There is the usual Dutch racist bullpuckey in the comments under an article in De Telegraaf.
In short: Muslims are barbarians, Jews are greedy, halal and kosher slaughter is mediaeval and disgusting, and if those damned foreigners don't like it, they can damn well leave.
The article, of course, has to do with the looming legislation outlawing schechting of animals in the Netherlands.
Both Geert Wilders and the radical eco-movement are in favour of a ban, the Christian parties are opposed.
Moslimorganisaties somberen over verbod
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/9532769/__Moslims_somber_over_verbod__.html?p=21,1
Jews as money bags:
ze hebben steun van de orthodoxe joden die de dieren op dezelfde manier slachten. Onze grote blonde vriend zal zijn geldschieters wel niet teleurstellen en zal dit verbod niet steunen, schat ik zo in.
Henk, Zeist
Jews as manipulators:
Geweldig die Joodse lobby. De beeldspraak kan eigenlijk niet gebruik worden maar ze zijn werkelijk roomser dan de paus.
jeroen, amerongen
Jews and Muslims as primitives:
Voor alle Moslimbroeders en orthodoxe Joden: "Welkom in de 21e eeuw"
Ad, Amersfoort aan zee
Jews and Muslims as barbarians:
in een beschaafd land doe je zoiets niet meer in 2011.
Jasper, Nijmegen
Jews and Muslims as worth no more than animals:
Het is toch waanzinnig dat men nog luisterd naar geloofswaanzinnige die dieren met een mes willen doden. Laat heb dat op henzelf proberen. Maar niet op dieren die evenveel waard zijn dan alles op de aarde.
Theo Niemeijer, Enschede
Jews and Muslims as foreigners who don't belong in the Netherlands:
We zijn in NEDERLAND, dit soort dingen hoort hier niet!
john, Emmer Compascuum
[Note: Jews have been there for centuries, except for a long period between when they were exterminated in the thirteen hundreds till when Marranos were permitted to enter during the Golden Age.
Many of the Dutch Muslims were born or raised in the Netherlands - the Dutch refused to sweep their own factory floors and pick up their own trash starting in the sixties, and imported cheap labour for that purpose. First Spaniards and Italians, then when the supply of those people dried up, Turks and North-Africans. ]
Jews and Muslims should leave, the sooner the better:
Ik snap niet wat het probleem is. Als de Moslims het hier in Nederland niet naar hun zin hebben, kunnen ze verhuizen naar Egypte byvoorbeeld.
Piet, Bussum
[Note: Piet will probably still refuse to sweep the floor and pick up the trash if they do leave. Many modern Dutch shirk jobs that don't involve sitting down at length. ]
Jews and Muslims can go get stuffed:
Halal of ritueel of what ever het is gewoon bij de beesten af om die dieren zo af te maken. Deze mensen hebben een gedachten patroon van 1000 jaar geleden het is 2011. En anders maar opsodemieteren ook die joden.Wat een onzin dat geloof bah bah get alive.
Rene, Eindhoven
Prehistoric, and a good reason to vote for Geert Wilders:
Dat ritueel slachten moet per vandaag worden verboden. Die maffe en pre-historische activiteiten moeten afgelopen zijn. Hoe zou jij het vinden als je, bij bewustzijn, een mes door je keel zou krijgen. Die mensen zijn helemaal de weg kwijt. Dit moet stoppen. Ik zou er zelfs nu PVV of PVDD voor stemmen en mijn VVD stem daaroor opofferen.
Arnold, Rotterdam
Many of the commenting class have severe problems with Dutch orthography - which might suggest that they themselves were foreigners in the Dutch tongue, were it not that their opinionated ignorance and spitefulness proves them native better than any birth certificate.
[Read all 187 comments here: VENIJNIGHEID. They are in Dutch - consider it an unpleasant language lesson. Underneath a previous artice (OOK VVD there are as of this writing over 300 comments, the vast majority both ignorant and xenophobic. The sentiment that Jews and Muslims should leave is expressed forcefully in any number of ways.]
The consensus is that the Dutch are superior to anyone else, certainly better than Jews or Muslims, and they see no reason whatsoever to be tolerant.
Dutch practices and ideas are the best. As is well-known.
Small-town Holland is the centre of the universe.
As Hesje in Leeuwarden says: "Ik denk dat heel veel nederlanders heel wat positiever over moslims en joden gaan denken als ze ophouden met het kwellen van dieren!" ('I think that many Netherlanders will have a much more positive impression of Jews and Muslims if they were to stop torturing animals').
With each year that passes, I am happier that I returned to the United States.
I am the only Dutch-speaker in my social life. It's a blessing.
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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Showing posts with label Dutch Jews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dutch Jews. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
DUTCH JEWS, LEAVE!
I'm using my comments underneath a post on Dovbear’s blog as the basis for this piece.
BOLKENSTEIN
Prominent Dutch politician Frits Bolkestein sparked an uproar in the Netherlands by saying practicing Jews had "no future here, and should emigrate to the US or Israel"
Dov, naturally, found that reprehensible. That a politician would say that Jews should leave 'for their own good' should normally be considered ipso facto anti-Semitic.
Normally the government might actually gave a damn, and the police could actually do their job.
But this is the Netherlands we're talking about.
DUTCH JEWS
‘QUOTE: "joden die als zodanig herkenbaar zijn, zoals orthodoxe joden", aldus Bolkestein - "Voor hen zie ik geen toekomst hier vanwege het antisemitisme onder vooral Marokkaanse Nederlanders, die in aantal blijven toenemen."
[Translation: "Jews who are recognizable as such, like Orthodox Jews", according to Bolkenstein - "For them I do not see any future here, due to anti-Semitism, especially among Moroccan Dutch, who keep increasing in number".]
QUOTE: Volgens de oud-eurocommissaris kunnen ze daarom hun kinderen maar beter aanraden om te emigreren naar Amerika of Israël. Hij heeft weinig vertrouwen in de huidige plannen om het antisemitisme te bestrijden, zoals het inzetten van ‘lokjoden’ – een voorstel van PvdA-Kamerlid Ahmed Marcouch.
[Translation: According to the ex-Eurocommissioner it is better that they advise their children to emigrate to the United States or Israel. He has little confidence in current plans to combat anti-Semitism, such utilizing 'decoy Jews' - a proposal by Labour Party congressman Ahmed Marcouch. ]
Plainly put, Fritz Bolkenstein has no confidence in either the Dutch government OR the Dutch population to put an end to anti-Semitism, which he blames on the non-assimilation of Moroccans and Turks (sly jab at the Labour Party, who are widely held responsible for the 'gedoog beleid' policies that led to this situation), and he frankly advises Jews that the Netherlands is neither safe, nor tolerant.
He is a pessimist. As are a number of others.
Do I think Jews have a future in the Netherlands? Hell no. Fudge no.
Nor would I advise anyone to walk around wearing a kippah in even the Netherlands' most Jewish city - Amsterdam - because it might mean their life. Like Bolkenstein, I would suggest that all Dutch Jews emigrate.
Unlike Bolkenstein, I would further suggest that they emigrate PRIMARILY to San Francisco, but that's because I am a self-serving opportunist.
I could use more Dutch-speakers here with whom I can agree.
The current bunch are mostly pricks.
DUTCH MUSLIMS
There are about 800 thousand Muslim Dutch, primarily of North-African and Turkish ancestry. Many of them were born in the Netherlands. They aren’t immigrants by any standard, though they are not considered ‘native’ (“autochtoon”). They dominate certain neighborhoods in most of the inner cities.
Coincidentally, that would also be where most Dutch Jews reside. One might possibly say that then the problem would be easily resolved by moving Jews out to the provinces....... except that that is where Stormfront Netherlands resides.
Unlike Bolkenstein and many others, I do not blame the Moroccan and Turkish Dutch. Their venomous anti-Semitism could not thrive if the Dutch did not tolerate it. The Dutch cannot claim that it throve outside of their sight, it was plainly visible for an entire generation.
It was allowed to flourish by Dutch politicians and Dutch society, and it was conveniently overlooked, because it seemed to serve as an admirable outlet, and as an occasionally useful political voice when Dutch society had a fit over what the Israelis were doing to those poor, poor Palestinians.
Claiming that it's only the Muslim-Dutch is a cop-out. It's a nice try at plausible deniability, but it doesn't hold water.
Again, I do not blame the Muslim Dutch - their anti-Semitism is a thoroughly Netherlandish product.
I blame the Dutch.
By the way, calling Bolkenstein, as a former VVD parliamentarian, a rightist, is, in the American context, more than absurd. The VVD are liberals, and only right-wing by Dutch standards.
By US Republican standards, the agenda of the VVD is damn’ near filthy communist.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
BOLKENSTEIN
Prominent Dutch politician Frits Bolkestein sparked an uproar in the Netherlands by saying practicing Jews had "no future here, and should emigrate to the US or Israel"
Dov, naturally, found that reprehensible. That a politician would say that Jews should leave 'for their own good' should normally be considered ipso facto anti-Semitic.
Normally the government might actually gave a damn, and the police could actually do their job.
But this is the Netherlands we're talking about.
DUTCH JEWS
‘QUOTE: "joden die als zodanig herkenbaar zijn, zoals orthodoxe joden", aldus Bolkestein - "Voor hen zie ik geen toekomst hier vanwege het antisemitisme onder vooral Marokkaanse Nederlanders, die in aantal blijven toenemen."
[Translation: "Jews who are recognizable as such, like Orthodox Jews", according to Bolkenstein - "For them I do not see any future here, due to anti-Semitism, especially among Moroccan Dutch, who keep increasing in number".]
QUOTE: Volgens de oud-eurocommissaris kunnen ze daarom hun kinderen maar beter aanraden om te emigreren naar Amerika of Israël. Hij heeft weinig vertrouwen in de huidige plannen om het antisemitisme te bestrijden, zoals het inzetten van ‘lokjoden’ – een voorstel van PvdA-Kamerlid Ahmed Marcouch.
[Translation: According to the ex-Eurocommissioner it is better that they advise their children to emigrate to the United States or Israel. He has little confidence in current plans to combat anti-Semitism, such utilizing 'decoy Jews' - a proposal by Labour Party congressman Ahmed Marcouch. ]
Plainly put, Fritz Bolkenstein has no confidence in either the Dutch government OR the Dutch population to put an end to anti-Semitism, which he blames on the non-assimilation of Moroccans and Turks (sly jab at the Labour Party, who are widely held responsible for the 'gedoog beleid' policies that led to this situation), and he frankly advises Jews that the Netherlands is neither safe, nor tolerant.
He is a pessimist. As are a number of others.
Do I think Jews have a future in the Netherlands? Hell no. Fudge no.
Nor would I advise anyone to walk around wearing a kippah in even the Netherlands' most Jewish city - Amsterdam - because it might mean their life. Like Bolkenstein, I would suggest that all Dutch Jews emigrate.
Unlike Bolkenstein, I would further suggest that they emigrate PRIMARILY to San Francisco, but that's because I am a self-serving opportunist.
I could use more Dutch-speakers here with whom I can agree.
The current bunch are mostly pricks.
DUTCH MUSLIMS
There are about 800 thousand Muslim Dutch, primarily of North-African and Turkish ancestry. Many of them were born in the Netherlands. They aren’t immigrants by any standard, though they are not considered ‘native’ (“autochtoon”). They dominate certain neighborhoods in most of the inner cities.
Coincidentally, that would also be where most Dutch Jews reside. One might possibly say that then the problem would be easily resolved by moving Jews out to the provinces....... except that that is where Stormfront Netherlands resides.
Unlike Bolkenstein and many others, I do not blame the Moroccan and Turkish Dutch. Their venomous anti-Semitism could not thrive if the Dutch did not tolerate it. The Dutch cannot claim that it throve outside of their sight, it was plainly visible for an entire generation.
It was allowed to flourish by Dutch politicians and Dutch society, and it was conveniently overlooked, because it seemed to serve as an admirable outlet, and as an occasionally useful political voice when Dutch society had a fit over what the Israelis were doing to those poor, poor Palestinians.
Claiming that it's only the Muslim-Dutch is a cop-out. It's a nice try at plausible deniability, but it doesn't hold water.
Again, I do not blame the Muslim Dutch - their anti-Semitism is a thoroughly Netherlandish product.
I blame the Dutch.
By the way, calling Bolkenstein, as a former VVD parliamentarian, a rightist, is, in the American context, more than absurd. The VVD are liberals, and only right-wing by Dutch standards.
By US Republican standards, the agenda of the VVD is damn’ near filthy communist.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, November 01, 2010
GRETTA DUISENBERG - HOLLAND'S FOREMOST ANTISEMITE
Notorious Dutch anti-Semite Gretta Duisenberg is suing Elsevier magazine and author Afshin Ellian for calling her an anti-Semite. Basically, the noted anti-Semitic harpy Duisenberg is upset that there is an unpleasant name for her type.
We sympathise deeply with anti-Semitic Gretta. Life is so unfair, isn't it? Especially to despised minorities like anti-Semites, racists, bigots, cockroaches ........
Anyhooooo.
Per the Telegraaf Newspaper:
"Duisenberg doet aangifte tegen Elsevier
AMSTERDAM - Gretta Duisenberg heeft maandag aangifte gedaan bij de politie in Amsterdam tegen weekblad Elsevier en columnist Afshin Ellian wegens belediging en smaad. Zowel in een recent artikel in het weekblad als op het Elsevier-weblog van de columnist is zij antisemiet genoemd. Dat meldde de pro-Palestinagroep Stop de Bezetting, waarvan Duisenberg voorzitter is. "
[Translation: Duisenberg files complaint against Elsevier.
Amsterdam - Gretta Duisenberg on Monday files a complaint with the Amsterdam Police against weekly magazine Elsevier and columnist Afshin Ellian for 'insult and libel'. In both a recent article in the weekly and in the Elsevier-weblog of the columnist she was called an anti-Semite. This per the pro-Palestine group 'Stop the Occupation, of which Duisenberg is the chairman.]
SOURCE:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/8092909/__Aangifte_Duisen-berg_tegen_Elsevier__.html?p=14,1
"Volgens een woordvoerder van de organisatie is de bedoeling van de aangifte breder. Duisenberg wil dat er een eind komt aan het gegooi met modder in haar richting door sommige media. „Dat gebeurt al jaren maar ze heeft er nu genoeg van. Het debat voeren over de kwestie Israël-Palestina wil ze wel, maar dan wel binnen grenzen.” "
[Translation: According to a spokesperson of the organization, the purpose of the complaint is actually broader - Duisenberg wishes that there should be an end to the slinging of mud in her direction. "That has been happening for years but she has had enough. She is willing to pursue the discourse regarding the issue of Israel-Palestine, but only within limits"]
"Hoofdredacteur Arendo Joustra van Elsevier zei in een reactie: „Wij wachten het rustig af”."
[Translation: Chief editor Arendo Joustra of Elsevier said in a response: "we calmly await".]
GRETTA DUISENBERG: ANTI-SEMITIC ARCHTYPE
Like many Europeans, the widow Duisenberg adheres to the neo-Marxist narrative of Palestinians as innocent victims, and Jews as cruel subhumans. This is the acceptable modern-day version of traditional anti-Semitism, reformulated in a dialectic that echoes ancient tropes but does not disturb today's world-citizens, for whom the fond image of helpless non-European victims of American imperialism and the daemonic Jews exercises an infinite attraction.
To be an anti-Semite is traditionally European, but in modern Europe one has to disguise it with the proper intellectual and politically correct terminology.
An upstanding member of the Dutch upper-class, Gretta Duisenberg could not possibly be so crude as to spew tired old clichés - instead, she formulates her hatred and bigotry into politely phrased brutalism.
As an activist for the more rabid element among the Dutch anti-Israel fringe, Gretta Duisenberg often seemed to take delight in offending and insulting. Her notorious statement that she wished six million signatures for her petition against the occupation was widely seen as a sneering reference to the holocaust.
Among her ideas is one she seldom tires of expressing, namely that a Jewish cabal controls the US government and influences policy - in her own words: "de puissant rijke joden in Amerika zijn die Israël in stand houden, waardoor ze in Israël de Palestijnen kunnen onderdrukken" (the powerful rich Jews in America that maintain Israel, whereby they can in Israel oppress the Palestinians); "de rijke Joodse lobby in Amerika" (the rich Jewish lobby in America).
Such statements are quite common in Europe, where many people grasp neither that they are offensive, nor that they are a traditional trope. The belief that rich Jews direct international politics should probably be considered part and parcel of European Culture by now, much like xenophobia and soccer riots.
One of Gretta's more eccentric statements was physiognomical:
"Israëli's liegen altijd. Dat zie je aan die koppen. Schoften zijn het" (Israelis always lie. You can see that from their heads. They're brutes).
There are far too many anti-Semitic utterances of hers to list here, as she's a tireless hate-speechifier and a publicity-whore of no mean aptitude.
I encourage you to research her on the internet - and if you read Dutch, you should probably also read Afshin Ellian in Elsevier magazine:
Weblog Afshin Ellian
It is not surprising that such a poisonous partisan of Hamas as Gretta Duisenberg is also a very warm friend of former Dutch prime-minister Dries van Agt, a clench-arsed bigot of a profoundly old-fashioned and pan-European hue.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
We sympathise deeply with anti-Semitic Gretta. Life is so unfair, isn't it? Especially to despised minorities like anti-Semites, racists, bigots, cockroaches ........
Anyhooooo.
Per the Telegraaf Newspaper:
"Duisenberg doet aangifte tegen Elsevier
AMSTERDAM - Gretta Duisenberg heeft maandag aangifte gedaan bij de politie in Amsterdam tegen weekblad Elsevier en columnist Afshin Ellian wegens belediging en smaad. Zowel in een recent artikel in het weekblad als op het Elsevier-weblog van de columnist is zij antisemiet genoemd. Dat meldde de pro-Palestinagroep Stop de Bezetting, waarvan Duisenberg voorzitter is. "
[Translation: Duisenberg files complaint against Elsevier.
Amsterdam - Gretta Duisenberg on Monday files a complaint with the Amsterdam Police against weekly magazine Elsevier and columnist Afshin Ellian for 'insult and libel'. In both a recent article in the weekly and in the Elsevier-weblog of the columnist she was called an anti-Semite. This per the pro-Palestine group 'Stop the Occupation, of which Duisenberg is the chairman.]
