AMSTERDAM — The owner of a frequently vandalized kosher eatery in the Dutch capital says he will close it down unless city officials install permanent security measures outside his business.
Sami Bar-On’s lawyer, Herman Loonstein, tells the Het Parool daily Wednesday that his client feels it is “irresponsible to go on like this” at HaCarmel restaurant without permanent security measures.
A man waving a Palestinian flag smashed the windows of HaCarmel kosher restaurant in Amsterdam, December 7, 2017. (Ginopress B.V./AFP/Getty Images via JTA)
In December, a 29-year-old Syrian asylum seeker smashed the restaurant’s window while holding a Palestinian flag. He then broke into the restaurant as two police officers watched and took out an Israeli flag from inside the restaurant before they arrested him. He has been charged with vandalism in an indictment that does not include an aggravated element of a hate crime.
Since the incident, the restaurant’s windows were again smashed once and are repeatedly spat on and smeared with garbage, Bar-On said. Police beef up security after each incident but leave shortly after, he said.
Bar-On also claimed the mayor has refused to meet him on the issue. But a municipal spokesperson said that Bar-On has declined several offers by the city to have him meet lower-level officials.
— JTA
Discover Israel's most beloved poet
She died more than four decades ago, but Leah Goldberg remains a magnetic and enigmatic figure: Israel’s most beloved poet, a powerful woman who lived with her mother and never married, who reinvented herself from the ashes of World War I through her magical writing.
You can screen 'The Five Houses of Leah Goldberg' June 4-11. Join The Times of Israel Community today to support our work and watch this and other outstanding documentary films in our DocuNation series.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
From the Liveblog of
Thursday, May 10, 2018
