Dutch Jewish family targeted with fireworks amid ‘nauseating’ years-long torment

The house of a Jewish Dutch family targeted with fireworks this week has said it is simply the latest antisemitic incident in the area.

Wouter Schmidt, whose family lives in Hippolytushoef in the Hollands Kroon municipality, said the attack was part of a years-long harassment against his family which has included shouts of “cancer Jew” and “Jew whore”.

One of Schmidt’s neighbours told a local newspaper that he witnessed the firework attack, saying: “I was awake when the bomb went off. I heard the bang and a plume of smoke was visible far above the roof.”

The town’s mayor said it was a group of teenagers who were reported to be “a nuisance,” adding that the harassment of the family was “nauseating and unacceptable… We are going to look structurally at this group”.

Antisemitic incidents were up 19 percent in 2018 and a recent poll found that almost a half of Jews in the Netherlands fear being insulted or harassed in public.

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