SOURCE:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/8092909/__Aangifte_Duisen-berg_tegen_Elsevier__.html?p=14,1
"Volgens een woordvoerder van de organisatie is de bedoeling van de aangifte breder. Duisenberg wil dat er een eind komt aan het gegooi met modder in haar richting door sommige media. „Dat gebeurt al jaren maar ze heeft er nu genoeg van. Het debat voeren over de kwestie Israël-Palestina wil ze wel, maar dan wel binnen grenzen.” "
[Translation: According to a spokesperson of the organization, the purpose of the complaint is actually broader - Duisenberg wishes that there should be an end to the slinging of mud in her direction. "That has been happening for years but she has had enough. She is willing to pursue the discourse regarding the issue of Israel-Palestine, but only within limits"]
"Hoofdredacteur Arendo Joustra van Elsevier zei in een reactie: „Wij wachten het rustig af”."
[Translation: Chief editor Arendo Joustra of Elsevier said in a response: "we calmly await".]
GRETTA DUISENBERG: ANTI-SEMITIC ARCHTYPE
Like many Europeans, the widow Duisenberg adheres to the neo-Marxist narrative of Palestinians as innocent victims, and Jews as cruel subhumans. This is the acceptable modern-day version of traditional anti-Semitism, reformulated in a dialectic that echoes ancient tropes but does not disturb today's world-citizens, for whom the fond image of helpless non-European victims of American imperialism and the daemonic Jews exercises an infinite attraction.
To be an anti-Semite is traditionally European, but in modern Europe one has to disguise it with the proper intellectual and politically correct terminology.
An upstanding member of the Dutch upper-class, Gretta Duisenberg could not possibly be so crude as to spew tired old clichés - instead, she formulates her hatred and bigotry into politely phrased brutalism.
As an activist for the more rabid element among the Dutch anti-Israel fringe, Gretta Duisenberg often seemed to take delight in offending and insulting. Her notorious statement that she wished six million signatures for her petition against the occupation was widely seen as a sneering reference to the holocaust.
Among her ideas is one she seldom tires of expressing, namely that a Jewish cabal controls the US government and influences policy - in her own words: "de puissant rijke joden in Amerika zijn die Israël in stand houden, waardoor ze in Israël de Palestijnen kunnen onderdrukken" (the powerful rich Jews in America that maintain Israel, whereby they can in Israel oppress the Palestinians); "de rijke Joodse lobby in Amerika" (the rich Jewish lobby in America).
Such statements are quite common in Europe, where many people grasp neither that they are offensive, nor that they are a traditional trope. The belief that rich Jews direct international politics should probably be considered part and parcel of European Culture by now, much like xenophobia and soccer riots.
One of Gretta's more eccentric statements was physiognomical:
"Israëli's liegen altijd. Dat zie je aan die koppen. Schoften zijn het" (Israelis always lie. You can see that from their heads. They're brutes).
There are far too many anti-Semitic utterances of hers to list here, as she's a tireless hate-speechifier and a publicity-whore of no mean aptitude.
I encourage you to research her on the internet - and if you read Dutch, you should probably also read Afshin Ellian in Elsevier magazine:
Weblog Afshin Ellian
It is not surprising that such a poisonous partisan of Hamas as Gretta Duisenberg is also a very warm friend of former Dutch prime-minister Dries van Agt, a clench-arsed bigot of a profoundly old-fashioned and pan-European hue.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, April 17, 2009
DUTCH ISRAEL BOYCOTT GROUP FINANCIAL DAMAGE
Bright news out of the Netherlands, for a change.
Quote:
A Dutch consumer rights group promoting a ban on Israeli goods is planning to take legal action against one of the Netherland's largest Jewish institutions for alleged "abuse" of the postal system. The Jewish group denies foul play.
[Editorial interruption: It is not entirely clear what action they can take, as the alleged foul play is strictly according to their own playbook.]
Peace, which is advocating a boycott of Israeli goods from the West Bank, says the umbrella group for the Jewish Orthodox communities in the Netherlands, NIK, deliberately caused it losses of thousands of euros.
[Denied by the NIK, and with excellent reason.]
Pro-Israel boycott group: Dutch Jewish leadership 'abusing' our postal system
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign,"
Peace argues that NIK did this by using its Web site to encourage people to send thousands of Peace's prepaid envelopes through a mailing service that allows anyone to send mail to certain organizations at no charge, since the organizations pay the postal fees after delivery.
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign," said Peace chairman Joost Hardeman. "We of course had to pay for this traffic. This illegal manipulation by NIK of the Royal Mail service has forced us to cancel our mail arrangement, and we are preparing a lawsuit against them to cover our costs."
The Amsterdam-based group is also planning to take legal action against two operators of pro-Israel Web sites, including a blog, that advertised Peace's prepaid mailbox.
Ruben Vis, secretary general of NIK, confirmed that the address of Peace's prepaid mailbox was posted on his organization's site, but said that was part of a report about Peace's claims that the Israeli Embassy was pressuring a publisher to drop a pro-boycott ad campaign. The embassy has denied this.
"Certain individuals may have decided to mail back to Peace their own prepaid envelopes, but NIK is certainly not involved," Vis said.
Hardeman, who is Jewish and says he supports Israel but opposes its occupation of Palestinian land, said Peace will nonetheless attempt to show NIK is to blame for "the abuse of the mail system."
[Editorial interruption: Joost Hardeman may very well be a classic self-hating Jew. That type often collaborates with anti-Semites, Jew haters, and anti-Israel action groups. This blog does not know Joost Hardeman, and while we are fully prepared to despise him and his entire circle, we reserve judgment; more research is needed.
We do hope, however, that the bastard never enter the US, and have ill-luck and misfortune all of his days - consider these sentiments as a glorious gasp of whatever remains of my Christian fellow-feeling (not a significant factor in my mental make-up, largely due to the repulsive xenophobia and hatred of other beliefs evinced by the 'fine Christians' among whom I lived while a temporary resident of the Netherlands. I'm still furious at my classmates for telling me on a daily basis that I was going to hell, and at their parents for encouraging their brats to believe that it was virtuous to voice that sentiment.]
The Israel Products Center, a Netherlands-based online store specializing in Israeli goods, recently complained to the Dutch advertising ombudsman organization that Peace's campaign against Israeli products has caused it financial damages because it directly targets their livelihood and brand.
[Source: HAARETZ.com http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html ]
---------------------------------------
HOIST BY THEIR OWN PETARD
It seems obvious to this blogger that Hardeman's odious clique got shafted by their own doing. Fitting, even, that their own prepaid envelopes be used PRECISELY as intended - to send them a message.
Considering the well-deserved reputation the Dutch have for being money-grubbing skinflints, penny-pinchers, and hard-nosed financialists, this result is particularly delicious.
[Jaja, beste Nederlanders, wat betreft handel and financiën zijt gij allen berucht omwille uw wrekkigheid, gierigheid, en ethische mankementen. Dat is al vele eeuwen bekend. Meer nog dan zelfs Lombardiërs en Schotlanders. Maar ulieden beschouwen dat van uzelven natuurlijk als een prijzenswaardige nuchterheid, wijl ge het toch van anderen met gene gratie veelt. Tismewat. Tsja.]
And regarding boycotts, this blogger is more likely to purchase products if they are of Israeli origin than of European origin - excepting tobacco products and Irish whiskey.
Reason being that I would much rather support those who are on our side, than those who have spent the years since world wars one and two calling us names and damning us for not being exactly like them - a European habit which anyone who has lived there will recognize as the single cultural characteristic which unites Europeans. Without that hatred for America, they might have nothing at all in common, at least not to the degree that it makes them all warm and gushy inside.
[Well, except soccer, that is. Nothing is quite so charmingly European as a full-scale soccer riot, especially one that causes thousands of Euros of damage, and fills holding cells and hospital emergency rooms to overflowing.
These are admirable manifestations of European excellence, and splendid spectacles besides.]
I truly hope that the envelope thing puts the boycott-bastards out of business.
Quote:
A Dutch consumer rights group promoting a ban on Israeli goods is planning to take legal action against one of the Netherland's largest Jewish institutions for alleged "abuse" of the postal system. The Jewish group denies foul play.
[Editorial interruption: It is not entirely clear what action they can take, as the alleged foul play is strictly according to their own playbook.]
Peace, which is advocating a boycott of Israeli goods from the West Bank, says the umbrella group for the Jewish Orthodox communities in the Netherlands, NIK, deliberately caused it losses of thousands of euros.
[Denied by the NIK, and with excellent reason.]
Pro-Israel boycott group: Dutch Jewish leadership 'abusing' our postal system
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign,"
Peace argues that NIK did this by using its Web site to encourage people to send thousands of Peace's prepaid envelopes through a mailing service that allows anyone to send mail to certain organizations at no charge, since the organizations pay the postal fees after delivery.
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign," said Peace chairman Joost Hardeman. "We of course had to pay for this traffic. This illegal manipulation by NIK of the Royal Mail service has forced us to cancel our mail arrangement, and we are preparing a lawsuit against them to cover our costs."
The Amsterdam-based group is also planning to take legal action against two operators of pro-Israel Web sites, including a blog, that advertised Peace's prepaid mailbox.
Ruben Vis, secretary general of NIK, confirmed that the address of Peace's prepaid mailbox was posted on his organization's site, but said that was part of a report about Peace's claims that the Israeli Embassy was pressuring a publisher to drop a pro-boycott ad campaign. The embassy has denied this.
"Certain individuals may have decided to mail back to Peace their own prepaid envelopes, but NIK is certainly not involved," Vis said.
Hardeman, who is Jewish and says he supports Israel but opposes its occupation of Palestinian land, said Peace will nonetheless attempt to show NIK is to blame for "the abuse of the mail system."
[Editorial interruption: Joost Hardeman may very well be a classic self-hating Jew. That type often collaborates with anti-Semites, Jew haters, and anti-Israel action groups. This blog does not know Joost Hardeman, and while we are fully prepared to despise him and his entire circle, we reserve judgment; more research is needed.
We do hope, however, that the bastard never enter the US, and have ill-luck and misfortune all of his days - consider these sentiments as a glorious gasp of whatever remains of my Christian fellow-feeling (not a significant factor in my mental make-up, largely due to the repulsive xenophobia and hatred of other beliefs evinced by the 'fine Christians' among whom I lived while a temporary resident of the Netherlands. I'm still furious at my classmates for telling me on a daily basis that I was going to hell, and at their parents for encouraging their brats to believe that it was virtuous to voice that sentiment.]
The Israel Products Center, a Netherlands-based online store specializing in Israeli goods, recently complained to the Dutch advertising ombudsman organization that Peace's campaign against Israeli products has caused it financial damages because it directly targets their livelihood and brand.
[Source: HAARETZ.com http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html ]
---------------------------------------
HOIST BY THEIR OWN PETARD
It seems obvious to this blogger that Hardeman's odious clique got shafted by their own doing. Fitting, even, that their own prepaid envelopes be used PRECISELY as intended - to send them a message.
Considering the well-deserved reputation the Dutch have for being money-grubbing skinflints, penny-pinchers, and hard-nosed financialists, this result is particularly delicious.
[Jaja, beste Nederlanders, wat betreft handel and financiën zijt gij allen berucht omwille uw wrekkigheid, gierigheid, en ethische mankementen. Dat is al vele eeuwen bekend. Meer nog dan zelfs Lombardiërs en Schotlanders. Maar ulieden beschouwen dat van uzelven natuurlijk als een prijzenswaardige nuchterheid, wijl ge het toch van anderen met gene gratie veelt. Tismewat. Tsja.]
And regarding boycotts, this blogger is more likely to purchase products if they are of Israeli origin than of European origin - excepting tobacco products and Irish whiskey.
Reason being that I would much rather support those who are on our side, than those who have spent the years since world wars one and two calling us names and damning us for not being exactly like them - a European habit which anyone who has lived there will recognize as the single cultural characteristic which unites Europeans. Without that hatred for America, they might have nothing at all in common, at least not to the degree that it makes them all warm and gushy inside.
[Well, except soccer, that is. Nothing is quite so charmingly European as a full-scale soccer riot, especially one that causes thousands of Euros of damage, and fills holding cells and hospital emergency rooms to overflowing.
These are admirable manifestations of European excellence, and splendid spectacles besides.]
I truly hope that the envelope thing puts the boycott-bastards out of business.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
DUTCH INSANITY
Last week, protesting soccer hooligans in Rotterdam screamed obscenities and insults at burgomaster Ahmed Aboutaleb.
Among other things, they called the honourable Ahmed Aboutaleb a "Filthy Jew" ('vuile Jood'), and chanted 'Hamas, Hamas, all Joden aan het gas' (Hamas, Hamas, all the Jews to the gas). They also offered to gas the aforementioned "Filthy Jew".
This pursuant a decision by the burgomasters of Rotterdam (Ahmed Aboutaleb) and Amsterdam (Job Cohen) to limit fan-attendance at matches between Feyenoord (the Rotterdam soccer team) and Ajax (the Amsterdam soccer team) for the next five years, due to violence and misbehaviour at such matches - the rivalry between Feyenoord and Ajax is representative of the cultural superiority of Amsterdam ('good') versus the depravity and criminal tendencies of Rotterdammers ('evil'), and soccer matches are, more than just symbolically, wars. It is a complex situation with many layers.
Two articles in Dutch from the Algemeen Dagblad:
http://www.ad.nl/rotterdam/stad/3020182/Grimmig_protest_Feyenoordfans.html
Quote: Circa tweehonderd demonstranten trokken het drukke centrum van de stad in en liepen dreigend tussen winkelend publiek door. Ze scandeerden leuzen en er zouden vernielingen zijn aangericht.
[Around two hundred demonstrators marched through the busy centre of the city and mingled threateningly with the shopping public. They chanted slogans, and there was vandalism.]
http://www.ad.nl/rotterdam/stad/3028447/Hooligans_vrijuit_na_uitschelden_Aboutaleb.html
Quote: De Feyenoord-hooligans die de Rotterdamse burgemeester Ahmed Aboutaleb dit weekend in de binnenstad uitmaakten voor ‘vuile Jood’ en scandeerden dat hij ‘aan het gas moet’, gaan vrijuit.
[The Feyenoord hooligans who called Rotterdam burgomaster Ahmed Aboutaleb a "Filty Jew" this past weekend and chanted that he should be gassed will not be prosecuted.]
I should probably mention that the nickname of Ajax is "de Jooduh'' ('da Jooz'). That has some bearing on this.
Mr. Ahmed Aboutaleb (the aforementioned "Filthy Jew"), is the son of a Moroccan Imam. Which seems beside the point, but is nevertheless a relevant detail.
The gentlemen who so helpfully offered to chuck him into a gas chamber are mostly Moroccan Dutch - many of the Moroccans in Rotterdam are fanatical supporters of their soccer club.
The Moroccan-Dutch supporters of Feyenoord are furious over the tendency of Ajax supporters in Amsterdam to beat the living daylights out of them whenever they scream anti-Jewish obscenities or burn an Israeli flag in a public place while visiting. The Israeli flag is the guerilla banner of the Ajax fans, waved from the stands whenever Ajax is playing, especially at Ajax-Feyenoord games. The primary purpose of waving the Israeli flag is to irritate the spit out of the Feyenoord supporters on the other side. Who hop up and down red-faced and gibbering whenever this is done.
Many of the Ajax supporters are also Moroccan-Dutch. Who thoroughly enjoy the apoplexy they have thus given their cousins from a city the name of which no true Amsterdammer will even admit knowing ("Rotterdam" - it's probably some German word that means garbage or prostitute or something like that, totally unimportant").
Amsterdam is probably the only town in the universe where an anti-Semite burning an Israeli flag may have the crap kicked out of him by angry Arab teenagers.
Among other things, they called the honourable Ahmed Aboutaleb a "Filthy Jew" ('vuile Jood'), and chanted 'Hamas, Hamas, all Joden aan het gas' (Hamas, Hamas, all the Jews to the gas). They also offered to gas the aforementioned "Filthy Jew".
This pursuant a decision by the burgomasters of Rotterdam (Ahmed Aboutaleb) and Amsterdam (Job Cohen) to limit fan-attendance at matches between Feyenoord (the Rotterdam soccer team) and Ajax (the Amsterdam soccer team) for the next five years, due to violence and misbehaviour at such matches - the rivalry between Feyenoord and Ajax is representative of the cultural superiority of Amsterdam ('good') versus the depravity and criminal tendencies of Rotterdammers ('evil'), and soccer matches are, more than just symbolically, wars. It is a complex situation with many layers.
Two articles in Dutch from the Algemeen Dagblad:
http://www.ad.nl/rotterdam/stad/3020182/Grimmig_protest_Feyenoordfans.html
Quote: Circa tweehonderd demonstranten trokken het drukke centrum van de stad in en liepen dreigend tussen winkelend publiek door. Ze scandeerden leuzen en er zouden vernielingen zijn aangericht.
[Around two hundred demonstrators marched through the busy centre of the city and mingled threateningly with the shopping public. They chanted slogans, and there was vandalism.]
http://www.ad.nl/rotterdam/stad/3028447/Hooligans_vrijuit_na_uitschelden_Aboutaleb.html
Quote: De Feyenoord-hooligans die de Rotterdamse burgemeester Ahmed Aboutaleb dit weekend in de binnenstad uitmaakten voor ‘vuile Jood’ en scandeerden dat hij ‘aan het gas moet’, gaan vrijuit.
[The Feyenoord hooligans who called Rotterdam burgomaster Ahmed Aboutaleb a "Filty Jew" this past weekend and chanted that he should be gassed will not be prosecuted.]
I should probably mention that the nickname of Ajax is "de Jooduh'' ('da Jooz'). That has some bearing on this.
Mr. Ahmed Aboutaleb (the aforementioned "Filthy Jew"), is the son of a Moroccan Imam. Which seems beside the point, but is nevertheless a relevant detail.
The gentlemen who so helpfully offered to chuck him into a gas chamber are mostly Moroccan Dutch - many of the Moroccans in Rotterdam are fanatical supporters of their soccer club.
