Roll Out the Red Carpet: When the Royals Paid a Visit to the Jews of Amsterdam
Rare documents from the National Library of Israel show the excitement and dedication that went into the preparations for the visit of Wilhelm V and his bride, Princess Wilhelmina.
Portrait of William V, Prince of Orange by Henry Bone (1801).
The summer of 1768 proved to be an interesting time for the Jewish community of Amsterdam. The royal newlyweds, Wilhelm V, Prince of Orange and Prussian Princess Wilhelmina, were invited by the local Jewish leaders to visit the Ashkenazic congregation in the hopes of securing good ties and a solid relationship with the new couples’ court. A positive relationship with the royals was an essential factor in building and creating a favorable environment and decent conditions for the Jews living in the city of Amsterdam and in the Dutch Republic as a whole.
The Amsterdam Pinkas (Jewish community register) which is held in Amsterdam’s civic archives, details the frenzied preparations that took place ahead of the visit set for July of 1768. Included in these preparations was the creation of a compilation of prayers and psalms to be recited in honor of the visit. The prayers were carefully selected and the pamphlet was meticulously curated, detailing the order of prayers and psalms.
The cover page of the pamphlet printed on satin which reads “Light and Happiness for the Jews,” printed in both Hebrew and Dutch. Click to view the full pamphlet.
The community took great care in ensuring their royal guests would be able to follow and understand the procedure and prayer services that would take place in their honor. According to the Pinkas, the prayer book was produced in three separate versions. The first version included just two special copies that were produced for the royal couple themselves. The pamphlets were beautifully bound pieces of printed satin fabric that held the texts written in both Hebrew and Dutch. The second version was printed a total of 50 times for the members of the royal court. These copies were printed in Hebrew and Dutch on paper and were bound in red satin fabric. The third version was a simpler Hebrew printing of 500 copies for the local members of the congregation who were expected to be in attendance.
Click to view full pamphlet.
The prayer booklet was given the name, “Light and Happiness for the Jews,” a phrase taken from Megillat Esther, the text that is traditionally read on the holiday of Purim. The congregation leader bequeathed the two unique satin-printed copies to the royal couple during the proceedings and according to the community records the visit was considered a great success.
Let’s flash forward a few centuries to the year 2011 at the National Library of Israel (NLI). Dr. Stefan Litt, an archival expert and Pinkas researcher at the National Library learned of this unique story while studying the community register of the Ashkenazic community of Amsterdam and wanted to know more. He set out on a mission in the hopes of finding that at least one of the prayer pamphlets produced in honor of the royal visit was still around and available for study.
Psalms in Hebrew and Dutch from the satin copy of the pamphlet. Click to view the full pamphlet.
After performing a quick check in the NLI catalog, Dr. Litt found not only one, but two copies of the pamphlet preserved in the National Library stacks. The first pamphlet was a slightly faded copy of the version that was printed in Hebrew and Dutch and bound in red satin – one of the 50 copies that had been produced in honor of the visit for use by the royal entourage just as it had been described in the Amsterdam Pinkas.
This copy arrived at the National Library of Israel from the personal library of the German-Dutch researcher and rabbi, Sigmund Seeligmann.
The National Library of Israel recently acquired another copy of the 50 pamphlets produced in Hebrew and Dutch, however, this copy is missing the original red satin binding. It was part of the famous Valmadonna Trust Library, which was purchased by the Library in 2017. With this addition, the NLI now has the largest number of these printed testimonies of the royal visit in the summer of 1768. They were produced by Proops, the famous Amsterdam Jewish printing house. There is only one other known copy of this printing of the pamphlet that is held in the British Library in London.
As for the second copy kept at the National Library, Dr. Litt was amazed to find that it was one of the original two copies that had been beautifully printed on satin in honor of the royal couple themselves! The rare and exquisite pamphlet arrived at the NLI as a part of a large donation of books made by Dr. Joseph Chazanowicz from Poland over 100 years ago that made up the foundational collection of the Library according to the stamps located on the satin pages.
You may be asking yourself – how did Dr. Chazanowicz get his hand on this extremely rare pamphlet of which only two were made? Well, in truth, we may never know. What is clear though, is that the royal couple did not seem to take much interest in this special gift. The second copy of the pamphlet produced for the couple appears to have gone missing without a trace. Even more notable is that there seems to be no remaining evidence of this historic visit in the form of pamphlets located in any of the major libraries in Holland. For now, the Jewish community’s efforts and careful planning will be held on record both in their community Pinkas and deep in the archives of the National Library of Israel.
Special thanks to Dr. Stefan Litt for his assistance in writing this article.
This is the story of a footnote to two major events in French history – the Dreyfus Affair and the introduction of the world’s greatest bicycle race, the Tour de France, that briefly, and ever so slightly intersected in June of 1899.
Following a humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, the French Third Rebublic placed its focus on the rebuilding of national pride – Revanchism.
