Jews being chased down the streets of Europe by knife-wielding violent mobs. Jews hiding in buildings to avoid attacks. Jews being ambushed and beaten up simply because they are Jewish. With horror we must accept that these images from Amsterdam are not relics from the distant past. They have taken place in 2024.
Israel’s President Herzog described the attacks as a pogrom. The King of the Netherlands has said that his country has “failed” Jewish people as it did during World War Two. These echoes of the Holocaust mean that I write this with tears in my eyes. It is truly devastating to contemplate.
Testimony from victims of the attacks is chilling. This is how one Jewish man described his experience: “We asked for help from business owners in the area but they completely ignored us. When I tried to escape in a taxi, the driver took me out by force and even cooperated with the attackers”.
Another said this: “I hid in a boat in the river for over an hour, in the cold of 5 degrees, while pretending to be a corpse until the police rescued me. They pass in convoys of dozens of vehicles, watching and looking for someone to murder”.
It is already becoming clear that the attacks were co-ordinated. These violent ambushes were carefully planned. Groups of men went out with the specific purpose of hunting down Jews. They tried to run Jews over in their cars. They proudly posted evidence of their anti-Semitic violence on social media.
We must understand that these racist attacks did not emerge from a vacuum. There are those amongst us who have been warning about rising Jew-hate since the 7 October terrorist massacres in Israel and where it might lead.
Racism against Jews has become increasingly normalised in Britain and around the world since the 7 October attacks. The pro-Palestinian marches with their hateful slogans and open support for genocidal terrorist groups. The targeting of Jewish students at universities. The failure of broadcasters to report events in the Middle East with the necessary objectivity, context and balance. The out-of-control racist toxicity of social media. All of these things have led inexorably to a world in which Jewish people this week faced violent mobs on the streets of Europe.
It is time for our society to wake up. It is time for a national conversation about how it has come to be that Jewish schoolchildren have been forced to hide signs of their identity, British synagogues require tight security and pro-Hamas content is freely accessible online. It is time for zero tolerance of anti-Semitism on our streets, in our schools and universities, at broadcasters and in every workplace in our country.
All of this requires the kind of leadership that has to date been in woefully inadequate supply amongst politicians, business leaders, media executives and education chiefs. They must ask themselves what steps they have taken to protect Jewish people from harm, from isolation, from racism.
They must ask themselves whether they have done enough to stand up to Jew-hate and what more they can do. They have a choice as to whether to be passive bystanders to the growth of this racist poison in our society or active participants in a generational fight against anti-Semitic violence and abuse.
My thoughts keep returning to the image of a Jewish man hiding in a boat, pretending to be dead, hoping to be rescued. It has dreadful echoes of the experience of Jewish people through history. Of Jewish people in fear, hiding from racist attack. Of Jews seeking protection from those who want to do them harm but not able to find the support they need. Of Jewish people wondering whether the end has come just because they happen to be Jewish.
When it comes to anti-Semitism we no longer just require a warning from history. The warning is right here, right now in the heart of Europe.