The Free University of Berlin has canceled an exhibition about antisemitic pogroms throughout history, citing fears of "emotional reactions" from students.

NOW: Students tried to barricade themselves in the Free University of Berlin, threatening to destroy the server room if police entered the building. They demanded an immediate end to the deep-seated relationship between the university and the State of Israel, among other… pic.twitter.com/StouYZ3d5n

— red. (@redstreamnet) October 17, 2024

The exhibition, "Circle of Magic" by the British National Holocaust Museum, was scheduled to open at the Free University in February 2025. It aimed to showcase several Jewish communities affected by pogroms throughout history in Europe, North Africa, and Israel, including the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on October 7.

A protest camp has started at Berlin's Freie Universität pic.twitter.com/d9KVXqrDCH

— James Jackson (@derJamesJackson) May 7, 2024

According to Jüdische Allgemeine, a Jewish magazine distributed in Germany, the university's history department initially appeared interested in hosting the exhibition.

However, in recent days, the university decided to cancel the exhibition through an announcement by Vice President Verna Bellinger-Talcott. Initially, no additional explanations were provided for her intervention and the exhibition's cancellation. In response to the Jewish magazine's inquiry, the Free University's press department stated that the university building's lobby where the exhibition was to be displayed is "not a suitable location for such an exhibition" as it could trigger "emotional reactions." The university expressed concerns about "intense debates" that might disrupt order in the public space. Currently, discussions are ongoing about finding an alternative venue for the exhibition, though no new location has been secured yet.

Police evict pro-Palestine encampment at Berlin's Freie Universität, reportedly after being called by the Uni's president pic.twitter.com/c0ijcLUBSx

— James Jackson (@derJamesJackson) May 7, 2024

 The violent demonstrations that occurred several months ago at the Free University in Germany appear to be causing concern among university administration about their recurrence, leading to the decision to remove discourse about antisemitism and Israel-related context from the public space.

The exhibition's cancellation is not an isolated incident, as several events discussing antisemitism and Israel have been canceled at German universities in recent months. Recently, two lectures criticizing antisemitism with connections to Israel were canceled at the University of Freiburg, and an additional lecture by an Israeli professor was canceled at Leipzig University due to security concerns.

Israel's Ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, commented on the exhibition's cancellation, saying, "Only at the 'Free' University in Berlin, where a culture of Jewish persecution exists in the form of violence, blocked access, and online exams for Jewish students out of concern for their safety, can the removal of an exhibition about Holocaust remembrance be justified due to 'suspected emotional distress.'"

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Jewish-American billionaire Bill Ackman announced Friday he will withdraw his business operations from Amsterdam, responding to the violent assault on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans that occurred in the city Thursday night.

Ackman, who founded and leads Pershing Square Capital Management, revealed plans to shift the trading of Pershing Square Holdings, his public investment vehicle, from the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to London's financial hub.

The hedge fund manager noted that over 90% of the company's trading volume already occurs in London. "Concentrating the listing on one exchange, and leaving a jurisdiction that fails to protect its tourists and minority populations combine both good business and moral principles," Ackman stated. "We can also save money and improve liquidity for shareholders to boot," he added, highlighting the strategic benefits of the decision.

In a parallel move, Ackman, who sits on the board of Universal Music Group (UMG), disclosed ongoing negotiations to relocate the company from Amsterdam to the US. "Pershing Square has a contractual right to cause UMG to be listed in the US. We will exercise this right and achieve a US listing for UMG no later than some time next year," he announced.

The relocation would position UMG for inclusion in the S&P 500 and other major US indices. "UMG trades at a large discount to its intrinsic value with limited liquidity… We are going to fix this. Now is a good and appropriate time to do so," Ackman emphasized.

The billionaire's strategic shifts follow attacks on Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters at multiple locations throughout Amsterdam after their match with Ajax. The Israeli fans faced violent assaults from dozens of attackers, some concealed behind masks and bearing Palestinian flags, in what security officials described as a coordinated ambush.

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Hundreds of Arab residents of Amsterdam orchestrated violent attacks against Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters late Thursday night, following a soccer match against Dutch soccer team Ajax, in what witnesses described as pre-planned assaults across multiple locations.

The Dutch police stated that "five injured people were evacuated to the hospital and 62 people were arrested. The police are aware of reports about a possible hostage situation and missing persons, but currently, there is no confirmation that this occurred. This aspect is also under investigation."

