Jonas Daniel Meijer was the first Jewish lawyer in the Netherlands. He has had a significant impact on Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 law, and is also known for his battle for (legal) emancipation

Jewish Emancipation

Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...

 of the Dutch Jews.

The Jonas Daniel Meijerplein, a square in Amsterdam (where Meijer died), was named after him. Bordering the square are the Esnoga

Amsterdam Esnoga

The Portuguese Synagogue also known as the Esnoga , or Snoge, is a 17th-century Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam. Esnoga is the Ladino word for synagogue.-Background:...

 and four former synagogues, now together home of the Joods Historisch Museum

Joods Historisch Museum

The Joods Historisch Museum is a museum in Amsterdam dedicated to Jewish history, culture and religion, in the Netherlands and worldwide. It is the only museum in the Netherlands dedicated to Jewish history...

 (Jewish Historical Museum). The Dokwerker monument on Jonas Daniel Meijerplein commemorates the February strike of 1941

February strike

The 1941 February Strike, also known as 'The Strike of February 1941', was a general strike organized during World War II in the Netherlands against the anti-Jewish measures and activities of the Nazis. Its direct causes were the pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam....

, a general strike by many (non-Jewish) people of Amsterdam and surrounding cities after the arrest and deportation of 425 Jewish men from Amsterdam to Mauthausen

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp

Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...

 and Buchenwald following a clash between Nazi police and two Jewish men a couple of days earlier.

Early life

Jonas Daniel Meijer was born into a well-to-do Jewish family at Arnhem

Arnhem

Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...

. His maternal grandfather was Benjamin Cohen (July or August 1725 – February 10, 1800), a well-known businessman and Jewish teacher, and a friend and supporter of stadtholder

Stadtholder

A Stadtholder A Stadtholder A Stadtholder (Dutch: stadhouder [], "steward" or "lieutenant", literally place holder, holding someones place, possibly a calque of German Statthalter, French lieutenant, or Middle Latin locum tenens...

 Willem V. The Cohen family were tobacco traders, and had connections to prominent European Jewish families. Meijer's father was a German Jew, who hailed from the city of Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

. Jonas Daniel Meijer had one brother and one sister, Abraham David (October 8, 1781 – March 17, 1864) and Eva (October 15, 1782 – December 18, 1850).

At a startling young age, Jonas learned to read and was taught French and English by a private teacher. Although he was brought up with Hebrew as the liturgical language of his religion, Jonas also managed to learn Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 at the age of 5. After completing his school quite early, Meijer started to study Law in Amsterdam, where he moved with his mother and siblings after the death of his father in 1790. On November 15, 1796, at the age of just 16, Jonas Daniel Meijer took the lawyer's oath

Oath

An oath is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow...

, becoming the first Jewish lawyer and one of the youngest lawyers in the history of the Netherlands. Despite his talents, he received only few customers, as many Christians avoided him. The small practice however gave Meijer ample chance of increasing his law expertise, specifically by studying the law of many countries, earning him fame across the European continent.

Publications

Meijer received international fame through his publication Kan de zedelijke waardering van een handeling in aanmerking komen bij de vaststelling en toepassing van een strafwet en zo ja, in hoeverre (1803). In this work, Meijer is one of the first to question the extent to the which living conditions and mental well-being of a criminal cause his felony. Meijer researched the possibility of such outcome because of his acquaintance with financial and social positions of his fellow Jews, that made him understand why some of them would, for example, steal a bread.

Jonas Daniel Meijer died on December 6, 1834 at the age of 54, in Amsterdam.