Jerusalem on the Amstel by Lipika Pelham

Author:Lipika Pelham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hurst
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

REMBRANDT’S NEIGHBOURS

One wonders how Rembrandt (1606–69) would have painted or etched the Esnoga had he been alive then. He had lived a stone’s throw away from Mr. Visserplein, where the Portuguese Jews built their temple-synagogue, at the top end of Jodenbreestraat. Its geometric precision showed the most sophisticated realisation yet of the pride of an enlightened immigrant nation, and the sparse classical design expressed that Nation’s humility despite being tremendously successful. The one-storey structure that surrounded the main Esnoga also housed a smaller daily house of worship, mainly for the use of schoolchildren and students of the yeshiva Ets Haim. Today it is used as a winter synagogue, which can be heated.

During his lifetime Rembrandt relentlessly drew, etched and painted his exotic neighbours—in the flamboyant outfits of the merchants, if he fancied a splash of colour on his easel, or else the simple Ashkenazi vagabonds and peddlers who poured into Jodenbreestraat from middle Europe, as well as new Marrano immigrants from the Iberian Peninsula who fell on hard times after losing all to the Inquisition. As we know, it was during the seventeenth century that Moses started appearing in Dutch paintings without horns, and the Dutch masters stopped displaying a “demonological exaggeration” of the figure of the Jew—the prominent hooked nose, the long beard and turban. By the mid-century, the appearance of the Portuguese Jewish merchants and other professionals bore almost no distinguishing features to mark them out from the gentiles of Amsterdam. The remaining visibly Jewish Amsterdamers were mostly the Ashkenazim, and perhaps the rabbis.

The Old Testament was the most popular theme during this period, with the old Jewish stereotypes retouched by Dutch masters such as Rembrandt and Lievens into essential characteristics of the figures of the Bible. Their style enhanced “the narrative immediacy of scripture painting so that Rembrandt gives us not only a David, but a St Matthew and a Jesus with the features of his Jewish neighbours on the Breestraat.”1 Well-off Jews had been having their portraits painted for some time by renowned artists. One of the more famous etchings is of Dr Ephraim Bueno descending a staircase; we meet a man with a mischievous grace and a perfectly trimmed Van Dyke beard, starched white cuffs turned back over a black coat, and a stiff white collar. To the naked eye, this figure from 1647 could be a member of the Calvinist regent class, a rich burgher.

The portraits and paintings of the seventeenth-century Jews show how they lived, or how they wanted to be seen by future generations of Jews. Those who posed in these pictures were not mere models for the artists; they commissioned these works and sat for them in their finest clothing and jewellery, smiling their happiest smiles. These men, women and children were no different from any other rich members of society in the pre-photographic age, who wanted to have their portraits etched in black and white, or painted in rich colours by artists they could afford. The rich Sephardi merchants also

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