Sweden: The silence of the Jews

Ingrid Carlqvist @ Gatestone Institute:

One of the most visible effects of Muslim mass immigration into Sweden is that anti-Semitism is very much on the rise in the country. Swedish Jews are being harassed and threatened, mainly in the Muslim-dense city of Malmö, where in January 2009, the friction deepened during a peaceful pro-Israel demonstration. Demonstrators were attacked by pro-Palestinian counter demonstrators, who threw eggs and bottles at the supporters of Israel. The mayor of Malmö at the time, Ilmar Reepalu, failed to take a clear stance against the violence, and was accused of preferring the approval of the city's large Muslim population to protecting Jews. He remarked, among other things, that "of course the conflict in Gaza has spilled over into Malmö."

The situation in Malmö has twice been deemed so alarming that U.S. President Barack Obama sent Special Representatives to the city: Hanna Rosenthal visited in 2012, and Ira Forman came in 2015. "We are keeping an eye on Malmö," Forman told the media.

The harassment of Malmö's Jews was, for a long time, a mystery to the general public; Were neo-Nazis really walking the streets of Sweden's third largest city? Many believed that to be the case, until the local daily paper Skånska Dagbladet published a series of articles, in which the Jewish community finally pointed out the elephant in the room: Malmö's growing Muslim population.

Fredrik Sieradzki of Malmö's Jewish community explained that when he grew up, Jews could still wear a kippa (skullcap) without anyone bothering them: "Nobody dares do that now," he said.

Malmö Rabbi Shneur Kesselman, one of very few Orthodox Jews in Sweden who wears a traditional Hassidic black hat and frock-coat, has, in the last few years, filed more than 50 complaints with the police about various kinds of harassment. On May 31, 2016, an 18-year-old Muslim by the name of Amir Ali Mohammed was finally convicted of shouting "Jewish bastard" at Kesselman. The media, however, chose not to publish any information about Mohammed's name or religion. [...]

In February 2016, for example, the Danish-Jewish actor, Kim Bodnia, said in an interview with Israeli television, that the real reason he left the international hit television show, The Bridge (Bron), was the rampant anti-Semitism in Malmö, where much of the show is filmed.

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