In Amsterdam, they call it “The Circle.”
For nearly 40 years, the Netherlands Society for Jewish Genealogy has brought together families tracing their ancestry in the small Dutch country, where Jews first found refuge in the 16th century.
But now, its dynamic new president, Miriam Keesing, has an ambitious plan to expand the circle and broaden its appeal both within and beyond its borders.
“In many other countries, and especially the U.S., there are many Jews with ancestors in the Netherlands,” says Keesing, a classical pianist and historian who has been the society’s leader since March. “It would be great if people would know how to find us.”
That’s one reason, she says, that the Netherlands society recently joined IAJGS, to expand its reach in the Jewish world.
Today, the group (www.nljewgen.org/about-us/) has about 350 members and publishes a quarterly magazine, Misjpoge (“Family”), in Dutch, with a summary for English-speaking members.
But with its members aging, in a country with a Jewish population of about 35,000, Keesing thinks it’s time for a reboot.
“When it was established 40 years ago, obviously there was a great need for people in this country, especially for Jewish people, to research their families because of all the gaps that were left by the Nazis,” she said in an interview.
Now, with so many resources available online, she said, “we are kind of at a crossroads. I believe in a society like this. But we do have to catch up with the times and make sure that we get younger members as well.”
As an historian, one of her goals is to help researchers connect their own family histories and Jewish history writ large. Under her leadership, the group is changing its name to The Netherlands Society for Jewish History and Genealogy.
“Jewish history and genealogy are twins intertwined,” she says. “It’s very difficult to do one without the other.”
That’s something Keesing, who can trace her family back eight generations, knows from personal experience.
Years ago, she stumbled upon a remarkable, and little known, episode of Dutch Holocaust history while researching her grandfather Isaac Keesing, a publisher and author who died shortly before she was born. Going through her late father’s papers, she found an old photo of a little boy, who turned out to be a German Jewish refugee who briefly lived with the family in Amsterdam from 1939 to 1941.
The photo, and the boy’s tragic story, led her on a nearly 20-year odyssey to research and document Dutch efforts to rescue nearly 2,000 Jewish children fleeing the Nazis. It was the Netherlands equivalent of Britain’s more-famous Kindertransport, which saved some 10,000 refugee children from the Holocaust.
Keesing eventually created a foundation and website, Dokin.nl, to preserve the stories and photos of the children who came to or through the Netherlands. She’s also working on a book on the subject, which she hopes to publish, as her doctoral dissertation in Jewish Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
Looking ahead, Keesing says she takes heart from her fellow university students. “I am surrounded by young people who are very interested in Jewish history,” she said, adding, “I believe a society like ours has a future.”
by Maura Lerner Fisher
Maura.fisher@iajgs.org
