AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS—The Forward reports that construction work in central Amsterdam has uncovered remnants of a eighteenth- or nineteenth-century slum on Valkenburger Street, bordering the city’s Jewish quarter. The site is also close to the Portuguese Synagogue, which was built by Sephardic Jews who fled persecution in Portugal and Spain in the 1670s. Municipal archaeologist Jerzy Gawronski told a local television station that the area had originally been used for boat building before cramped housing was built along narrow corridors without infrastructure. “It was damp, no windows and not many people survived here,” he said. Gawronski added that he found a feature at the site that may have served as a mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath. To read about a mikvah discovered in Jerusalem, go to "Under the Rug."
