each grave only has one person. Children are buried separately and have smaller stones.

 

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The burial stones also hold symbols containing clues about the person buried. For example, having the surname of Kohen usually indicates that one’s patrilineal ancestors were priests in the Temple of Jerusalem. In that case, the burial stone will hold two hands, with four fingers each divided into two sets of fingers. This is the symbol of a priestly blessing.

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Another symbol is a pitcher, which signifies a Levite. A Levite is a member of the tribe of Levi who were responsible for cleaning the hands of the Temple priest (a Kohen).

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It was an interesting tour despite my confusion about the Dutch word for Zionism (it’s the same word but pronounced very strangely). For once, I wasn’t the know-it-all. Really, I wasn’t.

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