AMSTERDAM, December 8 (IslamOnline.net) - Jews and Muslims in the most mixed neighbourhoods in the Dutch capital have started a religious dialogue in an attempt to face the mounting tensions between their communities and to grasp a clearer idea of each other’s religion.

“Jews and Muslims in a working class neighbourhood in Amsterdam try to close the gap caused by ignorance through dialogue,” the Middle East Times reported Tuesday, December 7.

The Baarsjes is one of the most mixed neighbourhoods in the Dutch capital. Half of its inhabitants are of immigrant descent, mostly of Moroccan and Turkish origin.

In 2003, a shocking incident pushed the Muslim and Jewish communities together in the belief that something had to change. In May of that year the annual commemoration of the dead of World War II and the Holocaust in the Baarsjes neighbourhood was disturbed by a small group of youths of Moroccan descent.

Some played football with the wreaths and shouted anti-Jewish slogans. They also hurled insults at several orthodox Jews as they left the Sjoel West synagogue in the area, the paper said.

As is the case in many European cities, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians placed a strain on the relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities, but in Baarsjes several people took the initiative to reach out to battle insults, fear and stereotyping, the paper said.

“We went to see representatives of the Moroccan community, especially those of the first generation of immigrants to tell them there had to be a reaction to all this,” said Erwin Brugmans, an orthodox Jew who always wears his yarmulke.

“They were shocked and told us ‘these youngsters, our youngsters have gone off the rails’ and offered to help us.

“Morocco has a large Jewish community and the Moroccan immigrants that now live here have always lived in good harmony with them,” Brugmans, a quiet, smiling man who has lived in the neighbourhood for decades, was quoted by the paper as saying.

Since that initial meeting, Brugmans and the representatives of the Muslim communities and staff at local youth centres have started to meet regularly.

This year in May, Jews, Muslims and others from the neighbourhood commemorated the World War II and the Holocaust together. The three mosques in the quarter laid wreaths on the monuments.

“Members of the Jewish community were surprised, they told me they never thought this would have been possible,” Brugmans said.

For the first time the commemorations also focused on the fallen Moroccan soldiers in World War II.

“For us that was very important, there are no history books that mention [the Moroccan soldiers],” said Habib, a youth centre worker of Moroccan descent.

In the fall of 2004, several neighbourhood football teams, comprised mostly of youngsters of Moroccan origin, received Jewish teams for a special Jewish-Moroccan tournament.

“Everybody predicted there would be trouble but everything went wonderfully well,” Brugmans said.

All the participants hope the experience can be repeated. Habib hopes that there can be meetings with students of all origins: Jewish, Muslim, Christian and atheist, to get to know each other better.

“The youngsters see the images of the Palestinians and their daily suffering on television and they identify with them. Their image of Jews is limited to the Israeli soldiers they see,” he explained.

Muslims have no problem with Jews in general, but say they are against practices by Israeli occupation forces against Palestinians.

“There is a rift caused by lack of understanding from both sides,” adds Brugmans.

However, he also points to the similarities between the communities who are often faced with similar racist reactions from some Dutch people.

The paper added that tensions between different communities in Dutch society have mounted after the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a “suspected Islamic radical”.