{"id":220094,"date":"2026-07-23T18:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/220094\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T18:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:00:12","slug":"anti-israel-groups-urge-rotterdam-mayor-to-boycott-holocaust-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/220094\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Israel groups urge Rotterdam mayor to boycott Holocaust event"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sixty-three organizations, including the Rotterdam Palestine Coalition, BDS Netherlands, BIJ1 Rotterdam, and anti-Zionist<\/a> groups, have sent a letter to Mayor Carola Schouten requesting that she not participate in a Holocaust commemoration event as long as the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands<\/a>, Zvi Aviner Vapni, is giving a speech there.<\/p>\n

On July 30, Vapni is set to speak at Loods 24, the site of a warehouse from which 6,790 Rotterdam<\/a> Jews were deported to concentration and extermination camps in 1942.<\/p>\n

His planned appearance, however, has sparked mass outrage from anti-Israel groups and politicians, with the 63 groups now writing a letter requesting the Mayor not appear should he speak.<\/p>\n

“Commemoration is not only about preserving the memory of the past, but also about actively applying its lessons in the present,” the letter reads. “The promise of ‘Never Again,’ made after the Holocaust, gave rise to international human rights treaties and the Genocide<\/a> Convention. That promise is not selective. It applies to every person, every child, and every people.”<\/p>\n

It noted that a separate objection was sent by various anti-Zionist Jewish organizations who wrote that “The ambassador’s presence transforms the commemoration from a solemn remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust into a political event.”<\/p>\n

\"DutchDutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof (L) and Israeli Ambassador Zvi Aviner Vapni stand as they meet during a commemoration ceremony of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, ahead of its second anniversary at the Rav Aron Schuster Synagogue in Amsterdam, on October 5, 2025. (credit: JEROEN JUMELET\/ANP\/AFP via Getty Images)Coalition questions Israeli ambassador\u2019s role at commemoration<\/p>\n

“We believe it is of great importance that these Jewish voices are also heard,” the coalition letter adds. “We also find it incomprehensible that the Israeli ambassador, as the official representative of the Israeli government, is being given a prominent role during a commemoration dedicated to the victims of genocide and to warning against dehumanization.”<\/p>\n

It then urged Schouten not to attend and to use her office to urge the Loods 24 Foundation to disinvite the ambassador.<\/p>\n

In Rotterdam’s city council, the DENK party, the Party for the Animals (Partij voor de Dieren), and PRO Rotterdam have now submitted objections regarding the Israeli ambassador’s attendance at the commemoration.<\/p>\n

However, Chris Buitendijk, secretary of Loods 24 and the Jewish Children’s Memorial, said “It is our commemoration, and we have organized it this way for years.”<\/p>\n

“Within Rotterdam’s Jewish community, there is a desire for a representative of the world’s only Jewish state, and that is Israel. Sometimes that is the ambassador, sometimes a deputy. At the moment, we see no reason to change that. Of course, it is always possible that, after evaluating the event, we may decide to do things differently.”<\/p>\n

Rotterdam Jewish community rejects call to disinvite ambassador<\/p>\n

The Jewish community in Rotterdam also firmly rejected the call to disinvite the ambassador.<\/p>\n

“Are we commemorating the victims of the Shoah, or are we making remembrance of those atrocities dependent on nationality or politically acceptable viewpoints?” the community wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

“The presence of the Israeli ambassador, or his representative, at this commemoration is not a political statement. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that the State of Israel emerged in part from the ashes of the Holocaust, as a refuge for a people who had come close to being exterminated,” it said.<\/p>\n

The Jewish Community added that the request sets a “dangerous precedent.”<\/p>\n

“By attempting to bar the Israeli representative, or boycotting the commemoration due to their presence, a precedent is created: Jewish organizations, communities, or speakers with ties to Israel could then be ‘unwelcome’ at a Holocaust commemoration or elsewhere in the public domain. In doing so, this call undermines the entire spirit of remembrance, which should be a moment of unity against hatred, antisemitism, and every form of racism.”<\/p>\n

“Let Loods 24 remain a place of remembrance, not of exclusion. Let the Israeli ambassador be welcome, as in previous years. That is not a political choice, but a moral one: respect for the victims of the past, without importing the hatred of the present.”<\/p>\n

So far, the mayor has declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sixty-three organizations, including the Rotterdam Palestine Coalition, BDS Netherlands, BIJ1 Rotterdam, and anti-Zionist groups, have sent a letter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[2492,15034,14814,37,7411,63433],"class_list":["post-220094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-antisemitism","tag-antizionism","tag-holocaust","tag-israel","tag-netherlands","tag-rotterdam"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116970601231057351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}