Artist Statement
I have always deeply admired the work of Dutch artists and designers, and I have also found much to admire in Dutch society.
The Netherlands is considered by many scholars and international polling firms to be the second most successful and happy democratic country in the world.
Regrettably, it was also the most dangerous country in Western Europe for Jews during the Holocaust, with three-quarters of its Jews murdered by Nazis and their Dutch collaborators.
As noted in the history of Dutch Jews on this blog post, there were better moments in the past. The country has been both a welcoming haven for Jews and a hellhole.
With the mass migration of largely anti-Semitic Muslims into the country over last 25 years, Holland has become increasingly inhospitable to its remaining law-abiding and productive Jewish community of about 50,000.
The ‘Jew Hunt’ in Amsterdam on November 7, 2024 appalled, sickened and alarmed me. It was simply a continuation of the October 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians by young Muslim men and also reminiscent of the early days of Nazi-occupied Europe, but with an Islamic twist.
Today many, if not most, adults around the globe receive their view of the outside world through online video images. These video feeds often arrive through major news organizations and established web sites. Young people almost exclusively get their information and impressions of other cultures and ethnic groups via social media, including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
These amateur videos are usually recorded by innocent bystanders on their smart phones. Increasingly, however, these raw videos are taken by the perpetrators of terror and their propagandists.
I digitally grabbed images from the first video posted of the November 7th ‘Jew Hunt’ in Amsterdam and printed them out as freeze frames on archival paper. These images were modified with various mixed media fine art techniques to more fully express what I could not say out loud.