Two days after the violence on the sidelines of the football match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv which sparked international condemnation, the Dutch capital and its Jewish inhabitants were still in shock.
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In the Jodenbuurt, Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter, police officers stand guard near the Portuguese Synagogue and the Jewish Historical Museum.
While the community is remaining discreet this Saturday, an Amsterdam Jew, running a t-shirt stand at the neighborhood market, told AFP that he felt very bad since the violence on Thursday evening.
“I feel the shame that every Amsterdammer must feel, because once again, as if history were repeating itself, Jews are attacked simply because they are Jews,” laments the 58-year-old man who preferred to keep anonymity for their own safety.
Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were violently attacked by groups of individuals in the streets of the city on the night of Thursday to Friday after the Europa League match, in a context marked by the rise in anti-Semitic acts and anti-Israelis around the world since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.
Police reported five people briefly hospitalized and 63 arrests, and Israel organized emergency flights to repatriate its citizens.
“I am totally opposed to what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip and I think it is horrible and goes beyond the limits. But what happened in Amsterdam went too far,” said Edit Tuboly, a 61-year-old woman interviewed in the aisles of the market, her arms full of bags.
As of Wednesday evening, the day before this Europa League match, incidents had taken place in certain neighborhoods, with Maccabi supporters having torn a Palestinian flag from a facade in the city center and burning another flag on Dam Square. .
The Dutch government and city hall strongly condemned the attacks, calling them anti-Semitic. Many foreign leaders, including the American Joe Biden, have also denounced them.
Amsterdam, “safe place”
Originally from Israel and living in Amsterdam for 34 years, the market trader himself attended, with a friend, the match which ended in a 5-0 victory for Ajax.
“Even though there is room for criticism on Israel’s side of this conflict [à Gaza]this is of course not the way to express it by attacking innocent people just because they come from somewhere,” he laments.
According to the trader, the atmosphere of the match was “fantastic” between the two groups of supporters. Nonetheless, he said he knows a friend who was attacked along with his 17-year-old son after the game.
The Dutch capital, nicknamed “Mokum” or “safe place” in Yiddish, is historically considered a refuge for the Jewish community. With the exception of the period of the Second World War, the figure of Anne Frank remained a symbol of the deportation of Jewish people.
“Until now, we thought that Amsterdam and the Netherlands were spared this extreme violence against Jews,” explains the trader, visibly moved.
Commemorations canceled
“Amsterdam should be ashamed of the pogrom perpetrated on the evening of Kristallnacht,” said the collective of Dutch Jewish organizations Centraal Joods Overleg in a statement released Friday.
Joana Cavaco, 28, president of the anti-Zionist Jewish collective Erev Rav, created two years ago in the Netherlands, believes that it is “worrying to see that we are talking about the security of Jews without seeing this that is happening on the ground.
According to Ms. Cavaco, the Maccabi supporters felt they had “carte blanche” and started the provocations as soon as they arrived.
“We don’t feel safe because Israel dictates how the world perceives us,” she told AFP.
An evening commemorating Kristallnacht in Amsterdam, in which Erev Rav was going to participate, was canceled, and Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema on Friday banned all demonstrations for three days.
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