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‘My Child Doesn’t Want To Be Jewish Anymore:’ Anti-Semitism In Holland


Dutch MP Roeloff Bisschop has demanded that the Dutch Education Ministry take urgent measures to fight anti-Semitism in school in the wake of the publication of a shocking article about the bullying Jewish students endured during Operation Guardian of the Walls, World Israel News reported.

Bisschop sent a letter to the Dutch education ministers calling their attention to a June 14 article in the Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, a Dutch Jewish newspaper, headlined “My Child Doesn’t Want to be Jewish Anymore.”

The article contains disturbing accounts of the anti-Semitic verbal attacks Jewish children have endured in public schools in the Netherlands, often with the knowledge of the teachers.

“Meirav” said that her daughter, Tali, was pressured to express her opinion on the Gaza-Israel war and when she answered that she supports Israel, her comment was shared on social media and someone commented: “They should have gassed her.”

Meirav said that the anti-Semitism in Dutch schools is the result of “a process that has been going on for a long time.”

“When Tali was still in primary school, we always had a friend of hers over here,” she said.  “He often sat at the Shabbat table with us. Until he suddenly became one of the biggest name-callers and started yelling ‘c__ Jew’ at her. When I confronted his parents about it, I got no response.”

“Anna,” an Israeli-born mother of three teenagers, said that her two youngest children have resorted to hiding their nationality.

Her youngest child was told: “‘Your mother is Israeli, your family kills people and your mother does that too,’” Anna said. “I kept her at home for two days after that, she was so depressed.”

Anna continued to say that her daughter no longer wants to identify as Jewish. “‘Mommy, I want to convert to Catholicism,'” she said one day when she got home. “‘From now on I no longer want presents for Chanukah, but for Christmas.’ I tried to persuade her that being Jewish can also be fun, but I couldn’t convince her.”

“My middle child just changed schools and hasn’t told anyone there that he’s Jewish,” Anna said. “When classmates ask him why he has such a Jewish first name, he replies that it is a Mormon, Biblical name.”

“Judith,” another Jewish mother, said that her son, a top athlete, withdrew from sports after being subject to an anti-Semitic verbal attack in the locker room. “Mom, everyone is really very much against Israel,” her son told her. “At school, on social media, everyone. It won’t get any better.”

“I would like to go to the school to discuss this, but he won’t let me,” she said. “I also don’t want to apologize to third parties for Israel’s actions. I think Israel is very restrained and is unjustly reviled. I now think every day about leaving the Netherlands. Only caring for my elderly mother is holding me back.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)



7 Responses

  1. shameful__grew up in 43 same old…..Parents not teaching their children…to be Jewish is a gift, to have Hashem is a Gift to not share this gift with your children is taking the gift of life away__no sympathy for this at all….

  2. Maybe this article will finally dash the myth that the Dutch Goy is SO good for the Yidden. Sure there are of course notable exceptions. The Dutch Goy (and I am not talking about the million strong Muslim population of Holland) wraps it’s antisemitism only in anti Israelism, but don’t be fooled. The average white Goy in Holland thinks that Israel should not respond to rocket attacks from Gaza. “Hey they took the land from “the ancient” people: the poor Palestinians!!” A common refrain heard from the Dutch Goy is “If you had such a desparate existence as the Palestinians, would you not do the same!?” Now of course allJews support Israel, it stands to reason then that all Jews are to blame for this terrible misjustice.

  3. Better she should try to homeschooling her children ( or Jewish online school) and teach them stories of mesiras nefesh.
    Hashem should strengthen the Jews there physically and spiritually.

  4. The problem here is, of course, Israel and Zionism, not Judaism.
    Nobody should conflate the two because, of course, Judaism is diametrically opposed to, liHavdil, Zionism.

    These Dutch Jews would have been better off having not been Israeli, not ch”V not having been Jewish. Then, the Dutch Jews could tell the gentiles there that the Jews have no opinion on Zionist wars, just like we might also have no opinion on other world conflicts like Russia’s wars with Ukraine.

  5. Frumshmurda718, you should understand that Holland is not like Monsey or Brooklyn. There are only two Jewish schools in Holland and those are both in Amsterdam a mile apart from each other. Now anybody not living in Amsterdam does not have the luxury to choose between two chadoorim, e.g the Litvsche and Chassidische cheder. It is so easy talking living in a highly populated Jewish community.
    As for homeschooling, not everybody has the possibility and resources to do that. Note of course that the stories featured in the article are not about the most frum people. Even then it remains a tragedy of magnitude.

  6. I have to agree with Frumshmurda718. Send them to a Jewish school. עשו שונא את יעקב ain’t gonna change

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