Mediene


The Mediene is the name given to all the Jewish kehillot in the Netherlands outside of the capital Amsterdam, the historical center of Dutch Judaism. From the 18th century onwards up until the Holocaust, dozens of Jewish communities were created in towns big and small scattered throughout the Netherlands. At its height, some 180 kehillot existed throughout the country.

Disappeared Communities

At the eve of the Holocaust, some 140 Jewish communities existed throughout the Netherlands, many of them located outside of Amsterdam and the Randstad. At the end of the war, with some 75% of Dutch Jews murdered in the Nazi concentration camps, many of these communities disappeared.
Some prominent Jewish communities in the Mediene who were totally destroyed by the Nazis include:
. Numbering 442 persons in 1930, this Jewish community in the mediene was largely destroyed during the Holocaust. It eventually merged with two other Jewish communities, those of Apeldoorn and Zutphen, in 2000.
Other Jewish communities in the Mediene greatly declined because of the Holocaust :
The tremendous decline and disappearance of dozens of Jewish communities throughout the Netherlands was not only due to the large numbers of Dutch Jews killed during the Holocaust, but also due to large-scale post-Holocaust emigration to countries like Israel and the United States, and migration within the Netherlands from the Mediene to Amsterdam.