THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — Dozens of young rabbis serving in Europe gathered at an Amsterdam Holocaust monument to protest the abduction of three Israeli youths.
The demonstrators, members of the Young Rabbis Forum of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe, gathered on Wednesday at the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former theater turned commemoration site. The Nazis used the site as a central dispatch point for sending Jews to death camps shortly after Germany’s invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.
Roger van Oordt, executive director of the Netherlands-based organization Christians for Israel, also attended.
The rabbis carried a large banner reading “#Bring Back Our Boys” and a Dutch translation of the sign, a reference to Gil-ad Shaar, 16; Naftali Frenkel, 16; and Eyal Yifrach, 19, who were last seen on June 12 at a hitchhiking post near Gush Etzion, a Jewish settlement bloc in the West Bank. The three are presumed to have been abducted by Palestinian terrorists.
The gathering in Amsterdam was part of a number of activities by Jewish communities in Europe on behalf of the three youths.
France’s Consistore, the Jewish communal body responsible for religious services, called on congregants to convene at Paris’ Grande Synagogue de la Victoire on Thursday for a mass prayer for the youths’ safe return and instructed synagogues throughout France to say special prayers for their release.
In Munich, emissaries of the Torah MiTzion movement organized a rally featuring similar signs at the city’s Marienplatz, the news site nrg.co.il reported.
