Orange alert

Amsterdam

Be careful if you are planning to attack a Jew in Amsterdam. What you see is not always what you get. Throw a rock or spit at some bloke with long curly sidelocks and a yarmulke and before you know it you might end up handcuffed in the back of a police van. What you attacked, then, was not a Jew, but a Decoy Jew. Decoy Jews are policemen pretending be Jews, a cunning initiative dreamed up by the city authorities to prevent anti-Semitic behaviour. They’ve borrowed it from the Dutch town of Gouda, where the local coppers dressed up as grannies in order to cut down on muggings: I would have paid to see that. Elsewhere there have been policemen dressed as homosexuals and prostitutes, both groups that some people also enjoy attacking, and next it’s Joods.

Anti-Semitic attacks rose tenfold in Holland last year, so it is as well that there may soon be Decoy Jews to attack as there aren’t enough proper Jews to go around.