Posted on 02/17/2011 5:37:19 PM PST by WesternCulture
A year after claims about an exodus of Jews from Malmö made global headlines, many Jewish residents still don't feel safe in southern Sweden, The Local's Karen Holst discovers.
The past couple of years have been turbulent for Malmö's Jewish community. A spike in anti-Semitic attacks in 2009 prompted a number of Jews to leave the city altogether, concluding they would never feel accepted there.
Controversial comments by the town's long-serving Social Democratic mayor Ilmar Reepalu also put Malmö in the spotlight, drawing criticism from within his own party, as well as from influential Jewish organisations aboard.
And in December 2010, the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a warning urging Jews to exercise "extreme caution" when traveling in southern Sweden.
While current statistics show a significant decline in anti-Semitic attacks in 2010 when compared to 2009, the nearly 3,000-member Jewish community in Skåne continues to shrink.
“People wonder if there will even be a Jewish community here in 10 years,” Fredrik Sieradzki, spokesperson for the Jewish Community of Malmö (Judiska Församlingen i Malmö), tells The Local.
Despite the decrease in reported attacks, as well as community efforts to ease racist rancor, many of south Sweden’s Jewish residents continue to feel dangerously threatened.
According to Sieradzki, many young Jewish families are relocating because they feel Skåne is not a safe area to raise their children. Coupled with an aging baby-boomer generation, there are few willing or present to take vacated leadership positions within many of the area's Jewish organisations.
“Some of us feel there is no hope and we are losing people because of anti-Semitism,” he adds.
Police reports show the number of anti-Semitic incidents nearly doubled in 2009 but have declined in 2010 by more than half.
“We believe the number of attacks increased in 2009 due to the Davies Cup and two big demonstrations against Israel. Now the statistics show hate-crime against Jews going down dramatically in 2010,” explains Susanne Gosenius, a hate crime coordinator for Skåne police.
Sieradzki argues, however, that the numbers may not reflect reality as many Jewish residents choose not to report every incident, such as intimidating slurs and other verbal attacks.
“Maybe the numbers are lower or maybe not. It doesn’t matter because the feeling is the same – many of us cannot and do not feel at home here,” says Sieradzki.
He points out that the severity of attacks is also intensifying.
Last October a group of about 20 teenagers attacked the Jewish community’s residential education centre during a youth retreat.
“The first night they shouted vicious, nasty slurs. The next night it escalated and they broke down the fence and were banging on windows and doors,” Sieradzki explains.
“It was quite frightening.”
Sieradzki, who applauded the nearby municipality of Vellinge for its swift response to the incident, also points out that the teenagers in the attacking group were not Muslim as many are quick to assume.
“These boys were not Arabs. They were all Swedish. And I assure you the Jewish people are not attacking anybody.”
Despite the year’s decline in reported attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the largest international organization for Jewish human rights, nevertheless went ahead with its decision to issue a travel warning for Jews visiting southern Sweden.
The move put Skåne to the same plane as countries that have experienced heinous, even fatal attacks and bombings on Jewish people, such as Turkey, Greece and Belgium.
“We made a very serious statement by putting Malmö on our advisory list,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Center, tells The Local.
“It’s a serious move and we hope to take serious measures to rectify it.”
But the warning rankled some members of Malmö's Jewish community, who claim they weren't informed about the move ahead of time, and surprised local authorities as statistics showed that attacks were on the decline.
“I can understand that Jewish people feel threatened in Malmö,” hate crimes specialist Gosenius explains.
“We have a huge population from the Middle East, West Bank and Gaza and most (Jewish) victims describe their perpetrators as young Muslim men.
“But I’m not sure the warning for Malmö fits. It’s a very drastic act.”
Sieradzki has mixed emotions about the Wiesenthal Center's "surprise" advisory.
While he understands the Center’s point, he argues the move may have been too severe and feels the Jewish leaders in Skåne could have helped moderate the message had they known about it.
“They should have talked to us first,” argues Sieradzki.
