Sweden: Kid beaten up for wearing tzizit

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein writes in Mosaic Magazine:

One of the most touching reactions came in a letter from a fourteen-year-old Swedish boy who wrote to tell me that I had opened his eyes. As a child, he had been beaten up more than once for wearing ritual fringes (tzizit), and had assumed he had only himself to blame for being so careless as to leave them visible. As a result, he had slowly tried to alter his appearance, assuming that this was the only thing to do and also part of his responsibility as a Jew. The article in Mosaic changed his mind; along with other Jewish youngsters his age, he was now organizing a letter-writing campaign to protest the government’s violation of their human rights.