Belgium

Actually, they’re not. But they are important, indeed crucial, to understanding the Jewish community of Antwerp.  A generation ago, diamond jobs were plentiful and most of them stayed among Antwerp’s close-knit Jewish community. It took two or three months to train as a diamond cleaver, and when it was over you could get as much […]

Brussels Central Station is so unremarkable you could miss it. Even inside, I wasn’t sure I had found the right place.  Two hours later I was in Antwerp, and the difference couldn’t be starker. Four levels of subterranean platforms emerge into a soaring atrium covering a station built in the typical European style. “Antwerpen” is […]