Dutch government gives $2.76 million to restoring Jewish cemeteries NOVEMBER 15, 2019 11:02 AM A bunny grazes at a Jewish cemetery in Haarlem, the Netherlands, March 8, 2019. (Cnaan Liphshiz) AMSTERDAM ( JTA ) — The Dutch government has allocated $2.76 million toward the maintenance and restoration of Jewish cemeteries in the Netherlands. Culture Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven announced the funding last week in a letter to the lower house of the parliament. Local Jews have trouble maintaining the graves because the community’s numbers never recovered after the Holocaust. Dutch Jews suffered the highest death rate of any Western European country occupied by the Nazis, in part because of local collaboration. Fewer than 40,000 Jews survived in a population of some 140,000, and fewer still returned to the Netherlands. Today there are about 45,000 Jews living in the kingdom, including more than 5,000 Israelis, according to the Organization of Jewish Com...
