Dutch election highlights divisions about religion and immigration

Dutch Muslims are breathing a sigh of relief after the worse-than-expected performance by anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders in the mid-March election.

“We have trust in the future” of this traditionally welcoming country, said Rasit Bal of the Muslim government contact organization, an advocacy group for Muslims in the Netherlands, which feared that a victory by Wilders’s PVV party would strengthen anti-immigrant sentiment in the Netherlands.

Interfaith support rises along with attacks

When Adam Zeff, rabbi of the Germantown Jewish Centre in Philadelphia, a short distance from Mount Carmel Cemetery, heard that vandals had desecrated the place where several families in his congregation had loved ones buried, he felt compelled to go see.

“These gravestones weigh hundreds of pounds, and some were even reinforced with iron bars connecting them to their bases,” he wrote in a commentary. “Bringing them down to the ground required great force and determination.”