The Portuguese synagogue of Amsterdam can be dated back to 1671/75 and was designed by the architect E. Bouman.
The main entrance of the synagogue contains a Hebrew inscription referring to Psalm 5:8 and the date [5]432 (1672 CE). After 1943, the synagogue services temporarily ceased but continued immediately after the war in May 1945. Most of the furniture of the interior can be dated back to the seventeenth-century beginnings of the synagogue. One of the oldest still-existing Jewish libraries is housed in one of the seminary buildings situated to the south of the main gate (ca. 1674).
The building designed and constructed following the end of Sabbatean fervor.
The most important western Sephardi synagogue, which served as a model for synagogues of western Sephardi diaspora.
The synagogue is modelled after the imagery of the Jerusalem Temple by Rabbi Leon Judah Templo and Jaun Bautista Villalpando.
De Snoge: monument van Portugees-joodse cultuur (Amsterdam 1991, second edition 2001) (English: The Esnoga: a monument to Portuguese-Jewish Culture, Amsterdam, 1991, 2001); Keßler, Katrin, Ritus und Raum der Synagoge (Petersberg, 2007), with ills and plans;
van Agt, J.F., Edward van Voolen. Synagogen in Nederland (Hilversum: Gooi and Sticht, 1988)
van Voolen, Edward, Paul Meijer. Synagogen van Nederland (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2006), p. 47 with ill..