PhD defence Sietske van der Veen: Jewish social mobility and integration in the Netherlands (1870-1940)

From the late nineteenth century until the German occupation, Dutch Jews experienced unprecedented opportunities for climbing the social ladder and integrating into mainstream society. What opportunities did they seize? And what role did their Jewish background play in their lives? On 31 May, Sietske van der Veen defends her PhD dissertation ‘Novel Opportunities, Perpetual Barriers: Patterns of Social Mobility and Integration among the Jewish Dutch Elite, 1870-1940’.

A fresh perspective

In her dissertation, Van der Veen brings a fresh perspective on scholarly notions about Jewish social mobility and integration. For this, she studied over seven hundred ‘prominent’ Jews whose life stories are documented in the Dutch Biographical Portal, with a focus on work, education, housing, religious affiliation, marriage, and associational life. In three separate case studies, she further addresses Jewish involvement in the women’s movement, Jewish country house life, and Jewish migration to the Dutch East Indies.

Van der Veen demonstrates how the position of Jews in Dutch society shifted as the lives of Jewish members of the financial, political, and cultural elites became more interwoven with those of their non-Jewish counterparts. At the same time, she emphasises the agency of a very diverse group, exposing mechanisms of cultural exchange as, Van der Veen argues, integration is never a one-sided or exhaustive process.