The Moroccan-Dutch supporters of Feyenoord are furious over the tendency of Ajax supporters in Amsterdam to beat the living daylights out of them whenever they scream anti-Jewish obscenities or burn an Israeli flag in a public place while visiting. The Israeli flag is the guerilla banner of the Ajax fans, waved from the stands whenever Ajax is playing, especially at Ajax-Feyenoord games. The primary purpose of waving the Israeli flag is to irritate the spit out of the Feyenoord supporters on the other side. Who hop up and down red-faced and gibbering whenever this is done.
Many of the Ajax supporters are also Moroccan-Dutch. Who thoroughly enjoy the apoplexy they have thus given their cousins from a city the name of which no true Amsterdammer will even admit knowing ("Rotterdam" - it's probably some German word that means garbage or prostitute or something like that, totally unimportant").
Amsterdam is probably the only town in the universe where an anti-Semite burning an Israeli flag may have the crap kicked out of him by angry Arab teenagers.
Friday, January 16, 2009
RIOTING IN HOLLAND
Much commentary in Dutch about the Gaza situation reflects two venomous hatreds. The smaller one is anti-Semitism, the more prevalent and dominant one is Xenophobia (particularly aimed at Muslim immigrants). In actuality, these are merely 'two hands on the same stomach'.
Many Dutch cleverly combine both hatreds.
And the Dutch, as we now know, are not inclined to be humble about strongly held opinions.
The worst rhetorical tendencies in Dutch are now obscenely on display, the Dutch are exhibiting their usually soft-voiced talent for vile dialectic at full volume, cacophonous and nauseating.
I am fairly disgusted with my fellow-Dutchspeakers at present.
AHMED ABOUTALEB
A noteworthy exception is Rotterdam burgomaster Ahmed Aboutaleb, who firmly let it be known that phrases like "hamas hamas all joden aan het gas" ('Hamas Hamas all Jews to the gas'), "falastin baladna wa'l Yahud kilabna" ('Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs'), "itbach al Yahud" ('massacre the Jews'), and "al mawt al Yahud" ('death to the Jews'), are utterly unacceptable, and will lead to arrests and prosecution.
[The Netherlands has laws about hate-speech and incitement that in some respects are more authoritarian than laws in the United States.]
"Aboutaleb, maak het waar!"
Many Dutch cleverly combine both hatreds.
And the Dutch, as we now know, are not inclined to be humble about strongly held opinions.
The worst rhetorical tendencies in Dutch are now obscenely on display, the Dutch are exhibiting their usually soft-voiced talent for vile dialectic at full volume, cacophonous and nauseating.
I am fairly disgusted with my fellow-Dutchspeakers at present.
AHMED ABOUTALEB
A noteworthy exception is Rotterdam burgomaster Ahmed Aboutaleb, who firmly let it be known that phrases like "hamas hamas all joden aan het gas" ('Hamas Hamas all Jews to the gas'), "falastin baladna wa'l Yahud kilabna" ('Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs'), "itbach al Yahud" ('massacre the Jews'), and "al mawt al Yahud" ('death to the Jews'), are utterly unacceptable, and will lead to arrests and prosecution.
[The Netherlands has laws about hate-speech and incitement that in some respects are more authoritarian than laws in the United States.]
"Aboutaleb, maak het waar!"
[Kaptein Jean-Luc Picard]
Of course he will hampered by the wussie ineffectiveness of the Dutch police, and red-tapish attitudes of the Dutch judiciary.
But at this point, not only are the Feijenoord fans rabidly disgusted with him, but also members of his own ethnic group and religious community. Nor did this win him any friends among ordinary Dutchmen, many of whom either despise the Jews or loathe the Arabs.
DUTCH MUSLIMS
There are nearly a million Muslims in the Netherlands. Most of them live in the Randstad (the conglomeratus of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht). Most of them are urban. Many of them were born there, and many of them speak Dutch as their first language.
Dutch is the only language in which they read and write.
What you see in the videos of the demonstrations in the Netherlands are a few thousand people, fully half of whom are 'autochtoon' (native Dutch). The Rotterdam riot videos show a slightly greater number of people than Amsterdam or Utrecht, with a slightly greater proportion of allochthonous background.
That accounts for maybe about ten or twenty thousand angry Muslims, all told. Probably less, as the same people have taken part in several demonstrations.
What you do NOT see are the majority of Islamic-Dutch, but the rowdy problem cases. What you see are not the quiet shopkeepers, businessmen, or labourers, but the failures to assimilate. These are the people who are marooned between two societies, who do not even fit into their own ethnicity, and have no hope of ever blending into the mainstream.
As with all ethnicities, the problem cases tend to confirm to stereotypes.
The majority of every ethnic group are usually invisible. By assimilating, they fade into the background. It is only when members of a group misbehave that their ethnicity or affiliation becomes an issue.
The anti-Israel riots in places like London, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Antwerp - all seem to have rigidified ethnic/cultural hatreds. Precisely the same animosity as marked European society when the only groups to hate were Jews, Gypsies, and Lombards.
Europe has not changed much. But it has learned to share its hatred.
But at this point, not only are the Feijenoord fans rabidly disgusted with him, but also members of his own ethnic group and religious community. Nor did this win him any friends among ordinary Dutchmen, many of whom either despise the Jews or loathe the Arabs.
DUTCH MUSLIMS
There are nearly a million Muslims in the Netherlands. Most of them live in the Randstad (the conglomeratus of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht). Most of them are urban. Many of them were born there, and many of them speak Dutch as their first language.
Dutch is the only language in which they read and write.
What you see in the videos of the demonstrations in the Netherlands are a few thousand people, fully half of whom are 'autochtoon' (native Dutch). The Rotterdam riot videos show a slightly greater number of people than Amsterdam or Utrecht, with a slightly greater proportion of allochthonous background.
That accounts for maybe about ten or twenty thousand angry Muslims, all told. Probably less, as the same people have taken part in several demonstrations.
What you do NOT see are the majority of Islamic-Dutch, but the rowdy problem cases. What you see are not the quiet shopkeepers, businessmen, or labourers, but the failures to assimilate. These are the people who are marooned between two societies, who do not even fit into their own ethnicity, and have no hope of ever blending into the mainstream.
As with all ethnicities, the problem cases tend to confirm to stereotypes.
The majority of every ethnic group are usually invisible. By assimilating, they fade into the background. It is only when members of a group misbehave that their ethnicity or affiliation becomes an issue.
The anti-Israel riots in places like London, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Antwerp - all seem to have rigidified ethnic/cultural hatreds. Precisely the same animosity as marked European society when the only groups to hate were Jews, Gypsies, and Lombards.
Europe has not changed much. But it has learned to share its hatred.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
PROTEST IN AMSTERDAM AGAINST ISRAELI ACTION
As was to be expected, there have been anti-Israel demonstrations in various spots worldwide since the beginning of the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza. Not only in the usual places - Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt - but also in the Western World.
Places such as Amsterdam.
[Oh wait, that IS one of the usual places.]
Article in the Algemeen Dagblad:
http://www.ad.nl/binnenland/2873589/Demonstratie_op_de_Dam_tegen_aanvallen_Isral.html
[In Dutch. Synopsis: Roughly two hundred people demonstrate against Israel on the Dam in Amsterdam in a protest organized by the Netherlands-Palestine Committee, with torches and signs.]
Not satisfied with the wholesale deportation of Jews during the German occupation, as facilitated by the percentage-wise largest collaborationist faction in Europe - the wholesale betrayal and sale to the occupiers of as many Jews as possible - the verstokte and verkrampte bigots of the lowlands now encourage the Arabs to pursue their racist war against Israel and the Jews with all vigour. They cheer the murderous success of the umma, and keenly desire Jewish deaths in Sderot and Tel Aviv.
One would've thought that five centuries of grudging Dutch tolerance, preceded by the total extermination of Jews in Brabant, Flanders, and Gelre during the late middle-ages, and followed by the mass betrayals of the Second World War, would make these people too ashamed to voice such sentiments.
No.
The modern Dutchman, like his ancestors, is convinced of his own righteousness, and equally convinced of the fundamental evil of the Jew. This lies at the heart of Dutch popular religion - both the Catholicism and Calvinism of the lowlands. It is an ancient atavistic hatred of outsiders, of which the Jew is the prime example.
If his educated modern mind tells him that discriminating against Moroccans, Surinamers, and Turks is wrong, today's Dutchman can at least take comfort in despising Jews and wishing for the destruction of Israel.
[It is at once both more 'intellectual', and more abstract - Jews of any type are less than even a quarter percent of Dutch society, whereas the people who think like him are an overwhelming majority, and form his social circle. Hence no one will challenge his praeconceptions, which is what he likes. Disagreement is so very un-Dutch.]
The Netherlands Palestine Committee can be found here:
http://www.palestina-komitee.nl/
It is the usual blathery site that you would expect: high-flown language praising the Palestinians for their peaceloving dignity, while excoriating Jews for their white-supremacist repression of the sensitive artistic natives of the world. There is no mention of the Jew-hatred that lives in the Muslim regions, no mention of the rabid anti-Semitism that thrives on the extremes of European and Arab society, no mention of the Qassam rockets, no mention of the violence perpetrated on a daily basis by Arab upon Arab, and by Muslim against non-Muslim.
Utterly no whisper about the violent provocations by Hamas, the two-facedness of the West-Bank warlord faction, or the stated intent supported by a majority of Mandate Arabs to exterminate the Jews first, then the Christians.
There is only praise for those peaceful pacifists, the sainted leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and kindred organizations.
The usual gang of hate-filled Euro-pond scum (Andries van Agt, Gretta Duizenberg, Anja Meulenbelt, et autres) support the organization.
CODA
There are still civilized Dutchmen, who are balanced and capable of perspective. And perhaps they are the majority. But the tradition of discourse in the Netherlands is ever that such people do not boldly speak out - publicly voiced dissent or alternative points of view may lead to unfortunate consequences. Like excoriation, deportation, or out-casting.
One need not even think of the fate of decent Dutchmen during the war as examples - Jan de Wit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt) was torn apart by the right-thinking masses in 1625, Eduard Douwes Dekker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multatuli) spent the last decades of his life in exile. The quiet goodness that lives in Dutch society thrives despite discouragement, but rarely, very rarely, has as strong a voice and as self-righteously enthused an audience as small-minded hatred and hypocrisy.
Which may explain why there are many more people of Dutch ancestry, and Dutch-Jewish ancestry, outside the Netherlands than within. And why the word 'polder model' describes not only management made small, but also minds made dull. These people are incapable of protesting against rockets, bus bombings, or suicide vests. Such things are beyond their ability to comprehend, if not beyond their tendency to relativize.
==============================================
Jawel, beste Nederlandsche lezers, u heeft het gemerkt: soms heb ik gewoon grondig de pest aan ulieden. Niet aan allen, weliswaar, en mischien niet eens de meerderheid. Maar wel degelijk aan uw maatschappij. Mag ik? Sedert mijn voorvader Abraham van Deursen in de zestiendertiger jaren voet aan wal zette in Niew Amsterdam zijn wij een beetje apart gegroeid van het oude kontree. Dat moest ook wel gebeuren, daar ulieden ons en onze toekomst unilateraal overleverden aan de Engelsen. Bijna vier eeuwen apartheid van u en uw gedachtegoed hebben een verschil in denkwijze bezorgd, nog meer zelfs in maatschappelijkheden.
Dat er een grondig verschil in perspektief was heb ik zelf jaren lang kunnen "genieten" als Amerikaans Staatsburger residerend in uw land. Tot die mate dat ik nooit weer de neiging zal hebben in uw gezelschap te vertoeven. Gij allen zijt mij lief; edoch, ik kan met het grootste plezier zonder u.
Stockholm syndroom heb ik allang niet meer, en uwe afwezigheid is mij dierbaar.
Places such as Amsterdam.
[Oh wait, that IS one of the usual places.]
Article in the Algemeen Dagblad:
http://www.ad.nl/binnenland/2873589/Demonstratie_op_de_Dam_tegen_aanvallen_Isral.html
[In Dutch. Synopsis: Roughly two hundred people demonstrate against Israel on the Dam in Amsterdam in a protest organized by the Netherlands-Palestine Committee, with torches and signs.]
Not satisfied with the wholesale deportation of Jews during the German occupation, as facilitated by the percentage-wise largest collaborationist faction in Europe - the wholesale betrayal and sale to the occupiers of as many Jews as possible - the verstokte and verkrampte bigots of the lowlands now encourage the Arabs to pursue their racist war against Israel and the Jews with all vigour. They cheer the murderous success of the umma, and keenly desire Jewish deaths in Sderot and Tel Aviv.
One would've thought that five centuries of grudging Dutch tolerance, preceded by the total extermination of Jews in Brabant, Flanders, and Gelre during the late middle-ages, and followed by the mass betrayals of the Second World War, would make these people too ashamed to voice such sentiments.
No.
The modern Dutchman, like his ancestors, is convinced of his own righteousness, and equally convinced of the fundamental evil of the Jew. This lies at the heart of Dutch popular religion - both the Catholicism and Calvinism of the lowlands. It is an ancient atavistic hatred of outsiders, of which the Jew is the prime example.
If his educated modern mind tells him that discriminating against Moroccans, Surinamers, and Turks is wrong, today's Dutchman can at least take comfort in despising Jews and wishing for the destruction of Israel.
[It is at once both more 'intellectual', and more abstract - Jews of any type are less than even a quarter percent of Dutch society, whereas the people who think like him are an overwhelming majority, and form his social circle. Hence no one will challenge his praeconceptions, which is what he likes. Disagreement is so very un-Dutch.]
The Netherlands Palestine Committee can be found here:
http://www.palestina-komitee.nl/
It is the usual blathery site that you would expect: high-flown language praising the Palestinians for their peaceloving dignity, while excoriating Jews for their white-supremacist repression of the sensitive artistic natives of the world. There is no mention of the Jew-hatred that lives in the Muslim regions, no mention of the rabid anti-Semitism that thrives on the extremes of European and Arab society, no mention of the Qassam rockets, no mention of the violence perpetrated on a daily basis by Arab upon Arab, and by Muslim against non-Muslim.
Utterly no whisper about the violent provocations by Hamas, the two-facedness of the West-Bank warlord faction, or the stated intent supported by a majority of Mandate Arabs to exterminate the Jews first, then the Christians.
There is only praise for those peaceful pacifists, the sainted leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and kindred organizations.
The usual gang of hate-filled Euro-pond scum (Andries van Agt, Gretta Duizenberg, Anja Meulenbelt, et autres) support the organization.
CODA
There are still civilized Dutchmen, who are balanced and capable of perspective. And perhaps they are the majority. But the tradition of discourse in the Netherlands is ever that such people do not boldly speak out - publicly voiced dissent or alternative points of view may lead to unfortunate consequences. Like excoriation, deportation, or out-casting.
One need not even think of the fate of decent Dutchmen during the war as examples - Jan de Wit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt) was torn apart by the right-thinking masses in 1625, Eduard Douwes Dekker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multatuli) spent the last decades of his life in exile. The quiet goodness that lives in Dutch society thrives despite discouragement, but rarely, very rarely, has as strong a voice and as self-righteously enthused an audience as small-minded hatred and hypocrisy.
Which may explain why there are many more people of Dutch ancestry, and Dutch-Jewish ancestry, outside the Netherlands than within. And why the word 'polder model' describes not only management made small, but also minds made dull. These people are incapable of protesting against rockets, bus bombings, or suicide vests. Such things are beyond their ability to comprehend, if not beyond their tendency to relativize.
==============================================
Jawel, beste Nederlandsche lezers, u heeft het gemerkt: soms heb ik gewoon grondig de pest aan ulieden. Niet aan allen, weliswaar, en mischien niet eens de meerderheid. Maar wel degelijk aan uw maatschappij. Mag ik? Sedert mijn voorvader Abraham van Deursen in de zestiendertiger jaren voet aan wal zette in Niew Amsterdam zijn wij een beetje apart gegroeid van het oude kontree. Dat moest ook wel gebeuren, daar ulieden ons en onze toekomst unilateraal overleverden aan de Engelsen. Bijna vier eeuwen apartheid van u en uw gedachtegoed hebben een verschil in denkwijze bezorgd, nog meer zelfs in maatschappelijkheden.
Dat er een grondig verschil in perspektief was heb ik zelf jaren lang kunnen "genieten" als Amerikaans Staatsburger residerend in uw land. Tot die mate dat ik nooit weer de neiging zal hebben in uw gezelschap te vertoeven. Gij allen zijt mij lief; edoch, ik kan met het grootste plezier zonder u.
Stockholm syndroom heb ik allang niet meer, en uwe afwezigheid is mij dierbaar.
Friday, October 24, 2008
HE PROBABLY DESERVED IT; HE WAS WEARING A KIPPAH!
One of my commenters forwarded a link to an article in the Algemeen Dagblad which I had not seen heretofore. I present the article, with an interlinear translation.
[Link: http://www.ad.nl/amsterdam/2718532/Excuses_na_mishandeling_joodse_man.html?pageNavType=all#reactie Source: Algemeen Dagblad.]
EXCUSES NA MISHANDELING JOODSE MAN
Apologies after attack on Jew
AMSTERDAM - Burgemeester Job Cohen van Amsterdam heeft contact gezocht met rabbijn Raphael Evers naar aanleiding van de mishandeling van een 20-jarige joodse man in de hoofdstad.
Amsterdam - Mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen yesterday contacted rabbi Raphael Evers concerning the mistreatment of a twenty-year old Jewish male in the capitol city.
De burgemeester heeft zijn afkeuring uitgesproken over het incident, dat afgelopen zaterdag plaatshad. Dat liet het Centrum Informatie en Documentatie Israël (Cidi) vrijdag weten.
The mayor voiced his condemnation of the incident, which occurred last Saturday. This per the Centre for Information and Documentation of Israel (Cidi).
Volgens het Cidi heeft de burgervader eveneens zijn onvrede geuit over het feit dat het slachtoffer niet direct terechtkon bij de politie om aangifte te doen. De man, herkenbaar als jood aan zijn keppel, liep ’s middags op het Olympiaplein toen twee jongens hem uitscholden voor ’kankerjood’.
According to the Cidi the mayor also expressed his dissatisfaction that the victim could not register his complaint with the police immediately. The man, recognizable as a Jew from his kippah, was walking on the Olympia Square during the aftenoon when two boys called him a 'cancerous Jew'.
