Netherlands boosts security funding for Jewish institutions amid surge in antisemitic attacks

Lawmakers also reviewed proposals from an antisemitism task force aimed at strengthening protections for Jewish students and staff in higher education.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

The Netherlands is significantly boosting security funding for Jewish communities amid a relentless surge of antisemitic incidents, as synagogues, schools, and cultural institutions across the country face escalating threats and authorities move to reinforce protection in response to growing alarm.

During a parliamentary session on Tuesday, Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel announced an additional €700,000 in the 2026 security budget to safeguard Jewish buildings and institutions nationwide, raising total annual funding to €2 million in response to a sustained wave of antisemitic incidents.

Van Weel explained these funds will support security at synagogues, Jewish schools, cultural institutions, and public events, noting that the existing €1.3 million allocation had already been exhausted in 2025, leaving dozens of applications unfunded, with further demand expected this year.

“The additional funding is intended to strengthen protection for the Jewish community and reinforce its sense of security,” the Dutch official said.

Van Weel’s announcement came in the wake of a series of antisemitic attacks last month, including small explosions at a synagogue in Rotterdam, a second blast two days later at a Jewish school in Amsterdam, and a third near a Zuidas office building housing the Bank of New York Mellon.

During Tuesday’s session, lawmakers also reviewed proposals from an antisemitism task force aimed at strengthening protections for Jewish students and staff in higher education, alongside broader measures to counter rising hate incidents on campuses.

Mirjam Bikker, leader of the ChristenUnie, a Dutch Protestant political party, called for the government to fully cover security costs at Jewish institutions, describing the current system—under which synagogues and schools are expected to fund their own protection—as “a fundamental reversal of responsibility.”

Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, the Netherlands has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to newly released figures, Dutch authorities reported antisemitism remained at alarmingly high levels across the country last year, with 867 registered cases in 2025 — virtually unchanged from the 880 incidents recorded the previous year.

Even though Jews make up less than 0.3 percent of the Dutch population, anti-Jewish hate crimes account for 26 percent of all discrimination cases.

Eddo Verdoner, the Dutch national coordinator for combating antisemitism (NCAB), said the data reflects a worrying normalization of antisemitic incidents.

“We have been recording hundreds of antisemitic incidents each year for years now. What I fear is that we are slowly getting used to figures that are unacceptable, that hatred is becoming the new normal,” Verdoner said in a statement.