Currently, local authorities in Amsterdam say they have no reports of missing persons related to the attacks. The situation is now being handled exclusively by Israel's Foreign Ministry, which has established protocols for the returning supporters and is coordinating all response efforts.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has also initiated an immediate response to the crisis. "Following the severe attacks against Israeli citizens in Amsterdam, and under direction from political leadership, the IDF is launching an immediate rescue mission in coordination with Dutch authorities," an IDF spokesperson announced. The operation will deploy transport aircraft equipped with medical and rescue personnel.

Medical reports confirm that 12 fans sustained injuries, while others sought shelter in local businesses and various safe locations throughout the city. Dutch police evacuated numerous Israelis to their hotels after witnesses reported coordinated ambushes at predetermined locations outside the stadium.

"We're facing hundreds of attackers"

The chaos prompted desperate calls for help on social media, including from a fan who posted an urgent appeal on X to locate a missing friend.

Horrifying scenes in Amsterdam of attempted lynching of Jews by terror supporters. Amsterdam, where are your police?! Jews were beaten by mobs of Arabs and some even jumped into the canals to get away from violent mobs.

Shameful, unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/lr7m4rf8bm

— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) November 8, 2024

"We're facing hundreds of attackers. The situation is chaotic, and people need immediate evacuation. Several are injured," one fan reported. "They're targeting fans near hotel entrances and central square."

Jonathan, another victim, described his experience: "We were attacked by Arabs near our hotel but managed to escape without serious injury. We're trapped in our room without phone access, too frightened to go to the lobby."

Government response

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with his Dutch counterpart, Dick Schoof, emphasizing the importance of protecting all Israelis in the Netherlands.

Netanyahu strongly condemned the antisemitic attack and requested increased security for the Jewish community in the country. Schoof expressed shock at the events, describing them as having an exceptionally antisemitic character. "I followed the news from Amsterdam with horror. Completely unacceptable antisemitic attacks on Israelis," he wrote on X. "The perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted."

A pogrom in the streets of #Amsterdam.

We have become the Gaza of Europe.

Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews.

I will NOT accept that. NEVER.

The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens.

Never again.

— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) November 8, 2024

Meanwhile, Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders responded strongly to the events, writing on his X account: "A pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam. We have become the Gaza of Europe. Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will not accept that. Never."

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir urgently requested the Foreign Ministry address the escalating situation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the newly appointed Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar are actively monitoring developments and coordinating with emergency response teams at the scene.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid drew historical parallels: "These Amsterdam scenes evoke Europe's darkest chapters. The sight of Jews being hunted and beaten on European streets must serve as a wake-up call regarding the surge in antisemitism and the threats of extremism."

Israel's Ambassador to the Netherlands, Modi Ephraim, is spearheading protection efforts for the affected Israelis. He reported that Dutch authorities have deployed 600 police officers to secure hotels housing the fans.

The Foreign Ministry expressed grave concern about the situation. "We view these events with utmost severity, particularly the continued lack of full control by Amsterdam and Dutch authorities," a ministry spokesperson stated, confirming approximately 30 arrests.

Following discussions with Ambassador Ephraim, Knesset member Almog Cohen reported that Amsterdam's mayor has authorized additional police deployments to affected areas. "I urge all Israeli fans to remain in secure locations and prioritize their safety," Cohen emphasized.

The latest assessment from Foreign Minister Saar's office confirmed ten injuries of yet-undetermined severity. Two individuals remain unaccounted for.
The Israeli consul has been dispatched to Amsterdam hospitals, while diplomatic presence is being reinforced with staff from neighboring countries. Israeli citizens in Amsterdam are instructed to remain in their hotels until further notice.

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A wave of violent attacks targeted hundreds of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans late Thursday night into Friday morning throughout Amsterdam's city center following their team's Europa League match against Ajax. Multiple witness accounts describe a pattern of systematic violence that overwhelmed local law enforcement, with some police units eventually withdrawing from certain areas.

"This was meticulously orchestrated," according to multiple witnesses at the scene. "The attackers arrived armed with knives, and some attempted vehicular attacks against fans in the streets. People were fleeing in terror, desperately trying to reach the safety of their hotels." In response, Israel's Foreign Ministry has activated an emergency operations center to facilitate the rapid evacuation of all supporters from the Netherlands.