“We are trying to create an atmosphere in Malmö where we co-exist and I’m not sure that this travel warning is good.”
Rabbi Cooper rejects the idea that the Center's warning came as a surprise, pointing to a meeting in Stockholm prior to the advisory where prominent members of south Sweden’s Jewish community were in attendance.
“The analysis comes from the ground up,” says Cooper.
“Experiences from Jewish members in Malmö and a previous colleague there led to what we did.”
He stated that families should be able to go to any house of worship, whether it’s Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays, without fear of intimidation, violence or something worse.
“People of faith, or no faith, should be able to walk on the street and feel equally protected. There is a climate of intimidation in Malmö and we need to take steps to address it,” says Cooper.
In response to 2009’s hike in attacks, Malmö city officials created the Dialogue Forum to ease hostilities between Jews, Muslims, the Roma, and other victimized minorities.
As the Forum's one-year anniversary approaches, the Jewish community believes the dialogue has had little effect.
“It’s sad we have to have a group, and we do hope something good comes of it but there hasn’t been anything yet,” says Sieradzki, adding that the 6,000-member Islamic Centre, of their own initiative, recently invited members of the Jewish community to their mosque.
Mayor Reepalu, who was also singled out by the Wiesenthal Center last year for comments about the city's Jewish community in which he "blamed the situation on the Jews themselves as the community did not 'distance itself from Israel,'" according to the Center.
While Reepalu refused to be interviewed for this article, he has undertaken efforts in the last year to make amends and further understand the hostilities Jewish people encounter in Malmö through meetings with Sieradzki and other Jewish community leaders.
Since then the 15-year mayor has invited members from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to Malmö, although an exact date for the visit has not yet been set.
“I can confirm we are coming to Sweden and we are coming next month,” says Rabbi Cooper.
While the agenda for the meeting is still being hammered out, the focus will likely be on improving the situation in southern Sweden.
The meeting will be also accompanied by a seminar on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
"It’s good that something is happening," says Sieradzki.
"There are Jews is Malmö. We live here, we are here to stay and we won’t gain anything by attacking each other."
We Scandinavians don't care much for silly Middle East conflicts. To us, Islam is worthless and in our opinion, God didn't create the North of Europe in order to provide a safe haven for the Jews - whatever tragedies occurred to them throughout history.
Whatever you say, the Holocaust wasn't the fault of Swedish trade with Nazi Germany some decades ago.
Before slandering Sweden, perhaps you should bother to learn just a little about a certain Scandinavian program known as the White buses (see link below).
I, most definitely, don't wish to defend Hitler, but there presently is a lot of anger building up among people here in Europe over claims others are making to OUR home soil and I think foreigners who don't belong here and don't wish to conform to our ways of life better go home to where ever they came from (and seriously consider staying there).
Secularized Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims who accept the dominance of Christian culture are okay with me (in minor numbers, unlike what Malmö has experienced the recent two decades in terms of Muslim immigration), just like I welcome Frenchmen who don't wish to force-feed me frogs, but the fact that Scandinavia (mostly due to Lutheran work ethics, good education, honesty and business skills) is prosperous doesn't mean we are under some obligation to act as the welfare office of the World.
I prefer Jews to Muslims, I sure believe in freedom of religion and I don't wish to appear as intolerant and rigid, but I sincerely wonder what has went wrong with my country, a nation that today seems willing to import all useless, cultural nonsense ever invented by Man.
Jews and Muslims can kill each other all they want, but Malmö is eternally Swedish and the people originating from the Middle East down there will one day learn the reality of this - the hard way - just like the Danes got to experience this aspect of reality in the 17th century..
There is a limit to everything - even Swedish tolerance.
The story of the “White Buses” - Did anyone say something like “Thank you, good hearted people of Scandinavia”?:
Being a Christian Swede, I share your concern, but let’s not get over agitated here.
Check out Sweden through the site linked to below.