Hij vroeg wat hun probleem was en liep daarna door. De twee kwamen hem echter achterna.
Een andere jongen sloot zich bij hen aan, waarna ze de man te lijf gingen. Ook nadat hij op de grond was gevallen, bleven ze op hem intrappen.
He asked what their problem was, and then kept walking. The two then pursued him. Another boy joined them, whereupon they physically assaulted the man. After he had fallen to the ground they continued kicking him.
Het slachtoffer wilde diezelfde avond aangifte doen op het politiebureau, maar kreeg te horen dat hij een paar dagen later moest terugkomen. De politie liet in een reactie weten dat alle agenten van het desbetreffende bureau die avond bezig waren met een speciale actie tegen overvallers. De korpsleiding vond echter dat de aangifte toch meteen had moeten worden opgenomen. De politie heeft haar excuses aangeboden voor het feit dat dit niet is gebeurd.
The victim tried to register a complaint that evening with the police, but was told to come back in a few days. The police later stated that all officers at the police station in question had been engaged in a special action against attackers. Corps leadership has opined that nevertheless the complaint should have been taken immediately. The police have offered their apologies for this not having happened.
--------------------------------
The reason proffered for not allowing the victim to make his complaint that same day sounds suspect. Not only because of the suspicion of anti-Semitism (the advice given by Dutch authorities in such cases is to stop wearing a kippah, or, if you are Muslim, to cringe and learn better Dutch), but also because the Dutch police standardly regard assaults and street-crime as bad for their official statistics.
Amsterdam officials in particular do not wish their city to be known as the crime-capitol of the country; that is Rotterdam's assigned position. Taking official notice of such an assault will therefore be done only if absolutely necessary.
American visitors should be aware that the Dutch police in general are not enthusiastic about pursuing cases of assault and robbery, even less so concerning anything as unimportant as casual street-bigotry.
Some of the reader-comments underneath the article are particularly interesting......
"Tis natuurlijk belachelijk dit geweld. Maar die mensen die nu huilen, waar zijn die als de joden/israel een volk onderdrukt en burgers doodmaakt en in gevangenissen stopt. Dan hoor je ze niet."
Of course such violence is ridiculous. But those who are now crying, where are they when the Jews/Israel repress a people, killing and jailing civilians. You won't hear them then.
[This reflects an idea current among many Dutch, namely that it is far less reprehensible when members of certain groups are maltreated, after all, 'that' group somehow deserves it. The groups that certainly 'deserve' it are Jews, Americans, Moroccans, Turks, richly pigmented refugees, and gypsies. Entirely aside from which, the concept that the individual is responsible for crimes alleged to his group is fundamental to much of the discourse about Israel - it's called anti-Semitism in English. Many Dutch do not consider it anti-Semitic in the slightest, however.]
"Kom op zeg er worden dagelijks mensen mishandeld en omdat het nu om een jood gaat is in eens bijzonder."
Oh come on, people are abused every day, and now that it's a Jew all of a sudden it's special.
[What this commenter is suggesting is that Jews get preferential treatment over everybody else, and that Jews should not complain when they get beaten up.]
"Cohen moet zich de ogen uit zijn kop schamen dat hij Rabbijn Evers (een ultra- orthodox Jood) benaderd heeft. Evers is voostander van de liquidatiepolitiek van de Joodse terreurstaat waarbij honderden onschuldige burgers gedood worden. Het is onbegrijpelijk dat Cohen een dergelijk bedorven persoon benadert."
Cohen should be deeply ashamed of himself, that he approached Rabbi Evers (an ultra-orthodox Jew). Evers is a proponent of the liquidation-policy of the Jewish terrorist state, which kills hundreds of innocent civilians. It is incomprehensible that Cohen should approach a person so thoroughly rotten.
Well, that last comment says it all. It is precisely because of the anti-Semitic sentiments in places like the Netherlands that Israel must exist.
Not that all Dutch ascribe to such poisoned viewpoints, far from it. But it is NOT the majority one need worry about. Usually.
The violence and bigotry come from a relatively small proportion of the population; it is the majority who passively allow it to happen, and who choose to overlook it.
The victim of the assault was walking, in broad daylight, in a public place in a nice part of town (near the Bilderberg Garden Hotel, not far from the Dusselhof Garden, about ten minutes or so away from the Stedelijk Museum and the Van Gogh Museum, less than five minutes away from the Vondelpark).
It is extremely likely that there were witnesses. But they did not intervene.
The man was a Jew. And boys will be boys.
====================================
Tussen haakjes, beste Nederlandsche lezers, ulieden denken mogelijk dat ik hiermede Nederland onheus afdoe als zijnde een verrotte kankerland. U bent waarschijnlijk overtuigd dat het allemaal zo'n vaart niet loopt, en die man hoefde perslot van rekening echt niet zo uitdagend rond te lopen met een keppel.
Tja. Dat klopt.
Men hoeft in Nederland niet rond te lopen.
====================================
[Link: http://www.ad.nl/amsterdam/2718532/Excuses_na_mishandeling_joodse_man.html?pageNavType=all#reactie Source: Algemeen Dagblad.]
EXCUSES NA MISHANDELING JOODSE MAN
Apologies after attack on Jew
AMSTERDAM - Burgemeester Job Cohen van Amsterdam heeft contact gezocht met rabbijn Raphael Evers naar aanleiding van de mishandeling van een 20-jarige joodse man in de hoofdstad.
Amsterdam - Mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen yesterday contacted rabbi Raphael Evers concerning the mistreatment of a twenty-year old Jewish male in the capitol city.
De burgemeester heeft zijn afkeuring uitgesproken over het incident, dat afgelopen zaterdag plaatshad. Dat liet het Centrum Informatie en Documentatie Israël (Cidi) vrijdag weten.
The mayor voiced his condemnation of the incident, which occurred last Saturday. This per the Centre for Information and Documentation of Israel (Cidi).
Volgens het Cidi heeft de burgervader eveneens zijn onvrede geuit over het feit dat het slachtoffer niet direct terechtkon bij de politie om aangifte te doen. De man, herkenbaar als jood aan zijn keppel, liep ’s middags op het Olympiaplein toen twee jongens hem uitscholden voor ’kankerjood’.
According to the Cidi the mayor also expressed his dissatisfaction that the victim could not register his complaint with the police immediately. The man, recognizable as a Jew from his kippah, was walking on the Olympia Square during the aftenoon when two boys called him a 'cancerous Jew'.
Hij vroeg wat hun probleem was en liep daarna door. De twee kwamen hem echter achterna.
Een andere jongen sloot zich bij hen aan, waarna ze de man te lijf gingen. Ook nadat hij op de grond was gevallen, bleven ze op hem intrappen.
He asked what their problem was, and then kept walking. The two then pursued him. Another boy joined them, whereupon they physically assaulted the man. After he had fallen to the ground they continued kicking him.
Het slachtoffer wilde diezelfde avond aangifte doen op het politiebureau, maar kreeg te horen dat hij een paar dagen later moest terugkomen. De politie liet in een reactie weten dat alle agenten van het desbetreffende bureau die avond bezig waren met een speciale actie tegen overvallers. De korpsleiding vond echter dat de aangifte toch meteen had moeten worden opgenomen. De politie heeft haar excuses aangeboden voor het feit dat dit niet is gebeurd.
The victim tried to register a complaint that evening with the police, but was told to come back in a few days. The police later stated that all officers at the police station in question had been engaged in a special action against attackers. Corps leadership has opined that nevertheless the complaint should have been taken immediately. The police have offered their apologies for this not having happened.
--------------------------------
The reason proffered for not allowing the victim to make his complaint that same day sounds suspect. Not only because of the suspicion of anti-Semitism (the advice given by Dutch authorities in such cases is to stop wearing a kippah, or, if you are Muslim, to cringe and learn better Dutch), but also because the Dutch police standardly regard assaults and street-crime as bad for their official statistics.
Amsterdam officials in particular do not wish their city to be known as the crime-capitol of the country; that is Rotterdam's assigned position. Taking official notice of such an assault will therefore be done only if absolutely necessary.
American visitors should be aware that the Dutch police in general are not enthusiastic about pursuing cases of assault and robbery, even less so concerning anything as unimportant as casual street-bigotry.
Some of the reader-comments underneath the article are particularly interesting......
"Tis natuurlijk belachelijk dit geweld. Maar die mensen die nu huilen, waar zijn die als de joden/israel een volk onderdrukt en burgers doodmaakt en in gevangenissen stopt. Dan hoor je ze niet."
Of course such violence is ridiculous. But those who are now crying, where are they when the Jews/Israel repress a people, killing and jailing civilians. You won't hear them then.
[This reflects an idea current among many Dutch, namely that it is far less reprehensible when members of certain groups are maltreated, after all, 'that' group somehow deserves it. The groups that certainly 'deserve' it are Jews, Americans, Moroccans, Turks, richly pigmented refugees, and gypsies. Entirely aside from which, the concept that the individual is responsible for crimes alleged to his group is fundamental to much of the discourse about Israel - it's called anti-Semitism in English. Many Dutch do not consider it anti-Semitic in the slightest, however.]
"Kom op zeg er worden dagelijks mensen mishandeld en omdat het nu om een jood gaat is in eens bijzonder."
Oh come on, people are abused every day, and now that it's a Jew all of a sudden it's special.
[What this commenter is suggesting is that Jews get preferential treatment over everybody else, and that Jews should not complain when they get beaten up.]
"Cohen moet zich de ogen uit zijn kop schamen dat hij Rabbijn Evers (een ultra- orthodox Jood) benaderd heeft. Evers is voostander van de liquidatiepolitiek van de Joodse terreurstaat waarbij honderden onschuldige burgers gedood worden. Het is onbegrijpelijk dat Cohen een dergelijk bedorven persoon benadert."
Cohen should be deeply ashamed of himself, that he approached Rabbi Evers (an ultra-orthodox Jew). Evers is a proponent of the liquidation-policy of the Jewish terrorist state, which kills hundreds of innocent civilians. It is incomprehensible that Cohen should approach a person so thoroughly rotten.
Well, that last comment says it all. It is precisely because of the anti-Semitic sentiments in places like the Netherlands that Israel must exist.
Not that all Dutch ascribe to such poisoned viewpoints, far from it. But it is NOT the majority one need worry about. Usually.
The violence and bigotry come from a relatively small proportion of the population; it is the majority who passively allow it to happen, and who choose to overlook it.
The victim of the assault was walking, in broad daylight, in a public place in a nice part of town (near the Bilderberg Garden Hotel, not far from the Dusselhof Garden, about ten minutes or so away from the Stedelijk Museum and the Van Gogh Museum, less than five minutes away from the Vondelpark).
It is extremely likely that there were witnesses. But they did not intervene.
The man was a Jew. And boys will be boys.
====================================
Tussen haakjes, beste Nederlandsche lezers, ulieden denken mogelijk dat ik hiermede Nederland onheus afdoe als zijnde een verrotte kankerland. U bent waarschijnlijk overtuigd dat het allemaal zo'n vaart niet loopt, en die man hoefde perslot van rekening echt niet zo uitdagend rond te lopen met een keppel.
Tja. Dat klopt.
Men hoeft in Nederland niet rond te lopen.
====================================
Friday, October 06, 2006
OLLANDIM: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF DUTCH JEWS
This material relating to Dutch Jewry is excerpted from a very long previous post, and presented here as a convenience for the interested. Please let me know if you have questions.
OLLANDIM
The First Arrivals in Amsterdam
In 1593, over twenty years after the Netherlands rebelled against the Spanish king Philip (who had inherited the united provinces), ten families fleeing Spain landed in Holland, and learned from Mozes Oerie Asjkenazie (Rabbi Moishe Uri, a Rabbi from Germany) that while the Dutch were suspicious of Spaniards, they were not so about Jews. Upon his advice, they took lodging in Amsterdam, and shortly afterwards all the males underwent Bris Millah, with the oldest of them, Don Jacob Tirado, going first.
Within months, their numbers had been augmented by other Iberian refugees, and that autumn the new community observed Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in a safety that they had not enjoyed in Spain in generations.
Within a decade, in 1602, they built a synagogue which they named Beit Jacob after the man who had taken them up from Spain.
More synagogues followed - Neve Shalom was founded between 1608 and 1612, Beit Israel in 1618. The Grand Synagogue (the ‘Esnoga' or 'Gran' Esnoga') was built between 1671 and 1675.
The Rotterdam Community
A similar pattern occurred in Rotterdam, when Abraham De Pinto (Don Gyl Lopes Pinto, born Lisbon 1588, died Rotterdam 1668) fled from Antwerp with his entire family and his dependents to the north in 1647, and converted back to the faith of his ancestors.
Less than three years later the Yesiba De Los Pintos was inaugurated in Rotterdam, with Chacham Josiau Pardo (son of David Pardo, and grandson of Yoseph Pardo, chief Rabbi of Amsterdam) as Ros Yesiba.
Like Jacob Tirado, Abraham De Pinto was a converso nobleman whose family had fled to Portugal when the heat of the inquisition became too fierce in Spain. And like Jacob Tirado, he brought wealth plus business skills and commercial relationships with him when he came, having prepared his escape over a period of many years.
The Ets Haim Library
In the centuries following, more synagogues were built, printing presses founded, Rabbis educated (among them Menasseh Ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro), 1604 - 1657). At the height of the community there were nearly five thousand Dutch Sefardim, at present a scant eight hundred.
In addition to the Esnoga, one other Sefardic treasure of note remains in the Netherlands, namely the Ets Haim library (which contains also the Livraria Montezinos, being the private library of David Montezinos, donated to Ets Haim in 1889), which is in the Esnoga complex, and was part of Yesiba Ets Haim (Academia Y Yesiba Ets Haim, fundado en 1616). It is one of the world’s great book collections. Six incunabula, five hundred original manuscripts and over thirty-thousand printed books, on many subjects, in over a dozen languages.
In relation to Ets Haim (the tree of life, as the Torah is to all who cleave to her), it is appropriate to quote visitors to Amsterdam who were amazed by the freedom enjoyed by Jews there, and the brazen effrontery represented by so splendid a building as the Esnoga.
Let us start with the Papal Nuncio of Cologne, Lazaro Opizio Palavicino, who wrote: "Fra i nuovi edificii, viddi la synagoga degl’Hebrei, fabrica veramente magnifica e della quale non è degna quella gente vile" (between the new buildings I saw the synagogue of the Jews, truly magnificent, and which so odious a people do not deserve).
A pox on his name.
The next is Rector Johannes Schudt of Frankfurt, who wrote as follows: "Eine allzu grosse Juden Freyheit in Holland is es, dasz man denen Juden verstattet, so gar kostbahre magnifique Synagogen zu bauen, die selbige noch als Gottes Haus lobet" (a too great freedom in Holland is, that they permit the Jews to build a maginificently expensive Synagogue, that even may represent the house of G-d).
He continues "Es setzet uns billig in die gröste verwunderung, is aber auch recht schändlich und unchristlich, dasz gar Christen für die Juden Freyheit gesucht, solche synagog erbauen dürffen" (It easily causes us the greatest wonderment, being however downright scandalous and unchristian, that even Christians should have sought for the Jews the freedom to dare build such a synagogue). It was his opinion that the officials of Amsterdam were a disgrace, and degeneratim for permitting such an affront.
A pox on his name.
On the other hand, an Italian nobleman, Guido De Bovio, who visited Amsterdam in 1677, had nothing but praise for the synagogue, describing it as splendid building, well designed, and full of light, which he delighted in visiting.
His name remains fragrant.
The final word on the Esnoga, deservedly, goes to the engraver Romeyn de Hooghe, who kvelled:
Dits ‘t leerhuys van de Wet, ‘t gebeedenhuys der Jooden,
Een bouwmans meesterstuck, de eer van ‘t nieuwe werck ,
Aan d’Aemstel en het Y; dees Godt gewyede Kerck ,
Vreest geen gewetensdrang, noch pijnigen noch dooden.
Wast eedle Juddaestam en laet uw looten bloeyen ,
Wat doet de kracht van ‘t land als burgers aenwas groeyen.
[‘This is the academy of the Law, the prayer house of the Jews, An architect’s masterpiece, and pride of the new projects At the Amstel and Y (rivers); this sanctified kirk Fears no forced faith, nor torture, nor killings. Wax, noble trunk of Judah’s tribe, and let your new growth flower, That shall strengthen the country as her citizens thrive.’]
Ashkenazim
Sefardim from Spain (and Portugal and Livorno, where many of the Sefardim had originally sought refuge) were not the main, just the first Jewish population in the Netherlands.Shortly after the Sefardim established themselves in Mokum Alef (Amsterdam), Ashkenazim from Germany flocked in, primarily to get away from the sumptuary laws, residential restrictions, and vile treatment that was traditional in Germany as regards Jews. The first Ashkenazic synagogue in Amsterdam was founded in 1635.
Even so, real equality had to wait till the Napoleonic era, though the House of Orange (ancient princely family of the Netherlands, hereditary stadtholders from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, monarchs since 1815) consistently over-ruled local government when some city fathers sought to keep Jews out (which did not prevent certain cities whose legal ties to the Princes of Orange was 'ally' rather than 'subject' from restricting them). The States General had generally legislated tolerance, but left it up to the cities and states to 'enforce' same.
By the end of the seventeenth century most Jews in the Netherlands were Ashkenazim, in proportions that, roughly speaking, have been maintained ever since – over 90 percent Ashkenazim, scarcely 3 percent Sephardim. The remainder? Mixtures of differing Jewish background, plus mixtures of Jew and Gentile.
Demographics
Most Jews lived in the Amsterdam - Rotterdam axis (about 80%), with the largest block outside being in Groningen and Drenthe provinces. A noteworthy development in many places was the gradual take-over of Jewish institutions by Ashkenazim, especially as the easterners rose in social class, and the Sefardim faded in proportion and prominence. In some areas, synagogues were fought over for three or four generations or more.
In Naarden, for instance, the Ashkenazim formed their own 'illegal' synagogue (the Sefardim had the only permit, and were the officially acknowledged leaders of the community there), and by the time the last absentee keepers of the keys (Joseph Teixeira de Mattos Henriques de Castro, David Henriques de Castro, Rachel Henriques de Castro, and Hanna Henriques de Castro, having succeeded Abraham van David Teixeira de Mattos) yielded their authority over the main synagogue (Beit Shalom) in 1885 it was nearly two centuries later, the ceiling had partially caved in, the walls were mildewed, the Ark had many years since been removed for safekeeping, and there were only about half a dozen resident members of the Sefardic kehilla left.
