An exhibition honoring the nearly 300-year-old Amersfoort Synagogue was supposed to be a celebration of Jewish life in Amersfoort, a small city in the central Netherlands.

Instead, Dutch Jews say, it could become the latest casualty of anti-Israel cancel culture that has targeted Jews in the Diaspora.

The city’s mayor in the last week has scrambled to save a planned exhibit on the synagogue after it was canceled, but so far has not been able to guarantee that it will open as planned early next year.

On November 4, Paul Baltus, the director of Amersfoort in C, an organization that oversees the Museum Amersfoort and several of the city’s other cultural institutions, said he was canceling the upcoming synagogue exhibition due to “pressure,” an apparent reference to possible confrontations by pro-Palestinian activists.

Pro-Palestinian protesters have held dozens of demonstrations in the Netherlands since the October 7 Hamas attack. On November 8, tens of thousands of people gathered in Amsterdam to demand that the Dutch government impose stricter sanctions on Israel.

Community shocked by cancellation

Although the museum started planning the exhibition five years ago, Baltus said in a statement, “Since then, the social climate has changed significantly. The situation in the Middle East is also having an impact on Dutch society. The public debate on this subject can be heated and, at times, lacking in nuance.”

Baltus said he is finding the “tension” surrounding the exhibition, which was slated to begin in early 2027, difficult to manage. “As a small and vulnerable organization, I do not want to expose my staff to that kind of pressure,” he said. While he acknowledged that he could hire security guards and install cameras, “the reality is that our volunteers would still have to deal with a range of reactions.”

Jewish community leaders in the Netherlands said they were shocked by the museum’s actions and called on city officials to ensure the exhibition would go on as planned.

The exhibition is one of several cultural events scheduled to mark the 300th anniversary of the Amersfoort synagogue, which opened in 1727. It is the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in Western Europe still in use today.

On November 4, Mayor Lucas Bolsius told the City Council that the municipality would begin discussions with the museum and other stakeholders “to ensure that the exhibition can proceed.” The museum’s decision to cancel “has caused considerable pain within the Jewish community, particularly by reinforcing the feeling that its members are not welcome or even allowed to exist,” he told council members.

Following a meeting the next day, Bolsius and Baltsus jointly announced on November 6 that they would work together to try to find a solution.

Over the past week, the mayor said, “helping hands have been offered from the city, central government and across the country to address organizational matters. People and organizations want to help make this exhibition possible.”

Baltus said the help being offered has alleviated some of his concerns. “With this support, we will explore the possibilities with an open mind and a positive intention, in consultation with the Jewish community.”

Latest example of hostility toward Jews

While Jewish leaders told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they welcomed these efforts, they said the museum controversy is just the latest example of hostility toward Jewish historical and cultural events in the Netherlands, where anything Jewish, even a 300-year-old diaspora synagogue, is often seen as inseparable from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We are very glad the mayor intervened. Let this be an example for other authorities,” said Hans Weijel, vice chairman of the Centraal Joods Overleg (CJO), the umbrella advocacy organization that represents the interests of the Netherlands’ 40,000 Jews.

Emile Schrijver, director-general of Amsterdam’s Jewish Cultural Quarter, which encompasses the Jewish Museum, the National Holocaust Museum, the Portuguese Synagogue and other Jewish cultural institutions, said the Museum Amersfoort had made its decision without first consulting the Jewish community or the organizations involved in the planned exhibition.

“Largely since October 7, Jewish artists have had a difficult time finding a stage, and Jewish events, including cultural, can’t find a venue. Jewish events are being canceled for no reason,” he said.

Schrijver rejected Baltus’s contention that security concerns made the museum exhibition unmanageable, given that the Jewish institutions Schrijver runs in Amsterdam frequently host events, despite pro-Palestinian demonstrations and related security concerns.

“We train our staff all the time. We deal with this every day. Yes, it’s difficult, but no, it’s not impossible,” he said.

Schrijver warned that treating Jewish cultural events as potential security problems risks pushing Jewish communities out of public life.

“The effect of this is that the normality of Jewish presence in a town is being pushed away,” he said. “Suddenly anything Jewish is considered a security hazard or prone to cause problems.”

Cultural institutions have a responsibility to distinguish between their views on Israeli government policy and the history of Jewish communities in the Netherlands, Schrijver said.

“You have to separate your private opinion from the long history of a small town in the Netherlands. What they’re effectively doing is pushing the Jewish community to the fringes of society.”

CJO’s Weijel said the Jewish community has played an important role in Amersfoort’s civic life since the mid-1600s.

“We think it is ridiculous that a museum in a city doesn’t want to have an exhibition about a 300-year-old synagogue and its history in that city. The conflict is in the Middle East, not here,” he emphasized. “If you want proof that this is antisemitism, this is the proof.”

Weijel accused Baltus of being “a coward.”

“He’s afraid something bad will happen, but if you’re that afraid, you should stay in bed.”

In his November 4 statement, Baltus acknowledged the Jewish community’s disappointment and offered to contribute his museum’s “expertise and collection” of Jewish historical artifacts to an exhibition in the synagogue instead. He also offered to incorporate the synagogue’s history into the museum’s permanent exhibition on the history of Amersfoort.

For Schrijver, the Amersfoort controversy is yet another attempt to marginalize Jews in a country they have lived in for generations.

“The moment you make Jewish history dependent on what is happening in the Middle East, you are making Jewish existence conditional,” he said.