Cabinet: 350,000 euros for support for Jewish students and staff

The cabinet is urging universities to tackle antisemitism and is making 350,000 euros available to support Jewish students and staff.

Antisemitism in the Netherlands is increasing, stated earlier this year in the report of the Taskforce on combating antisemitism. “Jews have been feeling increasingly unsafe in our society in recent years”, the authors wrote.

The report also dealt with pro-Palestinian demonstrations in higher education, which are sometimes accompanied by antisemitic slogans. Posters of Jewish student associations are defaced. Students are being called child murderer or ‘kanker-zionist‘. Some hide that they are Jewish.

Take active steps

The ministry of Education asks educational institutions, therefore, to actively support Jewish students and staff and ‘to take action against people or circumstances that create an unsafe working and learning environment’.

Educational institutions already have a budget for social safety. In addition, the cabinet wants to make an extra 350,000 euros available to support initiatives that ‘strengthen the social infrastructure of Jewish students and staff’.

Until she became informateur, education minister Rianne Letschert was a member of the Taskforce on combating antisemitism. “It is deeply affecting when you speak to students who say they no longer dare to show their identity on campus”, she said on Wednesday to the House of Representatives. On Tuesday the House will continue to discuss antisemitism.