Police in Amsterdam detained 22 people on Sunday night after anti-Israel protesters briefly blocked the entrance to the Royal Concert Hall during a Chanukah concert.
The dozens of anti-Israel protesters, who cited the performance of a cantor who serves in the Israel Defense Forces’ reserves as the reason for the demonstration, chanted slogans at a licensed protest rally outside the venue. At least one of them threw a smoke grenade at the building. Police only began detaining protesters after they blocked two of the entrances, the ND newspaper reported.
About 250 pro-Israel demonstrators, including many Christians and Jews, also showed up to the Concertgebouw in a show of support for the cantor, Shai Abramson, and the Jewish association that hosted the concert.
Congregating at the Concertgebouw “is within our rights and we will continue to realize it,” Ronny Naftaniel, a former leader of the Central Jewish Organization of Dutch Jewry, wrote on Facebook. “The flame of the light will triumph over darkness, always and forever,” he added.
Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs attended the concert and addressed those on the pro-Israel side.
The Concertgebouw had canceled the concert over organizers’ refusal to cede to the venue’s demand that Abramson be dropped. The venue then rescheduled the concert last month with Abramson following legal action and protests that the cancelation was both antisemitic and an interference in religious and artistic freedoms.
The presence of many non-Jews at the Royal Concert Hall, or Concertgebouw, in support of Shai Abramson was “a sign to the Jewish people that they have people who will support them,” Jacobs told JNS. In his speech, he compared the actions of the pro-Israel demonstrators to “an individual flame that they have in them, which joins together to create a great light.”
The crowd began singing Am Yisrael Chai as the anti-Israeli crowd chanted their slogans on Museum Square, across the road from the Concertgebouw.
Jacobs said he was not surprised that the anti-Israel rally was held even though it came hours after two Pakistani men killed 15 people at a Chanukah party on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.
“The hatred of Jews is a natural extension of the hatred of Israel and vice versa, so I did not for one second expect the organizers of the anti-Israel rally to cancel it because of what happened in Sydney,” Jacobs told JNS.
On Wednesday, thousands of Jews, Christians and others are expected to gather for a Chanukah candle lighting on Dam Square, a central area of Amsterdam that features a monument to the casualties of World War II, including Jews, where anti-Israel rallies are often held.
Op de Bres voor Israel, a workgroup whose name means “working wholeheartedly for Israel,” is organizing transportation to the Dec. 17 event from across the Netherlands to show solidarity with Israel and Jews.
The event is “meant to show to the Jewish People that they have not been forgotten throughout this tumultuous year,” Jacques Brunt, a Christian preacher who co-founded the workgroup, told the website of the Christians for Israel organization, which is among the organizers of the event. “This is necessary especially now, when the roles of victim and perpetrator are being distorted and inverted,” he added.
Jacobs said he hoped Muslim community leaders in the Netherlands would come to the rally to show their opposition to antisemitism generally and the Bondi Beach massacre specifically, but added: “I doubt this will happen.”
