Livraria Ets Haim
Amsterdam

Livraria Ets Haim is the world’s oldest functioning Jewish library. Founded in 1616 by Jews who fled Catholic persecution in Spain and Portugal, the three-room library is adjacent to Amsterdam’s majestic Portuguese Synagogue in the Dutch capital’s center. The 30,000-volume collection mostly contains manuscripts written by people who fled the Inquisition on the Iberian Peninsula or their descendants.

Miraculously, Ets Haim survived the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 when three quarters of the Dutch Jews there were murdered. Yet the Nazis left the Portuguese Synagogue intact (below), and instead of burning the library’s collection, they shipped the books to Germany. The collection was discovered there, with light damage, after the war and returned to Amsterdam. The building, dating to 1675, was renovated in 2000 to ensure the preservation of the collection. Every year, on May 5, the Netherlands celebrates liberation from German occupation in 1945 and the importance of freedom.

Rafting Revisited

For those who missed our virtual rafting trip with Barbara Spiegel and Tom Hodgkin, it is not too late to see the stunning photographs that capture the scale and majesty of the Grand Canyon and hear Barbara and Tom's first-hand account of this experience (yes, that's Barbara and Tom in the photograph!). Find the video here.

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