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How the Holocaust is remembered in the land of Anne Frank
(JTA) — You’d think that in a country so closely identified with Anne Frank — perhaps the Holocaust’s best-known victim — cultivating memory of the genocide wouldn’t be a steep challenge.
That’s why a recent survey, suggesting what the authors called a “disturbing” lack of knowledge in the Netherlands about the Holocaust, set off alarm bells. “Survey shows lack of Holocaust awareness in the Netherlands,” wrote the Associated Press. “In the Netherlands, a majority do not know the Holocaust affected their country,” was the JTA headline. “The Holocaust is a myth, a quarter of Dutch younger generation agree,” per the Jerusalem Post.
“Survey after survey, we continue to witness a decline in Holocaust knowledge and awareness. Equally disturbing is the trend towards Holocaust denial and distortion,” Gideon Taylor, the president of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which conducted the study, said in a statement.
Like other recent studies by Claims Conference, the latest survey has been challenged by some scholars, who say the sample size is small, or the survey is too blunt a tool for examining what a country’s residents do or don’t know about their history. Even one of the experts who conducted the survey chose to focus on the positive findings: “I am encouraged by the number of respondents to this survey that believe Holocaust education is important,” Emile Schrijver, the general director of Amsterdam’s Jewish Cultural Quarter, told JTA.
One of the scholars who says the survey doesn’t capture the subtleties of Holocaust education and commemoration in the Netherlands is Jazmine Contreras, an assistant professor of history at Goucher College in Maryland. Contreras studies the historical memory of the Holocaust and Second World War in Holland. In a Twitter thread earlier this week, she agreed with those who say that “the headline that’s being plastered everywhere exaggerates the idea that young people in NL know nothing about the Holocaust.”
At the same time, she notes that while the Netherlands takes Holocaust education and commemoration seriously, it has a long way to go in reckoning with a past that includes collaboration with the Nazis, postwar antisemitism, a small but vocal far right and a sense of national victimhood that often downplays the experience of Jews during the Shoah.
“It’s such a complex issue,” Contreras told me. “There’s no one answer to how the Holocaust is remembered in the Netherlands.”
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I took the opportunity to speak with Contreras not only about Dutch memory, but how the Netherlands may serve as an example of how countries deal with Holocaust memory and the national stories they tell.
Our interview was edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Tell me a little bit about when you saw the survey, and perhaps how it didn’t mesh with what you know about the Netherlands?
Jazmine Contreras: My major problem is that every single outlet is picking up this story and running a headline like, “Youth in the Netherlands don’t even know the Holocaust happened there. They cannot tell you how many people were killed, how many were deported.” And I think that’s really problematic because it paints a really simplistic picture of Holocaust memory and Holocaust education in that country.
There are multiple programs, in Amsterdam, in other cities, in Westerbork, the former transit camp. They have an ongoing program that brings survivors and the second generation to colleges, to middle schools and primary schools all across the country. And they also have in Amsterdam a program called Oorlog in Mijn Buurt, “War in My Neighborhood,” and basically young people become the “memory bearers” — that’s the kind of language they use — and interview people who grew up and experience the war in their neighborhood, and then speak as if they were the person who experienced it, in the first person.
You also have events around the May 4 commemoration remembering the Dutch who died in war and in peacekeeping operations, and a program called Open Jewish Houses [when owners of formerly Jewish property open their homes to strangers to talk about the Jews who used to live there]. It’s really amazing: I’ve actually been able to visit these formerly Jewish homes and hear the stories. And, of course, the Anne Frank House has its own slew of programming, and teachers talk a lot about the Holocaust and take students to synagogues in places like Groningen, where they have a brand new exhibit at the synagogue. They are taking thousands at this point. The new National Holocaust Names Memorial is in the center of Amsterdam.
I think, again, this idea that children are growing up without having exposure to Holocaust memory, or knowledge of what happened in the Netherlands, is a bit skewed. I think we get into a dangerous area if we’re painting the country with a broad brush and saying nobody knows anything about the Holocaust.
