Sweden: Jewish community shutters synagogues due to terror threat

Via Tablet Magazine:

After meeting with police on Wednesday, the leaders of Sweden’s Jewish community opted to cancel all evening activities and shutter its synagogues until further notice, Radio Sweden reported. The decision applied to the cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö.

Sweden’s national terrorism threat level is currently raised to four out of five—the country’s highest ever—as authorities hunt for a local terror suspect in the wake of last week’s Paris attacks. Lena Posner Körösi, president of the Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden, would not say whether the Jewish community had received any specific threats, but told Radio Sweden: “As Jews, we are always more or less under threat and as a community we have had our own ‘raised threat level’ over the past few years.”

Later reports suggested that the Jewish community hopes to remain open by day, though closed by night. “We don’t know yet what will happen tomorrow or after that. We’ll take it one day at a time,” Körösi said.

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