Dutch Jewish leader tells ‘Post’: ‘If you’re visibly Jewish in Holland, you have a real problem’

Ellen van Praagh warned of the deteriorating environment facing Dutch Jewry and expressed stark alarm over how rapidly security and social acceptance have eroded in the Netherlands since October 7, ahead of the European Jewish Association (EJA) delegation to Auschwitz on Monday.Van Praagh, Chair of the Board of the InterProvincial Chief Rabbinate (IPOR) and member of the Advisory Board of the EJA, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview, “We live in a completely different country now than before; if you're visibly Jewish in Holland, you have a real problem, and I think it deteriorates even more and more at a very rapid tempo.”Van Praagh was a panelist in a session titled “Being Jewish in Europe in 2026,” at the annual EJA symposium, which brings together international lawmakers, ministers, and Jewish community representatives for high-level panel discussions on Holocaust remembrance, community security, tech regulation, and combating antisemitism and delegation to Auschwitz.Van Praagh and her family have lived in the Netherlands since the 1600s. During World War II, her mother survived by hiding at 16 different addresses, while her father-in-law survived imprisonment at Kamp Vught. Her mother-in-law was deported on the final transport from the Nazi transit camp at Westerbork in the Netherlands to Auschwitz.“On my side of the family, about 70 people were murdered,” van Praagh said.