Have you anecdotal evidence or seen studies of Dutch kids about whether they’re getting the education they need?
Anecdotally, yes. I was invited to attend a children’s commemoration that they do at the Hollandsche Schouwburg theater in Amsterdam, which is the former Dutch theater that was used as a major deportation site. And it’s children who put on a commemoration themselves. Again, not every child is participating in this, but if they’re not participating in the children’s commemoration, then they’re doing the “War in My Neighborhood” program, or they’re doing Open Jewish Houses, or they’re taking field trips. That’s pretty impressive to me, and it’s pretty meaningful. They want to help participate in it in the future. They want to come back because it leaves a lasting impression for them.
Let’s back up a bit. Anne Frank dominates everyone’s thinking about Holland and the Holocaust. And I guess the story that’s told is that she was protected by her neighbors until, of course, the Nazis proved too powerful, found her and sent her away. What’s right and what’s wrong about that narrative?
Don’t forget that Anne Frank was a German Jewish refugee who came to the Netherlands. And I think that part of the story is also really interesting and left out. She’s this Dutch icon, but she was a German Jewish refugee who came to the Netherlands, and the Dutch Jewish community was single-handedly responsible for funding, at Westerbork, what was first a refugee center. I think that’s really complicated because now we also have a discourse about present-day refugees and the Holocaust.
Jazmine Contreras, an assistant professor of history at Goucher College, specializes in Dutch Holocaust memory. (Courtesy)
I’ve also never quite understood the insistence on making her an icon when the end of the story is that she’s informed on and dies in a concentration camp. The idea that the Franks were hidden here fits really well into this idea of Dutch resistance and tolerance, and her diary often gets misquoted to kind of represent her as someone who had hope despite the fact that she was being persecuted. In the 1950s, her narrative gets adopted into the U.S., and we treat it as this globalizing human rights discourse.
We don’t talk about the fact that she’s found because she’s informed upon, and we don’t talk about the fact that you had non-Jewish civilians who were informers for a multitude of reasons, including ideological collaboration and their own financial gain.
And when it was talked about most recently, it was about a discredited book that named her betrayer as a Jew.
That was a huge controversy.
I get the sense from your writing that the story the Dutch tell about World War II is very incomplete, and that they haven’t fully reckoned with their collaboration under Nazi occupation even as they emphasize their own victimhood.
On the national state level, they have officially acknowledged not only the extensive collaboration, but the failure of both the government and the Crown to speak out on behalf of Dutch Jews. [In 2020, Prime Minister Mark Rutte formally apologized for how his kingdom’s wartime government failed its Jews, a first by a sitting prime minister.] Now, the question is, what’s happening in broader Dutch society?
Unfortunately, there was an increase in voting for the Dutch far right, although they’ve never managed to get a majority or even come close to it.
Something else that’s happening is that many ask, “Why should Dutch Jews get separate consideration after the Second World War, a separate victimhood, when we were all victimized?” The Netherlands is unique because it’s occupied for the entirety of the Second World War — 1940 to 1945. There is the civil service collaborating, right, but there’s no occupation government. So it’s not like Belgium. It’s not like France, not like Denmark. And there was the Hunger Winter of 1944-45 when 20,000 civilians perished due to famine. You have real victimhood, so people ask, “Why are the Jews so special? We all suffered.”
And at the same time, scholarship keeps emerging about the particular ways non-Jewish Dutch companies and individuals cooperated with the Nazis.
The NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, which has done so much of this research, found that Jews who were deported had to pay utility bills for when they weren’t living there. You have a huge controversy around the the Dutch railway [which said it would compensate hundreds of Holocaust victims for its role in shipping Jews to death camps]. The Dutch Red Cross apologized [in 2017 for failing to act to protect Jews during World War II], following the publication of a research paper on its inaction. A couple of decades ago, the government basically auctioned off paintings, jewelry and other Jewish possessions, and in 2020 they started the effort to give back pieces of art that were in Dutch museums. Dienke Hondius wrote a book on the cold reception given to survivors upon their return. Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans also wrote a book on postwar Jewish antisemitism.
