The large demonstrations that took place last year in Malmö against Israel’s participation in Eurovision, and the tone of the rhetoric, gave good reason to be concerned about Swedish antisemitism. But what is the true extent of this scourge, its impact on Sweden’s Jewish community, and how is it being addressed by the authorities? By placing these issues in a broader historical context, David Stavrou’s investigation, which we are publishing as part of our partnership with the DILCRAH, seeks to answer these questions.
Antisemitic discourse historically fueled by confusion with anti-Zionism
In 1973 a young Moroccan army officer named Ahmed Rami arrived in Sweden asking for political asylum. He said he needed protection because he was part of an unsuccessful coup d’état in his homeland the previous summer. More than a decade later, after obtaining asylum in Sweden, Rami started broadcasting Radio Islam, a radio program which subsequently turned into a newspaper and later, a web-site. The focus of these enterprises became clear right at the beginning – it was not about Islam; it was about Jews. The radio program and the website, featured some of antisemitism’s greatest hits; conspiracy theories about how Jews and Zionists control the world, Holocaust denial, Nazi propaganda, lists of influential Swedish Jews and Israel bashing. During the last three decades, Rami has been investigated, charged, convicted and fined for hate speech and hate crimes and his radio station was shut down by the authorities more than once. Still, now aged 76, Rami’s legacy lives on. He has published books, voiced support for Hezbollah and neo-Nazi groups, his website is still very much alive and the internet allows his work to continue.
Radio Islam is an important landmark in the history of Swedish antisemitism for several reasons. One of them is that the precedential trial which sent Rami to prison for six months also gave a small and relatively unknown Swedish organization called The Swedish Committee Against Antisemitism (SCAA or SKMA in Swedish) an important role in the Swedish public arena. “SCAA is a religiously and politically unaffiliated NGO which was founded in 1983”, says Mathan Shastin Ravid, the organization’s office manager, “it was founded by a group of activists who wanted to raise awareness about antisemitism. This was a period of a clear wave of antisemitism in Sweden and other European countries during and after the Lebanon War in 1982. Antisemitism wasn’t a new phenomenon in Sweden back then, but this was on a new scale, there were all these accusations with motives and images that targeted not only Israel, but Jews as a group. When the Radio Islam broadcasts started in the end of the eighties, it was clear to us that the radio station was a megaphone for anti-Jewish hatred and propaganda. Because of SCAA’s report to Sweden’s Chancellor of Justice, and our work during the subsequent trials, Rami was convicted for hate speech, but it was clear that in those days we stood alone. Not many people understood the problem, people didn’t want to talk about it and there were many known figures who came to Rami’s defense saying this wasn’t antisemitism, rather it was criticism of Israel”.
A struggle focused on education, on both the right and the left
A lot has changed in Sweden since then and SCAA probably has an important part in the change. Shastin Ravid says that since the nighties, the organization became more than just an activist watch dog. It now also focuses on education. “These days we stand on two legs”, he explains, “one of them is monitoring, information and advocacy, as we try to follow what’s happening in Sweden and the world and follow the Swedish and international debate regarding antisemitism. We then react when we see antisemitism in different forms. The other leg is education. We have educational programs for different target groups such as teachers and students in Swedish schools, journalists and politicians. We also work with some governmental authorities like the police, which often lack a deeper knowledge of contemporary antisemitism and how it spreads. It’s my understanding that there’s more awareness in this area today than there was ten years ago and that positive things are happening as part of a higher level of knowledge and consciousness in general in Swedish society today when it comes to antisemitism”.
When Shastin Ravid is asked for an up-to-date description of antisemitism in Sweden, he starts by saying that there’s a lot that we don’t know and that only more research will give us a better understanding of the problem. That said, it’s clear that in many ways Sweden isn’t different than other countries. “The development in Sweden is connected to global developments”, he says, “there are antisemitic conspiracy theories that have been spread and legitimized by important political actors in recent years. In Europe we see it in countries like Hungary and Poland amongst right-wing nationalist parties and governments, but we also see it in other countries including the US where Donald Trump, for example, has legitimized antisemitic propaganda. This global phenomena effects Sweden too, and it triggers hate speech and hate crimes. Within Swedish mainstream politics, the problem is most visible in the right-wing nationalist Sweden Democrats party. For years, the party has tried to portray itself as a party which opposes antisemitism and is pro-Israel, but the party has a huge antisemitism problem. We find high- and low-level representatives of the party spreading antisemitic propaganda on a weekly basis and we see many connections between the party and right-wing and even Nazi extremists”. According to Shastin Ravid, antisemitism sometimes exists in other parties too, but the problem within the Sweden Democrats is on a different scale. In addition and unlike other parties, the Sweden-Democrats don’t deal with antisemitism within their ranks unless they’re exposed by the media, and even then, there are many cases of people within the party who have kept their jobs after they were exposed. The party’s proclaimed “Zero Tolerance” policy towards racism and extremism, Shastin Ravid says, is “a joke”.
