Vlooienburg or Vloonburg was a filled-in island in the River Amstel on the site of the Stopera in Amsterdam. In the seventeenth century, a lively migrant neighborhood emerged here with timber traders, Jewish merchants from the Mediterrean, kosher shopkeepers, and craftsmen, etc. The island formed the core area of Amsterdam's Jewish Quarter until the destruction in the twentieth century.
Judah Leon Templo lived on Vlooienburg, Menasseh Ben Israel, Baruch Spinoza and family lived at
/ref> Rembrandt settled for a while in a former sugar refinery but moved in 1639 to Jodenbreestraat.http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e4458 After a year of plague Daniel Stalpaert became the architect of orphanage along the waterfront; the timber traders disappeared. After the first wave of Sephardim immigration, many Ashkenazi from Central and Eastern Europe settled there.
For many years it was the location of a covered ballgame or tennis court, and a fish-market at the waterfront. Around 1840 Coster Diamonds was established on the island. In 1874 and 1882, the Houtgracht and Leprozengracht were filled in, meaning that Vlooienburg was no longer an island. The Waterlooplein was designed in the resulting space. The Blauwbrug dates from 1884.
After the Shoah, there was hardly anyone left to return to the homes. Vlooienburg and the adjacent islands of Uilenburg and Rapenburg are synonymous with poor houses, large families, poor hygiene and dilapidation. The badly dilapidated houses of Vlooienburg were demolished and nothing remained of the Jewish quarter. In 1982, construction of the Stopera began, the combined city hall and Opera building that stood on the site of the demolished blocks and was finished in 1986.
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