‘Jew hunts’ are returning to the streets of Europe

History is repeating itself – anti-Semitic violence is back once more in Dutch, Belgian and German cities

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This week an American friend asked me whether it is safe to come to London. He asked me because he is Jewish. I was unsettled by the question but understood why he asked. My friend had been reading reports of violent Jew-hate in Europe.The terrifying events in Amsterdam over the past few days have heightened many Jewish people’s sensitivities to the risks that may surround them. An extra degree of caution is seeping into the thoughts of a growing number as they go about their daily lives.
We now know more details of what took place in Holland and the planning that went into it. The messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp were used by pro-Palestinian men to organise a “Jew hunt” or “Jodenjacht” in the city. The attacks were well-organised, with taxi drivers responding to calls to mobilise and help identify the whereabouts of Jews.
One message in a WhatsApp group called “Community Centre” thanked a member of the chat in Arabic for providing information about the movements of Jews, commenting further in Dutch “bro your tip was worth gold”. Ugly, racist violence followed. Jews were beaten, kicked and humiliated on the streets of a major European city.
It would be some solace to believe that these horrific events in Amsterdam were an isolated incident, but this is not the case. Accounts of violent racism against Jews have appeared across Europe over the past few days.
In Germany, a group of Jewish schoolchildren were attacked by a pro-Palestinian mob armed with knives and sticks. The teenagers from Makkabi Berlin’s youth football team said they were “hunted down” by a gang of Arab youths after a match. The attackers shouted “Free Palestine” and “F— Jews” before threatening them with weapons.
It is a painful irony that the club these children play for was set up in the 1970s by Holocaust survivors as the capital’s first Jewish sports’ club since the end of the Third Reich.
In Belgium, police arrested five men as part of a pro-active effort to stop a suspected “Jew hunt”. Snapchat accounts were used by local men seeking to organise attacks on Jews. Their plan was to target Antwerp’s Jewish quarter. We must be grateful to police in the city for their timely intervention which disrupted another outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in Europe.
The use of the phrase “Jew hunt” to target Jews is particularly disturbing, with its echoes of the most traumatic and deadly period in Jewish history.
It has been used by historians to describe Nazi attempts to search out and kill Jews during the Holocaust. “Jew hunts” were especially prevalent after the liquidation of Jewish ghettos in Poland, with the Nazis seeking out any remaining Jews, of any age, who had escaped their genocidal plans.
It will be very hard for many in the Jewish community to absorb the idea that a phrase such as this has become a call to action in Europe in the 21st century.
Yet it must be confronted head on by governments, police and security agencies across the continent. Fears of copycat attacks are growing as the term “Jodenjacht”’ becomes established on social media apps.
This means that the social media giants also carry great responsibility. They must ensure that their platforms do not become a communications weapon used by anti-Semites to plan attacks on Jews.
You may be wondering how I replied to my American Jewish friend when he asked whether it was safe to come to London. I told him to come and not to be intimidated. Jewish people must not even begin to cede their rights to a normal life, to their use of public spaces, to visit friends and family wherever they happen to be.
We must stand up to the anti-Semites and never allow Jews to be hunted again.
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