But the nationalist and populist right is only part of the problem; movements linked to radical Islamism must also be taken into account. According to Shastin Ravid, it is in these two groups that antisemitism is most virulent. For them, antisemitism is an ideological foundation, a “worldview,” a way of understanding and describing events both locally and globally. “Jews” are constantly portrayed as conspirators and blamed for all the world’s ills. Furthermore, Shastin Ravid adds, “antisemitism has long been a weapon of regimes in the Middle East, where it is deeply rooted, openly expressed, and legitimized. The spread of this type of propaganda via the internet by regimes such as Iran has contributed to the globalization of this hatred.”
Even before October 7, 2023, but particularly since then, this propaganda has fed a section of the Swedish left, where antisemitism is often linked to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In these circles, there is often a denial or refusal to see the problem of antisemitism, sometimes rooted in the mistaken perception that Jews, as “white people,” cannot be victims of racism.
The numerous demonstrations in support of the Palestinian cause and denouncing the “genocide” in Gaza seem to provide a meeting point for these various local strains of antisemitism. For example, over the course of a weekend, Sergel Square in Stockholm saw three different organizations demonstrate separately but with the same slogans. The first was Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic group advocating the creation of a caliphate governed by Sharia law from Uzbekistan to Morocco, with a small branch in Sweden. It was granted permission to demonstrate despite being banned in several countries. Next came the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group with a few hundred members, followed by the Revolutionary Communist Youth, which claims that Palestinians have the right to “fight by all means against the occupying power to liberate their land.” The latter described the October 7 attacks as an act of liberation that “caught the Zionists in their beds.” Both organizations, one neo-Nazi and the other Marxist-Leninist, support the Palestinian slogan calling for “crushing Zionism.”
How prevalent are antisemitic crimes?
But who are the victims of Swedish antisemitism? “Many Jews in Sweden have experienced antisemitism in one way or another”, Shastin Ravid says, “we need more research, but studies have indicated that many Swedish Jews have been targeted by antisemitism and many of them haven’t reported these incidents. This is also true for other hate crimes, most of them are probably never reported to the police”. Some of the studies Shastin Ravid is referring to were made by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ). They show that there’s a small and inconsistent increase in the number of reported antisemitic hate crimes over the years, but some years there’s a sharp rise. These are often the years when the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has escalated. Other global events may have been important in this aspect. “The pandemic, for example, brought at least two kinds of antisemitic effects”, Shastin Ravid says, “First, there were accusations against the Jews, who were blamed for starting the pandemic and for profiting from it. Then, there were parts of the anti-vaccination movement which instrumentalized and diminished the Holocaust, claiming that they are treated the same way as the Jews in Nazi Germany. The war in Ukraine also triggers antisemitism on a global scale as do the discussion about Quran burnings and the debate about migration and refugees which fuels the antisemitic so-called replacement theory. These days antisemitic propaganda is often spread online with code words replacing the word Jews. Instead, it’s Zionists or Globalist or specific names like Soros or Rothschild. These words are used globally as symbols of a big Jewish conspiracy and they’re widely spread in Sweden too”.
Another study Shastin Ravid speaks of was made by a government agency called “The Living History Forum” which was founded twenty years ago in order to “work for democracy and equality between all people, using lessons learned from the Holocaust”. According to Shastin Ravid, the study from 2021, shows that there has been a decline in antisemitic attitudes and ideas, but that antisemitism still exists in many forms, within many groups and environments, everywhere in society. “I think that this is an important point to make”, he says, “the study shows that around 5% or the respondents displayed antisemitic attitudes with a stronger intensity, which is a rather low figure compared to many other countries. However, if you broaden it and look at the group of people who agreed with one or more of the study’s antisemitic statements, the number is 34%. We should not only focus on the most extreme groups. This shows that the problem is bigger than many people think. There are background factors here. According to the study, higher levels of antisemitic beliefs correlate with, and are more common amongst people who are: older, have a lower education and have a low trust in public institutions. Antisemitic beliefs are also more common among people who have sexist and anti-immigrant attitudes, people who sympathize with the Sweden Democrats party, people who were born outside Sweden or Europe, and people with a Muslim religious affiliation. Another interesting factor is that traditional and Holocaust related antisemitic beliefs tend to be slightly more common among men, and Israel-related antisemitic attitudes and notions tend to be slightly more common among women”.
