Dutch MP Roeloff Bisschop has demanded that the Dutch Education Ministry take urgent measures to fight anti-Semitism in school in the wake of the publication of a shocking article about the bullying Jewish students endured during Operation Guardian of the Walls, World Israel News reported.

Bisschop sent a letter to the Dutch education ministers calling their attention to a June 14 article in the Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, a Dutch Jewish newspaper, headlined “My Child Doesn’t Want to be Jewish Anymore.”

The article contains disturbing accounts of the anti-Semitic verbal attacks Jewish children have endured in public schools in the Netherlands, often with the knowledge of the teachers.

“Meirav” said that her daughter, Tali, was pressured to express her opinion on the Gaza-Israel war and when she answered that she supports Israel, her comment was shared on social media and someone commented: “They should have gassed her.”

Meirav said that the anti-Semitism in Dutch schools is the result of “a process that has been going on for a long time.”

“When Tali was still in primary school, we always had a friend of hers over here,” she said.  “He often sat at the Shabbat table with us. Until he suddenly became one of the biggest name-callers and started yelling ‘c__ Jew’ at her. When I confronted his parents about it, I got no response.”

“Anna,” an Israeli-born mother of three teenagers, said that her two youngest children have resorted to hiding their nationality.

Her youngest child was told: “‘Your mother is Israeli, your family kills people and your mother does that too,’” Anna said. “I kept her at home for two days after that, she was so depressed.”

Anna continued to say that her daughter no longer wants to identify as Jewish. “‘Mommy, I want to convert to Catholicism,'” she said one day when she got home. “‘From now on I no longer want presents for Chanukah, but for Christmas.’ I tried to persuade her that being Jewish can also be fun, but I couldn’t convince her.”

“My middle child just changed schools and hasn’t told anyone there that he’s Jewish,” Anna said. “When classmates ask him why he has such a Jewish first name, he replies that it is a Mormon, Biblical name.”

“Judith,” another Jewish mother, said that her son, a top athlete, withdrew from sports after being subject to an anti-Semitic verbal attack in the locker room. “Mom, everyone is really very much against Israel,” her son told her. “At school, on social media, everyone. It won’t get any better.”

“I would like to go to the school to discuss this, but he won’t let me,” she said. “I also don’t want to apologize to third parties for Israel’s actions. I think Israel is very restrained and is unjustly reviled. I now think every day about leaving the Netherlands. Only caring for my elderly mother is holding me back.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)