Another odd development were the so-called marginal or bog-Jews (similar to the hedge-Christians during the Spanish oppression): unregistered to any kehal (and so not paying any fees or dues), who, to the local Gentiles, were often just ‘those folks who don't go to our church'. Some of these were so utterly unconnected with any officially constituted Jewish bodies that a fair number were 'under the radar' during the war years. An old friend of the family named Chaim was birth-registered as Harry, because local officials did not know what a 'Chaim' was... Same situation with uncle Henry, also Chaim, who like Harry also survived those years under Gentile colours.
The middle class provincial Jews, however, who formed the link between the bog-Jews and the wider Jewish Oilam, were largely extinguished during the Shoah, and with their disappearance, many of the surviving marginal Jews disappeared from Jewish radar entirely.
Post-War Remnant
In 1945, barely twenty percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands (over 140 thousand in the nineteen-thirties, approximately thirty-thousand in 1945) had survived the war; they returned to communities which did not recognize them, and which were not particularly happy to see them back (as their betrayers often had survived the war unscathed, and many people at all levels of society had profited from the destruction that befell the Jews). There are now approximately 45 thousand Jews in the Netherlands, of whom 35 thousand can be said to be unquestionably Jewish, with the remaining ten thousand being mixed, mostly vader joods (father-Jewish).
On September 29th, 2005, the Dutch Railway Company officially apologized for having fully co-operated with the Germans in the deportation Dutch Jews. It was because of their efficiency, professionalism, and sheer dedication that the Germans could boast that the destruction of Dutch Jewry happened with greater ease than was the case anywhere else. It couldn’t have been done without them.
Thanks for the apology, dudes.
It’s a little late.
Anecdote
Ma’ase shehaya, kach haya (a tale that happened, as follows): Many years ago, on a wintry Friday evening, a family in Den Haag has one of the kids keep an eye out for a passerby to ask to stoke the stove for them (though it is beastly cold, shabbes-melacha is out of the question). A very dignified looking gentleman comes strolling down the street, is asked in, the situation explained, and the request made. Of course he will light the stove for them, with pleasure! When he has done so, they thank him, and as was customary give him an apple for his 'labour', asking his name at the same time.
He introduces himself, and hands them his card, on which can be read that their shabbes goy is a chief justice - and, coincidentally, a fellow Jew!
ADDENDUM
Catholicism = An all-embracing and yet all-excluding religion known by Ollandim as the tofel emunah (the ‘old religion’), because so many of the first Yidden in the Netherlands were refugees from Spain and Portugal, where they had been forced to convert. It is a religion with some bizarre rituals – white smoke means "we have another pontiff", black smoke means "we’re burning down the Gran’ Esnoga, again". Pax vobiscum.
Jacob Tirado = Original name: Guimes Lopes Da Costa. He is described in correspondence as "Al muy illustre senyor Jacob Tyrado, parnas de la naçion Portuguese que reside en esta muy noble y opulenta villa de Amstradama" (The greatly illustrious gentleman Jacob Tirado, administrator of the Portugese nation, residing in the very noble and rich city Amsterdam). It should be remembered that ‘nation’ in those days did not have the connotation it has today, but referred to ethnic or national group, often residing among other such groups, much like tongue (lingua) could mean the speakers of a particular language in the armies of kings.
Ollandim = Netherlandish Jews.
OLLANDIM
The First Arrivals in Amsterdam
In 1593, over twenty years after the Netherlands rebelled against the Spanish king Philip (who had inherited the united provinces), ten families fleeing Spain landed in Holland, and learned from Mozes Oerie Asjkenazie (Rabbi Moishe Uri, a Rabbi from Germany) that while the Dutch were suspicious of Spaniards, they were not so about Jews. Upon his advice, they took lodging in Amsterdam, and shortly afterwards all the males underwent Bris Millah, with the oldest of them, Don Jacob Tirado, going first.
Within months, their numbers had been augmented by other Iberian refugees, and that autumn the new community observed Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in a safety that they had not enjoyed in Spain in generations.
Within a decade, in 1602, they built a synagogue which they named Beit Jacob after the man who had taken them up from Spain.
More synagogues followed - Neve Shalom was founded between 1608 and 1612, Beit Israel in 1618. The Grand Synagogue (the ‘Esnoga' or 'Gran' Esnoga') was built between 1671 and 1675.
The Rotterdam Community
A similar pattern occurred in Rotterdam, when Abraham De Pinto (Don Gyl Lopes Pinto, born Lisbon 1588, died Rotterdam 1668) fled from Antwerp with his entire family and his dependents to the north in 1647, and converted back to the faith of his ancestors.
Less than three years later the Yesiba De Los Pintos was inaugurated in Rotterdam, with Chacham Josiau Pardo (son of David Pardo, and grandson of Yoseph Pardo, chief Rabbi of Amsterdam) as Ros Yesiba.
Like Jacob Tirado, Abraham De Pinto was a converso nobleman whose family had fled to Portugal when the heat of the inquisition became too fierce in Spain. And like Jacob Tirado, he brought wealth plus business skills and commercial relationships with him when he came, having prepared his escape over a period of many years.
The Ets Haim Library
In the centuries following, more synagogues were built, printing presses founded, Rabbis educated (among them Menasseh Ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro), 1604 - 1657). At the height of the community there were nearly five thousand Dutch Sefardim, at present a scant eight hundred.
In addition to the Esnoga, one other Sefardic treasure of note remains in the Netherlands, namely the Ets Haim library (which contains also the Livraria Montezinos, being the private library of David Montezinos, donated to Ets Haim in 1889), which is in the Esnoga complex, and was part of Yesiba Ets Haim (Academia Y Yesiba Ets Haim, fundado en 1616). It is one of the world’s great book collections. Six incunabula, five hundred original manuscripts and over thirty-thousand printed books, on many subjects, in over a dozen languages.
In relation to Ets Haim (the tree of life, as the Torah is to all who cleave to her), it is appropriate to quote visitors to Amsterdam who were amazed by the freedom enjoyed by Jews there, and the brazen effrontery represented by so splendid a building as the Esnoga.
Let us start with the Papal Nuncio of Cologne, Lazaro Opizio Palavicino, who wrote: "Fra i nuovi edificii, viddi la synagoga degl’Hebrei, fabrica veramente magnifica e della quale non è degna quella gente vile" (between the new buildings I saw the synagogue of the Jews, truly magnificent, and which so odious a people do not deserve).
A pox on his name.
The next is Rector Johannes Schudt of Frankfurt, who wrote as follows: "Eine allzu grosse Juden Freyheit in Holland is es, dasz man denen Juden verstattet, so gar kostbahre magnifique Synagogen zu bauen, die selbige noch als Gottes Haus lobet" (a too great freedom in Holland is, that they permit the Jews to build a maginificently expensive Synagogue, that even may represent the house of G-d).
He continues "Es setzet uns billig in die gröste verwunderung, is aber auch recht schändlich und unchristlich, dasz gar Christen für die Juden Freyheit gesucht, solche synagog erbauen dürffen" (It easily causes us the greatest wonderment, being however downright scandalous and unchristian, that even Christians should have sought for the Jews the freedom to dare build such a synagogue). It was his opinion that the officials of Amsterdam were a disgrace, and degeneratim for permitting such an affront.
A pox on his name.
On the other hand, an Italian nobleman, Guido De Bovio, who visited Amsterdam in 1677, had nothing but praise for the synagogue, describing it as splendid building, well designed, and full of light, which he delighted in visiting.
His name remains fragrant.
The final word on the Esnoga, deservedly, goes to the engraver Romeyn de Hooghe, who kvelled:
Dits ‘t leerhuys van de Wet, ‘t gebeedenhuys der Jooden,
Een bouwmans meesterstuck, de eer van ‘t nieuwe werck ,
Aan d’Aemstel en het Y; dees Godt gewyede Kerck ,
Vreest geen gewetensdrang, noch pijnigen noch dooden.
Wast eedle Juddaestam en laet uw looten bloeyen ,
Wat doet de kracht van ‘t land als burgers aenwas groeyen.
[‘This is the academy of the Law, the prayer house of the Jews, An architect’s masterpiece, and pride of the new projects At the Amstel and Y (rivers); this sanctified kirk Fears no forced faith, nor torture, nor killings. Wax, noble trunk of Judah’s tribe, and let your new growth flower, That shall strengthen the country as her citizens thrive.’]
Ashkenazim
Sefardim from Spain (and Portugal and Livorno, where many of the Sefardim had originally sought refuge) were not the main, just the first Jewish population in the Netherlands.Shortly after the Sefardim established themselves in Mokum Alef (Amsterdam), Ashkenazim from Germany flocked in, primarily to get away from the sumptuary laws, residential restrictions, and vile treatment that was traditional in Germany as regards Jews. The first Ashkenazic synagogue in Amsterdam was founded in 1635.
Even so, real equality had to wait till the Napoleonic era, though the House of Orange (ancient princely family of the Netherlands, hereditary stadtholders from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, monarchs since 1815) consistently over-ruled local government when some city fathers sought to keep Jews out (which did not prevent certain cities whose legal ties to the Princes of Orange was 'ally' rather than 'subject' from restricting them). The States General had generally legislated tolerance, but left it up to the cities and states to 'enforce' same.
By the end of the seventeenth century most Jews in the Netherlands were Ashkenazim, in proportions that, roughly speaking, have been maintained ever since – over 90 percent Ashkenazim, scarcely 3 percent Sephardim. The remainder? Mixtures of differing Jewish background, plus mixtures of Jew and Gentile.
Demographics
Most Jews lived in the Amsterdam - Rotterdam axis (about 80%), with the largest block outside being in Groningen and Drenthe provinces. A noteworthy development in many places was the gradual take-over of Jewish institutions by Ashkenazim, especially as the easterners rose in social class, and the Sefardim faded in proportion and prominence. In some areas, synagogues were fought over for three or four generations or more.
In Naarden, for instance, the Ashkenazim formed their own 'illegal' synagogue (the Sefardim had the only permit, and were the officially acknowledged leaders of the community there), and by the time the last absentee keepers of the keys (Joseph Teixeira de Mattos Henriques de Castro, David Henriques de Castro, Rachel Henriques de Castro, and Hanna Henriques de Castro, having succeeded Abraham van David Teixeira de Mattos) yielded their authority over the main synagogue (Beit Shalom) in 1885 it was nearly two centuries later, the ceiling had partially caved in, the walls were mildewed, the Ark had many years since been removed for safekeeping, and there were only about half a dozen resident members of the Sefardic kehilla left.
Another odd development were the so-called marginal or bog-Jews (similar to the hedge-Christians during the Spanish oppression): unregistered to any kehal (and so not paying any fees or dues), who, to the local Gentiles, were often just ‘those folks who don't go to our church'. Some of these were so utterly unconnected with any officially constituted Jewish bodies that a fair number were 'under the radar' during the war years. An old friend of the family named Chaim was birth-registered as Harry, because local officials did not know what a 'Chaim' was... Same situation with uncle Henry, also Chaim, who like Harry also survived those years under Gentile colours.
The middle class provincial Jews, however, who formed the link between the bog-Jews and the wider Jewish Oilam, were largely extinguished during the Shoah, and with their disappearance, many of the surviving marginal Jews disappeared from Jewish radar entirely.
Post-War Remnant
In 1945, barely twenty percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands (over 140 thousand in the nineteen-thirties, approximately thirty-thousand in 1945) had survived the war; they returned to communities which did not recognize them, and which were not particularly happy to see them back (as their betrayers often had survived the war unscathed, and many people at all levels of society had profited from the destruction that befell the Jews). There are now approximately 45 thousand Jews in the Netherlands, of whom 35 thousand can be said to be unquestionably Jewish, with the remaining ten thousand being mixed, mostly vader joods (father-Jewish).
On September 29th, 2005, the Dutch Railway Company officially apologized for having fully co-operated with the Germans in the deportation Dutch Jews. It was because of their efficiency, professionalism, and sheer dedication that the Germans could boast that the destruction of Dutch Jewry happened with greater ease than was the case anywhere else. It couldn’t have been done without them.
Thanks for the apology, dudes.
It’s a little late.
Anecdote
Ma’ase shehaya, kach haya (a tale that happened, as follows): Many years ago, on a wintry Friday evening, a family in Den Haag has one of the kids keep an eye out for a passerby to ask to stoke the stove for them (though it is beastly cold, shabbes-melacha is out of the question). A very dignified looking gentleman comes strolling down the street, is asked in, the situation explained, and the request made. Of course he will light the stove for them, with pleasure! When he has done so, they thank him, and as was customary give him an apple for his 'labour', asking his name at the same time.
He introduces himself, and hands them his card, on which can be read that their shabbes goy is a chief justice - and, coincidentally, a fellow Jew!
ADDENDUM
Catholicism = An all-embracing and yet all-excluding religion known by Ollandim as the tofel emunah (the ‘old religion’), because so many of the first Yidden in the Netherlands were refugees from Spain and Portugal, where they had been forced to convert. It is a religion with some bizarre rituals – white smoke means "we have another pontiff", black smoke means "we’re burning down the Gran’ Esnoga, again". Pax vobiscum.
Jacob Tirado = Original name: Guimes Lopes Da Costa. He is described in correspondence as "Al muy illustre senyor Jacob Tyrado, parnas de la naçion Portuguese que reside en esta muy noble y opulenta villa de Amstradama" (The greatly illustrious gentleman Jacob Tirado, administrator of the Portugese nation, residing in the very noble and rich city Amsterdam). It should be remembered that ‘nation’ in those days did not have the connotation it has today, but referred to ethnic or national group, often residing among other such groups, much like tongue (lingua) could mean the speakers of a particular language in the armies of kings.
Ollandim = Netherlandish Jews.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
THE NETHERLANDS BECOMES EURABIC: AUTOCHTHONES AND ALLOCHTONES
There are around forty-five thousand Jewish people in the Netherlands.
There are, unfortunately, nearly a million Muslims there.
Why do I say 'unfortunately'?
Because the Muslims are largely drawn from the less educated levels of their own societies, and have become the less educated level of Dutch society.
There were enough ignorant people already in Holland, they did not need to import more.
Yes, I know that there are a very large number of Dutch Muslims who have already contributed enormously to the country and to its culture, in many fields - Abdelkader Ben Ali, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ahmed Aboutaleb, etcetera.
But other than the Turks, most Dutch Muslims seem to have mentally ghettoized themselves, in a country whose reputation for tolerance is based on little more than Calvinist apathy towards the heathens.
This means that the walls Muslims have built for themselves are further strengthened by the natives, who would rather neither see foreign elements nor deal with them as fellow-humans.
The Netherlands today is not the Netherlands it once was.
Since 1978, whenever I meet Dutch people, I am often asked why on earth I stay in the US, and wouldn't I rather go back to Holland.
Well, frankly, heck no.
You see, here I am 'autochthonous' (born in the country), whereas in the Netherlands I would be 'allochthonous' (born outside). The Dutch do not treat allochtones very nicely, unless they constantly reassure the Dutch what a splendid country it is and how jolly happy they are to be allowed to live there.
While I lived there, I often felt like a second-class Dutchman (at best). Whenever I have gone back for a visit, some people clearly considered me a failed Dutchman, because I now live in the US.
Furthermore, many Dutch people utterly despise the United States, and Americans, and all things having to do with the United States and Americans - which is why I usually did not mention, while living there (1962 to 1978) that I was a Yank.
[Not that I wasn't proud of my heritage, I just didn't like getting punched.]
Once people get to know you, they might put their bigotries regarding Americans on the back burner, and engage in decent conversation. You'll never entirely cure them of stupidity and their belief that you are perhaps a well-trained talking monkey, but they can be very nice. Plus many of them have weird interests and hobbies, and can talk intelligently about many things.
So yes, I do like the place. Amsterdam is a lovely city, the Spui square is the centre of the literary universe, and the cigars made by the successors of Mr. Pantaleon Gerhard Coenraad Hajenius are one of the subtle joys of the Rokin, about three blocks from the Centraal Station. To stay in Amsterdam is to partake of a civilized life in a very walkable and comfortable city, to enjoy a different time and place, with it's own cultural referents.
But after three weeks of eating herring, smoked eel, cheese, and Indonesian food, smoking cigars, buying books, and speaking Dutch, I'm a little fed up with John Cheese, and must return to San Francisco.
The sound of mental clogs and that bloody-minded superiority having by that time given me dyspepsia.
In addition to blinkered natives infesting the place and obscuring by their majority presence the existence of some extraordinarily broad-minded, well-read, and humane Dutchmen, there are also anti-Semites and Muslims.
Think of a Ven diagram - the overlap of the two groups is large, but they are not quite the same. There are some Dutch Muslims who are not anti-Semites, there are some anti-Semites who are not only anti-Semites but also thoroughly xenophobic and hate the Muslims, with a venomosity that is quite as repulsive as their verkrampte ideas about Jews.
Besides the anti-Semites and Muslims, there are a sprinkling of philo-Semites who are an embarrassment to be around, because their love of Israel is fueled by their loathing of Arabs, and far surpasses their knowledge of either.
---[cut]---
"We are now heading towards a total change in Europe, which will be more and more Islamicized and will become a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world. The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. "
---[cut]---
Although all of these individuals (Oriana Fallaci, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, et al)are opposed to the
extreme right and its violence, they are warning that Europe as a secular, enlightened civilization with a Judeo-Christian background is dying.
---[cut]---
Since the 1970s, Bat Ye'or has published about 10 books, most of which deal with the life of the
Christian and Jewish minorities in Muslim countries. She bases her most recent research on the conduct of institutions in the EU, and mainly on the protocols of the European-Arab Dialogue (EAD), which she says aims to establish a strategic alliance by means of tightening political, economic, diplomatic and cultural ties.
Some quotes:
"What led Europe to accept the French policy was the energy crisis after the Yom Kippur War. Another issue is a security issue, because Palestinian terrorists began to strike on European land at the end of the 1960s. This policy is aimed at protecting Europe from the threat of terror."
