The Amsterdam Higher District Court has dismissed a criminal complaint that the autobiography of a Jew who converted to Christianity, published more than 100 years ago, is anti-Semitic.
In so doing, the court upheld an earlier ruling by the Lower District Court in Utrecht.
Both courts held that the public prosecutor failed to cite specific passages he considered offensive to Jews.
The legal action was initiated by STIBA, the Foundation for Combatting Anti-Semitism.
Suits were brought against the publisher and seller of “The Autobiography of Isaac Levinssohn,” originally published in England in the early 1880s and translated into Dutch in 1885.
The translation was reprinted in 1976.
Levinssohn was a Polish Jew who converted to Christianity.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
