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Amsterdam deputy mayor wants to use ‘decoy Jews’ to combat anti-Semitism
ReligionNewsBlog.com — The acting mayor of Amsterdam, Lodewijk Asscher, wants to look into the possibility of using so-called ‘decoy Jews’ to combat anti-Semitic violence.
The approach is in line with Asscher’s intention to look for unorthodox measures in the city’s fight against intolerance and violence toward gays and Jews, his spokesman said Monday.
Most of the violence is committed by Moroccan youth.
“I consider the term ‘decoy Jew’ or ‘decoy homosexual’ to be terribly wrong,” says labour MP Ahmed Marcouch, a member of the Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal — the Netherlands’ House of Reprensentatives. “But when it is difficult to obtain evidence that criminal offenses are committed police must remove all the stops to increase the possibility of arresting the perpetrators.”
Secret tv recordings by the Jewish broadcasting company Joodse Omroep broadcast on Sunday showed that Rabbi Lody van de Kamp was given a Hitler salute by Moroccan youth in Amsterdam.
Last week the Rabbi visited various Amsterdam neighborhoods. They were subjected not only to the Hitler salute but also to a range of other insults.
An earlier broadcast of the Joodse Omroep showed the problem is not limited to Amsterdam but plays in several other Dutch cities as well.
In that broadcast discussion leader Leonard Ornstein suggested that police copy its successful earlier program of using ‘decoy grandmas’ and ‘decoy gays’ by also using ‘decoy Jews.’
Moroccan youth — second or third generation Dutch children of Moroccan ‘guest workers’ who have settled in the Netherlands — are over-represented in Holland’s crime statistics. Their intolerance of homosexuality frequently leads to attacks on gays.
Police officers acting as ‘decoy grandmas’ have been used in districts where elderly women were robbed of their handbags.
Marcouch, himself a child of Moroccan Muslim immigrants, until recently was the District Chairman of Slotervaart — and Amsterdam borough that is home to many Moroccans.
As chairman he pressed for integration. He sent Moroccans involved in violence against Jews and others to the former Nazi concentration at Auschwitz.
He also introduced exchange programs between Moroccan and Jewish schools, and has sent groups of Moroccan youths to Amsterdam’s Resistance Museum in order to learn more about the dangers of anti-Semitism.
He considers it unacceptable that Jews in some parts of Amsterdam are afraid to wear the yarmulke — or that a synagogue in a neighborhood popular with Muslims has had to resort to keeping its doors locked at all times.
- Source: Includes information from Amsterdam news daily Het Parool
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