So a lot has been happening, a lot of controversies, and, thanks to all of this research, a lot happening in order to rectify the situation.
It sounds like a mixed story, of resistance and collaboration, and of rewriting the past but also coming to terms with it.
There’s a really complex history here of both wanting to present it as “everybody’s a victim” and that the resistance was huge. In fact, the data shows 5% of the people were involved in resistance and 5% were collaborators. So it’s not like this wholesale collaboration or resistance was happening. It was only in 1943, when non-Jewish men were called up for labor service in Germany, that they got really good at hiding people and by then it was too late.
Right. My colleagues at JTA often note that the Nazis killed or deported more Dutch Jews per capita than anywhere in occupied Western Europe — of about 110,000 Jews deported, only a few thousand survived.
Yes, the highest percentage of deportation in Western Europe.
A room at the Anne Frank House museum where she and her family hid for two years during the Holocaust in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (Photo Collection Anne Frank House)
Since this week is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, let me ask what Holland gets right and wrong compared to maybe some other European countries with either similar experiences or comparable experiences.
The framing of that question is difficult because there’s so many unique points about the Holocaust and the occupation in the Netherlands. Again, it was occupied for the entirety of 1940-45. You have a civil service that was willing to sign Aryan declarations. The queen, as head of a government in exile in London, is basically saying, “Do what you need to just to survive.”
One of the big problems is there are people like Geert Wilders [a contemporary right-wing Dutch lawmaker] who practice this kind of philo-Semitism and support of Israel, but it’s really about blaming the Muslim population for antisemitism and saying none of it is homegrown. They don’t have to talk about the fact that there was widespread antisemitism in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
In the Netherlands they’re not instituting laws around what you can and can’t say about the Holocaust like in Poland [where criticizing Polish collaboration has been criminalized]. There are so many amazing educational initiatives and nonprofit organizations that are doing the work. And even these public controversies ended up being outlets for the production of Holocaust memory when survivors, but mostly now the second and third generations, use that space to talk about their own family Holocaust history.
Tell me about your personal stake in this: How did the Holocaust become a subject of study for you?
I specialize in Dutch Holocaust memory. I’m not Jewish, but my grandparents on my mother’s side are Dutch. For my first project I looked at relationships between German soldiers and Dutch women during the war during the occupation, and I eventually kind of made my way into the post war, when these children of former collaborators were still very marginalized in Dutch society. It ties into this. I do interviews with members of the Jewish community, children of resistance members and children of collaborators and how these memory politics play out.
What is the utility of events like International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the major Holocaust memorials in educating the public about the Holocaust and World War II?
International Holocaust Remembrance Day and May 4 result in the production of new memories about the Holocaust and the Second World War. I was at the 2020 International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration when the prime minister formally apologized. It was a really big moment, and it allowed the Jewish community, and the Roma and Sinti community, a space to remember and to share in that and to speak to it as survivors and the second and third generation.
Unlike the United States, the Netherlands is a small, insular country, so the relationship between the public and the media and academics is so close. So in the weeks before and the weeks after these memorials, academics, politicians and experts are publishing pieces about memory. That’s useful to the production of new memories and information about the Holocaust.
But what about the other days of the year? Will putting a monument in the center of Amsterdam actually change how people understand the Holocaust? That is a question that I think is harder to answer. The new monument features individual names of 102,000 Jews and Roma and Sinti and visually gives you the scope of what the Holocaust looked like in the Netherlands. But does that matter if somebody lives outside of Amsterdam and they’re never going to see this monument?
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The Supreme Court considers ‘chutzpah’ case as rabbinical and civil courts collide
Can courts instruct a rabbinical court to withdraw accusations of chutzpah? This unlikely question was posed to the U.S. Supreme Court this month when a nursing home dispute offered a rare window into how American courts and rabbinical courts operate in parallel. The case illustrates how law – and life – get messy when one encroaches on the other’s authority.
