Portuguese Synagogue (Esnoga)

When this synagogue was completed in 1675, it was the largest in the world — a deliberate statement by Amsterdam's Sephardic Jewish community that they had found a home worth celebrating. These were descendants of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition, who arrived in Amsterdam because the city offered something almost unheard of in 17th-century Europe: genuine religious tolerance. They prospered in trade and diamond cutting, and the synagogue they built reflected that wealth: 186,000 florins, an enormous sum.

The architect, Elias Bouman, designed the building with the inspiration of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The interior has never been fitted with electric lighting — services are still held by candlelight, using thousands of candles in massive brass chandeliers. The effect at an evening service is extraordinary: the same warm, flickering light that worshippers have seen here for three and a half centuries.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis planned to use the Esnoga as a deportation center for Jews. Leo Palache and a team of volunteers managed to dissuade them, and Jewish ritual objects were hidden in the sanctuary ceiling and attic floor to protect them. On May 9, 1945, four days after liberation, services resumed. The building had survived the war physically intact, though the community that built it was devastated — roughly 75 percent of Dutch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

The Ets Haim library upstairs, with 500 manuscripts and 30,000 printed works, was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2003. Together with the Old-New Synagogue in Prague, this is considered one of the oldest functioning synagogues in the world.