Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Dutch Jews ‘Concerned’ About Refugee Center in Amsterdam Suburb

The main organization representing Dutch Jews expressed “grave concern” over the housing of Syrians and Iraqis at a refugee center in a heavily Jewish suburb of Amsterdam.

The Central Jewish Board, or CJO, an umbrella of religious and secular Jewish groups, sent a statement to the media on Monday about the center in Amstelveen, just south of the Dutch capital.

“CJO and local Jewish organizations in Amsterdam and Amstelveen have grave concerns regarding the safety of the Jewish community following the housing of Syrian and Iraqi refugees” at the center, the statement said.

CJO in the statement asked authorities to prepare a risk assessment for local Jews and whether this issue was considered before the municipality decided to house refugees in the building.

The Jewish groups it represents do not oppose the arrival of refugees in Amstelveen, CJO stressed, but “at the same time, the groups are pointing out that the location selected, in the heart of Jewish infrastructure, is extremely unfortunate.”

Noting that the area is “the only place in the Netherlands with many recognizable Jewish communities, synagogues, Jewish schools, kosher restaurants, kosher shops and a Jewish cemetery,” the statement also said it was deemed by authorities to be at an elevated level of risk of attracting attacks and anti-Semitic threats.

“That threat for the most part comes from individuals and organizations from countries of origin of the refugees and where extremely negative attitudes to Jews are transmitted in official channels,” the statement said.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East have crossed into Europe this year, with at least 12,000 settling in the Netherlands. Absorption centers for the refugees were set up across the Netherlands despite some opposition. In Purmerend, north of Amsterdam, the municipal council voted Monday against a plan for opening a local refugee center.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.