Channa Zaccai MA

PhD candidate

Area(s) of interest: Dutch History, Identity, Migration History & Diaspora, Transnational History

Cohort/Start PhD: 2022-2023

Next year in Amsterdam. Israeli Jews in the Netherlands between 1960 and 2020. A study of diaspora, identity and integration

University of Amsterdam

Supervisor(s): Prof. Bart Wallet, Prof. Irene Zwiep

This research project focuses on the rise and development of an Israeli diaspora, the construction and practice of Jewish identity and social and cultural integration in Dutch society and local Jewish communities among Israeli Jews in the Netherlands between 1960 and 2020. I am ‘using’ the phenomenon of Israeli emigration in a historical context to research contemporary ways of constructing Jewish identity and of belonging. The arrival of the first Israeli Jews in the Netherlands in 1952 forms the starting point of this research project as part of an increasing trend of Israeli emigration in the world. The presence of Israeli Jews in the Netherlands, a group severely under researched and nowadays comprising about 25 percent (10,000 people) of the entire Dutch Jewish community (30,000-40,000 people) provokes questions on how they define their identity and how this relates to local Jewish community life. In this study, their attitudes towards Judaism, the post-war Jewish community, the State of Israel, the global (Israeli) diaspora and Dutch society will be also investigated. This study aims to add to a new body of knowledge on Jewish identity in the twenty-first century in Europe using historical and social science methods.