AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Dutch foreign minister defended the right of a diplomat serving in his ministry to call for a boycott of Israel and promote a “one-state solution” of Israelis and Palestinians. Stef Blok offered a defense of Angelique Eijpe on Tuesday in parliament. Eijpe’s anti-Israel activities came up in parliamentary queries after it…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — An exact replica of a Dutch synagogue that was blown up during World War II was inaugurated in Israel. Many Jews of Dutch ancestry celebrated the inauguration last week at Mevo Horon, a town in the West Bank near Jerusalem, the news website Joods.nl reported Tuesday. The town’s Chasdei Enosh synagogue is…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Jewish community of Deventer in the east of the Netherlands is protesting a Dutch-Turkish entrepreneur’s plan for transforming their former synagogue into a restaurant. Tom Fürstenberg, chairman of Deventer’s Beth Shoshanna Jewish community, made up of several dozen members, told the regional newspaper De Stentor that it would be “scandalous” if…
([JTA](http://www.jta.org ” “JTA”)) — For most matzah bakeries, Passover is their lifeline and only claim to financial viability. After the weeklong holiday, during which Jews are commanded to consume matzah to commemorate their ancestors’ hurried flight out of Egypt, demand for the famously tasteless cracker drops sharply. Except, that is, in the Netherlands. A centuries-old…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The umbrella group of Dutch Jewish communities began a probe of the actions of a local Chabad rabbi who is accused of molesting children in the United States. The Organization of Jewish Communities in the Netherlands, or NIK, on Wednesday announced the initiation of the probe of Rabbi Mendel Levine, a man in his…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Dutch tax authority is seeking payment from an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor for a pension stipend that she is receiving from Germany for her employment as a child in forced labor. The Tax and Customs Administration demanded in summer that Inge Prenzlau pay a portion of her $156 monthly compensation stipend from…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A Dutch activist for Palestinian rights who is married to a senior member of the PLO was nominated cabinet minister for international aid at her country’s foreign ministry. Sigrid Kaag’s nomination to the position — the second-most powerful cabinet post at the Dutch foreign ministry — will be formalized in the coming…
Today is National Rum Day. Little-known fact: Rum has some very Jewish origins. Sure, it’s not the syrupy, cloyingly sweet atrocity known as Manischewitz. But rum, which is derived from the molasses of sugarcane, was perfected by Jews escaping another atrocity: the Inquisition. In the year 1500, Brazil was claimed by the Portuguese and many…
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