The case centers on an ownership dispute over a New York nursing home, with millions of dollars at stake.
To resolve the dispute, one of the parties — Samuel Strulovitch — turned to a beit din, or rabbinical court, in Monsey, New York. Rabbinical courts across the United States regularly resolve a wide range of business disputes like this one. Beit dins have been growing across the U.S., with more locations, increasing caseloads, and a growing number of rulings popping up in civil courts.
Their popularity reflects two legal systems working together. First, Jewish law generally requires disputes between Jews to be resolved before rabbinical courts rather than civil courts — a rule that, like any good Jewish law rule, comes with plenty of exceptions and caveats. Second, American law treats rabbinical arbitration like other forms of commercial arbitration. When parties voluntarily agree to arbitration, a civil court will generally confirm the resulting “award,” giving it the force of a legal judgment. Going to a beit din thus serves two purposes simultaneously: satisfying a religious obligation and resolving a commercial dispute.
In this case, overlapping interests of multiple investors complicated matters. Strulovitch obtained an award from the Monsey beit din granting him an ownership stake in the nursing home. But the proceeding included Strulovitch and one co-owner, while other owners never agreed to submit the dispute to that beit din. That agreement matters to American courts because arbitration rests on consent, and a beit din’s award cannot bind parties who never agreed to its authority.
The result was more than two years of litigation in two civil courts and three rabbinical courts. That litigation ultimately wound its way before Judge Linda Jamieson of Westchester County, New York. Initially, she barred Strulovitch from confirming or enforcing the original rabbinical award while the court considered whether it affected the rights of investors who had never agreed to arbitration. The bar on civil enforcement was largely uncontroversial: deciding whether a religious ruling should carry the force of an American legal judgment is the civil court’s job.
A second injunction, however, transformed this commercial dispute into a constitutional controversy worthy of the Supreme Court’s attention. After Strulovitch summoned another investor, Moshe Bain, before a Brooklyn beit din, Bain asked Jamieson to bar proceedings in any other forum, “including any beis din,” which she did. In Jamieson’s view, the new beit din proceeding could encompass the same ownership disputes already before her court.
The beit din, however, viewed the order as a form of judicial overreach into religious matters. It thus issued a seruv — a religious contempt order that can expose its target to communal shunning — against Bain, citing the “chutzpah of enjoining [Strulovitch] from pursuing his Halachic rights.” The rabbis emphasized that the beit din had acted “of its own volition,” without any request from Strulovitch or his agents following Jamieson’s injunction.
Such a contempt order, of course, carries no civil legal force, but can have reputational consequences — and trigger social sanctions — within the Jewish community. Judge Jamieson nevertheless viewed the beit din’s actions as an attempt to circumvent her injunction and draw the dispute away from her court. She therefore ordered Strulovitch to “take all steps necessary” to have the beit din withdraw it, “including withdrawing the entire proceeding.” And while Strulovitch argued that intervening in internal rabbinical court matters violated the First Amendment, Jamieson concluded that the matters before the beit din were “not religious,” but commercial disputes that her court had authority to resolve under secular law.
It is here that the judge began to veer from her lane, causing Strulovitch to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court. By requiring Strulovitch to seek reversal of a religious contempt order that has no civil consequences, the court moved beyond determining civil legal rights and into matters of religious practice. Participation in a beit din is both a means of resolving a commercial dispute and a religious requirement, which under Jewish law is no different than observing Shabbat or keeping kosher. Its commercial subject does not erase its religious significance. And under the First Amendment, it is the believer, not the state, who defines what his faith requires.
The key constitutional question is which authority gets to decide. Courts should decide legal questions, such as whether to enforce an agreement to arbitrate before a beit din or give its award the force of a legal judgment.
But questions of whether to pursue a case in beit din or religiously sanction a party for refusing to participate generally stand beyond the court’s authority so long as those decisions do not violate an independent civil legal right.
