The Hague – Addressing a new campaign against anti-Semitism which calls on European gentiles to publicly wear Jewish symbols in solidarity with their Jewish neighbors, Holland’s cheif rabbi chose to share his views on the startlingly dramatic rise of anti-Jewish hatred he has witnessed.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Speaking to the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Benjamin Jacobs, the leader of Holland’s substantial Jewish population, numbering 30,000, expressed concern at the reemergence of anti-Semitism in the country.
“Forty years ago when I came to Holland, it never ever happened that someone will call me in the street a dirty Jew or curse me because I’m Jewish, visibly Jewish. Today it’s normal.”
“It happened already to me personally,” the rabbi explained. “They [anti-Semites] threw things at my windows. A car drove into me, but thank God, the government is protecting me in a very good and friendly way.”
Yet many Dutch Jews feel the affects of a growing tide of anti-Jewish sentiment. Many Jews have even taken to hiding their identity for fear of being harassed or even attacked.
“Our response should be that we stay visible Jewish. Wearing a yarmulke on the streets [and] not a baseball cap. Wear a Magen David, whatever way one needs to show he is Jewish,” Rabbi Jacobs said.
The response by some Jewish voices has been to take this call one step further
Rabbi Menachem Margolin of The European Jewish Association explained that his organization has set forth a campaign “to get as many non-Jews as possible to wear Jewish symbols and show solidarity, and that they are a part of the silent majority that is not anti-Semitic.”
I’m thankful that the European Jewish Association started this campaign,” Rabbi Jacobs said in an interview with the EJA, calling its grass-roots effort a way to “show the world we are not scared and we don’t accept that we need [to] hide [and] to make sure that no one can see that we’re Jewish.”
Holland, like many European countries, espouses the principles of tolerance, liberalism and boasts one of Western Europe’s most secular societies, with only 39% of the country identifying with an established faith and, according to a poll from 2010, less than 6% of the country attending regular religious services.
Yet recent incidents have shaken the feeling of safety that many Dutch Jews have taken for granted.
Recently, fans belonging to a Dutch Soccer club, Utrecht FC, began shouting anti-Semetic chants at supporters of the rival Ajax team.
Ajax fans, a segment of which has historically been Jewish, were subjected to disturbing chants such as “My father was in the commandos, my mother was in the SS, together they burned Jews cause Jews burn the best” and “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.”
Officials from the Dutch soccer club set out to identify the fans who chanted the anti-Semitic slogans, yet the results of the investigation remain unclear.
The reason Europe is so Vile is not Hitler with a backpack hiking to the next railroad station. There is no mood for human interest in a community of scared savings for human value. Europe is the closest thing to a hard hat for the people. If they ever get their act together, they would actually welcome Israel and European Jewry. No one gives back more than Israel and no one has any condition of human hope than the priestly class being available for the people.
Europe is a nation of very unusual human reforms and their eyes are not fixed on liberty but just on their pope and their small home. No wonder they have G-ds ways in the world we enjoy.
Scandal for every association with evil.
This is a terrible community in 2015 Europe. Maybe the Islamists will teach them a thing or two about humility. The card of pain is not a holding call on a fetish for a blamed eye.
Terrible.
There once were a group of five students in a school, who only cared about each other, they had compassion for each other, but had no compassion for any other schoolmates.
The principal wanted to punish them, so he instigated the rest of the schoolmates to dislike these five students and call them the dirty five.
But these five students were shocked, how could this happen to us? Where is the principal when we need him? It must be Chevlei Moshiach!
Some of the five even wanted to attribute this punishment because perhaps they mingled too much with the other students.
We are the Nimshal.
Goyim hate yidden.. Why is this do complicated for people to understand? The goyim gave us a little respite after the holocaust which is why the rabbi wasn’t called dirty Jew 40 years ago.. As we read on pesach night, in every generation they come to kill us.. We’re the new generation
At one time, when I visited Denmark, and Belgium, in the 1960’s, the locals would tell me how they helped Jews, and even fought with resistance fighters during the war. Even when I visited Amsterdam, there was a Kosher Deli, and an Israeli café, where many Israelis would gather at. There was never a problem in those days, of anti-Semitism. Today, sadly, things have changed. The Synagogue, which I visited in Copenhagen, has a large barrier fence in front of it, and was recently attacked. When I visited that Shul, in 1968, it was a different story. Since that time, many hundreds of thousands of Arabs have moved to Europe, and the locals in those countries have adopted their anti-Semitic attitudes. I remember one owner of a nightclub in Copenhagen, who wisely told me “I don’t let Arabs into my business, as they cause trouble”.
To 7
Those 5 weren’t supposed to return any lost objects to the others, not even peanuts.
Neither did they have to return an error in business calculation. If an ox of one of the 5 would damage almonds they would pay for the damage, but not if the ox damaged some peanuts. They used to utilize the word Pekuach Nefesh only for the five.
Sometimes the 5 used wierd words like Shegetz.
Please see Sefer Tamei Haminhagim page 393, 2nd paragraph.