"Sometimes the Arabs threaten Europe by shutting the oil faucet. They demand, for example, that Europe always speak out for the Palestinians and against Israel."
"Ultimately, it is Europe that created Yasser Arafat and the Hamas government."
"The EAD includes a policy of eliminating and delegitimizing Israel. In Europe there is a complete alliance with the Palestinians. There are those, for example, who say that Israel is the greatest danger to world peace. Or the initiative in Britain to organize an academic boycott in order to isolate Israel. This is a way to de-legitimize Israel."
"The Europeans will not do anything to protect Israel (in the nuclear crisis involving Iran). If at all, they will do something because Iran is threatening other Muslim countries with which Europe has good relations. Europe is not interested in Israel's future at all."
There are, unfortunately, nearly a million Muslims there.
Why do I say 'unfortunately'?
Because the Muslims are largely drawn from the less educated levels of their own societies, and have become the less educated level of Dutch society.
There were enough ignorant people already in Holland, they did not need to import more.
Yes, I know that there are a very large number of Dutch Muslims who have already contributed enormously to the country and to its culture, in many fields - Abdelkader Ben Ali, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ahmed Aboutaleb, etcetera.
But other than the Turks, most Dutch Muslims seem to have mentally ghettoized themselves, in a country whose reputation for tolerance is based on little more than Calvinist apathy towards the heathens.
This means that the walls Muslims have built for themselves are further strengthened by the natives, who would rather neither see foreign elements nor deal with them as fellow-humans.
The Netherlands today is not the Netherlands it once was.
Since 1978, whenever I meet Dutch people, I am often asked why on earth I stay in the US, and wouldn't I rather go back to Holland.
Well, frankly, heck no.
You see, here I am 'autochthonous' (born in the country), whereas in the Netherlands I would be 'allochthonous' (born outside). The Dutch do not treat allochtones very nicely, unless they constantly reassure the Dutch what a splendid country it is and how jolly happy they are to be allowed to live there.
While I lived there, I often felt like a second-class Dutchman (at best). Whenever I have gone back for a visit, some people clearly considered me a failed Dutchman, because I now live in the US.
Furthermore, many Dutch people utterly despise the United States, and Americans, and all things having to do with the United States and Americans - which is why I usually did not mention, while living there (1962 to 1978) that I was a Yank.
[Not that I wasn't proud of my heritage, I just didn't like getting punched.]
Once people get to know you, they might put their bigotries regarding Americans on the back burner, and engage in decent conversation. You'll never entirely cure them of stupidity and their belief that you are perhaps a well-trained talking monkey, but they can be very nice. Plus many of them have weird interests and hobbies, and can talk intelligently about many things.
So yes, I do like the place. Amsterdam is a lovely city, the Spui square is the centre of the literary universe, and the cigars made by the successors of Mr. Pantaleon Gerhard Coenraad Hajenius are one of the subtle joys of the Rokin, about three blocks from the Centraal Station. To stay in Amsterdam is to partake of a civilized life in a very walkable and comfortable city, to enjoy a different time and place, with it's own cultural referents.
But after three weeks of eating herring, smoked eel, cheese, and Indonesian food, smoking cigars, buying books, and speaking Dutch, I'm a little fed up with John Cheese, and must return to San Francisco.
The sound of mental clogs and that bloody-minded superiority having by that time given me dyspepsia.
In addition to blinkered natives infesting the place and obscuring by their majority presence the existence of some extraordinarily broad-minded, well-read, and humane Dutchmen, there are also anti-Semites and Muslims.
Think of a Ven diagram - the overlap of the two groups is large, but they are not quite the same. There are some Dutch Muslims who are not anti-Semites, there are some anti-Semites who are not only anti-Semites but also thoroughly xenophobic and hate the Muslims, with a venomosity that is quite as repulsive as their verkrampte ideas about Jews.
Besides the anti-Semites and Muslims, there are a sprinkling of philo-Semites who are an embarrassment to be around, because their love of Israel is fueled by their loathing of Arabs, and far surpasses their knowledge of either.
In some ways, the Netherlands today is in the twilight of its own time, and the inheritors are milling about waiting to take over. Her culture is being replaced by something nasty and unloveable, her politicians cater to the hatreds of the mob. The carrion eaters are circling.
There's an interesting article in Ha'aretz today, which is relevant in this context:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/728863.html
[The protocols of the elders of Brussels, by Adi Schwartz]
EXCERPTS:
The original sin is attributed to Charles de Gaulle. Disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East, as well as with France's waning influence in the international arena, the president of France in the 1960's decided to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union. This alliance became the position of the European Community (pre-European Union) during the course of the 1970s, when an extensive European-Arab dialogue developed.
---[cut]---
This controversial thesis belongs to Bat Ye'or, the pen name of a self-taught Jewish intellectual who was born in Egypt and who currently lives in Switzerland. She refuses to reveal her real name for security reasons, she says, but her thesis is just the prologue to far-reaching conclusions and extreme statements about some European leaders who are kowtowing to Islam.
There's an interesting article in Ha'aretz today, which is relevant in this context:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/728863.html
[The protocols of the elders of Brussels, by Adi Schwartz]
EXCERPTS:
The original sin is attributed to Charles de Gaulle. Disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East, as well as with France's waning influence in the international arena, the president of France in the 1960's decided to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union. This alliance became the position of the European Community (pre-European Union) during the course of the 1970s, when an extensive European-Arab dialogue developed.
---[cut]---
This controversial thesis belongs to Bat Ye'or, the pen name of a self-taught Jewish intellectual who was born in Egypt and who currently lives in Switzerland. She refuses to reveal her real name for security reasons, she says, but her thesis is just the prologue to far-reaching conclusions and extreme statements about some European leaders who are kowtowing to Islam.
---[cut]---
"We are now heading towards a total change in Europe, which will be more and more Islamicized and will become a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world. The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. "
---[cut]---
Although all of these individuals (Oriana Fallaci, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, et al)are opposed to the
extreme right and its violence, they are warning that Europe as a secular, enlightened civilization with a Judeo-Christian background is dying.
---[cut]---
Since the 1970s, Bat Ye'or has published about 10 books, most of which deal with the life of the
Christian and Jewish minorities in Muslim countries. She bases her most recent research on the conduct of institutions in the EU, and mainly on the protocols of the European-Arab Dialogue (EAD), which she says aims to establish a strategic alliance by means of tightening political, economic, diplomatic and cultural ties.
Some quotes:
"What led Europe to accept the French policy was the energy crisis after the Yom Kippur War. Another issue is a security issue, because Palestinian terrorists began to strike on European land at the end of the 1960s. This policy is aimed at protecting Europe from the threat of terror."
"Sometimes the Arabs threaten Europe by shutting the oil faucet. They demand, for example, that Europe always speak out for the Palestinians and against Israel."
"Ultimately, it is Europe that created Yasser Arafat and the Hamas government."
"The EAD includes a policy of eliminating and delegitimizing Israel. In Europe there is a complete alliance with the Palestinians. There are those, for example, who say that Israel is the greatest danger to world peace. Or the initiative in Britain to organize an academic boycott in order to isolate Israel. This is a way to de-legitimize Israel."
"The Europeans will not do anything to protect Israel (in the nuclear crisis involving Iran). If at all, they will do something because Iran is threatening other Muslim countries with which Europe has good relations. Europe is not interested in Israel's future at all."
Thursday, April 20, 2006
THE DUTCH WWII MYTH
The Netherlands has for nearly sixty years maintained that during World War Two the general population, and officials who stayed at their posts during the German occupation, knew nothing of what awaited deported Jews.
That is the key axiom of the Dutch World War II Myth.
[There are a few other axioms: "the non-Jewish Dutch tried to protect their Jewish fellow citizens", "they guarded Jewish property in hopes that the Jews would return after the war", "many gentiles hid Jews or helped them escape", "resistance was futile", "many people joined the resistance", and "many Dutch gentiles also suffered during the occupation".]
Well, no offense, but bla bla bla.
[Bla bla, bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla....bla!]
A book published today, Tegen Beter Weten In (Against Better Judgement, by Ies Vuijsje), claims somewhat otherwise.
Regarding the myth of ignorance, that is.
According to the author, both Jews and non-Jews in the Netherlands knew what was happening fairly early on. Yes, those who weren't paying attention, and those with their heads in the sand, were not as cognizant as the others, but the government in exile, the "resistance", the officials and bureaucrats who efficiently kept the occupation running smoothly for the Germans, much of the passive mass, and Jewish citizens themselves knew what the Germans were up to.
The article in the Volkskrant about the book is here:
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article288127.ece/Geschiedschrijving_over_jodenvervolging_vervalst
The NRC Handelsblad article is here:
http://www.nrc.nl/binnenland/article288806.ece
The Volkskrant quotes Professor Ivo Schöffer (Leiden University, history dept., retired) as saying that the book should permanently put to rest the myth of popular and bureaucratic ignorance of the fate of the Dutch Jews at the time. And he also bases that in part on personal experience during 1942: "De Jong en zijn medewerkers waren destijds van mening dat dat wetenschap achteraf moest zijn geweest. Maar ik weet zeker dat ik toen een joodse vrouw heb gewaarschuwd voor deportatie: u weet welk vreselijk lot u wacht." ('De Jong and his colleagues in those days opined that that knowledge was hindsight. But I know that I warned a Jewish woman then about deportation: 'you know the horrible fate that awaits you'').
The author, Ies Vuisje, writes that Dutch post-war historians, most especially Loe De Jong, conformed to the myth that no one knew what was happening. This despite the underground press during 1942 having gone into explicit detail over the Endlösung der Judenfrage decided upon earlier in the year.
The NRC Handelsblad, which is the mouthpiece of establishment Dutchdom, takes a different approach to the book - somewhat critical, and quoting David Barnouw (head of NIOD - the Netherlands Institute for War (oorlog) Documentation) as stating that Vuisje was a sloppy researcher.
Especially Vuisje's conclusion that De Jong cherrypicked among documents and sources to substantiate his own views and omitted the facts draw David Barnouw's ire: "Die bewering van Vuijsje is, met permissie, een leugen. In een passage van ongeveer 40 pagina’s behandelt De Jong de problematiek van wat men in Nederland wist van het lot van de joden. Daarbij citeert hij letterlijk passages uit illegale kranten waarin termen als ‘volledig uitgemoord’ en ‘koelbloedig vergast’ voorkomen." ('That claim of Vuisje's is, by your leave, a lie. In one passage of approximately forty pages, De Jong deals with the issue of what was known in the Netherlands of the fate of the Jews. There he quotes literally passages from the underground newspapers in which terms such as 'completely exterminated' and 'cold-bloodedly gassed' are used').
[Bloggeditorial comment: So in any case the underground press knew, and as more people in the Netherlands were members of the resistance and involved in the distribution of underground newspapers than in any other occupied country (as has been vociferated ad nauseum!), it may be assumed that everybody knew.
Let me simplify that: Everybody knew. Everybody knew. Everybody knew.]
As further substantiation of his assertion that such knowledge was not widespread, Barnouw mentions the following: "Een groep studenten heeft bij ons onderzoek gedaan naar oorlogsdagboeken van Amsterdammers. Daaruit bleek dat sommigen eerder op de hoogte waren van wat er met de joden gebeurde, anderen later, of niet." ('A group of our students researched war-diaries of Amsterdammers. From which it became obvious that some were cognizant at an earlier stage of what was happening to the Jews, others later or not at all.').
[Bloggeditorial comment: And people living in a brutal police state always write the unalloyed truth in their diaries? No one need fear that their private documents will be used against them, or that collaborators and informants might translate one's scribbles?
The only thing that those diaries establish is that some people did not write about everything - people use diaries to record their own lives, and what moves, irritates, or impacts them, at the time. Even then not everything will be jotted down. Not everybody is as irritatingly puntje-precies as Samuel Pepys.]
Vuisje, however, remarks that the myth of Dutch final-solution ignorance was a post-war product: "Direct na de oorlog is de mythe ontstaan dat men van het lot van de joden niets geweten had. Kennelijk was de waarheid te pijnlijk om onder ogen te zien." ('Immediately after the war, the myth originated that no one knew of the fate of the Jews. Apparently the truth was too painful to admit').
[Bloggeditorial comment: Dutch speakers were very well represented among the foreigners serving in the eastern theatre. Granted, they were probably drawn from the most poor-stupid-ignorant segment of the population, but were they 'ignorant'? The idea that reports didn't filter back from the several tens of thousands of Dutchmen and Flemings wearing SS uniforms is simply not credible - precisely like the villagers next to the lagers claiming that they did not know anything. In any case, the role of the collaborators and the Dutch SS legions still needs to be made a matter of the public WWII awareness, rather than dismissed as an afterthought. Much myth remains. Large parts of the truth are still too painful to admit. Apparently.]
Note that the Dutch view of World War Two and their own part in it has been under siege for some time now. Some of us have long doubted the self-congratulatory aspects of Dutch historiography.
It's nice to see De Jong being toppled from his pedestal.
That is the key axiom of the Dutch World War II Myth.
[There are a few other axioms: "the non-Jewish Dutch tried to protect their Jewish fellow citizens", "they guarded Jewish property in hopes that the Jews would return after the war", "many gentiles hid Jews or helped them escape", "resistance was futile", "many people joined the resistance", and "many Dutch gentiles also suffered during the occupation".]
Well, no offense, but bla bla bla.
[Bla bla, bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla....bla!]
A book published today, Tegen Beter Weten In (Against Better Judgement, by Ies Vuijsje), claims somewhat otherwise.
Regarding the myth of ignorance, that is.
According to the author, both Jews and non-Jews in the Netherlands knew what was happening fairly early on. Yes, those who weren't paying attention, and those with their heads in the sand, were not as cognizant as the others, but the government in exile, the "resistance", the officials and bureaucrats who efficiently kept the occupation running smoothly for the Germans, much of the passive mass, and Jewish citizens themselves knew what the Germans were up to.
The article in the Volkskrant about the book is here:
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article288127.ece/Geschiedschrijving_over_jodenvervolging_vervalst
The NRC Handelsblad article is here:
http://www.nrc.nl/binnenland/article288806.ece
The Volkskrant quotes Professor Ivo Schöffer (Leiden University, history dept., retired) as saying that the book should permanently put to rest the myth of popular and bureaucratic ignorance of the fate of the Dutch Jews at the time. And he also bases that in part on personal experience during 1942: "De Jong en zijn medewerkers waren destijds van mening dat dat wetenschap achteraf moest zijn geweest. Maar ik weet zeker dat ik toen een joodse vrouw heb gewaarschuwd voor deportatie: u weet welk vreselijk lot u wacht." ('De Jong and his colleagues in those days opined that that knowledge was hindsight. But I know that I warned a Jewish woman then about deportation: 'you know the horrible fate that awaits you'').
The author, Ies Vuisje, writes that Dutch post-war historians, most especially Loe De Jong, conformed to the myth that no one knew what was happening. This despite the underground press during 1942 having gone into explicit detail over the Endlösung der Judenfrage decided upon earlier in the year.
The NRC Handelsblad, which is the mouthpiece of establishment Dutchdom, takes a different approach to the book - somewhat critical, and quoting David Barnouw (head of NIOD - the Netherlands Institute for War (oorlog) Documentation) as stating that Vuisje was a sloppy researcher.
Especially Vuisje's conclusion that De Jong cherrypicked among documents and sources to substantiate his own views and omitted the facts draw David Barnouw's ire: "Die bewering van Vuijsje is, met permissie, een leugen. In een passage van ongeveer 40 pagina’s behandelt De Jong de problematiek van wat men in Nederland wist van het lot van de joden. Daarbij citeert hij letterlijk passages uit illegale kranten waarin termen als ‘volledig uitgemoord’ en ‘koelbloedig vergast’ voorkomen." ('That claim of Vuisje's is, by your leave, a lie. In one passage of approximately forty pages, De Jong deals with the issue of what was known in the Netherlands of the fate of the Jews. There he quotes literally passages from the underground newspapers in which terms such as 'completely exterminated' and 'cold-bloodedly gassed' are used').
[Bloggeditorial comment: So in any case the underground press knew, and as more people in the Netherlands were members of the resistance and involved in the distribution of underground newspapers than in any other occupied country (as has been vociferated ad nauseum!), it may be assumed that everybody knew.
Let me simplify that: Everybody knew. Everybody knew. Everybody knew.]
As further substantiation of his assertion that such knowledge was not widespread, Barnouw mentions the following: "Een groep studenten heeft bij ons onderzoek gedaan naar oorlogsdagboeken van Amsterdammers. Daaruit bleek dat sommigen eerder op de hoogte waren van wat er met de joden gebeurde, anderen later, of niet." ('A group of our students researched war-diaries of Amsterdammers. From which it became obvious that some were cognizant at an earlier stage of what was happening to the Jews, others later or not at all.').
[Bloggeditorial comment: And people living in a brutal police state always write the unalloyed truth in their diaries? No one need fear that their private documents will be used against them, or that collaborators and informants might translate one's scribbles?
The only thing that those diaries establish is that some people did not write about everything - people use diaries to record their own lives, and what moves, irritates, or impacts them, at the time. Even then not everything will be jotted down. Not everybody is as irritatingly puntje-precies as Samuel Pepys.]
Vuisje, however, remarks that the myth of Dutch final-solution ignorance was a post-war product: "Direct na de oorlog is de mythe ontstaan dat men van het lot van de joden niets geweten had. Kennelijk was de waarheid te pijnlijk om onder ogen te zien." ('Immediately after the war, the myth originated that no one knew of the fate of the Jews. Apparently the truth was too painful to admit').
[Bloggeditorial comment: Dutch speakers were very well represented among the foreigners serving in the eastern theatre. Granted, they were probably drawn from the most poor-stupid-ignorant segment of the population, but were they 'ignorant'? The idea that reports didn't filter back from the several tens of thousands of Dutchmen and Flemings wearing SS uniforms is simply not credible - precisely like the villagers next to the lagers claiming that they did not know anything. In any case, the role of the collaborators and the Dutch SS legions still needs to be made a matter of the public WWII awareness, rather than dismissed as an afterthought. Much myth remains. Large parts of the truth are still too painful to admit. Apparently.]
