History of the Jews in Antwerp

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The history of the Jews in Antwerp, a major city in the modern country of Belgium, goes back at least eight hundred years. Jewish life was first recorded in the city in the High Middle Ages. While the Jewish population grew and waned over the centuries, by the beginning of World War II Antwerp had a thriving Jewish community comprising some 35,000, with many Jews connected to the city's diamond industry. The Nazi occupation of Antwerp from 1940 and The Holocaust decimated the city’s Jewish population. By the time of Antwerp's liberation in September 1944, the Jewish population had fallen to around 1,200.

Since then, Antwerp’s Jewish community has rebounded to become a major European centre of Haredi (and particularly Hasidic) Orthodox Judaism. Antwerp is now one of only two cities in Europe (together with London) that is home to a considerable Haredi population in the 21st century. In 2018, there were around 20,000 Haredi Jews living in Antwerp (of which around 10,000 are Hasidic).^[1]