1850

FIRST JEWISH ORPHANAGE

In 1850 there was a major cholera epidemic in the province of Zuid-Holland. This epidemic hit ‘De Buurt’ hard, because the living conditions were so bad there. In the wake of this disaster, the Jewish community invested in a number of social institutions for ‘De Buurt’. Rabbi Samuel Berenstein (1808-1893), affectionally called ‘Rabbi Beer’, was one of the initiators of the Jewish orphanage as well as the Jewish hospital in Den Haag. He was also involved in the establishment of the ‘Stichting tot Nut van de Israëlieten’, a major foundation to help Dutch Jews in general and the ‘Vereniging voor de Joodsche Letterkunde en Geschiedenis’, a foundation for the study of Jewish literature and history. Samuel Berenstein hailed from a famous line of rabbis and was supposed to follow his father as ‘opperrabbijn’, senior rabbi, of Amsterdam, but in the capital we was deemed to be too censervative. In 1848 he was appointed opperrabbijn of Den Haag and acting opperrabbijn of Utrecht and Zeeland. He became a great scholar, whose ‘drashot’ (sermons) were famous. T. To recognise his important services to the community he was awarded the title of ‘Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw’, a major Royal distinction