--- --- --- --- --- ---
Note that the Dutch view of World War Two and their own part in it has been under siege for some time now. Some of us have long doubted the self-congratulatory aspects of Dutch historiography.
It's nice to see De Jong being toppled from his pedestal.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
SHORT HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF EINDHOVEN - PART TWO
Mr. Benedict takes on city hall.
[Like the preceding post, this is also a draft, and there may be changes in the future, when I am more alert and less caffeinated, and in consequence more sane and capable of writing proper English.]
INTRO
In part one (http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2006/03/short-history-of-jews-of-eindhoven.html) I described the first attempts of Jews to get legal residency in Eindhoven, from the first recorded Jewish resident, the butcher Benjamin Jacobs and his household in 1695, to Lazarus Benedict successfully bucking the old boy network that tried to keep the Jews out in 1772.
In this chapter, I shall go into the request of Elias Benedict to settle in Eindhoven in 1783.
GOOD BEHAVIOUR LETTERS AND GUARANTEE PAYMENTS
Before I do that, however, I should clarify that according to Dutch law at that time, anybody seeking legal residence in a town other than his birthplace was required to provide letters attesting to his character and morals ('ontlastbrieven'; letters in which the administration of the previous place of residence take responsibility for a person's good behaviour for a year), and in cases where those could not be readily produced, the town in question could require a "borg-som" - essentially a security deposit or guarantee sum ('acte van cautie'; rather like bail for criminals).
In the case mentioned in part one (Lazarus Benedict et familia), the city demanded fifteen hundred florins (three hundred per person), which was the standard and highest fee (at the discretion of officialdom, it could be lowered). At that time a master craftsman could expect to make around three hundred florins in a year. Clearly a burden intended to dissuade.
What made this particularly an issue was that in many cases the requirement was usually waived.
Protestants settling in the benighted south were either members of the ruling class being posted (temporarily, many of them hoped) in Eindhoven as bureaucrat-administrators or officers, or clearly out of their mind.
[Catholics were severely discouraged from traveling in any case, as well as legally restricted in a number of ways (Catholicism was outlawed for nearly three centuries). ]
NOTE: Jews were allowed freedom of worship, but it was up to the cities to decide whether they would allow any Jews in as residents - which was often opposed by the guilds, who jealously guarded mediaeval rights to exercise certain crafts and trades, and chose to exclude people of the wrong religion (including not only Jews, but Catholics, members of odd heretical sects, and branches of Calvinism which deviated from the norm).
[Note: the simplist definition of a guild is a group with a common religious purpose, who pay the worth or 'geld' to fund that purpose. Since earliest days, guilds have had a religious veneer. They also often served as the equivalent of a chevre kaddishe and a charitable fund for the widows and orphans of deceased members.]
EXCLUSION OF JEWS
The States General had strengthened the hand of officials who wanted to keep Jews out of the cities in North Brabant (then ruled as territory conquered but not liberated - Generaliteits Landen, or 'generality lands') by issuing a regulation that the borg-som and the proof of good behaviour was specifically applicable to Jews.
[This kind of turns your impression of tolerance in the Netherlands of the golden age and eighteenth century upside-down, doesn't it? No wonder my ancestors scooted to New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century!]
MR. ELIAS BENEDICT
Mr. Benedict had resided in Helmond for three decades, when in the year 1787 he decided to move to Eindhoven, where the Jewish community, though small, nevertheless represented a greater Hebrew collective than anywhere else in the Kempen region. To that end, he requested and got a letter from the city fathers of Helmond attesting to his law-abiding behaviour and good character, and thus made confident of his position, he applied for residency in Eindhoven. At which point he was rudely disabused. Payment of a guarantee of three hundred florins was demanded.
Now please remember that several other Jews had been allowed to settle in Eindhoven without paying this sum. It is likely that the three Benedict brothers (one of whom was also named Elias) living in the Fellenoord neighborhood of Woensel (abutting Eindhoven) in the 1760s and 1770s were cousins or kin of some kind. One of them (Lazarus Benedict) had in fact been allowed to settle in Eindhoven (in 1772) after the intervention of the Domains-Council (Eindhoven being a territory held by the Prince of Orange, hence ultimate authority resting with the Domains-Council), and without needing to pay the guarantee.
In addition to the obvious reason for denying a Jew residency (bigotry - you could've guessed that!), two other motives for obstructiveness are possible. The surname Benedict may have left a bad taste in the mouths of Eindhoven officials after Lazarus Benedict bested them in 1772, and the fact that Elias Benedict had lived in Helmond for thirty years, receiving letters attesting to his good behaviour and character, may have suggested a man of certain means, whose funds might need sharing.
MR. BENEDICT WRITES A LETTER
Elias Benedict went back to Helmond, and wrote a protest letter to the States General (the government) calling their attention to the situation, mentioning that others had not been thus burdened, and asserting that in fact the rules were being applied unfairly, and were unfair to begin with.
The letter is rather remarkable, being full of high-fallutin' language, and hard-to-read eighteenth century formalities and legalese. It is likely that Mr. Benedict had the help of a trained clerical person, possibly even one of the bureaucrats in Helmond.
In short, it accuses the officials in Eindhoven of being bigots, and not understanding the law. The exceptions to the rules which they permitted serve as indication of inequitable behaviour as regards his request for residency, the exceptions standardly allowed for members of the Calvinist faith argue for doing likewise for Jews (Catholics conveniently being considered prejudiced in favour of the Spanish enemy, even though the war against Spain had come to an end nearly two centuries before, whereas Jews shared that enemy with the Dutch Republic), and applying this requirement to him alone of all the Jews in that neck of the woods would be an unfair hardship.
He therefore requested that the States General instruct the officials in Eindhoven to cease and desist, so that he, his small housewife Rosina Samuels (no kidding, it really says small housewife - "klein huysvrouw"), and his grandson Hartog Benedict, as well as all other Jews domiciled in that part of the country be permitted to settle themselves without being required to provide an ontlast brief (good behaviour letter, see above) or acte van cautie (good behaviour security payment).
THE MAGISTRATE OF EINDHOVEN
The States General sent a copy of the letter to the office of the city magistrate in Eindhoven, requesting that they deal with the matter 'in the proper manner'.
Which the office of the city magistrate took to mean that they could safely ignore it, or in any case delay until Mr. Benedict gave up. Which they encouraged him to do, whenever he inquired about the matter.
At the end of May, Mr. Benedict again sent a letter to the States General, in which he expressed that he had really expected that the government and the office of the city magistrate would have dealt with the matter expeditiously and forthrightly, rather than causing him great inconvenience by their dawdling.
This resulted in the an official request to the office of the city magistrate to resolve the case within no more than fourteen days.
The reaction of the Eindhoven city government was to draft a formal letter, pointing out that being forced to admit Mr. Elias Benedict was counter to the official resolution of September 7, 1731, which stated that the regents of cities and towns in the Meijery of 's Hertoghenbosch ('Mayory'; more or less the prefecture of four quarters administered from Den Bosch, of which the Kempen is the southernmost quarter) could not be obligated to permit entry of people from elsewhere without the letters or payments.
PANIC AND SPEW
That the law was not applied equally in many cases, and that in this case it was clearly selective, established a precedent favourable to Mr. Benedict which forced the Eindhoven city government to scramble for other legal grounds to deny Mr. Elias Benedict's request.
In their official filing sent to the Hague, they offered that "most of the Jews in the Meijery were impoverished and burdensome, being of such a character and destructive nature that local negotiants (businessmen) and shopkeepers would be severely disadvantaged, the more so as Jews were given to deceiving both burghers (city dwellers) and landmannen (rural folk) by trickery (called 'tricheeren'), and would by their presence rob many trade's and craft's men of the opportunity to find lodgings, because Jews offered outrageous prices for quarters and so drove up rents.
And that was not all! Local burghers had 'murmured' against the Jews, and would prefer not to deal with them!"
They also claimed that the substitute drossaerd (city legal functionary) had entirely without warrant permitted the other Jews to reside in Eindhoven, and, in that Jews were burdensome, they requested permission to deny Mr. Elias Benedict residency.
The tone of this letter is one of gibbering hysteria.
That may be why there is another letter inscribed in the daybook, in which the writers beg to inform the recipient (a Staten Generaal bureaucrat in the Hague) that they are "not in the least possessed of a fanatical hatred, but rather base their objections entirely on sober observation of the already resident Jews, and the knowledge that often suspicious persons lodge in Jewish houses, probably thieves and conmen; why, they had already dealt with one such! And were merely being cautious and sincere in seeking to prevent crimes and misdeeds in their city!"
[The 'one such' they had dealt with had been accused and expelled without any proof or evidence against him several years earlier. A doubtful case, to say the least, and hardly representative - one out of many.]
SMALL TRADERS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
The city magistrate added to this his objections, which centered on the practise of Jewish merchants traveling throughout the countryside, bringing their wares to the customer's doorstep, instead of decently awaiting patronage behind a shop counter.
He neglected to mention that in the first place, many of those customers could neither afford city prices nor the time to travel to the metropolis, and in the second place, Jews were forbidden by the shopkeepers' guilds from opening stores.
In any case, it seems irrelevant, as Mr. Benedict was proposing to reside in the city - had he intended to wander around the countryside with a pack on his back, denying him residence within the walls would scarcely have hindered him.
In further correspondence with the Hague, it was asserted that Jews were rabble-rousers, disturbers of the peace, a worrisome presence (!), and that Jews were by definition unfair competition to decent citizens.
THE HAGUE RESPONDS
None of this convinced the bureaucrats in the Hague.
On the 25th. Of July 1787 the magistrate of Eindhoven was ordered to permit Mr. Benedict to reside in Eindhoven, without any further delay.
And without providing letters, and without paying a guarantee.
Not much is known of Mr. Elias Benedict afterwards, and it is not certain that he availed himself of the opportunity.
Next episode: The Synagogue.
[Like the preceding post, this is also a draft, and there may be changes in the future, when I am more alert and less caffeinated, and in consequence more sane and capable of writing proper English.]
INTRO
In part one (http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2006/03/short-history-of-jews-of-eindhoven.html) I described the first attempts of Jews to get legal residency in Eindhoven, from the first recorded Jewish resident, the butcher Benjamin Jacobs and his household in 1695, to Lazarus Benedict successfully bucking the old boy network that tried to keep the Jews out in 1772.
In this chapter, I shall go into the request of Elias Benedict to settle in Eindhoven in 1783.
GOOD BEHAVIOUR LETTERS AND GUARANTEE PAYMENTS
Before I do that, however, I should clarify that according to Dutch law at that time, anybody seeking legal residence in a town other than his birthplace was required to provide letters attesting to his character and morals ('ontlastbrieven'; letters in which the administration of the previous place of residence take responsibility for a person's good behaviour for a year), and in cases where those could not be readily produced, the town in question could require a "borg-som" - essentially a security deposit or guarantee sum ('acte van cautie'; rather like bail for criminals).
In the case mentioned in part one (Lazarus Benedict et familia), the city demanded fifteen hundred florins (three hundred per person), which was the standard and highest fee (at the discretion of officialdom, it could be lowered). At that time a master craftsman could expect to make around three hundred florins in a year. Clearly a burden intended to dissuade.
What made this particularly an issue was that in many cases the requirement was usually waived.
Protestants settling in the benighted south were either members of the ruling class being posted (temporarily, many of them hoped) in Eindhoven as bureaucrat-administrators or officers, or clearly out of their mind.
[Catholics were severely discouraged from traveling in any case, as well as legally restricted in a number of ways (Catholicism was outlawed for nearly three centuries). ]
NOTE: Jews were allowed freedom of worship, but it was up to the cities to decide whether they would allow any Jews in as residents - which was often opposed by the guilds, who jealously guarded mediaeval rights to exercise certain crafts and trades, and chose to exclude people of the wrong religion (including not only Jews, but Catholics, members of odd heretical sects, and branches of Calvinism which deviated from the norm).
[Note: the simplist definition of a guild is a group with a common religious purpose, who pay the worth or 'geld' to fund that purpose. Since earliest days, guilds have had a religious veneer. They also often served as the equivalent of a chevre kaddishe and a charitable fund for the widows and orphans of deceased members.]
EXCLUSION OF JEWS
The States General had strengthened the hand of officials who wanted to keep Jews out of the cities in North Brabant (then ruled as territory conquered but not liberated - Generaliteits Landen, or 'generality lands') by issuing a regulation that the borg-som and the proof of good behaviour was specifically applicable to Jews.
[This kind of turns your impression of tolerance in the Netherlands of the golden age and eighteenth century upside-down, doesn't it? No wonder my ancestors scooted to New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century!]
MR. ELIAS BENEDICT
Mr. Benedict had resided in Helmond for three decades, when in the year 1787 he decided to move to Eindhoven, where the Jewish community, though small, nevertheless represented a greater Hebrew collective than anywhere else in the Kempen region. To that end, he requested and got a letter from the city fathers of Helmond attesting to his law-abiding behaviour and good character, and thus made confident of his position, he applied for residency in Eindhoven. At which point he was rudely disabused. Payment of a guarantee of three hundred florins was demanded.
Now please remember that several other Jews had been allowed to settle in Eindhoven without paying this sum. It is likely that the three Benedict brothers (one of whom was also named Elias) living in the Fellenoord neighborhood of Woensel (abutting Eindhoven) in the 1760s and 1770s were cousins or kin of some kind. One of them (Lazarus Benedict) had in fact been allowed to settle in Eindhoven (in 1772) after the intervention of the Domains-Council (Eindhoven being a territory held by the Prince of Orange, hence ultimate authority resting with the Domains-Council), and without needing to pay the guarantee.
In addition to the obvious reason for denying a Jew residency (bigotry - you could've guessed that!), two other motives for obstructiveness are possible. The surname Benedict may have left a bad taste in the mouths of Eindhoven officials after Lazarus Benedict bested them in 1772, and the fact that Elias Benedict had lived in Helmond for thirty years, receiving letters attesting to his good behaviour and character, may have suggested a man of certain means, whose funds might need sharing.
MR. BENEDICT WRITES A LETTER
Elias Benedict went back to Helmond, and wrote a protest letter to the States General (the government) calling their attention to the situation, mentioning that others had not been thus burdened, and asserting that in fact the rules were being applied unfairly, and were unfair to begin with.
The letter is rather remarkable, being full of high-fallutin' language, and hard-to-read eighteenth century formalities and legalese. It is likely that Mr. Benedict had the help of a trained clerical person, possibly even one of the bureaucrats in Helmond.
In short, it accuses the officials in Eindhoven of being bigots, and not understanding the law. The exceptions to the rules which they permitted serve as indication of inequitable behaviour as regards his request for residency, the exceptions standardly allowed for members of the Calvinist faith argue for doing likewise for Jews (Catholics conveniently being considered prejudiced in favour of the Spanish enemy, even though the war against Spain had come to an end nearly two centuries before, whereas Jews shared that enemy with the Dutch Republic), and applying this requirement to him alone of all the Jews in that neck of the woods would be an unfair hardship.
He therefore requested that the States General instruct the officials in Eindhoven to cease and desist, so that he, his small housewife Rosina Samuels (no kidding, it really says small housewife - "klein huysvrouw"), and his grandson Hartog Benedict, as well as all other Jews domiciled in that part of the country be permitted to settle themselves without being required to provide an ontlast brief (good behaviour letter, see above) or acte van cautie (good behaviour security payment).
THE MAGISTRATE OF EINDHOVEN
The States General sent a copy of the letter to the office of the city magistrate in Eindhoven, requesting that they deal with the matter 'in the proper manner'.
Which the office of the city magistrate took to mean that they could safely ignore it, or in any case delay until Mr. Benedict gave up. Which they encouraged him to do, whenever he inquired about the matter.
At the end of May, Mr. Benedict again sent a letter to the States General, in which he expressed that he had really expected that the government and the office of the city magistrate would have dealt with the matter expeditiously and forthrightly, rather than causing him great inconvenience by their dawdling.
This resulted in the an official request to the office of the city magistrate to resolve the case within no more than fourteen days.
The reaction of the Eindhoven city government was to draft a formal letter, pointing out that being forced to admit Mr. Elias Benedict was counter to the official resolution of September 7, 1731, which stated that the regents of cities and towns in the Meijery of 's Hertoghenbosch ('Mayory'; more or less the prefecture of four quarters administered from Den Bosch, of which the Kempen is the southernmost quarter) could not be obligated to permit entry of people from elsewhere without the letters or payments.
PANIC AND SPEW
That the law was not applied equally in many cases, and that in this case it was clearly selective, established a precedent favourable to Mr. Benedict which forced the Eindhoven city government to scramble for other legal grounds to deny Mr. Elias Benedict's request.
In their official filing sent to the Hague, they offered that "most of the Jews in the Meijery were impoverished and burdensome, being of such a character and destructive nature that local negotiants (businessmen) and shopkeepers would be severely disadvantaged, the more so as Jews were given to deceiving both burghers (city dwellers) and landmannen (rural folk) by trickery (called 'tricheeren'), and would by their presence rob many trade's and craft's men of the opportunity to find lodgings, because Jews offered outrageous prices for quarters and so drove up rents.
And that was not all! Local burghers had 'murmured' against the Jews, and would prefer not to deal with them!"
They also claimed that the substitute drossaerd (city legal functionary) had entirely without warrant permitted the other Jews to reside in Eindhoven, and, in that Jews were burdensome, they requested permission to deny Mr. Elias Benedict residency.
The tone of this letter is one of gibbering hysteria.
That may be why there is another letter inscribed in the daybook, in which the writers beg to inform the recipient (a Staten Generaal bureaucrat in the Hague) that they are "not in the least possessed of a fanatical hatred, but rather base their objections entirely on sober observation of the already resident Jews, and the knowledge that often suspicious persons lodge in Jewish houses, probably thieves and conmen; why, they had already dealt with one such! And were merely being cautious and sincere in seeking to prevent crimes and misdeeds in their city!"
[The 'one such' they had dealt with had been accused and expelled without any proof or evidence against him several years earlier. A doubtful case, to say the least, and hardly representative - one out of many.]
SMALL TRADERS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
The city magistrate added to this his objections, which centered on the practise of Jewish merchants traveling throughout the countryside, bringing their wares to the customer's doorstep, instead of decently awaiting patronage behind a shop counter.
