Dutch Chief Rabbi Says Men Sped Car at Him
Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs filed a complaint with police against two men whom he said tried to intimidate him at a gas station.
Jacobs, chief rabbi of the Interprovincial Rabbinate for The Netherlands, filed the complaint last week after two men on Nov. 5 drove a BMW car in his direction in a sudden manner which Jacobs said was meant to intimidate him.
“I was putting in fuel and noticed two men, who had a Middle Eastern appearance, watching me from their car nearby,” Jacobs told JTA. “When I walked past their car to pay, they started the car and lunged in my direction, laughing. It was clear that they had waited to do this with the intention of at least scaring me, if not worse.”
Jacobs dresses in haredi Orthodox garb, making him identifiable as Jewish.
Jacobs’ home was targeted several times in recent years by individuals who threw stones at its windows. The last attack happened during Israel’s summer conflict with Hamas in Gaza and prompted police to install security cameras around Jacobs’ home, located 30 miles east of Amsterdam.
“The current government is very clear in speaking against anti-Semitism and this is a good thing,” Jacobs said. “And while panic over anti-Semitism is not called for, we must recognize that there is growing anti-Semitism and report each incident because this is how we can combat the phenomenon.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Over 500 rabbis sign letter rejecting Trump’s antisemitism agenda
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal,’ Nathan Fielder fights the removal of his Holocaust fashion episode
-
Fast Forward AJC, USC Shoah Foundation announce partnership to document antisemitism since World War II
-
Yiddish יצחק באַשעװיסעס מיינונגען וועגן די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדןIsaac Bashevis’ opinion of American Jews
אין זײַנע „פֿאָרווערטס“־אַרטיקלען האָט ער קריטיקירט זייער צוגאַנג צום חורבן און צו ייִדישקײט.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.