Nederlands Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap

The Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (English: Dutch Israelite Religious Community) (NIK) is the umbrella organisation for most Jewish communities in the Netherlands, and is Orthodox in nature, while to be described as traditional in outlook. The expression Orthodox, is for the Dutch situation at least, of a later date than the existence of the congregations that make up the NIK and the NIK itself. The Rabbi of the NIK is Rabbi Dr. Raphael Evers. On total, the NIK has some 20 rabbis actively working in 36 congregations throughout the country, serving some 5,000 Jews.

The NIK was founded in 1814 under the reign of Willem I, although the first steps towards a central organisation of Jewish communities in the Netherlands (which was the initial purpose of the NIK) were already taken in 1808, under command of Napoleon. The NIK were to form an umbrella over the existing Jewish communities. The NIK and its member-congregations maintained the traditional view on Judaism as it had been ever since and kept on going along this line, till today. Both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities were included. The newly found umbrella organisation had a clear hierarchical design: the Jewish communities were governed on a local level by twelve so-called large "hoofdsynagogen" (lit.: head synagogues), which had the power over the medium-sized synagogues (communities), which themselves had power over the smallest synagogues (called "bijkerken", like small Jewish communities on the Dutch countryside). Of the twelve "hoofdsynagogen", two were located in Amsterdam (Ashkenazi and Sephardic), two in The Hague (Ashkenazi and Sephardic), and one each in Rotterdam, Amersfoort, Middelburg, Den Bosch, Nijmegen, Zwolle, Leeuwarden and Groningen (all Ashkenazi, at that time called "Hoogduits", lit. "High German"). Two years later, another two were included: one in Maastricht, and one in Brussels (at that time Belgium was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands).

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