The same holds for a religious obligation to pay: A civil court can decline to enforce a beit din’s award, but whether Jewish law nevertheless requires payment remains a matter for the beit din. By demanding Strulovitch work to withdraw the seruv, however, Jamieson crossed into determining religious matters — precisely the sphere the First Amendment protects from judicial interference. That boundary makes this case worthy of Supreme Court inquiry: a judge can decide whether a religious ruling has legal force, but deciding what Jewish law counts as chutzpah is another matter.
For now, the Supreme Court has left those questions unresolved. Justice Sonia Sotomayor required Bain to formally respond to Strulovitch’s request — a sign that it warranted closer consideration. And while she ultimately declined to intervene, she left the door open for him to return once the case played out in the New York courts.
No doubt, as the beit din system grows, harder questions will emerge. But a good rule of thumb is this: Matters of religious doctrine, or of a party’s standing in a religious community, generally lie beyond a civil court’s reach, so long as they leave the party’s rights under American law untouched. Matters that affect those rights belong to the civil courts, even if they also implicate matters that Judaism considers religious. That is how these parallel legal systems can operate alongside one another — each staying in its lane.
(Both of us are affiliated with the Beth Din of America, which is not involved in this case.)
The post The Supreme Court considers ‘chutzpah’ case as rabbinical and civil courts collide appeared first on The Forward.
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Huckabee calls settler attack on Washington Post photographer a ‘despicable act of terror’
(JTA) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday condemned an attack in the West Bank by masked settlers on a Washington Post photographer. The attack, which also targeted Palestinians harvesting their olives, occurred Friday and comes amid a sharp rise in settler violence.
Heidi Levine, the Washington Post photographer who holds U.S. citizenship, described the attack to reporters from her hospital bed.
“I got jumped and I saw in the very beginning at least 25, maybe 50 of them, and I was on the ground and they were kicking me for like 10 minutes,” she said.
“We have called for a full investigation, arrest, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated in this,” Huckabee wrote on X. “Attacking a female photographer is a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards. Dishonorable act of senseless violence.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also condemned the “shocking violence” and said he had called Levine to apologize. “I expressed my deepest sorrow to Heidi and apologized for what she went through. The despicable behavior of the perpetrators of this attack does not represent the citizens or the values of the State of Israel.”
Video footage from the scene shows masked settlers surrounding and attacking Levine. Some settlers at the scene were masked and carrying weapons. Palestinians can also be seen throwing stones toward the settlers.
A Palestinian was reportedly shot in additional clashes in the area. The Israel Defense Forces alleged in an official statement that soldiers “fired toward a suspect who ran toward them, carrying a sharp object and posed a threat.” Several vehicles were set on fire by the settlers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was equivocal in addressing the attack, stopping short of directly condemning the assailants.
He said that the circumstances in which Levine was allegedly assaulted “remain unclear,” while adding that “Israel unequivocally condemns violence against anyone.”
According to Netanyahu’s statement, “200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths.”
“We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria,” the statement said, using the biblical names for the West Bank.
Netanyahu faces elections in less than two weeks and can ill afford to alienate his far-right coalition partners who are aligned with extreme settler factions.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, by contrast, issued a forceful condemnation of the attack and linked it to the policies of Netanyahu’s government.
“Jewish terror attacks, this time targeting a Washington Post photographer as well, are not a failure of the government — they are the government’s policy,” Lapid said.
“We will put an end to this. It is a disgrace to the State of Israel, a disgrace to the Jewish people, and a disaster on the international stage,” he added. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has surged since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel. Netanyahu’s government has sought to downplay the phenomenon, often portraying the perpetrators as a small group of violent youths. But numerous figures in Israel’s political and security establishments have warned that the violence is a broader and dangerous phenomenon.
Levine told reporters the settlers forcibly took her equipment. “All I remember afterwards is that Palestinians managed to come and rescue me and try to carry me, and then an ambulance came,” she said.
