A museum in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, has reversed its decision not to hold an exhibition marking 300 years of Jewish life in the city and will work with the municipality and the Jewish community to explore ways to move forward with the event.
The move comes after the original decision sparked anger and disappointment among members of the local Jewish community and prompted the intervention of Mayor Lucas Bolsius, who expressed his displeasure and met with museum officials, Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported Friday afternoon.
Amersfoort, the Netherlands
(Photo: Wolf-photography / Shutterstock)
The exhibition had been in the planning stages for about five years ahead of the synagogue's 300th anniversary in February. Founded in 1727, the Amersfoort synagogue is considered the oldest active Ashkenazi synagogue in Western Europe. The local Jewish community plans to commemorate the historic milestone with a series of events and the publication of a commemorative book.
Museum director Paul Baltus explained that the decision was prompted by the situation in the Middle East and the growing tensions it has fueled worldwide. He said these developments had given the exhibition an entirely different significance from what was originally intended.
Baltus added that the museum is a small institution with 85 volunteers and that he did not want to put them at risk.
He acknowledged that security guards and cameras could have been deployed but argued that volunteers might still have to contend with hostile reactions. However, he explicitly admitted that there was no concrete information about any security threat against the exhibition.
The Jewish community in Amersfoort reacted with shock. Community chairman Alexander van Dijkhuizen said the decision reflected a misguided instinct to ban Jewish events because of Israel. Community board member Jitschak Elzas called the decision unacceptable and made clear that community members were unwilling to have the war in the Middle East brought to their doorstep.
Following the protests, the local Council of Churches and Mayor Lucas Bolsius joined the pressure campaign. The mayor met with museum officials Friday. The issue was also discussed by the city council, where representatives of the Christian Union and the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) approached the mayor and council members, asking them to examine whether the exhibition could still go ahead.
The meeting, initiated by the mayor and city council member responsible for culture Marjolein Perdok, was attended by museum management and its supervisory board. Following the meeting, it was agreed that the municipality, the museum and the Jewish community would work together to explore options for holding the exhibition.
The mayor said afterward that he welcomed the positive attitude expressed by those who attended.
"We all agreed that it is important to hold an exhibition telling the story of 300 years of Jewish cultural history in Amersfoort," he said. "This is a local story of the city, one that certainly deserves to be told and is well suited to the character of the museum."