One group which is particularly susceptible to antisemitic hatred is the group of school pupils and school teachers who in many cases are scared to be open with their Jewish identity. “We have studies from both Malmö and Stockholm which show that there are serious problems with antisemitism in some Swedish schools. Sometimes it’s related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, sometimes the word Jew is used as a curse and sometimes we see antisemitic conspiracy theories which fascinate youngsters. We also see jokes about the Holocaust, swastikas on benches or lockers, and Nazi salutes. Jewish pupils often feel that their teachers and schools do not take the matter of antisemitism seriously, and they say that there is a lack of knowledge and support. This is something that many Swedish youngsters have told us at the SCAA through the years”.
“The largest Jewish community in Scandinavia” finally taken into consideration by the government
Sweden is home to the largest Jewish community in Scandinavia. It’s estimated that about 15,000 Jews live in the country which has a population of just over ten million. That said, there are probably many more Swedes who have a Jewish background, as Jewish immigration to Sweden dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries and many have married into Swedish families. The largest community in the country is the one in the capital Stockholm which has three synagogues, including the conservative Great Synagogue adjacent to the Raoul Wallenberg and Holocaust monuments and an office building which houses various Jewish organizations. A few minutes’ walk away, there’s a relatively new cultural centre called “Bajit” which houses a Jewish primary school, a Jewish kindergarten and a variety of Jewish activities for all ages, as well as a Kosher shop and a café. Smaller Jewish communities and associations exist in Malmö, Gothenburg and a couple of other smaller towns. Sweden’s Jewish communities are united under an umbrella organization, the Jewish Central Council (Judiska Centralrådet) which usually takes part in national discussions concerning Jewish life in the Swedish Parliament, Government and other authorities.
Since the problem of antisemitism isn’t new to Swedish society, it’s no surprise that in recent years the Swedish government has made many attempts to address it. After decades which many claim were characterized by ignoring the problem, dismissing and repressing it, recent Swedish governments have put it on their agenda and have tried many different approaches. Petra Kahn Nord, the World Jewish Congress’ representative in the Nordic countries, says that the current Swedish government appointed a special inter-ministerial task force in order to combat antisemitism and improve the conditions for Jewish life in Sweden. “This government task force works as a ‘one point of contact’ authority, which is something we’ve suggested before”, she says, “it was founded in January and the first issue that it’s focusing on is government funding for security for Jewish institutions like synagogues and schools”. Kahn Nord explains that the previous government had the political will to secure such funding, but the budget mechanism didn’t really work. The current government, however, is looking into it again and will hopefully make it happen. But protection against violent antisemitic incidents isn’t all that’s needed.
In 2021 Sweden hosted The Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism. The conference, hosted by then-Prime-Minister, Social-Democrat Stefan Löfven, asked the participating countries and organization to make concrete pledges that would strengthen Holocaust remembrance and tackle Holocaust distortion, Holocaust denial and contemporary antisemitism. The Malmö forum was seen by many as a natural continuation to the steps another Social-Democratic Prime-Minister, Göran Persson, made twenty years earlier. Persson founded what is now called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and initiated the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust which brought together political leaders, state officials, religious leaders, survivors, educators, and historians from around the globe. When Löfven initiated the 2021 events, one of Sweden’s pledges was to form an inquiry on strengthening Jewish life in the country. The idea was that fighting antisemites is one thing, but making Jewish life flourish was another subject. One that has been neglected for many years.
