Tagged Netherlands

Why matzah is a non-Jewish staple in the Netherlands

A shopper browses for matzah at the Amsterdam Noord branch of the Jumbo supermarket chain, March 17, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
March 22, 2018 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

ENSCHEDE, Netherlands (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,… Read more »

This Jewish grandmother was sentenced to death in Iran. She’s hoping for salvation in Holland.

Sipora, a Jewish refugee from Iran, looking out the window of her daughter's Netherlands home, Feb. 15, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
February 26, 2018 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

UTRECHT, Netherlands (JTA) — To the dozens of revelers of this city’s main Purim party, a Jewish grandmother who cooks the event’s annual Persia-themed holiday feast is a rare communal asset. Since she immigrated to the Netherlands in 2012 from her native Iran, the soft-spoken newcomer has been volunteering… Read more »

Why this poster of a Jewish man and a Muslim woman kissing caused a scandal in Europe

A poster in the Dutch city of Rotterdam encouraging free choice of romantic partners, May 25, 2017. (Courtesy of Femme for Freedom)
July 24, 2017 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

  AMSTERDAM (JTA) — In a country where sex toys are displayed in shop windows and television commercials often feature nudity, a picture of a clothed, heterosexual couple kissing may not seem like the stuff of scandal. But precisely such an image — part of a poster campaign celebrating… Read more »

In face of labeling push, Dutch Christians hawking Israeli settlement goods

Workers installing a 36-foot menorah outside the Dutch headquarters of Christians for Israel, December 2013. (Courtesy of Christians for Israel)
March 3, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

NIJKERK, Netherlands (JTA) — As a boy, Pieter van Oordt would often accompany his father, Karel, on the elder van Oordt’s weekly shopping excursions specifically seeking out products made in Israel. A Christian Zionist businessman in Amersfoort, some 25 miles east of Amsterdam, Karel van Oordt sought to strengthen… Read more »

Using Facebook, Dutch thrift store brings closure to painful Holocaust story

Louis and Flora Barzelay photographed in Amsterdam, May 31, 1942. (Courtesy of Stans Barzelay)
February 28, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Two months before they were deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz, Louis Barzelay and Flora Snatager invited a few guests to their wedding in Amsterdam. Instead of the yellow star he was legally required to wear, Louis wore a white flower on his lapel as he… Read more »

Is EU discriminating against Israel by labeling settlement goods?

A demonstration in Madrid in support of Western Sahara's self-determination, Nov. 11, 2006. (Wikimedia Commons)
November 13, 2015 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — To Israel and many of its supporters, the new European Union regulations requiring separate labeling for settlement goods are discriminatory measures reminiscent of Europe’s long history of institutionalized anti-Semitism. In a harshly-worded statement Wednesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that by ignoring other territorial disputes around the world, the EU… Read more »

As Dutch markets deny boycott, EU pressure on settlements grows
August 8, 2013 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA
Hoogvliet was among four Dutch supermarket chains that distanced themselves from a boycott on Israeli settlements goods they were said to be enacting. (Creative Commons)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — Two weeks ago, the Dutch public learned of what appeared to be an unprecedented victory for European advocates of boycotting Israeli products. Four major supermarket chains reportedly declared a boycott of products from the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. But the… Read more »

New Dutch translation of Talmud a tribute to Friesland’s nearly vanished Jews
September 3, 2012 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA
Frisians in traditional garb celebrating Fisherman's Day in Harlingen, Aug. 31, 2012. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands (JTA) – When Jacob Nathan de Leeuwe found himself returning nearly two decades ago from his home in a suburb of Amsterdam to this isolated idyll he calls “the end of the world,” it undoubtedly was the pull of his roots. De Leeuwe’s family had lived in… Read more »

In Dutch shechitah ban, Jews see sign they’re unwanted
August 4, 2011 / Alex Weisler, JTA
Luuk Koole, the manager of Holland’s only kosher butcher, says a proposed shechitah ban would make doing business more expensive. (Alex Weisler/JTA)

(Amsterdam) – A few streets over from the bookstore where Anne Frank bought her famous diary, the only kosher butcher shop in Holland is bustling. Two employees man the long counter at Slagerij Marcus, pausing from chopping meat to sell customers a bit of this or that for Shabbat… Read more »