He neglected to mention that in the first place, many of those customers could neither afford city prices nor the time to travel to the metropolis, and in the second place, Jews were forbidden by the shopkeepers' guilds from opening stores.
In any case, it seems irrelevant, as Mr. Benedict was proposing to reside in the city - had he intended to wander around the countryside with a pack on his back, denying him residence within the walls would scarcely have hindered him.
In further correspondence with the Hague, it was asserted that Jews were rabble-rousers, disturbers of the peace, a worrisome presence (!), and that Jews were by definition unfair competition to decent citizens.
THE HAGUE RESPONDS
None of this convinced the bureaucrats in the Hague.
On the 25th. Of July 1787 the magistrate of Eindhoven was ordered to permit Mr. Benedict to reside in Eindhoven, without any further delay.
And without providing letters, and without paying a guarantee.
Not much is known of Mr. Elias Benedict afterwards, and it is not certain that he availed himself of the opportunity.
--- --- --- --- --- ---
Next episode: The Synagogue.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
SHORT HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF EINDHOVEN - PART ONE
The first settlement in the eighteenth century and the opposition of the city fathers.
[Note: this is more or less a draft at present - I hope to interpolate, and add links and notes. After dealing with the Eindhoven region I will post some stuff about Jews in Brabant and Flanders in the Burgundian age, and some stuff about the Jews of Naarden, and other things Dutch and Jewish. Perhaps also a list of Judeo-Dutch terms and expressions (a work still in progress). Suggestions, criticisms, and commentary are absolutely welcome.]
INTRO
In a comment on Lipmans blog (http://lipmans.blogspot.com/ see this posting: http://lipmans.blogspot.com/2006/03/yekkes-that-are-neither-neo-orthodox.html) I mentioned that I would re-read material about a number of things having to do with Dutch Jewry, particularly the Mediene Joden (provincial Jews) and the Jews of the Eindhoven region. This post will deal with the Jews of the Eindhoven region, and their attempts to legally reside in the city of Eindhoven during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
THE KEMPEN
It should be mentioned that until fairly recent times there were few or no Jews in the Kempen region, of which Eindhoven is the major and only city.
The Kempen region is in the eastern part of the Netherlands province of North Brabant, with the Peel in Limburg to the east, the Breda area to the west, and the Kempenland in Belgian Limburg to the south. Eindhoven is more or less centrally located, about twenty kilometers north of the frontier. Eindhoven counts roughly two hundred thousand inhabitants. There are probably another hundred and fifty thousand people in the surrounding region, spread out over towns and villages of diverse origins (several dialect isoglosses cut through the region, and the area was the scene of much violence during the eighty years war against Spain).
Especially to be noted is that Jewish settlement in the region tended to skip villages inhabited by Teuten - traveling salesmen, oddjobbers, small merchants, and such like, who in the slow parts of the agricultural year would disperse over all of northwestern Europe as far as Sweden and Russia, touting their wares and their skills (hence the name 'Teuten').
Given that Jews often first entered the region as traveling sellers of small goods, it follows naturally that they would have scant benefit from settling among their competitors, and would be incentivized to avoid those villages.
BRIEF MENTION OF VALKENSWAARD
In this regard, I must mention Valkenswaard, one of the major Teuten-towns, where I lived from 1965 to 1978.
Before the war there were only a minute handful of Jews in the town, resentfully included in the Eindhoven Synagogue circuit (resentfully, because it prevented them from arranging services locally - and at a distance of ten kilometers the Eindhoven synagogue was not exactly the neighborhood shul for shabbes). After the war the number of Jews in Valkenswaard increased, as the town became a bedroom community for employees of Philips Electronics.
Evenso, Valkenswaard never developed a kehilla, and in contrast to some of the other villages in the area there were never any of the institutions or infrastructure that mark a thriving Jewish presence.
One can say that Valkenswaard was as unmarked by anti-Semitism as it was nearly unmarked by Jews.
THE CHURCH
Which brings me to the next thing that must be noted, namely that the rise in Jewish settlement partially coincided with the re-legalizing of the Catholic church and the return of ecclesiastical buildings to the church, whose organizations returned from their long exile in Ravenstein in the nineteenth century and set about rebuilding.
This almost inevitably meant an increase in religious bigotry aimed at Protestants (no longer the only legal version of Christianity) and Jews (not particularly privileged, but no longer absent either). The local church-fathers saw it as their mission to take back the fold, using sometimes underhanded means to assert dominance, while the Protestant clergy despised the locals and strove to maintain the privileged position of their transmigrant 'Ollander flock - bureaucrats, constables, tax-collectors, and such like.
All of this in an area whose most noticeable characteristic until the 1960's was poverty. The Kempen is sandy terrain and fen country, not particularly fertile, with no real resources other than the cheap labour of a desperate peasantry.
During the period when North Brabant was ruled as conquered territory (States Generality lands) the only official interest in the province was expressed via taxation and garrisons (nominally to protect the frontier against threats from the Southern Netherlands, later the French). One would be correct in assuming that the locals developed an almost instinctive distrust of outsiders, and a tendency to disregard the law. Plus a bellicose mindset.
Not a particularly promising area for Jewish settlement.
Which explains why many of the Jews who ended up here were wandering Poles (rondzwervende Polakken), rather than Amsterdam or Rotterdam Yidden.
BEGINNING OF THE YISHUV
The first Jews noted to have resided in Eindhoven were the butcher Benjamin Jacobs, his wife Sara, their maidservant Eva, Gompert-the-servant and Gompert-the-child (let us assume that the elder and younger Gompert most likely were not Jews) (*). This small household was permitted residency in the city of Eindhoven in 1695, and went bankrupt in 1697. Hardly a promising start.
(*) Note: Lipman mentions that Gompert was a common Jewish name at the time. Which I did not know. I thought it was Dutch, as I have seen it mostly in a Dutch context without the suggestion that the person so named was Jewish. Given the attitude of many at that time, it is of course more likely than not that the servants of Benjamin Jacobs and his spouse were of the same religion as their employers.
For the next fifty years no Jews officially lived in Eindhoven, though there were probably a handful who rented rooms and kept a low profile.
In 1761 Joseph Isaacq rented a dwelling, and by 1766 Salomon Levy, Israel Levy, Nathan Mendel, and Philip Lazarus (also known as Philip Valk), and their various dependents, had increased the community to fifteen people, despite a previously unregistered Jew named Meijer Mendel deciding to move to Veghel (he requested and received the essential letter attesting to orderly behaviour before he left).
The fifteen soon diminished, due to the tax practices of the Eindhoven magistrate, with Joseph Isaacq and Nathan Mendel registering a letter of complaint with the Prince of Orange, to little effect, and Salomon and Israel Levy (and their families - eight and four persons respectively) moving to Woensel.
[Note: Woensel is to the north of Eindhoven proper. It has some very lovely neighborhoods with trees and greenery, a small impossibly clean shopping center, older lower middle class neighborhoods which are have largely become a thriving red-light district, many Turks and North-African immigrants, and a reputation for criminal assaults and robbery. Still, as I said, it has its charms. My father lived there in the last decade of his life. In the late eighteenth century it was still legally a village, whereas Eindhoven, with scarcely more inhabitants, was a city, and dignified to boot. Go figger.]
Woensel at that time was where the Benedict brothers (Lazarus, Isaac, and Elias) lived, in the Fellenoord neighborhood, which more or less functioned as a Jewish neighborhood. Here is also where Salomon Levi ended up, and presumably Joseph Levi Abraham, who moved to Eindhoven in 1778. Also resident of the neighborhood were Hertog Moisis and family (8 people), 'the Jew Polak', and the 'Jewish master' (probably Heyman Moisis, who had been forced out of Eindhoven a few years before). Additionally mentioned on the Woensel rolls are 'Elske the Jewess', and a person merely noted down in the tax rolls as 'the Jew' living in Erp. There were probably a few more, but as they were too poor to pay taxes, they have not been noted down.
QUELLE CHUTZPAH!
In 1771 Lazarus Benedict petitioned to reside in Eindhoven, and audaciously requested admission to the status of 'poorter' (city citizen). After being told that this had met favourable consideration, he made preparations to leave Woensel, giving up his lease on his residence there. Only to be informed that despite favourable recommendations by the substitute drossaerd of Eindhoven, the city administration nevertheless demanded payment of a guarantee sum of fifteen hundred florins for himself, his wife, and his three children. A horrendous amount.
In desperation, Lazarus Benedict sent a plea-letter to the Prince (Eindhoven belonged to the domains of the house of Orange). The Prince's Domain-Council determined that Lazarus Benedict should be permitted to dwell in Eindhoven while awaiting a formal decision. The residency request was sent back to the Eindhoven regents, who denied the request, considering the settlement of Jews extremely ill-advised, and in their estimation quite probably disastrous for the local poor, who would be much affected adversely, as a Jewish presence was "both pernicious and ruinous" ('pernicieus en ruineus').
At this point Ardesch, one of the councilors of the Prince, decided to investigate the issue personally and traveled to Eindhoven, which resulted in the Prince's Domain-Council formally deciding that no ifs ands or buts the Jews should be permitted residency and equal treatment. As of October first 1772, Lazarus Benedict, his wife, and three children were legally residents of Eindhoven.
One would think that the residency issue would end here. But no. In 1777 another Jew dared to request legally residency! The civic government tried to interpret the decision of 1772 in such a manner as to allow the demand of guarantee payments and approval letters, and all the other red-tape they deemed necessary.
The Domain-Council had to explain to them that Jews who had not run afoul of the law could not be refused residency, or forced to pay guarantee fees or provide approval letters. Once more the gate swung open.
By 1783 the civic government became feisty again, and denied the request of Elias Benedict of Helmond to live in the city.
Mr. Benedict did not take this lying down.
About which I will write in the next installment.
[Note: this is more or less a draft at present - I hope to interpolate, and add links and notes. After dealing with the Eindhoven region I will post some stuff about Jews in Brabant and Flanders in the Burgundian age, and some stuff about the Jews of Naarden, and other things Dutch and Jewish. Perhaps also a list of Judeo-Dutch terms and expressions (a work still in progress). Suggestions, criticisms, and commentary are absolutely welcome.]
INTRO
In a comment on Lipmans blog (http://lipmans.blogspot.com/ see this posting: http://lipmans.blogspot.com/2006/03/yekkes-that-are-neither-neo-orthodox.html) I mentioned that I would re-read material about a number of things having to do with Dutch Jewry, particularly the Mediene Joden (provincial Jews) and the Jews of the Eindhoven region. This post will deal with the Jews of the Eindhoven region, and their attempts to legally reside in the city of Eindhoven during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
THE KEMPEN
It should be mentioned that until fairly recent times there were few or no Jews in the Kempen region, of which Eindhoven is the major and only city.
The Kempen region is in the eastern part of the Netherlands province of North Brabant, with the Peel in Limburg to the east, the Breda area to the west, and the Kempenland in Belgian Limburg to the south. Eindhoven is more or less centrally located, about twenty kilometers north of the frontier. Eindhoven counts roughly two hundred thousand inhabitants. There are probably another hundred and fifty thousand people in the surrounding region, spread out over towns and villages of diverse origins (several dialect isoglosses cut through the region, and the area was the scene of much violence during the eighty years war against Spain).
Especially to be noted is that Jewish settlement in the region tended to skip villages inhabited by Teuten - traveling salesmen, oddjobbers, small merchants, and such like, who in the slow parts of the agricultural year would disperse over all of northwestern Europe as far as Sweden and Russia, touting their wares and their skills (hence the name 'Teuten').
Given that Jews often first entered the region as traveling sellers of small goods, it follows naturally that they would have scant benefit from settling among their competitors, and would be incentivized to avoid those villages.
BRIEF MENTION OF VALKENSWAARD
In this regard, I must mention Valkenswaard, one of the major Teuten-towns, where I lived from 1965 to 1978.
Before the war there were only a minute handful of Jews in the town, resentfully included in the Eindhoven Synagogue circuit (resentfully, because it prevented them from arranging services locally - and at a distance of ten kilometers the Eindhoven synagogue was not exactly the neighborhood shul for shabbes). After the war the number of Jews in Valkenswaard increased, as the town became a bedroom community for employees of Philips Electronics.
Evenso, Valkenswaard never developed a kehilla, and in contrast to some of the other villages in the area there were never any of the institutions or infrastructure that mark a thriving Jewish presence.
One can say that Valkenswaard was as unmarked by anti-Semitism as it was nearly unmarked by Jews.
THE CHURCH
Which brings me to the next thing that must be noted, namely that the rise in Jewish settlement partially coincided with the re-legalizing of the Catholic church and the return of ecclesiastical buildings to the church, whose organizations returned from their long exile in Ravenstein in the nineteenth century and set about rebuilding.
This almost inevitably meant an increase in religious bigotry aimed at Protestants (no longer the only legal version of Christianity) and Jews (not particularly privileged, but no longer absent either). The local church-fathers saw it as their mission to take back the fold, using sometimes underhanded means to assert dominance, while the Protestant clergy despised the locals and strove to maintain the privileged position of their transmigrant 'Ollander flock - bureaucrats, constables, tax-collectors, and such like.
All of this in an area whose most noticeable characteristic until the 1960's was poverty. The Kempen is sandy terrain and fen country, not particularly fertile, with no real resources other than the cheap labour of a desperate peasantry.
During the period when North Brabant was ruled as conquered territory (States Generality lands) the only official interest in the province was expressed via taxation and garrisons (nominally to protect the frontier against threats from the Southern Netherlands, later the French). One would be correct in assuming that the locals developed an almost instinctive distrust of outsiders, and a tendency to disregard the law. Plus a bellicose mindset.
Not a particularly promising area for Jewish settlement.
Which explains why many of the Jews who ended up here were wandering Poles (rondzwervende Polakken), rather than Amsterdam or Rotterdam Yidden.
BEGINNING OF THE YISHUV
The first Jews noted to have resided in Eindhoven were the butcher Benjamin Jacobs, his wife Sara, their maidservant Eva, Gompert-the-servant and Gompert-the-child (let us assume that the elder and younger Gompert most likely were not Jews) (*). This small household was permitted residency in the city of Eindhoven in 1695, and went bankrupt in 1697. Hardly a promising start.
(*) Note: Lipman mentions that Gompert was a common Jewish name at the time. Which I did not know. I thought it was Dutch, as I have seen it mostly in a Dutch context without the suggestion that the person so named was Jewish. Given the attitude of many at that time, it is of course more likely than not that the servants of Benjamin Jacobs and his spouse were of the same religion as their employers.
For the next fifty years no Jews officially lived in Eindhoven, though there were probably a handful who rented rooms and kept a low profile.
In 1761 Joseph Isaacq rented a dwelling, and by 1766 Salomon Levy, Israel Levy, Nathan Mendel, and Philip Lazarus (also known as Philip Valk), and their various dependents, had increased the community to fifteen people, despite a previously unregistered Jew named Meijer Mendel deciding to move to Veghel (he requested and received the essential letter attesting to orderly behaviour before he left).
The fifteen soon diminished, due to the tax practices of the Eindhoven magistrate, with Joseph Isaacq and Nathan Mendel registering a letter of complaint with the Prince of Orange, to little effect, and Salomon and Israel Levy (and their families - eight and four persons respectively) moving to Woensel.
[Note: Woensel is to the north of Eindhoven proper. It has some very lovely neighborhoods with trees and greenery, a small impossibly clean shopping center, older lower middle class neighborhoods which are have largely become a thriving red-light district, many Turks and North-African immigrants, and a reputation for criminal assaults and robbery. Still, as I said, it has its charms. My father lived there in the last decade of his life. In the late eighteenth century it was still legally a village, whereas Eindhoven, with scarcely more inhabitants, was a city, and dignified to boot. Go figger.]
Woensel at that time was where the Benedict brothers (Lazarus, Isaac, and Elias) lived, in the Fellenoord neighborhood, which more or less functioned as a Jewish neighborhood. Here is also where Salomon Levi ended up, and presumably Joseph Levi Abraham, who moved to Eindhoven in 1778. Also resident of the neighborhood were Hertog Moisis and family (8 people), 'the Jew Polak', and the 'Jewish master' (probably Heyman Moisis, who had been forced out of Eindhoven a few years before). Additionally mentioned on the Woensel rolls are 'Elske the Jewess', and a person merely noted down in the tax rolls as 'the Jew' living in Erp. There were probably a few more, but as they were too poor to pay taxes, they have not been noted down.
QUELLE CHUTZPAH!
In 1771 Lazarus Benedict petitioned to reside in Eindhoven, and audaciously requested admission to the status of 'poorter' (city citizen). After being told that this had met favourable consideration, he made preparations to leave Woensel, giving up his lease on his residence there. Only to be informed that despite favourable recommendations by the substitute drossaerd of Eindhoven, the city administration nevertheless demanded payment of a guarantee sum of fifteen hundred florins for himself, his wife, and his three children. A horrendous amount.
In desperation, Lazarus Benedict sent a plea-letter to the Prince (Eindhoven belonged to the domains of the house of Orange). The Prince's Domain-Council determined that Lazarus Benedict should be permitted to dwell in Eindhoven while awaiting a formal decision. The residency request was sent back to the Eindhoven regents, who denied the request, considering the settlement of Jews extremely ill-advised, and in their estimation quite probably disastrous for the local poor, who would be much affected adversely, as a Jewish presence was "both pernicious and ruinous" ('pernicieus en ruineus').
At this point Ardesch, one of the councilors of the Prince, decided to investigate the issue personally and traveled to Eindhoven, which resulted in the Prince's Domain-Council formally deciding that no ifs ands or buts the Jews should be permitted residency and equal treatment. As of October first 1772, Lazarus Benedict, his wife, and three children were legally residents of Eindhoven.
One would think that the residency issue would end here. But no. In 1777 another Jew dared to request legally residency! The civic government tried to interpret the decision of 1772 in such a manner as to allow the demand of guarantee payments and approval letters, and all the other red-tape they deemed necessary.
The Domain-Council had to explain to them that Jews who had not run afoul of the law could not be refused residency, or forced to pay guarantee fees or provide approval letters. Once more the gate swung open.
By 1783 the civic government became feisty again, and denied the request of Elias Benedict of Helmond to live in the city.
Mr. Benedict did not take this lying down.
About which I will write in the next installment.
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