Members of the local Jewish community and Israelis living in Amsterdam helped to rescue Israeli football fans during the night of violence in the Dutch capital.
“The night before the game there were skirmishes between Israeli fans and local Arabs. So when we started to hear news about the confrontation after the game, we first did not realize the scope of what was happening,” Dovi Pinkovitch, head of the Chabad House in the center of Amsterdam, told TPS-IL.
As soon as it became clear that a pogrom was happening, the Chabad rabbi helped mobilize local Jews and Israelis living in Amsterdam to assist Israelis trapped in the streets, getting them safely to hotels.
“There were cases when local taxis took the Israelis towards the center of the clashes instead of bringing them to safety, so we understood we need to help. The volunteers, in their private cars, worked all night long to get hundreds of Israelis to the hotels,” Pinkovitch, who also hardly slept last night, coordinating the efforts, said.
Among the volunteers, according to Pinkovitch, was a Jew from Germany who drove three hours to get to Amsterdam to take part in the rescue mission. Another volunteer was a Jew from Holland who drove more than two hours to get to Amsterdam.
Also among those who helped save lives was one of the fans, an Israeli Druze named Melchem Assad. As he was exiting the train on his way from the game to the hotel, he noticed a group of men speaking Arabic about beating those wearing a blue scarf and speaking Hebrew. So he returned to the train station and ordered the arriving groups of Israelis to take off the Maccabi Tel Aviv symbols, disperse and not to speak Hebrew.
At one point, seeing several Arabic-speaking men approaching a young Israeli near the station, he hugged the Israeli and began speaking Arabic with him, while escorting the Israeli away from the scene and begging him to keep silent.
Assad told TPS-IL that to his estimations, he managed to help in this way to at least a hundred and fifty Israelis.
“I have a baby boy at home and my heart was beating hard as I was approaching that group. But I am an Israeli, and I knew I had nothing to do but to help if I could,” Assad said.
Today, the same team of local volunteers helped take the Israelis to the airport for flights to Israel. Some Israelis escaped to other European countries to fly to Israel from there, while others remain in hotels in Amsterdam.
“We expected to have three hundred people for the Shabbat dinner in our two Chabad Houses in Amsterdam. Now we have packed most of the food prepared for Shabbat to give the Israelis in the airport and those staying in the hotels and afraid of going out. However, both our houses will be open for Shabbat as usual,” Pinkovitch added.
There are about 20,000 Jews living in Amsterdam, and at least as many Israelis.
Image - Reuters