Antwerp Jews Demand Government-Funded School Security

Synagogue in the center of Belgian city of Antwerp. Image by wikimedia
In the wake of the stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Antwerp, a Flemish Jewish politician demanded the government cover the community’s security costs of $1 million a year.
Claude Marinower, Antwerp’s alderman for education, made the demand in an interview that appeared in the Joods Actueel monthly on Thursday – several days after Yehosha Malik, a 31-year-old Orthodox Jew, was stabbed in the neck by an unknown assailant while he was walking to synagogue for prayer services.
“Jewish families should not have to cover these costs,” Marinower said. “It is the government’s job to make sure its citizens can live in safety.”
According to the monthly, Jewish families pay $100 a month per every child they send to a Jewish public school so that these school may pay for the extra security measures deemed necessary by the community’s security officials.
Education is supposed to be provided free of charge in Belgium – a federal entity that is made up of the Flemish region, whose capital is Antwerp, a French-speaking Walloon Region, and the autonomous Brussels region.
Throughout Belgium and much of Western Europe, Jewish communities are regularly targeted by Islamists and Arabs seeking revenge for Israel’s actions and, less frequently, by anti-Semites from the far-right.
According to Marinower, Belgium is lagging behind other Western European countries that have stepped up to shoulder security costs for Jewish communities, including Germany, Denmark and neighboring Netherlands.
Still, authorities in Antwerp did beef up security around the city’s heavily Jewish neighborhoods following the murder in May of four people at Brussels’ Jewish Museum of Belgium, Joods Actueel noted, including installing video cameras and increasing patrols.
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
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Cardinals are Catholic not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
-
Fast Forward Halal restaurant opening in Congress is like ‘Muslim conquest of Jerusalem,’ says GOP congressman
-
Fast Forward Germany formally classifies far-right AfD party as extremist, in blow to Nazi-linked populist movement
-
Fast Forward Trump taps shock jock Sid Rosenberg and a Haredi newspaper publisher for Holocaust Memorial Council
-
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.