Herzog offers support to Dutch Jewish leaders after recent attacks

Following attacks on an Amsterdam Jewish school last night and a synagogue in Rotterdam early Friday morning, President Isaac Herzog held calls with leaders of the Dutch Jewish community tonight to offer support and solidarity.

An overnight blast damaged the only Orthodox school in the Netherlands, but did not cause any injuries, in what Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema called a “deliberate attack against the Jewish community.”

Earlier in the day, four young men were arrested on suspicion of setting off an explosion outside a synagogue in Rotterdam that caused a brief blaze and damage to the building.

President Herzog spoke with Chanan Hertzberger, Chairman of the Centraal Joods Overleg (CJO); Chris den Hoedt, Chairman of the Jewish Community of Rotterdam; Rabbi Yehuda Vorst, Rabbi of the Rotterdam Synagogue; and Professor Chaim (Herman) Loonstein, Head of the Board of Cheider in Amsterdam. Also participating in the conversation was Israel’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Zvi Aviner Vapni.

“It is totally unacceptable that the historic Jewish community of the Netherlands, which was devastated during the Holocaust and today is a thriving center of Jewish life, continues to be threatened by violent antisemitism,” Herzog says.

The rise in antisemitic violence across Europe, including the attack on a synagogue in Belgium last week, is “deeply concerning and demands a strong and unequivocal response,” Herzog adds. “I call on the Dutch authorities to intensify their efforts to combat antisemitism, incitement, and terror against the Jewish community.”