Amsterdam Suburb Hit by Hook-Nosed Stickers Aimed at Jews
Two Dutch mayors condemned the appearance of stickers featuring a cartoon nose on shops in a heavily Jewish suburb of the Dutch capital.
The stickers were spotted earlier this month on the shop windows of several businesses in Amstelveen, a municipality just south of Amsterdam, which is home to approximately one third of the 50,000 Jews living in the Netherlands, the Jewish news website jonet.nl reported Monday.
Amstelveen Mayor Mirjam van ‘t Veld told the news website metronieuws.nl that the stickers were “unacceptable,” adding: “As the Jewish community is right to expect, we are looking into the case.” Rotterdam’s mayor, Ahmed Marcouch, on Tuesday wrote on Twitter: “Wrong! Police and prosecutors [to] find and punish Feyenoord hooligans posting ‘Jew stickers’ on shops.”
The stickers found in Amstelveen, jonet.nl reported, are available for sale on a website offering memorabilia for fans of Rotterdam’s Feyenoord soccer team, who often call fans of Amsterdam’s Ajax team “Jews” and have chanted anti-Semitic slogans at matchers and directly after them to provoke Ajax fans. Several dozen stickers cost about $7.
The stickers feature a drawing of a nose with a red line across it — an image believed to combine racial stereotypes about Jews and to echo the “no Jews allowed” signs visible throughout western Europe just before and during the Nazi occupation.
At least one police complaint has been filed in connection to the stickers for alleged incitement to hatred, Jonet.nl reported.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30