This inquiry was indeed established and it is now a reality. “The inquiry has a reference group of 12 Jewish leaders and it’s supposed to publish its conclusions in December”, Kahn Nord, who’s part of the group, says and explains that some of the challenges which Swedish Jews face are similar to those of Jewish communities in other secular Nordic states. “Three political parties in Sweden have supported illegalizing Jewish circumcision”, she says, “Kosher slaughter is already forbidden in Sweden and the Sweden-Democrats have talked about a ban on import of Kosher meat. Another important issue is the status of Jewish schools and kindergartens in Sweden. This too is crucial for Jewish life”. According to Kahn Nord, Sweden which doesn’t have almost any real private schools, has independent schools, including a couple of Jewish ones, within a charter system besides its regular public schools. This means that all schools are funded by the government and have to follow the same curriculum. Following reports of radicalization in some of Sweden’s independent Muslim schools, new legislation was put in place which affects Jewish schools too. The new legislation imposes the definition of “denominational schools”, and with-it necessary restrictions, on the existing Jewish schools if they want to keep even just a very minimal Jewish profile (like having a Kabbalat Shabbat once a week, traditional activities on Jewish holidays and optional Hebrew lessons). Besides this, another part of the original legislation, which is currently not being pursued, is supposed to limit the establishment of new denominational schools. These are all issues which the Jewish community is worried about and Kahn Nord talks about the basic needs of the community as a kind of Maslow pyramid. “We can survive a terror attack”, she says, “but we can’t survive legislation forbidding Brit Mila or Jewish schools”.
According to Kahn Nord, the possibility to live a Jewish life and the safety and security of the community, is the pyramid’s base. Only then come issues of education against antisemitism and showcasing Jewish life. “Jewish festivals won’t help if people can’t perform Brit Mila, and it doesn’t really matter if forbidding Brit Mila will be a result of antisemitic attitudes or a result of a debate on children’s rights. It will have the same effect. It will no longer be possible to be a Jew in Sweden. This is why the right to live a Jewish life is essential and that’s why government action needs to focus on it”.
When it comes to dealing with the phenomena of antisemitism itself, Kahn Nord mentions two major shifts in the last few years. “First, before 2015 it was not acceptable to talk about antisemitism which came from immigrant groups from the Middle-East. This made members of the Jewish community feel abandoned. Sweden has now changed and it’s now possible to talk about it and deal with the problem”, Kahn Nord says, “the second shift has to do with the fact that the populist right-wing Sweden-Democrats party is supporting the government. So far, the party hasn’t caused any policy shifts aimed at the Jewish minority, but it’s clear that Swedish society is changing. Many people are fed up of social problems related to immigration and integration difficulties and politicians are trying to deal with these problems in a way that may make us, as Jews, suffer from collateral damage”.
“Generally speaking, in a country like Sweden, there’s tension between liberal democracy and religious freedom”, Kahn Nord continues, “before the large immigration to Sweden, there was less tension and we could just do our thing. Now, people are demanding their right to do things their own way which creates greater tensions and Sweden hasn’t solved this yet. In this environment, there are counter reactions like the rise of a Separatist Muslim party or public burnings of Quran books. These feed on this tension”. When asked what are the next issues that should be addressed in the struggle against antisemitism, Kahn Nord is clear – schools and social media. The problem in these arenas is serious, she claims, and it can’t be dealt with by using the old action plans that previous governments suggested. Many of these plans, including pledges made in Malmö two years ago, focused on Holocaust education and educational strategies against racism in general (as opposed to antisemitism as a specific phenomenon). The Malmö Pledges, for example, included the pledge to open a new Holocaust Museum in Stockholm and another to contribute 5.5 million SEK to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. “There’s a Swedish tendency to focus on dead Jews”, Petra Kahn Nord says, “perhaps it’s time to focus on the living ones”.
The intertwining of memory and Jewish life in Sweden today
Kahn Nord’s last statement is not a consensual one. Katherine Hauptman, for example, doesn’t think it’s completely true. Hauptman, an archeologist, museum researcher and the former director of the Swedish History Museum, was appointed at the beginning of last year to be the director of the newly founded Swedish Holocaust Museum. When asked about the issue, she says that she doesn’t think that investing in Holocaust education is a way of avoiding current Jewish issues. She’s also sure that Holocaust education is a crucial part of combating antisemitism in Sweden. “There’s research that shows that when the Holocaust is taught in Swedish schools, it’s very seldom connected to antisemitism and teachers rarely mention antisemitism when they teach Holocaust history. So, it may be right that politicians say that Holocaust education is part of combating antisemitism, and I think that it’s impossible to teach the Holocaust without teaching antisemitism, but that’s not what’s happening. Sweden is the country that sends the most children per capita to the concentration camps, yet these children are almost never taught about antisemitism. They’re taught about the Holocaust separately, not in the context of antisemitism. In fact, I would say that there’s very little teaching about antisemitism at all in Sweden, there’s very little knowledge about antisemitism and people don’t recognize it; they don’t recognize, for example, that conspiracy theories are often antisemitic. We have to connect the two subjects. It’s important to teach this because otherwise you can’t understand why the Nazi Germans claimed that Jews run the world and that’s why you have to exterminate them”.
