On November 7, 2024, Maccabi Tel Aviv (one of Israel’s premier soccer teams) was in Amsterdam for a match against the local Ajax team. Israelis are avid, boisterous soccer fans and, as usual, hundreds of Maccabi fans flew into Amsterdam to cheer on their team.
Little did they know that another group was also preparing for the match and its aftermath. Earlier that day, it had become a topic of discussion on Telegram and other popular messaging apps, where users were calling for a Jodenjacht, or ‘Jew Hunt.’
This call attracted large groups of local Arab and Muslim youths, who needed little persuasion or excuse to prepare for an attack on Israeli fans as they left the match.
Even though the Amsterdam police had received several warnings of possible violence surrounding the match, they were totally undermanned and unprepared to cope with the threat.
As the Israeli fans exited the stadium, they were attacked by organized gangs of Muslim assailants with covered faces, many wielding clubs and knives and carrying Palestinian flags. These gangs shouted pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel slogans while they hunted down the Israelis and beat and harassed them.
At least ten Israelis were seriously injured in the violence, as it spread to other parts of Amsterdam. Israeli tourists in all parts of the city were ambushed, while many of them huddled in their hotels for hours, fearing for their safety while trying to reach the airport for their flights home.
In addition to the roving gangs of Muslim thugs, groups of local taxi drivers were reported to be involved, as they arrived in central Amsterdam and identified and targeted groups of Israelis fleeing for their lives.
The carnage continued into the early hours of the morning, with the local police seemingly helpless to get it under control. Footage captured on social media showed the attackers chasing Israelis, or anyone even suspected of being Jewish, and beating them and kicking them when they were on the ground.
When the riots finally ended in the early hours of the morning, ten Israelis were hospitalized for their injuries, while hundreds of others were escorted by police to the airport for their flights home.
The Dutch Prime Minister quickly denounced the attacks, and Amsterdam’s Mayor labeled it a ‘pogrom’ — a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. However, although dozens of attackers were initially arrested, very few of them have actually been convicted and punished.
At a time when anti-Semitism in Europe has reached a point where the future of many of its Jewish communities is seriously in doubt, the events on November 7th in Amsterdam were a crude wake-up call. Holland’s Jewish community today numbers under 50,000, and this ‘Jew hunt’ has left many of them feeling crushed by the combined pressures of anti-Semitism among migrant groups and anti-Zionism within the political left.
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The Jews of Holland
The history of Jews in the Netherlands began when Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal began to settle in Amsterdam and a few other Dutch cities in the late 16th century. At that time, the Netherlands was an unusual center of religious tolerance in Europe, and it provided a welcome refuge for the often-persecuted Sephardic Jews.
Although their community was initially established for reasons of religious liberty and the freedom to live openly as Jews, the Netherlands also provided them with many economic opportunities by connecting them to the larger Atlantic world.
By the early 17th century, as the Jewish community continued to grow and thrive, Amsterdam became referred to as the ‘Dutch Jerusalem.’ In addition to wide-ranging commercial activities, the Jews were active as teachers and physicians, as well as skilled diamond cutters and polishers.
One of the most important and radical philosophers of the 17th century was Baruch Spinoza, who was born in Amsterdam to a Portuguese-Jewish family. His work focused on questions of God, ethics and the self, and his books were considered to be among the leading works on Western thought.
Over the centuries, the Dutch Jewish community continued to prosper and become an integral part of the country’s commercial and cultural life. But all that changed in the 1930’s, following the Nazi Party’s rise to power.
When Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, 140,000 Jews were living there. By the end of the war in 1945, three-quarters of Dutch Jewry had been slaughtered, including 80% of the Jews of Amsterdam.
An estimated 25,000 Jews went into hiding during the war, and the most well-known of those is Anne Frank, a 13-year-old girl who hid with her family in a secret annex in her father’s business premises. The family survived in these crowded quarters for two years, before being betrayed and transported to concentration camps — first to Auschwitz and later to Bergen-Belsen, where Anne died of typhus at the age of 16.
Anne’s father, Otto Frank, was the only family member to survive the war. When he returned to Amsterdam, he was given her now-famous diary, which was published worldwide and has now been translated into over 70 languages. Her hiding place became a museum in 1960, and over a million people visit the Anne Frank House every year.
Today’s Dutch Jewish community numbers under 50,000, about .03% of the country’s population. It is one of the most secularized Jewish communities in Europe, and about 60% are married to non-Jews. However, there is a notable increase of Israelis living in Holland, which has kept the total number relatively steady.