AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A Jewish woman from Amsterdam told police that a man shouted at her and her children that they “should all be shot” and called them “cancer Jews” before getting into a taxi cab.
The incident occurred Wednesday in the heavily Jewish Buitenveldert neighborhood, the Het Parool daily reported based on a complaint to police by the 28-year-old woman, who was not named in the media, with help from the Federative Jewish Netherlands organization.
A witness wrote down the taxi’s license plate and gave it to police, who are investigating the incident, the report said. Police would not say whether the suspect implicated in the incident is a taxi driver or passenger.
Federative Jewish Netherlands wrote Thursday on Twitter that the taxi belonged to one of Amsterdam’s largest taxi companies, TCA. The firm is also investigating the incident internally, the report said.
In 2010, a TCA driver, a Dutch citizen of Turkish descent, was fired after placing red stickers on the side of his Mercedes car reading “Israel = terror country/state.”
Discrimination against Jews in the Netherlands nearly doubled in 2017, reaching a five-year high that accounts for 41 percent of all the xenophobic incidents recorded, according to a report published earlier this year by the the Dutch Public Prosecution Service. It listed 144 confirmed criminal offenses last year involving xenophobia, including intimidation, vandalism, assault and incitement to hate or violence.
Of those cases, 41 percent of incidents were “directed against Jews,” who account for 0.2 percent of the Dutch population. Another 7 percent were against victims for their “religion or way of life,” including Muslims. Criminal discrimination against homosexuals accounted for 8 percent of the 144 cases.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