The newly invented bicycle quickly became a symbol of health, fitness, and modernity, and a national obsession with cycling saw races taking place all over the country by the 1890s. The insatiable appetite for cycling meant an increase in the desire for news about the sport while manufacturers of bicycles and cycling components made use of the media for advertising purposes. Competing newspapers set up races to promote themselves.
In many senses the Third Republic was progressive but it was also beset by crises. One of these, the Panama Canal scandal, fostered growth in antisemitism since two of the businessmen at the center of it, and upon whom the patriotic press focused, were German Jews. This brought monarchists into conflict with Republicans, and Catholics into conflict with secularists – antagonisms that continued with the Dreyfus Affair. Throughout the nineteenth-century Jews enjoyed a degree of emancipation and political and commercial influence, thus feeding the antisemitic “international-Jewish-lobby” trope.
The Trap Set for Dreyfus, “Dreyfus the Martyr”, The Graphic London, 1899. From the collections of the National Library of Israel.
Four years after Dreyfus’s original conviction based on concocted evidence, the affair rumbled on. The real culprit, Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, had been identified but was quickly cleared by a military court determined to hold tight to the army’s position and avoid humiliation. By the time Emile Zola’s “J’Accuse” article was published, the country was deeply split between those who were for and those who were against Dreyfus.
“J’Accuse”, Emile Zola’s famous article in L’Aurore, January 3, 1898, from the collections of the National Library of Israel.
On February 16, 1899, French President Felix Faure suffered a brain hemorrhage while in the arms of his Jewish mistress, Marguerite Steinheil. His sudden death presented an opportunity for the Dreyfusards as Faure was succeeded by Emile Loubet, a left-leaning senator from humble origins who was very much a friend of the underdog. He was popular enough with other members of the national assembly to easily beat his opponent for the Presidency, but not universally popular across the riven nation; Loubet was seen as an enemy of the anti-Dreyfusards because he supported reviews of the trials of Dreyfus and Esterhazy.
On June 3, 1899, the Supreme Court overturned the original court-martial judgment against Dreyfus and ordered a retrial. Tensions were high when, the following day, Loubet accepted an invitation to watch horse-racing at the Auteuil Race Course.
Alfred Dreyfus at his Rehabilitation Ceremony, July 21, 1906, from the Dreyfus Family Collection at the National Library of Israel.
Unlike the Longchamp racecourse which was frequented by the lower classes, and therefore Loubet’s core support, Auteuil was the playground of the wealthy, monarchist, anti-Republican and mainly anti-Dreyfusard classes. Loubet’s presence was seen as provocative and he was confronted by hordes outraged by the order for a retrial. The demonstration turned violent almost as soon as the President took his seat. Among those who were arrested following the fracas was the wealthy industrialist Jules Albert Compte de Dion.
The pugnacious de Dion had two passions – engineering and dueling. At one point, his automobile company, De Dion Bouton, was the largest manufacturer of cars in the world.
Pierre Gifford, the editor of the Le Velo newspaper, criticized the demonstration, as did much of French society, appalled at the humiliating treatment of the President by these uncouth aristocrats.
Politically, Gifford was on the left and wrote scathing articles criticizing De Dion and other anti-Dreyfusards, despite many of them being important advertisers in his newspaper. Gifford’s reporting of the demonstration incensed De Dion and others industrialists such as Eduard Michelin, a vigorous antisemite, and Gustave Clement.
The Le Velo newspaper which covered sport and politics, dominated the sports paper market, enabling it to command high advertising rates. It was also financially backed by the Darracq motor company – a rival automobile manufacturer to De Dion and Clement.
Giffard’s criticism following the Auteuil incident was the last straw. The anti-Dreyfusard businessmen were already frustrated that Le Velo had a virtual monopoly and was controlled by one of their rivals. Dion and his allies decided to withdraw their advertising and to launch their own rival paper, L’Auto-Velo, under the editorship of Henri Desgrange, a man with significant experience in journalism and the world of cycling.
L’Auto Velo, the first edition.
De Dion chose Desgrange to be his editor for his hard-headed, opinionated and autocratic style. He left the running of the paper to Desgrange with a single instruction: to drive Le Velo out of business.
L’Auto-Velo was launched on October 16th, 1900 and was printed on yellow paper to distinguish it from the green of Le Velo, a decision that was to have lasting significance.
In November 1902, as the renamed L’Auto struggled with circulation at consistently around a quarter of that of Le Velo, Desgrange held a crisis meeting. It was at this meeting that a young reporter by the name of Geo Lefevre, allegedly desperate to suggest something, spontaneously floated the idea of the Tour de France as a promotional enterprise.
Desgrange initially received the idea with skepticism, but after consulting his finance manager, he decided to launch the race in January of 1903. To his surprise “Le Tour” was an immediate success for the paper with circulation rising from around 25,000 to 65,000 after the first edition of the race, spelling disaster for Le Velo which ceased publication in 1904.
