A leading organization in the Netherlands dedicated to combating antisemitism has documented a 245% rise in antisemitic incidents in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to a report published on Tuesday.
The Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) reported 379 instances of Jew-hatred over the calendar year, up from 155 in 2022. “This means a rise in incidents by 2.5 times compared to 2002,” the report stated.
According to the CIDI, while there was a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents following Oct. 7, the total number of incidents in the Netherlands before the Hamas attacks was already nearing the 2022 total.
“Jews in the Netherlands and the Jewish religion were often associated with the policies of the government in Israel which caused Jews to become the target of antisemitic assaults,” the report states.
The sharp rise was an anomaly and nothing like it had been seen in the past decade, according to the CIDI. The area in which the report saw the sharpest rise was in written online attacks against people or institutions.
CIDI concluded the report by recommending that several steps be taken by the Dutch government, including instituting mandatory Holocaust and Jewish history classes; combating online antisemitism; improving the police and legal response to antisemitic incidents; and working with sports associations to root out antisemitism from athletic events, with a strong emphasis on soccer matches.
In one recent incident in the Netherlands, two Israelis, including a woman who was held hostage by Hamas in Gaza and later freed, were harassed by a security officer at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
Another incident, also in 2024, involved a Jewish woman who was harassed at her apartment and workplace by pro-Palestinian activists because of her daughter’s reserve service in the Israel Defense Forces.
Possibly the most harrowing incident of the current calendar year involved the firebombing of Israel’s embassy in the country in March.
The Netherlands is not alone in facing this issue. The U.K.’s Community Security Trust (CST) issued a report in February and found that 4,103 instances of antisemitic hate were recorded in Britain in 2023—by far the highest total ever reported and an increase of 147% since 2022.
In the immediate weeks following the Oct. 7 terror attacks, the Israeli government recorded a 500% surge in antisemitic incidents across the globe compared with the same period in 2022.
In January 2024, the Anti-Defamation League reported a 361% increase in antisemitic incidents in the United States in the three months following the beginning of the war in Israel; the Executive Council of Australian Jewry reported a 591% increase in that same period.
