The Jewish hospice in metropolitan Amsterdam will close down for renovations after volunteers said they feared working at an alternative location in a heavily Muslim neighborhood, the institution’s board said on Tuesday.

The temporary location offered by the Cordaan health services provider in Amsterdam’s Nieuw-West neighborhood to the Jewish Hospice Immanuel “was suitable in terms of affordability and accessibility, but raised serious safety concerns,” the hospice’s director, Nadia Schoenzwytt, wrote in a statement that she sent to JNS on Wednesday.

“Volunteers indicated they did not feel safe in this neighborhood. Volunteers are the backbone of our hospice, so we took their concerns very seriously,” she added

Therefore, Immanuel will be closed for “five or six months,” Schoenzwytt sai

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