Chose “Malmö” and tell me how many mosques you manage to find. Again, I’m not saying there is no problem, but Sweden is in fact still pretty clean from severe Muslim influence.
http://www.hitta.se/LargeMap.aspx?start
You are on an American site and its called the melting pot, and an extreme version of the blank slate theory holds sway here. So you won’t find much love here because in this country we celebrate the extinction of “whites” and cherish the day the “human” race rises in complete equality. As for the jewish people they get a pass they don’t have to assimilate into this till god says its time.
Thanks for being here. ^_^
Rational thought.
They day you say good bye to this capacity of your soul, you are no longer a human being.
What's my point here?
It simply isn't plain rational of us Swedes to be overly concerned with ridiculous conflicts in the Mid East or what happened in Poland 70 years ago.
We Europeans all share a huge responsibility for the tragedies of World War II, but a society should never accept becoming a battle ground for conflicts of foreign origin.
Anyone claiming my Sweden, for some strange reason, has to accept such a fate is violating the sacred ground of my forebears.
We, the Lutherans, are today known for being pretty tolerant. My impression is we get along with most people on this planet rather well.
The inhabitants of India, for instance, often welcome us to their soil when going there and I've also experienced that most Japanese accept Christians, but show me a devoted Muslim or Jew who really tolerates my religion instead of opposing it in every thinkable way..
Yes, in general, Muslims are much worse, but why does Israel never show support for Scandinavian culture in any way?
If I'm wrong about this, please enlighten me.
Look at this video about what the muzzies have done there.Shocking:
(newslady starts it off in Swedish, but the rest is in English)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diw5SneythM
Between the Islamists and the Jews, rational thought requires the rest of the world to support the Jews in this seemingly endless battle.
There seems little real difference between the two cults in religious ideology, only in method, and the naming of their enemy.
There are what, 20-30,000? Jews have lived in Sweden for 300 years without causing trouble. Compare taht the thousands of Muslims who have turned parts of Sweden into third world hell holes.
Your tolerent culture is committing suicide and you are blaming Jews. Pathetic.
Exactly rm....
As reported...90% of Muslims in Sweden are unemployed. “They are not a part of the Swedish Culture”...as stated. When their Mosques was burned and firefighters there to put it out they threw rocks at them.
Muslems simply on a whole do not nor are they willing to adapt to the cultures they go into to...and the majority don’t want to and are encouraged in their Mosques not to assimulate...but them the influx is doing exactly what they are instructed to do from their homefronts.
I get more than tired of people blaming Jews for every ill they can use to pass the buck. Especially because there is no comparrison between Jews and Muslims....oil and water...good vs. evil....love vs. hate filled minds. You cannot expect a Muslim to be more than what he professes in adhereing to the teachings of the Koran and the culture in which he comes from. They are simply in opposition to most nations cultures and they are there for the purpose of promoting Islam and the Islamic agenda.
How is asking that Jews not be attacked and not have their property destroyed some special support? It is what societies should expect for all citizens. It has nothing to do wit the Jewish Question or any other BS. Or do you believe that "Jews" are undeserving of civil rights because they are Jews, something or other that Israel does, or becuase might annoy Muslims?
There Muslim rape gangs in Malmo. That isn't the fault of the Jews. It the fault of Muslims, Islam, and the decadent Swedes who invite and subsidize their death through Muslim colonization. Liberalism is a cancer and Islam will be the parasite that destroys.
Yes, I am angry. Many of these wayward Jews in Malmo and Sweden are family or family friends. Most Swedish Jews are almost completely assimilated Intermarriage is above 50%. My grandparents, who refused to give up their rituals loved Sweden. My grandfather worked long hours and then coached kids in soccer. He did so when retired to. Not just Jewish childre, any children. My grandparents voted for the Christian Democrats or Moderate Party. And they find no peace even in death, as their cemetery has been desecrated. The chapel was torched twice along with other vandalism. My first cousin is married to a Swedish family, who have had their farm for 1000 years. She and my aunt are or have been elected as Moderate members to their city council. My cousin ran for but lost her election to the Riksdag. Clearly, they are unassimilated Jews.
