The Jewish presence in Amsterdam dates back to the earliest years of the seventeenth century, when descendants of Jews who had been expelled from the Iberian peninsula in 1492/97 came to the city in order to be free to practice the faith of their ancestors. Since then this Jewish presence has continuously made itself felt in the city, in its economic and cultural life, its buildings, even its language. Today Amsterdam is the religious and cultural centre of Jewish life in the Netherlands, and it can boast a Jewish cultural and academic infrastructure that is unparalleled on the European continent. Important collections in various fields of Jewish studies can be found in such world-famous institutions as the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the Portuguese Ets Haim/Livraria Montezinos, the Jewish Historical Museum and the Amsterdam Communal Archives. Academic expertise is present in both the Universiteit van Amsterdam and the Menasseh ben Israel Institute for Jewish social and cultural-historical studies.

How to read the 'oral' rabbinic corpus? How to approach a medieval manuscript? What is theory, and how to apply it to Jewish studies? How does the Hebrew-Yiddish diglossia in the Jewish poly-system work? How did medieval philosophy find its way into biblical exegesis, polemics, and poetry? And how did 'history' and 'memory' function in Hebrew literature?

These and other questions are addressed in the four courses of the master programme in Hebrew Language and Culture.

Through the reading of texts, the programme seeks to perfect the student's skills in reading and writing Hebrew, and to acquaint them with basic approaches and current themes in Jewish cultural history. The emphasis is on the medieval, early-modern, and modern periods.