Daglig antisemitism i Holland

Den senaste dagarna har vi läst om den

ökande antisemitismen i Paris. Det är

tyvärr inget unikt franskt fenomen.

Snarare är det så att den islamistiskt

inspirerade antisemitismen är på stark

frammarsch över hela Europa.

Tidigare har jag bl a skrivit om

Danmark, Norge och Belgien.

Liksom om årsrapporten från Stephen

Roth Institute.

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Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs har

nu en färsk rapport från Holland:

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Violence against Jews
Anti-Semitic violence by part of the Muslim community

poses the most important challenge to the Jewish

community. In particular, individuals of Moroccan

ethnicity-most of them Berbers from northern

Morocco-play a disproportionately large role in

physical and verbal violence against the Jewish

community.
There have also been many expressions of anti-

Semitism in mosques. For instance, in 2001 the

El Tawheed mosque had to remove extreme

anti-Semitic statements from its website.

In 2007, it became known that in the Turkish

Milli Görüs mosque in Amsterdam one could

find many journals full of "anti-Western, anti-

democratic and anti-Semitic texts."
Evers relates how, being easily recognizable

as a Jew by his attire, he is regularly insulted

for being a Jew, sometimes by Muslims and

sometimes by autochthonous Dutch. On one

occasion a tram conductor called the police b

ecause Muslims threatened the rabbi.

In conversations with Jews who are recognizable

as such by their physical appearance or clothes,

they frequently mention that they have been

threatened.
Over the past years, anti-Semitic incidents have

occasionally been mentioned in the general press.

Many occur in Amsterdam, where more than half

of Dutch Jewry and an even larger part of those

recognizable as Jews live. In 2003, Rabbi Menachem

Sebbag told the Volkskrant daily that his wife had

been threatened with a screwdriver by a Moroccan

Dutch youngster who said he would cut her heart out.

Sebbag, who understands Arabic, also related that

someone told him in that language:

"I'm going to slaughter you like a pig."
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Removing One's Kippa
Ruben Vis, secretary of the NIK, the umbrella

organization of the Dutch Ashkenazi community,

was quoted in the same article saying he was

regularly insulted when wearing a kippa in public.

Sometimes he was pushed in the tramway. He noted

that since then he never wears his kippa in the

western and eastern quarters of Amsterdam,

and rarely in the center of the city-places where

there are many Dutchmen of Moroccan descent.
A Jewish leader who visited this author in a hotel

in the southern part of town was wearing a kippa,

but said that in central Amsterdam and neighborhoods

where many Muslims live, he wears a cap.

Another Dutch Jewish leader mentioned how his son,

who wears a kippa, phoned him for help when he

was threatened by young Moroccans.
Motti Wolf, a youngster who has left the Netherlands

and studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

tells how at the Amsterdam South train station a

group of Dutch Moroccans followed him while shouting

"Jews to the gas." He mentions that one always had

to be alert when wearing a kippa in certain parts of

Amsterdam. Wolf also notes that when he was a student

at the Jewish high school, he preferred not to visit

certain areas where many Muslims live.

If he had to go there, he put on a cap instead of a

kippa.
The mother of another kippa-wearing youngster

who now lives in Israel recounted that her son had

been insulted about ten years ago in an Amsterdam

museum by a group of young Muslim girls who called

out "to the gas." Although kippa wearers are few in

the Netherlands, many of them have similar experiences.
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Showing and Hiding Identities
Many Muslims insist on displaying their identity in public.

For instance, women wear headscarves and some even

cover their entire face except their eyes. Also, men

increasingly wear djellebas. Yet many Muslims, by

their hostile attitudes, prevent Jews from expressing

their identity in the public square.
The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel

(CIDI) reports that in recent years, about 40 percent

of the more serious anti-Semitic incidents in the

Netherlands have been perpetrated by North Africans,

which in the Netherlands means Moroccans.

The Moroccan community, however, constitutes only

2 percent of the Dutch population.
Dutch Jews often are reluctant to speak about anti-

Semitic experiences in public and exercise self-

censorship. Some younger ones take self-defense

courses. In private conversations, friends sometimes

told this author that when they return from

Israel and take a cab at the airport and the driver

asks what country they are coming from, they often

will not say.

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