Everyone had already received an invitation to attend the Hanukkah celebration again this year, on Monday evening at Gershwinplein on the Zuidas in Amsterdam. The mayor, the State Secretary for Integration and some other dignitaries were asked to be present when the second candle of the menorah – the nine-branched candelabra – would be lit on the second day of the holiday.
An event the day before on the other side of the world meant that everyone actually came, including the ambassador of Australia, who was invited at the last minute by the organizers of the festival of lights; Maccabi Netherlands, a Jewish association for sports and well-being and Chabad on Campus, according to their site, the “nicest Jewish community” for students and young professionals from home and abroad.
On Bondi Beach on Sunday evening, Naveed Akram (24) and his father Sajid Akram (50) shot at a group of Jewish families celebrating the first day of Hanukkah on Sydney’s most famous beach. Fifteen people were killed and 38 people are still in hospital with injuries. The Australian government spoke on Monday of an act of terror; the youngest suspect is said to have ties to the jihadist terrorist group Islamic State.
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Concert Hall
An event a day earlier, but in the same city, ensured that even more people than usual felt compelled to be present at Gershwin Square. Traditionally, a Hanukkah concert was given in the Concertgebouw on Sunday. This time the performance was controversial, because the Israeli cantor Shai Abramson, who is also attached to the Israeli army as a cantor, performed.
The management of the Concertgebouw decided to ban his attendance in November, but later reversed that decision, on the condition that the concert would be private. A large police force could not prevent two entrances to the Concertgebouw from being blocked on Sunday by several hundred pro-Palestine demonstrators and a similar number of pro-Israel.
Around half past six on Monday evening, Gershwinplein fills up with adults, young people and small children who greet each other warmly. There are rows of police cars at every exit around the square and a police helicopter circles right above the crowd. “These are the moments to cuddle up to each other,” says Maccabi chairman David Beesemer. “Last year there were 700, now 1,200 registrations.” Next to the temporary stage there are stalls serving mulled wine and kosher chocolate milk and selling candles, cards and cookbooks. Loud electronic music plays from the sound system, children wave luminous blue sticks.
Channan Herzberger, chairman of the Central Jewish Consultation, has been asked to say a prayer of mourning (kadish) for the murdered Australian Jews. “What happens in Israel has an impact on Jews all over the world. We, Jews in the Netherlands, still feel safe. Not that nothing is happening, but we know that our government does not approve of it.”
The governments in Canada and Australia are less supportive of their Jewish residents, he believes. “Even after Sunday’s massacre, the Australian Prime Minister did not mention the words Jews or Hanukkah.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said later in the day that anti-Semitism had to be combated firmly, but only after his government had been accused of not taking sufficient action against hatred of Jews.
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Australian ambassador
The most visible security is two people around Ulysse Ellian, Member of Parliament for the VVD. He thinks it is important to show his support at these types of meetings, he says. “Also yesterday at the Concertgebouw.” Gidi Markuszower, former Member of Parliament and House of Representatives for the PVV, talks a little further with Greg French, the Australian ambassador.
The ambassador has pinned on the orange yarmulke that the organization gave him. In his hands he crumples the copy he had brought with him. “He was whistled back,” Markuszower said afterwards. Greg French was supposed to give a speech, but at the last minute he decided not to. The ambassador himself does not want to say much about it, but does not deny that his “prime minister” wants there to be “one voice” about the attack in Sydney, and that is not his.
The Moné-Beesemer couple are now “of course” there and were also in the Concertgebouw on Sunday. “Terrible,” she says. Not the concert, but everything surrounding it. “It was busier outside than inside,” he says. “More police than public.” She can no longer explain to her ninety-year-old mother what all the wretched things are happening, she says.
‘Ahmed al-Ahmed’
Hanukkah, people in the square say, is not an Israeli festival. It is a religious festival and even that only half, because there is nothing about it in the Torah. It has its origins in the second century BC, when the Maccabees – Jewish rebels – retook their temple from the Syrian rulers and lit the menorah with a tiny dash of olive oil, which then burned for eight days.
One by one the speakers come on stage and one after the other concludes with the wish chag sameach, Hebrew for festive celebration. State Secretary Jurgen Nobel (VVD) speaks of “dark clouds” that will be driven away by light. Rabbi Yanki Jacobs of Chabad on Campus says one word: “Wow,” and then nothing for a while. And then he says: “Ahmed al Ahmed”. The name of the man who overpowered one of the two gunmen from behind in Sydney and took his gun. Cheers from the audience.
And then the lights may be lit by “four Jewish generations”; Rob Voet, his father-in-law, his son and two grandchildren. Mayor Femke Halsema may use a man-sized torch to light the Shammash, the auxiliary fire with which the other lights in the towering menorah are to be lit. It lasts and lasts, but nothing catches fire. Murmurs in the audience that it must be another anti-Semitic candle. A ladder is brought, the rabbi supports. Two little boys climb on it to help the mayor. Success. Finally there is light and then latkes and suf ganiot, potato pancakes and filled donut.
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