ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the histories of the Jewish and Muslim communities in London and Amsterdam from the seventeenth century until the Rushdie affair in 1988–1989. While the Jewish communities have been present in both cities from the seventeenth century onwards, the Muslim communities remained very small until the Second World War. This changed in both capital cities in the postwar period due to large-scale immigration of people with a Muslim background from Muslim majority and minority regions and countries. The Rushdie affair gave rise to the first structural bilateral Jewish-Muslim contacts in London; in Amsterdam these did not take off until more than ten years later.