Holocaust education and combating antisemitism, according to Hauptman, are connected on another level too. “The Holocaust still effects our society today”, she says, “it’s a catastrophic part of history, it changed our society and it’s very present in the world today. This means that teaching the Holocaust isn’t only about teaching something that happened a long time ago. Understanding the Holocaust is about understanding how to proceed. these things are not disconnected and that’s why we have to put Holocaust education and fighting antisemitism together”. This is probably the foundation that the museum was founded on in the first place. “Former Prime-Minister, Stefan Löfven, was the one who decided that Sweden should have a Holocaust Museum. He was speaking at the Stockholm Synagogue on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and he was asked by one of the survivors, Max Safir (who died in 2020), why we don’t have a Holocaust Museum in Sweden. He answered that he didn’t know and that we should indeed have one”. Today, five years later, Sweden is still waiting for a permanent museum, but a temporary one opened this June, presenting an exhibition called “Seven Lives” which focuses on the life stories of seven Swedish Holocaust survivors.
Although this is Sweden’s first official Holocaust Museum, this is not the first time the Swedish government engages in Holocaust remembrance. Hauptman explains how the Forum for Living History was founded as a project, rather than a museum, about 25 years ago. In those days, she says, permanent museums were considered old-fashioned and not very modern. Instead, discussion centers and forums were seen as more progressive and the Forum became a way for the government to successfully deal with Holocaust education in Sweden and with international Holocaust related activities through the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. “However, now that we don’t have very many Holocaust survivors, it’s really urgent, and it’s society’s responsibility to find a way to manage this issue in the future”, Hauptman says and explains that it’s not only about preserving historical collections as indicated in the government’s instruction concerning the museum, “at this point there’s a need for a museum. It’s a way of showing that the Holocaust is part of Sweden’s history, there are many who have the story of the Holocaust in their family and the museum will also deal with Sweden’s role during WW2 and its relations with Nazi Germany. This is important because there are many Swedes who don’t have a deep knowledge about the Holocaust and there’s a need to show the connection between the Holocaust and Sweden”.
Hauptman is well aware of a certain reluctance within some Jewish organizations when it comes to the foundation of the Holocaust Museum. She understands this reluctance which comes from the will to focus on Jewish life, rather than Holocaust remembrance, but she also says that people she met, including Holocaust survivors, changed their minds about the museum and that now that it’s open, they support it. “The museum is one of the pieces that we need to work with in Sweden”, she says, “and it’s not instead of anything else. The more we are, the better! whether we’re showing the fantastic Jewish culture, fighting antisemitism or teaching history. These are all pieces of people’s life and they are all important parts of society”.
Current policy measures to improve Jewish life
At the end of day, combating antisemitism isn’t only about different attitudes towards Holocaust education or different priorities within the Jewish community. It’s also about strong support and clear stands by governments. In Sweden, the subject of antisemitism has been on the agenda for decades and different governments have handled it in different ways. Today, the government minister who holds the relevant portfolio is Parisa Liljestrand, a forty-year-old minister from the center-right Moderate party. Liljestrand, who may well be one of the rising stars of Swedish politics, immigrated to Sweden as a young child from Iran and worked as teacher and school head-master before getting involved in local politics. Last year she received her first post on the national political scene and became Sweden’s Minister of Culture. In an interview conducted in her Stockholm office she explains that one of her responsibilities is addressing issues connected with Sweden’s five national minorities. The minorities and their languages, which are considered official minority languages in Sweden, were recognized in the year 2,000 and they include Jews and Yiddish; Roma and Romani Chib; the Sami and the Sami language; the Swedish Finns and Finnish and the Tornedalers and their Meänkieli language. “As culture minister I have an overall responsibility for these issues including the government Task Force for Jewish Life”, she says, “the task force is convened by the Prime-Minister, but the Culture Ministry and myself have a slightly larger administrative responsibility connected to it”.
