Most people thinking about the Netherlands today are wondering whether the Oranje can survive Spain to win their first World Cup. While I’ll certainly be watching, I thought I’d take this pre-game to get a Dutch story out of my guilt file.
Police in Amsterdam have an unusual new plan to combat the rising tide of anti-Semitism testing that famous Dutch tolerance. It’s a novel idea, which seems to be the main reason it’s gotten international media attention, but the idea of “decoy Jews” really isn’t that strange. Instead of having cops pose as johns in a prostitution sting or as druggies when trying to nab a dealer — by the way, I’m not sure either of those vices are illicit in Amsterdam — cops will disguise themselves as observant Jews to catch anti-Semites in the act.
Let’s just hope they look more believable than Jesse Eisenberg in “Holy Rollers.”
The “decoy Jews” stories stateside have tended to be short and pretty lacking context. Of course, they mention that what really pushed this plan into motion was a recent video that showed three Jews donning kippot being harassed in a Moroccan neighborhood of Amsterdam. Mostly standard fare: spitting, ridiculing, Nazi saluting.
What the stories haven’t explained is whether “Moroccan” is being used as a synonym for “Muslim.” That’s likely because the vast majority of Holland’s Moroccan immigrants are Muslim. Which brings us to an interesting tension in this story, but it’s one not discussed at all here.
The New York Daily News, for instance, had a great headline — “An unorthodox approach: Dutch use decoy Jews to stop crime and anti-Semitic attacks in Amsterdam” — but offered little more than the basics of the program and its impetus.
The Brussels Journal does a much better job. It’s not straight reporting, but it’s worth noting because the columnist picked up on the wealth of reporting in recent years that indicates that Amsterdam’s need for “decoy Jews” is not unique:
Unfortunately, the situation in Amsterdam is not unique. Jews in other Dutch cities also regularly complain about harassment. So do Jews in neighboring countries.
On Monday, the Belgian newspaper De Standaard reported that large numbers of Jews are leaving Antwerp for America, Britain or Israel. Antwerp — nicknamed the “Jerusalem of the North” — is one of the major centers of Jewish culture in the Low Countries. “In London, you are not harassed if you wear a skullcap, but here you are,” a young Antwerp Jew told the paper. …
It is often said that the Jews are the canary in the coalmine. When the Jews feel compelled to leave, the light of freedom is being extinguished. Something is badly wrong when the police need to deploy “decoy Jews.” Once again, the specter of anti-Semitism is haunting Europe.
I’ve been writing about this for a while now. A quick search through The God Blog archives yielded a post from 2007 titled “Anti-Semitism on rise in Europe.” Here’s the first paragraph:
Harper’s keeps sending me subscription renewal notices. The most recent one pointed to a few topics the magazine had explored recently, including European nationalism and the rise of anti-Semitism (something I’ve written about here and here and here and here). I couldn’t recall seeing this article, so I did a search, and it turns out that “recent” refers to August 1990. In other breaking news, the Berlin Wall has fallen.
In other words, this is a problem that’s been around for a while — it runs deep enough that some politicians think it’s provocation, a crime, to make a cop look like a Jew because, you know, some people really can’t stand the sight of Jews — and one that probably can’t be solved by “decoy Jews” alone. The politicians and police officials acknowledge this in the stories. What isn’t acknowledged is that anti-Semitism in Amsterdam has competition from plenty of its neighbors.
Besides, who needs “decoy Jews” when you could have the Hebrew Hammer? He’s not as subtle, but he gets the job done.
 | Posted at 1:07 pm |  Print
| Permalink | Trackback |
Comments (11) |
July 11, 2010, at 6:56 pm
Anti-semitism has been rampant in Eastern Europe since WWII so understanding what is going on now requires careful research and reporting to understand the composition of the current crop of bigots.
July 11, 2010, at 8:58 pm
Very interesting, thanks for the post. I wonder how the media will handle any arrests made due to the decoy Jews.
July 11, 2010, at 10:30 pm
Hey, this might even handle the skinhead problem too!
This might be an interesting idea after all.
July 12, 2010, at 7:10 am
The situation on the ground, here in Amsterdam, is as follows:
While countless Moroccans are productive members of Dutch society many second or third generation Moroccan youths are, for whatever reason, involved in crime. Most of them are not religiously observant Muslims, but rather Muslims by culture.
Recent media reports in the Netherlands stated that more than half of Moroccan youth age 22 and under have been in touch with the police – versus 23% of Dutch boys and 5% of Dutch girls).
