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Anti-Semitic Incidents in the Netherlands Spike

Watchdog group reports 23 percent increase in incidents since 2012

by
Hannah Dreyfus
March 12, 2014
The Hague, Netherlands. (Wikimedia)
The Hague, Netherlands. (Wikimedia)

Anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands have been on the rise recently, JTA reports. According to a Dutch Jewish watchdog group, there has been a 23 per cent increase in anti-Semitic incidents since 2012.

The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, known as CIDI, reported an increase of 33 incidents from 2012 to 2013 (with a total of 147 incidents in 2013). These involve both physical violence and threats.

One incident in June 2013 involved an elderly man giving a Nazi salute to a Holocaust survivor. “They forgot to gas you,” he reportedly told the Jewish woman, and proceeded to grab her Star of David necklace and bite her in front of witnesses. The occurrence was reported by police.

Anti-Semitic incidents in schools, including vandalism, have more than doubled. The trend has infiltrated the cyber world as well, with the CIDI reporting 57 explicitly anti-Semitic Twitter messages. The comments are considered hate-speech, and raise legal concerns.

Hannah Dreyfus is an editorial intern at Tablet.