Most history of the Jews in the Netherlands was generated between the end of the 16th century and World War II.

The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces declared independence. A principal motive was a wish to practice Protestant Christianity, then forbidden under Spanish rule, and so religious tolerance was effectively an important constitutional element of the newly-independent state. This inevitably attracted the attention of Jews who were religiously oppressed in many parts of the world.

Jews seem to have lived in the province of Holland before 1593; a few references to them are in existence which distinctly mention them as present in the other provinces at an earlier date, especially after their expulsion from France in 1321 and the persecutions in Hainaut and the Rhine provinces. The first Jews in the province of Gelderland were reported in 1325. Jews have been settled in Nijmegen, the oldest settlement, in Doesburg, Zutphen, and in Arnhem since 1404. In 1349 the Duke of Guelders was authorized by the Emperor Louis IV of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany to receive Jews in his duchy. They paid a tax, granted services, and were protected by the law. In Arnhem, where a Jew is mentioned as a physician, the magistrate defended them against the hostilities of the populace. When Jews settled in the diocese of Utrecht does not appear. (However, rabbinical records regarding kashrut – Jewish dietary laws – speculated that the Jewish community in Utrecht dated back to Roman times.) In 1444 they were expelled from the city of Utrecht, but they were tolerated in the village of Maarssen, two hours distant, though their condition was not fortunate. Until 1789 no Jew might pass the night in Utrecht; for this reason the community of Maarssen was one of the most important in the Netherlands. Jews were admitted to Zeeland by Albert, Duke of Bavaria.

This page is a list of notable Dutch Jews, arranged by field of activity.

The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎‎ ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora. A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom (Amsterdam, The Netherlands April 15, 1892 – Orange, California, April 15, 1983) was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison. A sister, brother and nephew were released, but Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where Betsie died. Ten Boom wrote many books and spoke frequently in the post-war years about her experiences. She also aided Holocaust survivors in her native Holland. Her autobiography, The Hiding Place (1971) was later adapted as a film of the same name in 1973 and starred Jeannette Clift as ten Boom.

In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Among their restrictions was banning a club which ten Boom had run for young girls. In 1942, ten Boom and her family had become very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. They rescued many Jews from the Nazi SS. They had long been involved in charitable work, and ten Boom had worked with disabled children. They believed the Jews were God's chosen people. They provided kosher food for the Jewish refugees who stayed with them and honored the Jewish Sabbath.

Annelies "Anne" Marie Frank ( pronunciation (help·info); 12 June 1929 – early March 1945) was one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary, has been the basis for several plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt am Main in Weimar Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941 when Nazi Germany passed the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws. She gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933, the year the Nazis gained control over Germany. By the beginning of 1940, they were trapped in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in the hidden rooms of Anne's father, Otto Frank's, office building. After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in March 1945.