The IDF acknowledged the incident in an official statement, saying that “a female journalist was injured” during a “confrontation.” The military said troops dispersed those involved and that “details of the incident will be examined.”
“Violence against innocent civilians is a grave and intolerable phenomenon that requires a coordinated, multi-agency response. The IDF will work together with the relevant authorities to eradicate this phenomenon,” the military said.
The IDF did not announce any arrests in connection with the attack. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has frequently gone unpunished, with many such incidents resulting in no arrests.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents international media in Israel and the Palestinian territories, condemned the attack, saying Levine was “badly beaten by Israeli settlers” and had sustained moderate injuries.
“This is the latest in a long line of violent attacks by Israeli settlers against journalists and other civilians in the occupied West Bank. Yet our repeated calls for action to confront this lawlessness have been ignored by Israeli authorities,” the association said.
Matt Murray, executive editor of the Post, issued a statement calling for an investigation. “While we are relieved that Heidi has received medical care and is safe, we are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job and urge a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities,” Murray said.
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As Netanyahu loses support before election, Ben-Gvir rises in polls
(JTA) — RAMLA – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the parties in his coalition seem to be losing support heading into Israel’s first election since Oct. 7 – with one exception. Otzma Yehudit, headed by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, is seeing a rise in the polls.
Ben-Gvir’s growing popularity ahead of the Oct. 27 election was on full display on a recent weekday when the far-right politician, surrounded by a massive entourage of security guards, police and flag-waving fans, made his way through the central Israeli city of Ramla’s marketplace.
Yet, amidst the cheering and celebration, the extreme nationalism that has contributed to his meteoric rise through the ranks of Israel’s political system – and made Ben-Gvir a household name even beyond Israel’s borders – also drew ire and deep-seated fear in this city known for its mixed Jewish-Arab population.
“Here comes the next defense minister,” a gaggle of teenage boys in matching Ben-Gvir T-shirts chanted as the minister walked through the market, greeting shoppers and stallholders begging for selfies. Ben-Gvir has his sights set on being Israel’s next minister of defense, a huge promotion from his current role managing internal security.
At several of the stalls, the controversial minister stopped to embrace vendors. At a pickle stand, he sampled olives. At a candy store, the owner joyously threw handfuls of small candies over the passing group. And at a juice stand, Ben-Gvir and his entourage were treated to complimentary cups of lemonade.
The minister, elated by the welcome, smiled and waved at passersby, grabbing phones to take selfies, and even chatting with excited fans on video calls.
Beyond the celebration in Ramla, however, Ben-Gvir has been condemned in Israel and beyond for calling for the expulsion of Gazans and using dehumanizing language about Palestinians. A disciple of Jewish extremist Meir Kahane, he for years kept a photo of Baruch Goldstein, who mowed down Palestinian worshippers at a Hebron mosque, in his living room.
It is not only his rhetoric and symbolic gestures that have drawn polarizing admiration and anger. During his four years as national security minister, Ben-Gvir has actively downgraded conditions in Israeli jails, pushed through a law establishing a death penalty for Palestinian terrorists and has led the police during the proliferation of settler violence against West Bank villagers.
These measures have earned opprobrium abroad, but they appear to be winning votes. His supporters are ever more impressed with how he puts his words, and paperwork, into action – and shares it proudly on TikTok.
Polls published this week show that even as Netanyahu and his coalition partners are losing votes to the opposition bloc led by former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, Ben-Gvir is getting more. Otzma Yehudit, translated as “Jewish Power,” is predicted to increase from its current six seats to as many as nine.
On the ground, in the marketplace in Ramla, Ben-Gvir’s visit drew extreme reactions ranging from sheer joy to pure anger.
“I love Ben-Gvir,” gushed Hodaya Nabara, 52, who seconds before snapped a selfie with the politician. “He does what he says he will do.”
A resident of southern Israel, Nabara said she was most impressed by how he had ordered the demolition of illegally built homes, in some cases whole villages, built by the burgeoning Israeli Bedouin population, in the Negev region where there is little oversight of construction, and where Bedouin say the government neglects their needs.