"The severity of last night's events blindsided us completely," Ami Shooman, an Israel Hayom photographer who attended the match with his son, recounted. "While we anticipated some pro-Palestinian chants, none of us were prepared for the orchestrated violence that awaited. Our police escort ended at the stadium's train station, but upon disembarking at Dam Square in the city center, we faced an ambush. Hundreds of Arab and Turkish attackers had positioned themselves strategically to target Jewish visitors.

"Young people endured what can only be described as attempted lynching, women were in tears fearing for their lives, and I found myself trying to maintain composure, telling my son 'these are just demonstrations' – all while silently praying for it to end. Fellow fans warned against taking taxis, as numerous drivers were immigrants identified as collaborators in the attacks. The police response took hours to materialize. The scene resembled a war zone. We were eventually barricaded inside a restaurant for protection from the bloodthirsty mob outside. By 2 a.m., authorities began evacuating people in armored vehicles to their hotels. This level of organized violence caught the Dutch authorities completely off guard, and it should serve as a wake-up call for all of Europe."

Social media platforms were filled with desperate posts about missing fans who remained unaccounted for after the attacks, while others sought medical attention for injuries sustained from masked assailants carrying Palestinian flags. The club's emergency hotline was flooded with calls from fans trapped inside stores, while others decided to flee Amsterdam entirely, seeking refuge in surrounding communities.

My heart is completely shattered now...

The videos from Amsterdam are horrific - a nightmare comes to life.

By who? Jihadists. Enough is enough!#AmsterdamPogrom #Israel #Iran #AmsterdamAttack pic.twitter.com/gnhnVZVp6W

— Sangita Singh (@Sangitajadon95) November 8, 2024

"The situation was completely out of control," fans who contacted Maccabi Tel Aviv officials for emergency assistance said. "They had attackers positioned at every corner, utilizing their intimate knowledge of the city's layout to cut off escape routes. Even those walking without any visible Israeli or team identification were stopped and interrogated if deemed suspicious. Failure to respond in Arabic or Dutch resulted in immediate physical assault, with no law enforcement in sight."

Witness accounts indicate that Dutch authorities "had severely underestimated the scale of potential unrest, concentrating their forces in the city center while leaving other areas vulnerable." The Israeli Foreign Ministry has initiated a comprehensive outreach effort to contact all Israeli fans who reported attacks. With serious concerns about potential casualties mounting, diplomatic efforts are focused on expediting the safe return of all fans to Israel.

The post 'The scene resembled a war zone': Amsterdam's night of terror appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

A month before the violent riots targeting Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam, Dutch media exposed a troubling trend of local police officers refusing to safeguard Jewish and Israeli sites across the country.

The revelation first emerged in NIW (Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad), a prominent Jewish newspaper, which reported that a growing number of officers were claiming that protecting Jewish and Israeli sites presented them with a "moral dilemma" and "conscientious concerns."

Two veteran officers voiced their alarm about the police command's increasing tolerance of such refusals. "We have colleagues who are now declining to protect facilities or events linked to the community. They cite 'moral dilemmas,' and I'm witnessing a growing tendency to accommodate these objections. This truly marks the beginning of the end for us as a police force," Michael Theeboom, a local officer, told NIW.

"Our command appears increasingly hesitant to take a decisive stance on this matter, particularly since the outbreak of war in the Middle East. We're drastically departing from our collective responsibility; this requires continued open dialogue," Marcel de Weerd, another police officer, said.

The controversy gained national attention when De Telegraaf, a leading Dutch newspaper, picked up the story, with additional police sources expressing deep concern about growing extremism within the Dutch police force and widening divisions within the organization entrusted with public safety.

A report released six months ago by CIDI, the Netherlands' leading antisemitism monitoring organization, revealed that antisemitic incidents surged by 250% over the previous year, with 379 documented cases in 2023, up from 155 in 2022.

While authorities received more than 1,500 reports of antisemitic incidents, only 379 cases met the criteria for definitive classification as antisemitism. The 2023 figures represent the highest number of incidents recorded in the four decades since the organization began publishing its annual report.

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The moment anyone arrives in Israel from Chișinău, the capital of Moldova, and is asked about their place of birth, they immediately hear from their Israeli interlocutors the phrase "Chișinăupogrom".

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The three-day pogrom against the Jews of Chișinău, exactly 120 years ago, left an indelible impression not only on the local Jewish population but on the entire Jewish world. To this day, the memory of the pogrom has not faded, according to the Moldovan ambassador to Israel, Alex Roitman, for whom the day of remembrance is an opportunity for his country to build and develop friendly relations with the Jewish state.

