{"id":19217,"date":"2026-06-05T09:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/19217\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:08:13","slug":"non-jewish-woman-tells-post-how-antisemitism-forced-her-to-flee-netherlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/19217\/","title":{"rendered":"Non-Jewish woman tells ‘Post’ how antisemitism forced her to flee Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much of the discussion around rising antisemitism<\/a> in Europe has focused, understandably, on the experiences of Jewish communities. Yet some of those reporting hostility, threats, and intimidation are not Jewish at all, but people who have publicly identified with Israel or expressed solidarity with Jewish friends and colleagues.<\/p>\n

Among them is Sarah Hildering van Lith, an Amsterdam-born non-Jewish music industry<\/a> executive who told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that a series of incidents convinced her that she could no longer safely remain in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Hildering’s father was born in Indonesia and survived being in a camp there during the Second World War before moving to the Netherlands<\/a>. Hildering’s staunchly Zionist mother studied and worked in Israel before starting a family.<\/p>\n

Despite having a doctorate in psychology, Hildering has spent her whole career in the music industry. By October 7<\/a>, 2023, Hildering had worked her way up to being an executive at Universal Music Group, the biggest music company in the world. Specifically, Hildering was working as a director in the field of electronic music.<\/p>\n

Throughout her career, she had spent many years volunteering with music NGOs such as Dance4Life, which fights sexual violence against girls in third-world countries.<\/p>\n

\"AA general view shows the historic Westerkerk church tower dominating the skyline of central Amsterdam. (credit: Fadel Dawod\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Hildering also initiated and authored a leading code of conduct on gender discrimination for the Association for Electronic Music to protect women and other gender-based minorities from harassment in the electronic music industry, including at festivals and in clubs, as well as in the broader music industry.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, endorsed by leading music companies, the code of conduct was premiered in a BBC Newsroom video interview.<\/p>\n

Music industry ignored Jews after Oct. 7<\/p>\n

Hildering said she saw her industry stand up in support of women during the #MeToo movement and for black people during Black Lives Matter. But after October 7 – the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – she told the Post the overwhelming response of the music industry was silence.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that the Hamas massacre took place at an electronic music festival, very few of the music companies or organizations that Hildering worked with spoke up about the sexual violence used as a war crime. Neither did any of those organizations with which she had collaborated specifically on sexual violence in the music industry.<\/p>\n

“The response was an overwhelming, deafening silence, and very soon after, that energy just shifted to hate and to an overwhelming avalanche of social media violence where people completely endorsed the brand of Palestine and its terror regime.”<\/p>\n

In an attempt to counter the narrative, Hildering tried to bring the Nova exhibition to music spaces in the Netherlands, but said no one was interested.<\/p>\n

She also started sharing her personal story, hoping that a more human point of view would encourage people to relate to the suffering of Jews and Israelis. Exactly 19 years before the Hamas attacks, on October 7, 2004, Palestinian terrorists bombed two tourist hotels in Sinai: the Taba Hilton and Ras a-Satan, both popular with Israelis. 34 people were killed, and 171 were wounded.<\/p>\n

Hildering, who was 17 at the time and staying at the Hilton, was one of the wounded. She lost 60% hearing in one ear as a result.<\/p>\n

“I can speak about terror, at least,” she told the Post. “I tried to bring my personal story into private conversations and tell them the importance of bringing October 7 survivors to panels and to stages, and suggesting we start a dialogue before it’s too late. Because that’s how you bridge the gap, not only by a proper information strategy, but also by making it human, by looking in somebody’s eyes. Listening to their story.”<\/p>\n

“But I found that all the doors were closed. Nobody was interested. Nobody cared to have a dialogue with the survivors, to platform Nova, or the wider story around October 7. There simply was no room for dialogue in the music industry, to hear the other side.”<\/p>\n

At the same time, she was seeing increasing radicalism and antisemitism within the music industry. She cited artists like Bob Vylan and Kneecap who have made anti-Israel activism part of their brand. The band Primal Scream projected the image of a Star of David entwined with a swastika during a show.<\/p>\n

It was, however, in March 2024 when antisemitism became a real threat to Hildering’s life.<\/p>\n

On 26 March, Hildering was unlocking the front door of her house in Amsterdam in the middle of the day when she said a Moroccan Muslim man approached her. He shouted at her in Dutch, “Cancer Jew wh*re, I’m going to rape you in your c***.”<\/p>\n

“I froze,” she told the Post. “The moment he said that, from the other side of the street, one other Muslim man, and from the tram stop some 20 meters away, a third Muslim man, started walking my way. First, I was in an altercation, defending myself from one man, and it turned into three men within 10 seconds when the word ‘Jew’ was shouted, in the middle of the street in Amsterdam.”<\/p>\n

Hildering was, as she always does, wearing her Star of David necklace, and believes this was the only thing the man used to identify her.<\/p>\n

“It hit me very, very hard that this is what globalized intifada looks like,” she told the Post.<\/p>\n

The police filed a hate crime report, but ultimately closed the case.<\/p>\n

About an hour after Hildering returned from the police station, she said she received a call from Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema.<\/p>\n

“We just spoke, woman to woman. She called me with empathy and a listening ear, wanting to hear what had happened in her city.”<\/p>\n

Interfaith meeting takes a turn<\/p>\n

Halsema told Hildering of an interfaith dialogue group run under the previous mayor, and suggested it be restarted with Hildering as one of the cultural leaders.<\/p>\n

“I took this opportunity with two hands, and I thought, we can save the city of Amsterdam. I was very enthusiastic and decided I would put a lot of energy and work into it, and truly seek active connection with the Muslim cultural leaders in particular.”<\/p>\n

