“I’m clearly one of the ‘bad Jews’. I’ve said from the beginning that Israel has the right to defend itself and I continue to feel that way. Other Jewish artists are forced to weigh their every word if they want to keep performing. I’ve failed that litmus test.
“I am not a politician; I just look at the intentions of the Jewish people. After October 7 they just wanted to defend themselves. The other side acted out of bloodlust. Do you think Jewish mothers want to send their children to the army to fight? They don’t want war but have no other choice.”
The decision by the retirement home to cancel her concert was particularly disturbing for Kuhr because Rosa Spier House was named after a Dutch-Jewish musician persecuted by the Nazis and was founded in 1963 by Jewish community members.
Kuhr, whose grandson Ozz was heavily wounded fighting Hamas terrorists with his IDF unit on October 7, recently announced she was making aliyah. Posting on Instagram, she said of the decision: “I refuse to keep living in a country where Jews can no longer live carefree, but always have to be careful, jumpy.”
The threats convinced Kuhr that there was no future for her in the Netherlands, once a staunchly pro-Israeli country that even stepped in to host Eurovision in 1980 when the Jewish state was forced to drop out due to financial constraints.
She said: “In this country we are left to their own devices. Jews are no longer protected, at least in Israel we have shelters and the IDF defending us.”
Kuhr said that even if Jewish artists in the Netherlands started denouncing Israel, “that’s no more than a stay of execution”.
The Netherlands was one of five countries that boycotted Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. Last December the renowned music venue Concertgebouw in Amsterdam wanted to cancel the annual Chanukah concert because an IDF cantor was due to perform.
The cancellation was revoked, but those who went – among whom were several Holocaust survivors – had to run a gauntlet of screaming protesters, who called them Nazis and even tried to break through police barriers to storm the concert hall.
Lenny Kuhr arrives at Schipol Airport in 1969 after winning that year's Eurovision Song Contest (Wikimedia Commons)[Missing Credit]
Kuhr indicated that other Jews would eventually follow suit and leave. “Many will stay for now, because they can’t afford to leave. Israel is an expensive country, and they would have to accept a lower standard of living. I know how difficult it is to go on aliyah, how hard it is to leave everything behind.” Her farewell tour, which will conclude on May 31 in Utrecht, has been sold out.
Despite the pain of leaving her fans, Kuhr sees no other option. “At the beginning of the Second World War many Jews here thought ‘it probably won’t be that bad.’ We know what happened to them. The Netherlands had the highest rate of murdered Jews of all Nazi-occupied Western European countries.”
She quotes the famous Yiddish song Vu ahin zol ikh geyn? (Where can I go?). “Canada? Australia? They’re just as bad. The US? That’s OK for now, but for how long?”
Kuhr is convinced Israel is the only option for Dutch Jews. “At least there we can be ourselves. We don’t have to look over our shoulders all the time. And we don’t have to weigh every word we speak.”
