Nearly half of secondary school teachers in the Netherlands reported witnessing antisemitic classroom incidents in 2022, a new survey from the Anne Frank House found.
The majority of the acts were antisemitic abuse and swearing, said the report commissioned by the Anne Frank House and carried out by research firm Panteia.
The survey, which polled 432 teachers in 2022, found that 42 percent of teachers noted the occurrence of antisemitism among their students. It was used to put together an up-to-date understanding of the extent of antisemitic incidents among high school students in the country, similar to research conducted in 2004 and 2013.
According to the Anne Frank House, the number is a significant increase over 10 years ago. In 2013, just 35 percent of teachers witnessed one or more antisemitic incidents in the classroom, a decrease compared to 50 percent in 2004.
“Antisemitism in the classroom, as in society, remains an intractable problem,” the Anne Frank House said.
According to the findings, “Students sometimes used ‘Jew’ as a term of abuse, regardless of the other’s background, Jewish or not.”
Questions about teachers’ experiences of antisemitic incidents in their classrooms and around their schools were used to gain “insight into the extent, nature, and background characteristics" of the antisemitic incidents.
“There was, however, one teacher who was targeted because he was Jewish or perceived to be: He was physically attacked, and his belongings were defaced, damaged, or vandalized,” the survey noted.
The survey found that antisemitic incidents occurred at all educational levels, “from basic ‘practical school’ to VWO (pre-university education), with an overrepresentation in VMBO (pre-vocational education). This mainly involves swearing and insults that are not targeted at a specific individual” and were described as “mainly slurs against Jews as a group.”
“The results of the survey show that countering antisemitism in secondary education is still badly needed. In doing so, successful approaches – such as education on the Holocaust and on the prejudices underlying antisemitism and other forms of discrimination – should be continued and extended. Successful approaches to combating football-related antisemitism should also continue,” Anne Frank House Executive Director Ronald Leopold said. “The Anne Frank House, in partnership with other organizations, remains committed to this.”
The survey concluded that among the incidents “there is a relative overrepresentation of students with a Dutch-Moroccan background. This proportion has increased in comparison with the 2013 survey. Students from Western backgrounds are largely responsible for [soccer]-related antisemitism, while students from Dutch-Turkish or Dutch-Moroccan backgrounds are more often responsible for Middle East-related antisemitism.”