Femke Halsema (; born 25 April 1966) is a Dutch politician and filmmaker. On 27 June 2018, she was appointed Mayor of Amsterdam and began serving a six-year term on 12 July 2018. She is the first woman to hold the position on a non-interim basis. She previously was a member of the House of Representatives for the leftist green party GroenLinks from 1998 to 2011, and served as the party's parliamentary leader from 2002 to 2010. Career Family background Halsema was born in 1966 in Haarlem in a Dutch social democratic family. They moved to Enschede, a town in the east of the Netherlands, close to the German border (Twente). Her father W. Halsema was a sports teacher and director of the municipal service for physical education, sports and recreation (Dienst lichamelijke opvoeding, sport en recreatie) of Enschede. For a long time, from 1982 until 1994, her mother Olga Halsema-Fles was an alderwoman responsible for social affairs and employment for the Labour Party (PvdA) in Enschede. Her mother was also a member of the Dutch Social Insurance Advisory Board (College van Toezicht Sociale Verzekeringen). Religious origin Halsema and her mother are of Christian descent. Halsema's mother Olga Margaretha Bertha Fles was born in 1941 in Velsen-Driehuis near harbour town IJmuiden north of Amsterdam. Olga Fles' parents Cornelis Nicolaas Fles and Truus Corbee married in 1939 in the Noorsche Kerk, Nederlands Hervormd, a Dutch Protestant church in Hilligersberg, near Rotterdam. Olga lived with her husband Willem Halsema and son in Haarlem until 1966, where Femke was born. Then the family moved to Enschede and Olga became wethouder (alderwoman) of Enschede's municipal council. In an interview with the Reformatorisch Dagblad (RD), a Dutch Protestant Christian Reformed newspaper, in 2002 Femke Halsema presumed members of her maternal family to have been "assimilated Jews", because two nephews of her maternal grandfather Cornelis Nicolaas Fles were named Abram and Izaak, whom she supposed had been tailors. Halsema referred to some families with the surname Fles in the Achterhoek around Enschede being Jewish. But Halsema's own family is not related to them. Olga Halsema-Fles’ family originates from Leiden, with a few ancestors residing in Rotterdam, amongst whom Abram and Izaak Fles, her uncles. Both Abram and Izaak Fles belonged to the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church). As such they were registered in the Rotterdam municipal archive. They worked as civil servants, married and died