This book is the first comprehensive study examining the impact of emancipation on the lives of Amsterdam's Jews. The enactment of equality in 1796 failed to provide these Jews with similar rights and opportunities as the non-Jews; two-thirds of Amsterdam's Jewish community remained poor for much of the nineteenth century. Even though the declaration of emancipation should have provided the Jews with legal and social equality, the Dutch authorities continued to retain their perception of the Jews as a separate and different group of predominantly uncultured paupers and never made it their priority to remove all restrictive measures.

Karina Sonnenberg-Stern is currently researching the experience of German Jewish refugee women in Britain during the 1940s.

List of Figures, Maps and Tables Preface Abbreviations The Nature of Emancipation in Europe The Ambiguities and Limits of Establishing a Jewish Community pre-1796 The Uncertain Terms of Jewish Emancipation 1796-1813 Prejudice and Intolerance: Amsterdam's Treatment of the Jewish Poor Education: An Attempt to Reform and Acculturate the Jewish Poor Conclusion Endnotes Bibliography Index