In addition to his training as a diplomat, the Moldovan ambassador holds a degree in history, and the Chișinău pogroms were his main area of research. Roitman says it is important to understand the reasons behind the grave harm inflicted on the Jews of his beloved city during the Passover holiday of April 1903, so that such a tragedy will not happen again.

 Incitement in the press

 "There were two main factors that caused the riots - the toxic incitement by the antisemites, and the silence of the Russian authorities and their representatives in the city," explains Roitman, donning his cap as a historian.

The newspapers of those days were awash with propaganda and disinformation about Jews, and this influenced the course of events. The worst offender was the Russian language antisemitic newspaper, 'Bessarabets,' edited by Pavel Krushevan, a particularly heinous antisemite. The pages of Bessarabets were full of invented stories of 'Jewish crimes' and calls to 'avenge them.'

Roitman notes that, in general, relations between Jews and Gentiles in Moldova, known then as the province of Bessarabia in the Russian Empire, were good. Jews constituted close to 50 percent of the population in the major cities, and in Jewish towns, people from other ethnic groups even understood Yiddish. But the toxic combination of antisemitic propaganda – some of which originated from the church – and the desire of the authorities to direct the people's anger at their poor living conditions against the Jews, led to the disaster.

"There were orders from above not to prevent the riots," says Roitman. His conclusion is based on research and archival documents and testimonies of the events during and after the pogrom. The Russian army and police did nothing to stop the riots, only intervening after three days of murder and brutality. There were even reports that a bishop saw the rioters and blessed them.

A free hand to harm Jews

"The memories of Prince Urossov, who was appointed governor of Bessarabia after the pogrom, reveal beyond any doubt that his predecessors and subordinates sat back and did nothing to stop the violence, and that the antisemitic mob received a clear message from them that for three days they had a free hand to attack Jews. The imperial authorities, including the antisemitic Minister of Interior Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve, wanted to see a pogrom in the city; without their sanctioning, the Jews of Chișinău would not have suffered such a devastating tragedy.

"I have researched another wave of anti-Jewish riots that swept the Pale of Settlement between 1882-1884. Then as well, the atmosphere could have led to pogroms, but the army and police did not allow the antisemitic hatred that simmered in the area to boil up to the point of action. In contrast, in 1903, the central authorities in Russia wanted Jewish blood to be spilled and that is exactly what happened."

Honoring Moldova's Jewish heritage

This year, Moldova will mark 120 years since the tragic events in Chișinău in a ceremony attended by state leaders. The Moldovan authorities will honor the memory of the Jews murdered in the 1903 pogroms, just as they honor the memory of the tens of thousands of Moldovan Jews killed in the Holocaust. Antisemitism in Moldova has disappeared almost entirely and its place has been taken by a respectful attitude towards Jews and the State of Israel. If anything is spoiling this idyll, hints the Moldovan ambassador, it is incitement from Russia.

"The Russians are trying to destabilize Moldova, in order to thwart its choice to be part of the free world and its wish to join the European Union," Roitman states determinately. "They are waging a war against us and spreading propaganda that is meant to sow hatred and discord among ethnic groups, and this is reminiscent of the antisemitic propaganda of 120 years ago.

"In Moldova, we remember and acknowledge the heritage of the large Jewish communities that once existed here," states Ambassador Roitman. "Now this heritage is also expressed in the strong ties between Moldova and Israel, and this heritage is a bridge that connects us and contributes to further strengthening ties. Moldova was among the first countries to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. It supports Israel in international organizations and works to cultivate a strong friendship with the Jewish people."

The blood libel that led to the Chișinău Pogrom

As was the case many times in Jewish history, it was a blood libel that served as a convenient trigger to incite violence. False rumors spread following the deaths of two local children, a boy, and a girl, claiming that they were "murdered by Jews in order to use their blood in the preparation of matzos for Passover."

Needless to say, these accusations were baseless (the boy was murdered by members of his own family, and the girl committed suicide), but the facts never stopped antisemites from fanning the flames of hatred. After Easter prayers, an incensed mob turned against their Jewish neighbors.

 The Chișinău Pogrom was not the first pogrom in the Russian Empire, but it became notorious for the cruelty of the rioters who hammered nails into their victims' heads, gouged out their eyes, threw infants out of windows, castrated men and raped women and girls.

When the riots ended, the grim tally was taken: 49 Jews had been murdered, around six hundred injured (92 of them seriously), and the attackers had caused terrible destruction to Jewish homes and businesses in the town.

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