Liljestrand explains the task force’s background. “Our government was appointed on October 18th last year and the Prime Minister made it clear, as early as his first government statement, that strengthening Jewish life and working against antisemitism would be one of our priorities”, she says, “When we started our work, we decided that we need to understand what’s been done in Sweden today and to listen to the Jewish organizations which are active in Sweden. We wanted to understand what they think is needed. What we found out was that a lot of important work is being done, but there are things which still don’t work and there are things which are lacking. There’s still widespread antisemitism in Sweden which we need to actively fight and we need to strengthen the possibility to live a free Jewish life, both in terms of Jewish culture and in terms of Jewish religious life. This is why we need to gather the work that’s done by different government ministries and by Jewish organizations. When we talked to the organizations, we found that it was sometimes hard to understand who’s responsible for what issue and it was important to make sure that things don’t end up in the wrong place. That’s why we founded the Task Force as an inter-governmental work group which, beside the Prime Minister’s office, has eight more government offices represented in it”.
When asked if the fact that her government is supported by a party with roots in neo-Nazism doesn’t affect her attempts to fight antisemitism, Liljestrand tells a story of one of her meetings. “I met a Jewish father who told me about his son who went shopping while he was wearing necklace with a Star of David. The father said that when the boy came to the cashier, the person who was working there told him that he was not welcome in the shop. This story really hurts. This can’t be our reality. This isn’t Sweden. We have a clear mission – making Sweden a free country to live in and supporting those groups who cannot live a de-facto free life here. So, I don’t feel the Sweden-Democrats are stopping me from doing this. I understand that there’s a concern, but I’m clear, and the government is clear in its message. One must remember that antisemitism is about gathering and capitalizing violence from various directions. That’s what makes it different from regular racism”.
Part of the violence Liljestrand is talking about is online and much of it is aimed at young people who have to grow up with it. “It’s extremely serious when antisemitism becomes a natural part of day-to-day life and it isn’t limited to the physical space and instead it’s spread digitally”, Liljestrand says, “it’s worrying and we need to fight it and work towards the goal of not having another generation which is exposed to the same kind of difficulties living a Jewish life or the same kind of antisemitic hate which previous generations were exposed to”.
Liljestrand seems to be serious about this particular aspect of her job. “I myself, with my background, know exactly what it’s like to live in a society which treats you differently if you have a different skin color or if you have a different culture”, she says, “I know what it’s like to fight your way into society and have the will to be part of it while still keeping a part of your culture and heritage”.
The impact of a policy against antisemitism
When it comes to antisemitism and the struggle against it, Sweden is indeed an interesting case. For much of its post war history, antisemitism wasn’t taken very seriously. Neo-Nazi movements operated freely while the close ties to Nazi Germany were ignored. This came together with a widespread ignorance about the Holocaust, antisemitic attitudes within the Swedish elite and free import of antisemitism with large waves of immigration from other countries. Then, in the last couple of decades, all that changed. Sweden became a world leader of Holocaust education and combating antisemitism. At least that’s what it presents itself as being. But are the museums, task forces, international conferences, research projects and educational initiatives really working?
This is the question that, in 2025, we cannot avoid asking ourselves. On the one hand, it is clear that Sweden is much more aware of the problem and much better equipped to combat it than it has ever been. But any honest assessment of the situation must admit that, in many cases, Swedish schools remain dangerous places for Jewish students and teachers, who continue to suffer verbal and physical attacks, while teachers and principals avoid confronting the aggressors. It has been reported that in some schools, Shoah survivors are sometimes not invited to share their stories because of the disrespect shown by some students. Outside the education system, other problems remain unresolved. Although physical violence against Jewish targets is not common in Sweden, it has occurred and, according to police reports and the press, remains possible. Molotov cocktails have been thrown at Jewish cemeteries, funeral homes, and synagogues, and numerous cases of physical and verbal assaults against Jews have been documented. The resurgence of pro-Palestinian demonstrations since October 7—where strongly antisemitic slogans, signs, and rhetoric have been documented—is, perhaps more than anywhere else in Europe, a real cause for concern. The scale of the protests against singer Eden Golan’s participation in the Eurovision 2024 final in Malmö was the most striking demonstration of this.
A look at the Radio Islam website is a thought-provoking experience. It features lengthily texts about subjects like how Jews have controlled Sweden for centuries, how they instrumentalize the “Holocaust” and how racism, hatred and cruelty are the driving forces of the Torah and the Talmud. In a way this brings us full circle. Sweden has gone a long way fighting antisemitism since Radio Islam was persecuted back in the eighties. since then, Swedish governments, Jewish organization and civil society organizations have turned Sweden into a country known for its rigorous combat against antisemitism. However, with populist and racists political movements on the rise, with Islamist propaganda on and off-line and burnings of holy books on a weekly bases, it’s now clearer than ever that the fight against antisemitism still has a long way to go.
