Rep. Jake Auchincloss and Jewish Congressional Colleagues Condemn Antisemitic Pogrom in Amsterdam
Washington, D.C.— The following statement is signed by Representatives Jake Auchincloss (MA-04), Brad Sherman (CA-32), Brad Schneider (IL-10), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Dan Goldman (NY-10), Jared Moskowitz (FL-23), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Greg Landsman (OH-01), Seth Magaziner (RI-02), Elissa Slotkin (MI-07), Steve Cohen (TN-09), David Kustoff (TN-08), Lois Frankel (FL-22), and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL-25).
On the eve of the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, we are outraged to witness a modern-day pogrom unfold on the streets of Amsterdam.
What should have been a normal evening of fans enjoying a soccer game quickly turned into a night of horror as Israeli and Jewish fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team were ambushed by a violent, antisemitic mob. Over several hours, dozens of Jews and Israelis were severely injured after antisemitic mobs hunted them down, beat them, attacked them with knives, ran them over with cars, and even threw them into the river. Let’s be clear, these people were targeted because they are Jewish.
What we witnessed last night is horrific but not unpredictable – it is the culmination of the failure to name and confront antisemitism, especially when disguised as anti-Israel sentiment. For years, European nations have failed to address this problem. From France’s highest court ruling that Sarah Halimi’s murderer would not face trial, to the defacement of Anne Frank’s monument in Amsterdam, to the normalization of Holocaust denial through inversion and false equivalencies, countries across Europe are failing to meet this moment and confront antisemitism head on.
We urge Dutch authorities to arrest all those who participated in these heinous acts of antisemitic violence and act swiftly to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. We support Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt’s call for the Netherlands to conduct a thorough investigation as to why it took police hours to break up the pogrom and protect Israeli and Jewish victims of these attacks. We also urge our European allies to meaningfully address the rapid rise of antisemitism across the continent.
As Jewish Members of Congress, we will never abandon the fight to end antisemitism. We will continue to monitor the situation until the investigation is complete, each Israeli safely returns home, and those responsible are fully brought to justice.