Blog

From March 15-17, the Netherlands held national elections. The Netherlands has a crowded multiparty system: 17 parties got elected into the House of Representatives. The center-Right party VVD and the center-Left party D’66 ended as the two biggest parties. These parties want Holland to stay in the EU and are for climate management. The two parties together still don’t hold a majority. At the Right side of the aisle are the populist parties: Geert Wilders’…

After a successful launch in the US in 2019, our documentary about antisemitism ‘Never Again Is Now’ was released worldwide on YouTube recently. https://youtu.be/BZWnlshOXWs . We wanted to advertise the film on YouTube. Our ad consisted of a brief text explaining that ‘Never Again Is Now’ is about the Holocaust and about rising antisemitism today. The ad was rejected by the YouTube algorithm. It didn’t explain why. Only after we removed the words ‘Holocaust’ and…

I was introduced last February to a 24-year-old lesbian woman in Egypt, I call her Dolly for security purposes. She needed support because of the severe oppression and persecution of LGBTs in Egypt were taking a toll on her. She has had two female lovers in her life. Both were married off when the parents found out they were in a same-sex relationship. Dolly herself was cut off by her family and maligned on social…

America has been shaken to its core over the past months, first with the Covid pandemic and then the riots and protests in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Where these protests have led to rioting and mayhem, a disturbing current of anti-Semitism has followed in the form of anti-Semitic rhetoric and slogans chanted by protestors, graffiti, and vandalism.  It should come as no surprise that the recent Black Lives Matter…

Every year, a week after Passover, Jewish communities and other individuals around the world observe Yom Hashoah, a day of remembrance of the Holocaust. In Israel there is a state ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial museum, where the President and the Prime-Minister speak and the flag is lowered to half-mast. Around the world Jewish communities gather to light six candles for the 6 million Jews who perished, read their names, and recite prayers…

When I saw the picture of the leaders of the Muslim World League visiting Auschwitz last Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, it shocked me as much as when Yasser Arafat visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam in 1998. The Muslim World League, based in Mecca, has been Saudi Arabia’s main exporter of radicalism and terrorism throughout the world in the past decades. This organization, that is close to the…

I just had a chance to listen to Sam Harris’ outstanding podcast with human rights activist Yasmine Mohammed, who just published a new book. Yasmine is a brave woman raised in a very strict conservative Arab Muslim family in Canada. Her parents forced her at a young age to cover herself in a black veil and to attend a fundamentalist religious school, where she was indoctrinated against the unbelievers, the Jews, the Christians and gay…

Last weekend the University of Minnesota hosts the yearly conference of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). SJP has about 200 branches on university campuses throughout the United States and is affiliated with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. SJP is known for its defamation of Israel and its intimidation and harassment of Israeli and Jewish students and speakers on campus. https://www.standwithus.com/post/standwithus-launches-campaign-against-national-sjp-2019 The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the…

Hate crimes and harassment against Jews in the United States have risen in the past four years. Some of which were the deadliest scale in American history. An important thing to look at is if the ideas behind these crimes are spreading. If the ideas spread the incidents will rise. (more…)

I had no plans whatsoever to make a film. I am a psychologist, coaching people and organizations in conflict resolution. I am also an activist against antisemitism and all I used for that was a pen and knocking on doors. Making a film about antisemitism just happened to me in a curious way. (more…)