“The Dutch culture seems to be very much like… Don’t be yourself too much.
Not too in your face.”
If we all blend in, Dutch society promises us, all injustices will magically disappear.
The culture of Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg only accepts differences that are palatable for the mainstream and easily stereotyped. “Being normal” demands accepting that injustices are just part of the way things are.
This dominant culture that has been complicit in our genocide presents itself as Judeo-Christian, but in fact it is just very Christian. Judeo-Christianity consumes our practices, overwhelms us with sheer numbers, and works to erase our differences and culture by insisting on our complicity in their project of supremacy.
Dutch society claims neutrality and does not recognize the ways in which it is infused with Christian thought, Christian holidays, and Christian practices. The “progressive” Dutch attitude is that religion is backwards, a relic of the past. Because Dutch society does not acknowledge the way its own Christianess infuses its culture, it erases what makes Jews specifically Jews.
Why, it wonders, can’t you be more like us? Less different? More normal? Why not have Pesach on Easter weekend? Surely you can move Rosh Hashana to New Year’s Eve and Channuka to Christmas?
These implicit demands communicate that Jewish community and identity is a burden that can and should be cast aside like a worn-out flea-ridden coat.
Doe maar normaal tells us that our Jewishness is problematic, not only for us, but for wider Dutch society. It’s old-fashioned, backwards, unemancipated.
The demand for normality asks us to disappear.
Can you blame us for seeing this as a continuation of the Nazi project?
“Sometimes I look back on the long history of Jewish assimilation in Dutch society and the prewar government policies to include Jewish life and think about how it ended up breaking our ties to our culture and to each other.”
