Schomberg explains that the police’s decision is representative of the city’s “approach to the rise of Muslim fundamentalism,” telling people like himself to remain in the shadows rather than standing up for their beliefs.
Dutch Jew Sparks Controversy After Building Sukkah in Muslim Neighborhood
Fabrice Schomberg was allowed to build it on the condition that he dismantle it every night, so that it doesn’t invite vandals
By: Daniel Koren
Like several other European countries, the Netherlands has witnessed an increase of anti-Semitism in the wake of this summer’s Israel/Hamas war, which saw a government official calling ISIS a “Zionist conspiracy,” and just recently, when a 14-year-old teenager was suspended from school after claiming he was a member of ISIS and that he would “cut off the heads of Jews.”
As such, the country’s Jewish residents have felt intimidated, and are afraid to display signs of their religion.
“Advertising one’s Judaism is dangerous here,” a Jewish resident, who wanted to remain anonymous, told The Times of Israel recently. “I don’t wear any Jewish symbol on the street and I installed my mezuzah on the inside.”
However, as the Times reports, there is one Jewish resident who is demonstrating his Judaism in the grandest way possible: by building a sukkah.
Fabrice Schomberg lives in the Muslim-dominated area of Schilderswijk, which was once home to a flourishing Jewish community, and is now known as the “Sharia Triangle” among locals.
Fewer than ten Jewish residents remain in the area.
