Police in the Netherlands said on Wednesday they were investigating a reported attempt to torch a synagogue in the central city of Amersfoort by an assailant who was said to have made antisemitic remarks.
“The report about this suspicious situation was received by us and we have taken action. At this specific location, officers spoke with several individuals from the synagogue,” police confirmed to JNS. “We are aware of the suspicious situation and are investigating it.”
The spokeswoman added: “We never comment on safety measures.”
According to an incident report shared with JNS by local community members, the alleged attempt to burn down the Orthodox shul took place on Saturday afternoon following Shabbat morning services.
The report said the suspect was seen behaving suspiciously in the alley near the entrance to the synagogue. According to eyewitnesses, the man was holding a can of hairspray, a box of matches and a cannabis cigarette.
A concerned member of the community alerted others, prompting one worshipper to approach the man. When asked what he was doing there, the suspect allegedly responded with remarks suggesting that the Jewish people had been “occupying everything for 3,000 years.” When pressed to clarify this, he refused, saying they “knew exactly what he meant.”
During the incident, the man recorded several community members while continuing to hurl insults and threats of violence at them.
Additional congregants arrived at the scene and called the emergency telephone number. The synagogue’s panic button was also activated, though it allegedly failed to trigger a direct alert at the police control center. Authorities were said to be probing this technical issue.
Three police officers arrived at the scene later and conducted interviews with those involved, according to the incident report shared with JNS.
Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, a resident of Amersfoort, receives 24/7 security following repeated anti-Jewish incidents targeting his home. Last year, Jacobs told local media that his hedge had been replaced by a tall fence after being previously set on fire.
“Since Oct. 7, antisemitism has gotten significantly worse,” he said of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel, in which 1,200 Jews were murdered. The country’s top rabbi added: “I’m being insulted much more frequently. It was already happening, but it’s gotten worse.”
In 2024, the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, the Jewish community watchdog that monitors Jew-hatred in the Netherlands, recorded 421 incidents, a record tally that surpassed the previous all-time high.
The government’s National Coordinator for Combating Antisemitism, Eddo Verdoner, called the reality reflected in the data “shameful,” but added that Jew-hatred is becoming more openly tolerated because perpetrators are no longer ashamed.
Several violent incidents included in the annual report happened on Nov. 7-8, 2024.
On those dates, hundreds of Muslim immigrants participated in a series of attacks on visiting Israelis who were in Amsterdam for a soccer match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and a local team. In coordinating the violent attacks on messaging platforms and online, several of the perpetrators referred to the action as a “Jew hunt” and used antisemitic rhetoric.