Page 52 - AAA Magazine – AAA Ohio Auto Club – September 2018

By John T. Garcia
T hroughout history, Jews have fled Germany and immigrated back into the country for various
reasons. Many German Jews fled to Poland during the Crusades but returned in the mid-1600s to escape
the Khmelnytsky Uprising. And then, when the Nazis took over Germany, more than half fled the country.
Following the Nazis defeat, Jews began returning
to Germany and in the 1990s there was a major influx from the former Soviet Union countries. So much so that Germany had the only growing Jewish community in Europe.
Around this same time, Uniworld, a Jewish-family owned company, started sailing along the rivers of Europe and has become one of the premier river cruise lines. In fact, Uniworld has even put together a selection
Museum Judengasse / Norbert Miguletz © Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt
of itineraries that celebrate the Jewish culture in Central Europe, especially Germany, with its Jewish Heritage theme cruises which schedule visits to synagogues, museums and other significant sites.
One of these cruises is the Remarkable Rhine & Historic Holland cruise, an 11-day journey from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Basel, Switzerland, that visits four countries and four UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Starting in Amsterdam, your Jewish Heritage program’s first stop will be the Jewish Historical Museum. Opened in its current location in 1989, the museum took over the space of four former synagogues and uses that in its presentation of artifacts as items are placed where they would appear in a synagogue. Your tour continues literally across the road at the Portuguese Synagogue before taking a stroll through the Jewish Quarter, where Rembrandt used to live and would ask his neighbors to pose for paintings.
Next, in Rotterdam, Netherlands, you will visit the first of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the nearby village of Kinderjik. There, marvel at the concentrated collection of 19 old Dutch windmills in this protected
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