During the third interfaith meeting, however, things took a turn.<\/p>\n

“I was speaking from personal experience about being spat in the face. At the time, I was living in a Muslim-heavy neighborhood. I loved their Turkish mud coffee, and it made me feel like Tel Aviv. I practically lived next to a mosque; it was not a problem for me until I started to experience direct threats. I spoke of one experience of when I was in a coffee shop, ordering, and a Muslim woman walks past, and she just spits in my face, just flat out on my cheek, and she shouts ‘free Palestine,’ in my ear.”<\/p>\n

“So I shared that story, and said that I am so afraid of the neighborhood, and it’s becoming more and more jihadist, because I had counted 43 Palestinian flags and two Hamas flags in my street after Hanukkah, when I proudly put my menorah in the window. And I said I’m afraid to go outside. One Muslim leader in the group, a cultural leader of a theatre in Amsterdam, said ‘You can’t say jihad like it’s something bad, it’s just a synonym for the caliphate.'”<\/p>\n

“And the mayor was just nodding her head in agreement, and everybody was nodding their head in agreement, and I looked around and I felt placed in a selected anti-Zionist group where there was no real space for factual dialogue around Zionism, and I simply didn’t feel safe in that group anymore after what I had experienced and was continuing to experience and when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to move one inch, I stepped out of the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

About a year later, Hildering experienced a second antisemitic attack.<\/p>\n

On May 30, 2025, while driving her car on the highway in Amsterdam, she realized a car in the lane next to her was shadowing her and matching her speed.<\/p>\n

“I looked to the right and I see a Muslim man make eye contact and signal his finger over the neck [a throat slitting gesture] and then he hit the gas and I think he must have driven like 180 kmph because he cut me off in front of me as he hit the brakes. I was driving a Tesla at that time, and actually, the Tesla went on emergency brake. It was almost a deadly car crash. She saw on the back of the man’s car a sticker of the geographic outline of Israel as Palestine with the Arabic words Allahu Akbar over it, as well as the Hamas flag.”<\/p>\n

Hildering called the police, but after consultation with the police chief, no charges were filed formally for personal safety risk, as her safety could not be guaranteed. She recalls the police chief assuring her that the car would be monitored, but she never received a further update.<\/p>\n

“That was the first attack that felt very personal.”<\/p>\n

After this incident, Hildering moved out of her house and into a new one in a Jewish neighborhood. She said for the first time she felt a sense of safety. However, the third attack took place in this house in November 2026.<\/p>\n

“I came home one afternoon, and I walked in my door, and I didn’t notice anything at first because I wasn’t paying attention. But then I walked to the bathroom, and I could see all my makeup on the floor, and all of my beloved toiletries were gone.”<\/p>\n

On the wall, Hildering had had a plaque given to her by the IDF for volunteer work done with Golanim. The plaque had been moved, and the state of Israel necklace that was draped over it was gone.<\/p>\n

“I looked around, and I saw that everything was gone, all my handbags, all my shoes, all my glasses, sunglasses, gold, her jewelry box, and inherited heirlooms, but also silver chandeliers, just everything that you could sell for more than a hundred bucks. I saw that they had gone through my underwear, and it was just incredibly personal. They can come back, I thought. I figured that if they know I live here, this is only the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police report she filed estimates the losses amounted to \u20ac30,000\u2013\u20ac40,000.<\/p>\n

Hildering’s next-door neighbors had 24\/7 cameras pointing onto the street. According to her, CCTV footage showed that the same white van had been surveilling her for 5 days in a row. Every time she left the house, the van followed her, and when she came home, the van appeared.<\/p>\n

The Post has seen statements from two of Hildering’s neighbors who confirmed seeing the burglar enter and leave the house and the white van.<\/p>\n

“I immediately pressed charges, the forensics team came to my house 4 days later, I had to wait 4 days with glass cups over the prints and over the floor dirt where they left shoe marks, etc., that’s how low of a priority it was.”<\/p>\n

“I had thrown all my savings into selling and buying a new home in order to feel safe again, and then I lived there for about 4 months, and after 4 months, the attack and the break happened, and I just thought I’m not doing this anymore, and then I booked a ticket to Israel.”<\/p>\n

She arrived on a one-way ticket in November 2025 and decided to stay and volunteer in Israel.<\/p>\n

“I want to start building towards a future here. To build a life to live, and to live with a people I share the same values and truth with.”<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the lack of support in Amsterdam, Hildering told the Post that she never thought that she would no longer feel safe in the city where she was born and raised.<\/p>\n

“I was not only not being protected but I was also not being taken seriously even when raising factual accounts of transgressions and safety risks that were actually required of follow up. It’s not only the attacks that I experienced, if I would have experienced an overwhelming response of support and empathy and this being taken seriously on an institutional level of the city that I loved perhaps I would not have decided to leave.”<\/p>\n

“The city of Amsterdam has been failing the Jewish community since October 7 including the mayor of Amsterdam, she has been failing the Jewish community since October 7,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I was born in Amsterdam; it’s always been my city. I never saw myself leaving or living anywhere else. I thought I would grow old and die in Amsterdam. I never imagined myself, in my whole life, fleeing my birth town, for my safety, and for security reasons.”<\/p>\n

Now in Israel, Hildering said she is starting to heal. She has also begun the process of formally converting to Judaism.<\/p>\n

“I have been noticing an improvement. In Israel, I\u2019m living a life, going outside after dark, and going to a restaurant and wearing a Star of David without being afraid,” she concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much of the discussion around rising antisemitism in Europe has focused, understandably, on the experiences of Jewish communities.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23,272,18,8169,6,13992],"class_list":["post-19217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-netherlands","tag-amsterdam","tag-antisemitism","tag-europe","tag-interview","tag-netherlands","tag-the-october-7-massacre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}