Le Tour de France is announced in L’Auto.
L’Auto went on to enjoy massive benefit on the back of the Tour de France, and, by the time of the 1923 tour, it was selling 500,000 copies a day during the race. Sales peaked at over 850,000 during the 1933 tour.
Desgrange stayed in charge until his death in 1940 when the paper was taken over by a German consortium. During the war period L’Auto was not unsympathetic to the Nazis, allowing it to continue operating under the Vichy government, but after the war, it was shut down along with all other pro-German publications. From the ashes of L’Auto emerged the now popular French sports paper, L’Equipe.
So, if we look back and connect the dots, we can see that, if it wasn’t for Alfred Dreyfus and his antisemitic ordeal, there would be no Tour de France.
This post was written as part of Gesher L’Europa, the NLI’s initiative to connect with Europe and make our collections available to diverse audiences in Europe and beyond.
The Jews of Frankfurt established a second Purim in 1616 in celebration of the downfall of a new Haman who tried to eradicate the local Jewish community.
Postcard from the end of the 19th-century featuring an illustration by Hermann Junker of a Jewish family in Germany celebrating Purim. Image from the Folklore Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
My grandfather’s book collection was impressive. With him, it was hard to play the usual game of guessing someone’s personality through their selection of books because he spent the later decades of his life as a bookbinder in Jerusalem and had a love for the physical material of books. His bookshelves included all sorts of books that people had left him or that he had found and fixed. That being said, I can’t be sure that the old siddur I have from him is the one that he actually used.
The Sfas Emes siddur is fairly famous in Germany. It was first published in Rödelheim by Rabbi Wolf Heidenheim in 1799 and is still being re-published in the German-speaking Jewish world today. Almost every page makes mention of the special liturgical traditions of Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, one says such and such, in Frankfurt one changes the order, in Frankfurt this word is omitted.
I was using my copy of the siddur that I got from my grandfather for a while, trying to get the feel of it, when I noticed an interesting note. Within the list of ‘happy’ days – days of celebration and holidays on which it is inappropriate to say the penitential prayer called Tachanun, the note adds “In Frankfurt-am-Main, also Frankfurter Purim [is celebrated] on the 20th of Adar.”
I’m a big fan of regular Purim but had never heard of Frankfurter Purim. I decided to do a bit of research and this is what I learned.
A book from the National Library collection on Jewish customs in Frankfurt, published in 1723. These pages describe the customs of Purim Vintz.
Frankfurter Purim, also called Purim Vintz, celebrates a local miracle on the 20th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, just six days after the holiday of Purim. In 1614, a local baker and troublemaker named Vincent Fettmilch who considered himself to be the “New Haman” lead the city guilds in an uprising against the new Emperor. Included in their demands for lower taxes were also demands for fewer Jews in town and lower interest rates on Jewish loans.
When the Emperor ignored or rejected the demands of the city guilds, Fettmilch led a mob to ransack the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt, burning, fighting, and pillaging until the entire Jewish population was forced to flee. Two years later, in February of 1616, Emperor Matthias had Vincent Fettmilch and five of the other rebels hanged, and the Jews were allowed to safely return to the city. The proximity of the hanging to Purim that year, as well as the resonances of the Purim story, encouraged the community to celebrate the return as a mini-redemption, with special songs and a long poetic retelling of the story in Judeo-German called “Megillat Vintz.”
This 18th-century calender mentions Purim Vintz. From the National Library archives.
Frankfurt is not alone. In many Jewish communities throughout history, local episodes of near-destruction and sudden salvation have been marked along the lines of Purim. Reading through the history books and discovering hints of Purim Narbonne, Cairo Purim, Purim Hebron, Purim of Saragossa and the four Purims of Ancona, Italy, to mention just a few, is a fascinating experience.
The echoes of these celebrations are still felt today. In his latest halachic (Jewish law) treatise, Peninei Halacha, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed defends the religious obligation to celebrate Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day), despite voices that claim that creating holidays after the destruction of the Temple is forbidden, by citing the precedent of Purim Frankfurt.
A closer view of the 18th-century calendar mentioning Purim Vintz. The calendar shows that a fast was held on the 19th day of the Jewish month of Adar ahead of the holiday that was held on the 20th. From the National Library archives.
For me, now, living and continuing my rabbinical studies in Berlin, these stories of local Purims bring life and complexity to the country I now live in, connecting me to libraries and synagogues in Frankfurt and Jerusalem. Nobody in Frankfurt today celebrates Purim Vintz, as far as I know, and since my grandfather z”l has passed away, I cannot ask whether this was the siddur he grew up with. The Jewish story is colorful and complicated, and having a story like Purim being retold and made continually relevant is an inspiration for me today.
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This article has been published as part of Gesher L’Europa, the National Library of Israel’s initiative to connect with people, institutions and communities across Europe and beyond, through storytelling, knowledge sharing and community engagement.