I do not know whether any such numbers are available for Turkish youth. Moroccans and Turks represents two of Holland’s largest Muslim immigrant groups. The two generally don’t see eye-to-eye. I see very few media reports about discrimination, robberies, hooliganism or other crimes in which the perpetrators are identified as Turks.
Media reports indicate the problem is widespread – with Moroccan youths over-represented in the crime figures of nearly every city with a large Moroccan presence.
I have seen various explanations. One that makes sense to me is that Moroccan youths feel a disconnect between their cultural roots and upbringing versus the Netherlands’ secular, nearly-anything-goes society.
For a while the Moroccan community used an interesting approach – officially condoned and promoted by Dutch authorities: appointing so-called ’street fathers’ to try and prevent hooliganism and other crimes. The thinking was that while Moroccan youths do not respect Dutch authority, they do respect the authority from within the Moroccan community.
Incidentally, what does not help either is that Morocco insists that Moroccans - including those born in the Netherlands – have a dual nationality. The Moroccan government even dictates which names Moroccan parents in the Netherlands can give their children.
This worked for a while, but increasingly fails largely because in essence it teaches Moroccan youths to ignore Dutch authority.
Moroccans ’street fathers’ have even been invited by cinemas to try and calm down obnoxious crowds of Moroccan hooligans that drive away customers.
As for ‘Decoy Jews’: this is not a new idea, since we already have seen Decoy Grannies and Decoy Gays. The first group are seen as easy prey by street robbers. The second group is increasingly harassed – usually, if one can believe the press reports, by Moroccan youths.
Some Dutch folks are already talking about a vigilante approach. Many older Moroccans have told authorities that they have no grip on their kids because they are not allowed by Dutch law to punish them the way they would punish them in Morocco. But no civilized society can afford to permit those kind of punishments, just as no civilized society can be expected to accept Sharia law.
On the other hand, the Dutch approach is often seen as too soft. Our previous mayor, Job Cohen, was known for his suggestion to ‘drink tea’ with parents of hooligans, or to ‘take away the expensive sneakers’ from street robbers.
In the end I believe the attacks on gays, primarily in Amsterdam, will actually hasten a tougher approach against criminal Moroccans. After all, the City of Amsterdam has committed itself to regain and defend the title of Gay Capital of the World – a distinction that brings in oodles of tourist dollars…
In closing: for years soccer matches between Amsterdam football team Ajax and arch-rival Feyenoord (Roterdam) saw Feyenoord fans use anti-Semitic insults – to which Ajax fans responded by making ‘Super Jews’ a term of honor.
July 12, 2010, at 7:33 am
Anton:
Thank you very much for your insights. Seems that the matter is tad bit more complicated than outsiders would think, no?
But I must confess that this:
…well, I think this video clip summarized my response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFN_xuwiDW0
July 12, 2010, at 1:25 pm
I first learned of this recently and have been wondering: Are Ajax fans using Jews as a caricatured mascot, the way various U.S. sports teams do with Native Americans? Or are they actually showing solidarity and support for their local Jewish population? Or does it depend upon whom you ask?
July 12, 2010, at 2:09 pm
Um. “this is a problem that’s been around for a while …” Anti-Semitism in Europe? Yup. For a while. heh.
July 12, 2010, at 2:17 pm
Yes, contrary to what my friends would say, I am a master of subtlety.
July 12, 2010, at 9:12 pm
No one ignores the fact, yes - the fact, that in tandem with Muslim hate for Christians one always find their hate for Jews. This, from times immemorial.
Today, Muslims use and abuse the freedom European Christians enjoy (but NEVER Muslims, in their own countries) to try and destroy Western civilization from within.
When Europeans and Americans will finally wake up to the danger that Islam, an ideology that has nothing to do with religion (and therefore cannot be equally protected under the law), it might be too late. The election of Barak Hussein Obama is just one example, and a shameful one too.
The world should not try appeasement and procrastination as a response, like it did with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. It is much too expensive in terms of lives and resources.
July 13, 2010, at 9:41 am
Godwin’s Law in 3…2…1…
July 13, 2010, at 6:44 pm
@Matt: No, it wasn’t used as a caricature — and also not as a way of actually showing solidarity and support for the Jewish population. It was merely a clever way to defuse the rival teams’ taunts.
They were showing solidarity and support for their team — in a manner that reflects the typical style humor us Amsterdammers have.
As this Wikipedia section shows, the situation eventually got out of hand. For a while games were actually stopped — and at times the stadium cleared — if certain chants were heard. The New York Times article linked to in that section also is informative.
@John M: Yes, many folks here have a similar response. Mind you, Cohen’s approach — put in the spotlight when he had to respond to the murder of Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic extremist — did earn him some kudos.