“They need to know there is a red line and they can’t do whatever they want,” she said.
But as the entourage passed by Michal Sharabi, the 53-year-old began hurling insults at him and shaking.
“I can’t stand him at all, because of him there is no peace in this country,” she told JTA after calming down. “He is a lowlife, and the people going with him don’t believe in themselves. Is he not embarrassed to come to this city, where Jews and Arabs live together … It’s a chutzpah. I’m furious.”
In a nearby grocery store, a mixed group of Arabs and Jews frowned at the unfolding spectacle.
“We don’t like being defined as Arabs or Jews; we are ‘Ramlaim’ (residents of Ramla),” insisted Uri, who said he was Jewish but declined to give his full name. “We are all neighbors here, and he is making people fight.”
His friend, Hamudi Abu Ghanam, said Arab residents of the city like him were impacted by the events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched deadly raids inside Israel, just like the Jews, and many came to help out but that Ben-Gvir still incited against them.
“He is racist,” he said. “Since Oct. 7, we are all against Hamas, and instead of saying thank you, he comes and destroys people’s homes.”
Ben-Gvir’s stop in Ramla struck a particular nerve because the city, which is about 78% Jewish and 22% Arab, was a central point of tension in 1948 when Israel was created. For Arabs, the evidence of the Nakba, which Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation that displaced the local Palestinian Arab population during its war of independence, is all around in ruins.
At one point on his jaunt through the market, two Arab girls donning traditional hijab headcoverings hovered nearby, but they quickly made a U-turn when they realized who was at the center of the commotion.
Some Jewish onlookers pointed to his theatrics as reasons they were unimpressed by him. Benny Muhtar, 68, a Jewish resident of Ramla, told JTA he thought Ben-Gvir was full of “hot air” – a populist with no substantial policies.
“Look at the young men surrounding him; they are making a lot of noise like this is a serious campaign … that is what is making the people look up and take notice, but none of it is real, and he is doing a lot of damage,” he said.
Others enjoyed the spectacle but, with less than two weeks to go until casting their vote, were still unsure whom they would choose.
“He’s done a lot of really good things,” said Edna Mahbesh, 65, who was handing out the free lemonade. “I really hope he is successful in the election.”
But she was not sure if she would actually vote for him.
“I’ll decide that next week,” she said.
Arbel Flehandler, 19, a first-time voter, stood on the side, watching in awe as the politician passed by.
“He is really good and does a lot of good things,” he said. “I am definitely going to vote for a right-wing party, but not sure if I will vote for him or not. This is my first time, and I am still thinking about it.”
Zehava Perets, 80, said the reactions to Ben-Gvir showed just how polarized Israel is right now.
“It is such a shame there are so many divisions,” she said. “I really don’t know who I will vote for … There are a few good people in each bloc, but it is impossible to get them to work together.”
Liron Lavie, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, said the extreme reactions for and against Ben-Gvir “speaks to how politics works these days” – as politicians “connect with the electorate through emotional reaction and a sense of pride or fear.”
She said Ben-Gvir should be viewed as part of the “larger global trend where far-right parties are getting stronger.”
Lavie assessed that Otzma Yehudit benefited from the growing appeal of providing simple solutions and simple messaging – and that Ben-Gvir was especially effective on social media platforms such as TikTok.
“At the end of the day, people prefer simple messages,” said Lavie.
She also said that Ben-Gvir, despite being in the government on Oct. 7, had successfully distanced himself from that fact and positioned himself as a strong alternative to Netanyahu on the right.
“Likud and Netanyahu are losing ground,” she said. “They are being criticized about how they managed the situation, either from the center and left or from the right, allowing voters to go to Ben-Gvir, who was able to position himself as an [alternative] to Netanyahu from the right.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post As Netanyahu loses support before election, Ben-Gvir rises in polls appeared first on The Forward.
