Daughter of attacked rabbi no longer feels safe in the Netherlands
An attack on Rabbi Aryeh Leib Heints in the Overvecht shopping center in Utrecht last week has left his daughter, Devora, shaken. “It made me very stressed, and I couldn’t sleep,” the 17-year-old girl told the Telegraaf. “We are no longer safe in the Netherlands.”
A man attacked the rabbi at the Action supermarket in the shopping center on Friday afternoon. According to Heintz, the man pushed him and hit him on the forehead after asking him what he was doing in the shopping center dressed as a Jew. The 40-year-old man turned himself in at a police station on Sunday and is in custody.
The war in the Gaza Strip has made everything worse for the Jewish community in the Netherlands, Devora told the Telegraaf. “I suffer from that, too. One of my five brothers lives there. I have nephews and nieces there who have to go to the shelter every now and then. And then this attack on my father. Luckily, he has no injuries, it could have been worse.” According to her, the manager of the Action where the attack happened told her father to leave instead of helping him.
“We live in the 21st century. How is it possible that we still suffer from anti-Semitism and discrimination? How far must it go?” Devora said. “It has been going on for years, we are being abused everywhere. It starts with words and ends with actions. One of my brothers was once beaten with a bicycle chain because he was wearing a yarmulke. I no longer dare to go to the shopping center or the hairdresser or to take a walk alone in the evening.”
Utrecht Mayor Sharon Dijksma and Justice Minister Dinal Yeşilgöz called the family after the attack to show their support. That was heartening, Devora said. “But more is needed. It is a serious and major problem. If you don’t say anything about it, you are actually saying more than if you did say something,” she said. “If I see girls my age in the Overvecht shopping center wearing a hijab, I don’t say anything. We live in a free country where we respect each other and have equal rights, right? But it doesn’t feel that way. You can be anything in this country, but suddenly, being Jewish is a problem.”
Rabbi Heintz reported the incident to the police, pressing charges of assault against the man who attacked him. According to him, the police asked whether he would accept an apology from the perpetrator. “I said: Only if he visits the Holocaust museum and talks to Moroccans who think differently. Because otherwise, he is only interested in reducing his sentence, and I will not cooperate with that,” the Rabbi told the newspaper. “It starts with shouting slogans, then cursing, and then violence.”
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked by Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, in which around 1,139 people were killed. Since then, Israel has been incessantly bombing the Gaza Strip, forcing Palestinians to flee to the city of Rafah, where it is now threatening a land attack and only allowing in a trickle of aid. Israeli attacks have killed 32,845 people in the Gaza Strip, including over 13,000 children and 8,400 women. Over 75,392 people are injured, including at least 8,663 children and 6,327 women, Al Jazeera reported based on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of 1 April 2024.
