Dutch Jews now experience ‘double discomfort’

Closing the doors for the time being. Shemtov Levi, owner of Israeli snack bar McLevi’s in Barneveld, made that decision last weekend. He had seen reports on Israeli television about a call from IS and Al-Qaeda to hit Jewish targets. “Then I thought: okay, then the danger is really there. And safety comes first. I don’t feel like being brave.”

Admittedly, Levi (67) has been wanting to sell his business at Barneveld station for some time now: after twenty-five years of fries, falafel and shishlick, he has had enough. So yes, he says, that also played a role in his considerations of closing McLevi’s for the time being. But that does not alter the fact that Levi certainly feels uncomfortable, as the owner of a restaurant with a large Israeli flag behind the window. “I have never seen the atmosphere as involved as it is now.” A group of “Arab-looking youths” made “shooting movements” as they walked past his restaurant last week, he says. “The thumb up, the index finger forward.”

What has been the mood in the Jewish community since the Hamas attack on October 7, followed by Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip that left scores of people dead? The feelings, as appears from ten conversations with Jewish Dutch people, go in all directions: tension, fear, anger, sadness. But the word that comes up most often is “dismay.” About the massacre by Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, often in gruesome ways. But more so about what followed. Since the largest massacre of Jews after the Second World War, Jewish Dutch people – religious or secular, left or right, pro-Israel or not – have experienced hardly any understanding or compassion, they say.

On the contrary, say the people with whom NRC spoke: at once we switched to a particularly aggressive form of solidarity with the Palestinians – often resulting in unadulterated anti-Semitism. They find the speed and ease with which this happened offensive. It gives many Jews in the Netherlands “a feeling of social, but also physical insecurity,” according to Joram Rookmaaker, rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Community in Amsterdam. “Apparently, after Israel struck back, people are no longer able to empathize with brutally murdered babies.”

Feeling of insecurity

Fear of aggression is far from new in the Jewish community. Synagogues, schools and other Jewish buildings in the Netherlands have been under strict security for years. If there is violence in Israel, Dutch Jewish people know, the threat increases here. Yet the feeling of insecurity has never been as great as it is now, several people say.

“As a Jew in Amsterdam, I am always on my guard,” says Yaniv Soesan (18), business analytics student and board member of the Jewish youth movement Haboniem. “Even before this war, my father said when we were walking home from the synagogue: you better take off your yarmulke.” His life has been “a lot more hectic” for three weeks, says Soesan, who was in Israel on October 7, with some sense of understatement: he thinks even more often about whether he can show his identity in public. “I have a necklace with a Star of David. Do I want to wear that when I go out?” The feeling of threat also causes discussions at home, says Soesan. Should the family remove the mezuzah – the traditional text sleeve on the doorpost? “I do not think so. Do you have to completely hide the fact that you are Jewish?”

Fear, anger, sadness. But the word that comes up most often is “dismay.”

The feeling of insecurity has arisen from an accumulation of ‘small’ events, say Jewish Dutch people. Take this week’s harvest. The Jewish Cheider school in Amsterdam, which kept its doors closed for the second time for safety reasons. A lecture in Camp Westerbork that was canceled due to threats against one of the speakers. The monument for deported Jews in The Hague that was stickered with Palestinian flags. Pro-Palestine demonstrations with aggressive anti-Israel banners. The organizing committee of the annual Kristallnacht commemoration in Groningen that removed the silent procession to the synagogue from the program.

This kind of news creates enormous tension, say people from the Jewish community – not to mention the daily images from Israel and online hatred of Jews, which, according to the National Coordinator for Combating Anti-Semitism, has reached “frightening proportions” since October 7. “I have set a time limit on Instagram,” says Yaniv Soesan. “I can no longer look at all those photos and videos, I really have to shut down.”

Anti-Israel rhetoric

New to this escalation of violence and therefore extra shocking, several people say, is the aggressive tone from the left-progressive corner. It is known that Dutch people with an Islamic background feel solidarity with the Palestinian cause. But the unprecedentedly harsh, anti-Israel rhetoric that has also been heard since October 7 among left-wing activists and politicians, at universities and in the art world, is causing what some in the Jewish community describe as “double unease.” “The insecurity comes from both sides, as it were,” says Rosaly Rookmaaker, the wife of Rabbi Joram Rookmaaker from Amsterdam. “That makes us feel a bit stuck.”

An example that several people have come up with is the open letter that was signed this week by filmmakers and actors such as Georgina Verbaan and Carice van Houten. The letter calls for European sanctions against Israel because of the “genocide” that the country is currently committing in Gaza. This is a group of people, that is the feeling in the Jewish community, who ten years ago had a nuanced position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but now take sides against Israel without reservation.

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Mayor Halsema

The Jewish Dutch people NRC spoke to also see attempts at dialogue and understanding. They mention Amsterdam mayor Halsema, who invited Jewish Amsterdammers of all denominations and political beliefs for a meeting at his official residence. They start talking about the ‘Share the pigeon’ campaign, set up by Amsterdam young people of Jewish and Muslim descent. Snack bar owner Shemtov Levi from Barneveld received cards and bunches of flowers after the closure of his business, he says.

Rabbi Rookmaaker says he is in constant contact with the members of his congregation. He is against canceling meetings or keeping schools closed. “My line is: don’t bend.” It is precisely during this “extremely dark period” that he and his wife Rosaly want to “strongly promote” their Judaism. According to them, “there is no historical conflict between Judaism and Islam.”

Yet, even among them, a feeling of enormous vulnerability prevails. His synagogue is a safe space for everyone, says Rookmaaker, but one that must be permanently secured. “I wish I could just open the door, like at a church. But that is impossible.”