Police in the Netherlands arrested more than 150 soccer fans on Saturday night (6 May) for chanting antisemitic slogans while making their way to a match in Amsterdam.

The incident occurred at a metro station close to the capital’s Johan Cruijff ArenA, home of Ajax Amsterdam.

Last year, two Dutch fans responsible for antisemitic graffiti targeting a soccer player were ordered by a judge to 60 hours of community service and to visit the Holocaust Memorial of Names in Amsterdam.

The Feyenoord supporters—two males ages 42 and 47—drew graffiti on a wall in Rotterdam depicting soccer player Steven Berghuis with a large, hooked nose and dressed in the same striped garments worn by prisoners in Nazi-run concentration camps. The former Feyenoord player was also shown wearing a yellow Star of David badge and a kippah.

The text accompanying the caricature said: “Jews always run.”

In 2021, police in the Netherlands investigated footage from a pre-match rally during which fans chanted “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.”

The incident occurred prior to a game between the Arnhem-based Vitesse and Amsterdam-based Ajax.

Two years before, a Jewish man, identified in the Dutch media only as “Joram”, was verbally and physically assaulted by a group of 50 men on a national holiday known as Liberation Day, as police stood by.

The men, wearing soccer shirts of the Feyenoord club of Rotterdam, had been sitting in a park near the Dutch parliament building, singing, “My father was in the commandos, my mother was in the SS, together they burned Jews ’cause Jews burn the best,” when Joram asked them to stop.

Despite complaints to police, they apparently did not react, while the crowd pushed Joram, who was wearing an Ajax Amsterdam cap.

European Jewish Association (EJA) chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin, whose organisation represents hundreds of communities across the Continent, thanked the Dutch police ‘’for their determined abd decisive action.’’

He also called on the management Board of AZ Alkmaar to commence an educative activity with the participation of the team squad, ad well as adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism principles as a sporting club.

‘’Antisemitism has no place and must be given no quarter in the europe of 2023. Those who do not stand up against it with Jews today will find themselves the object of same hate speech by those same thugs tomorrow,” said Rabbi Margolin.

He suggested the Dutch football team to take example of the extensive educational efforts of Chelsea Football Club, a recipient of the EJA’s King David Award for its constant fight against anti-Semitism and fighting hate.

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