Following pogrom, Dutch rabbi calls on Jews to make aliyah

(JNS) - An Orthodox rabbi from the Netherlands has called on the country's Jews to immigrate to Israel following mass antisemitic assaults in Amsterdam, accusing Dutch authorities of failure to address the root causes of the incident.

Two rabbis from the country's large Progressive community disagreed with the remarks by Rabbi Meir Villegas Henriquez, an Orthodox rabbi and mohel from Rotterdam's Ohel Abraham beit midrash (Jewish study center). 

The debate reflects a growing sense of insecurity in the Netherlands, whose society is deeply divided on immigration and whose Jewish community is traumatized by its near annihilation in the Holocaust. 

In a video message recorded in his synagogue, Villegas Henriquez said, "We inhabit a new demographic reality that simply cannot be changed, not with the current political class."

On Thursday, at least 100 Arab men in Amsterdam assaulted dozens of Israeli soccer fans in a series of attacks that many in the Netherlands and beyond have called a pogrom. In the pre-planned attacks, packs of men chased and beat up people they suspected of being Israeli.

"Prepare to make aliyah," continued Villegas Henriquez, using the Hebrew-language word for immigrating to Israel. "Talk to your children, or grandchildren, and explain to them that there's really no future here. Help them study Hebrew. Invest in real estate, web shops, remote jobs-all the necessary steps to make the move to Israel possible."

The current circumstances are conducive to making aliyah, he said, "so let's use them."

He blamed Dutch authorities' "years of tolerating jihadism" for Thursday's attacks, in which some 25 Israelis were wounded, five moderately.

Some victims were humiliated and made to say "free Palestine" before they were beaten up. Some perpetrators conducted passport checks for people they stopped on the street to see if they were Israeli. On instant messaging groups, perpetrators used the term "Jew hunt," Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema confirmed at a city council debate. One victim jumped in a canal to escape his attackers.

The assaults happened on the eve of the anniversary of the 1938 Kristallnacht pogroms. The Nazis and their collaborators murdered at least 75 percent of Dutch Jewry in the Holocaust, the highest death rate of any country in occupied Western Europe. The Netherlands has about 40,000 Jews, compared to some 140,000 before the Holocaust. 

Police detained 62 people before and after the assaults, which Amsterdam Mayor Halsema said lasted 1.5 hours, but not during them. Ten of the detainees were Israeli, the municipality said. Only four remain in custody, all of them from the Netherlands. Police are considering recommending that 11 people be prosecuted.

Chaim Benistant, a 37-year-old Dutch Jew from the Amsterdam area who is an entrepreneur and Dutch Air Force reservist, said he had lost trust in Halsema and her administration following weeklong disturbances at the University of Amsterdam in May, which also featured antisemitic violence. Her decision to allow anti-Israel protests outside a Holocaust museum in March also eroded his trust. She and her administration should "resign as a sign of leadership," he said.

More than 17,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Halsema's resignation following the assaults.

In mosques and Muslim communities, Benistant told JNS, "there has, to my knowledge, been no condemnation" of what happened on Nov. 7. Some in those communities "are looking for ways to come out as the victim, so as not to have to distance themselves from violence against not only hooligans but peaceful fans and Jews generally," he said. He condemned any hateful speech or violence by Israeli soccer fans, noting that all major soccer teams have a hooligan fringe. 

Dutch King Willem Alexander and Prime Minister Dick Schoof have both said they were "ashamed" of the events. But this week, the narrative about the event began to change in Dutch society, following the surfacing of footage showing Maccabi fans shouting "Let the IDF win, f***k the Arabs" and stealing a Palestinian flag.

According to some accounts, Israeli soccer fans damaged a taxicab, but several police officers told the De Telegraaf daily that the circumstances surrounding these reports were unclear. A group of taxi drivers drove to the Holland Casino on Thursday night to confront Israelis, Amsterdam Police Chief Peter Holla has said.    

A discussion at the City Council of Amsterdam that was billed as a debate about the "public order since Nov. 6" served as the platform for repeated allegations of genocide against Israel by several council members. Some of them also accused Israeli soccer fans, who were in Amsterdam on Nov. 7 for a match with the local Ajax team, of instigating the violence.

Dutch rabbis have rarely called for mass aliyah. 

Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs has long said that he would leave the Netherlands if not for his duties to his community. He advises some couples to leave, he said, depending on their personal situation. Only two of Jacobs' seven children live in the Netherlands, he told this reporter last year. "Why should I want them to live in a country where antisemitism is thriving?" he added.

Two rabbis told JNS on Tuesday they did not share Villegas Henriquez's analysis.

Marianne van Praag, a Reform rabbi from The Hague, called it "a panicked reaction." Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem, means hope, she noted. "Hope is easy when the going's easy. It's difficult when the going's difficult and that's why we need hope now."

Menno ten Brink of the Liberal Jewish Community in Amsterdam said: "Yes, there's some fear right now. But nothing will be solved by running away. Jews have lived here for centuries, they live here now and they will keep living here."

Van Praag added that she hoped "that the shock of the incidents" in Amsterdam "will serve as a wakeup call for politicians to move past making fine statements and show real control of the situation," a reference to the widely perceived laxness of Dutch police in handling antisemitism and other expressions of lawlessness.

On Monday, a tram was set on fire in Amsterdam by protesters who shouted "cancer Jews," videos showed. On Sunday, hundreds of anti-Israel protesters ignored a municipal ban, issued following the assaults, of their weekly protest on the Dam Square.

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, the country's largest party and member of the ruling coalition, called the incidents a "pogrom," as did Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Following the tram torching, Wilders tweeted: "First the Jew hunt, now an intifada." He has demanded all perpetrators be deported.

Wilders's many comments about the pogrom, which he said was perpetrated by Arabs and Muslims based on the testimonies of many victims and witnesses, have framed it and the disturbances it produced as fresh examples of the failure of Muslims to integrate into Dutch society and uphold its norms, as well as of their antisemitism.    

Nilab Ahmadi, a council member for the far-left De Vonk party, was one of at least five council members who complained of "Islamophobia" at the City Council debate.

"They support the genocide in Gaza. And almost all of them have had an active role in the army," she said of the Israeli soccer fans. "They abused and intimidated Amsterdam residents, threw glass at people's heads and all that under the protection of the Amsterdam police," she said.

Israeli "propaganda about these events told a one-sided story," she added. "Especially Arab, Palestinian and Muslim Amsterdam residents have seen an explosive rise in Muslim-hatred everywhere, with the insecurity and threats this entails," she added.

Several lawmakers for centrist and right-wing parties disputed some of these assertions, though none argued that Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza does not constitute genocide.  

Mayor Femke Halsema said she "bears the final responsibility" but defended her actions and did not indicate any failures in her performance or that of the police. Any failures, she said, would be identified by an independent inquiry that's already underway.

She juxtaposed the beatings of the Israeli soccer fans with the transgressions attributed to them.

"Israeli supporters, guests in our city, were searched, chased and attacked, accompanied by antisemitic calls on social media and on the streets. There were also Amsterdam residents who were attacked by Maccabi hooligans. Hooligans who used racist and hate speech in our city, against residents," said Halsema, a former leader of the pro-immigration, left-wing D66 party.

In his message, Villegas Henriquez criticized Halsema and blamed her policies for the pogrom.

"The jihadists for over a year were given a free hand to scream that Israel needs to be annihilated, that Jews need to return to Europe," he said. "So Israelis came to Europe, and we saw the welcome party in Amsterdam. Well done, comrade Halsema, I hope you'll have a tasty cup of tea with the Salafist Aboutaleb. How nice, your intifada."

Ahmed Aboutaleb is the mayor of Rotterdam. In 2017, he ignored calls to ban a gathering that Israel said was a pan-European meeting of Hamas supporters and representatives.

Villegas Henriquez recalled spontaneous celebrations in Rotterdam on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 people in Israel and abducted another 251, plunging Israel and the Middle East into an ongoing regional war. He asked a police officer who warned him about this why the celebrations were allowed to continue, to which the officer said that there was no political will to stop them.

"Jihadism got a free pass then, and this continues," Villegas Henriquez.

While some politicians, including Wilders and Ulysse Ellian of the People's Party for Freedom, genuinely wish to "set things right if they get the means to do so ... that won't happen. We are in a new demographic reality," he said.

Meanwhile, "The future in Israel seems fantastic," he continued, noting that its GDP per capita was higher than Germany's and that Israel is "the only Western country with a positive birth rate, and therefore not in need of importing new populations." He ended his message with the words: "It's time to go home," adding the Hebrew-language word: "Habaita."