I have family friends. One is a former shopkeeper whose haberdashery and leather shop was twice vandalized and then burned by Muslim youths. His wife was a teacher, forced into retirement because she refused to be quite after being beaten by Turkish kids. Their daughters are both married to ethnic Swedes. (I would say married, but one like most young Swedes lives in wedlock.) But there are just "wayward “Jews” who refuse to assimilate"?
The Ekeroth brothers are members of the Swedish Democrat Party. Kent Ekeroth is the former spokesman for the SD, and now a member of the Parliament. Go look up his speeches if you can speak Swedish. His brother Ted Ekeroth is a journalist, who happened to win the 2006 Herzl award. I guess that they are just "wayward “Jews” who refuse to assimilate".
I you would like, I could go on and start listing dozens of Swedish Jews I know, show their ties to Sweden, and challenge you on how they deserve to be beaten as unassimilated Jewish Swine unworthy of protection under the law.
I know why I am too angry to be civil. What's your excuse your writing ignorant racism? Why is the word "Jews" in quotes?
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
“If I’m wrong about this, please enlighten me.”
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
“but show me a devoted Muslim or Jew who really tolerates my religion instead of opposing it in every thinkable way.”
I am an Orthodox Jew. I’ve never met an orthodox Jew who would push Judaism on anyone other than a born Jewish person. The overwhelming belief among Jewish people is that Christianity is a fine religion that comports with the Laws of Noah. The only Jewish people I’ve ever met that are “anti-Christian” are secular communist Jewish people who have disdain for all religions -— first Judaism, then Christianity.
They worship some imp stoned god name allah and a murderous cretin pedophile hypocrite who killed everyone including his own leaders, thus making this cult the nubmer one in homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality,idol worshiping, lying Imams/mullahs and encouraging to lie, slave traders and owners(etc) wannabe rulers of the world, ready to bring in the Mahdi who is satan himself.
Don't know what G!D of the Bible has anything good to say about these peoples. The tablecloth heads that force and encourage their followers to forse their young women to be sexually mutilated enslaved by the dominat goat humping male( if camels, sheep or other poor abused four legged creatures aren't around for some sexual release) are practicing and demanding everything G!D and His prophets AND His Son warned about and killed many times even commanded to kill their animals( now we know why as modern history has just met the horrors of what the jews were up against ever since they began fighting( after God destroyed four cities as an example to Abraham) as licentious beasts. Sweden MUST push them back to their desert suck hole sand pit as should all the world; nothing good happens as this article and thousands like it try to understand a "culture" that demands ritual blood sacrifice of anyone not obsequious to their sick ways.
Too bad there was no Thorazine back when Mocramit was murdering, raping and pillaging and I'm supposed to say, "belessed be he?" BS Anyone who says Islam is a religion of peace is either scared out of their wits or incredibly psychotic. But alas liberals in the US of A are just that, Sweden has a BIG chance here to rid themselves of this cancer and be a beacon of light to the world, but I doubt anyone has the sac to do it and that goes for ALL countries that are in some sort of trance, some strong delusion in these latter days.
Yeah, had my coffee and ready to put a few hundred rounds in some paper targets today. GrrrRR! I really am despising these stories and these people who defend this scum
“but why does Israel never show support for Scandinavian culture in any way”
Do you mean Jewish citizens of Norway or the country made up of largely Jewish people called Israel?
Not the same thing, and lumping them together is lazy.
The country of Israel is a pretty small country.
As far as how the country of Israel has helped Norway, I suspect you’ve used a cellular phone or laptop computer, in which case, you’ve used and benefitted for technology developed in Israel.
If your questions is: how have Jewish people helped Norway, I suppose you could think of:
1. Salk vaccine that stopped polio, together with many, many other vaccines and drugs developed by Jewish people.
2. The concept of the seperation of Church and State
3. Moralistic theology, which is the foundation upon which your Lutheran religion is based
4. Nuclear power
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