When it comes to the past, Medelhavsmuseet (The Swedish Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities) largely ignores Israel, but when it comes to the present the museum presents only different shades of the same narrative, one that excludes a balanced, mainstream Israeli perspective. This in itself is not necessarily a problem. However, since public funds are being used and this is all payed for by tax-payers money, why not invest in presenting all sides of the story? Are Israelis so dehumanized that their pain, loss, and sacrifice are not considered worthy of being told?
The lecture hall at Medelhavsmuseet was full on September 4th. The evening seminar which took place there was called "Repair, Return and Reconstruction for Palestine’s Decolonized Future", and in case the message wasn’t clear enough from the name, during most of the evening there was a photograph of Gaza and a slogan in Arabic and English projected on the screen behind the panel members. The slogan read: “Glory to Gaza”.
The seminar itself wasn’t exactly intellectually challenging and the message was pretty straight forward. When Israel was mentioned by all speakers it was associated with very specific words. Genocide, occupation, oppression, destruction, starvation, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment and settler-colonialism were some of the favourites. There was also a consensus about the Palestinian reaction to the Israeli aggression. Here the popular words were: education, culture, conservation, de-colonization, renovation and restoration. Listening to the panel members it sounded like Palestinian resistance is all about Mahmoud Darwish poems, architecture podcasts and a struggle for free press.
In an hour and a half of debate there was nothing about Palestinian terror or violence, there were no suicide bombings or rockets, Hamas wasn’t mentioned and October 7th was just the date when the current Israeli offensive started. Since all panel members were engaged in architecture and restoration and apparently very well acquainted with Gaza, it was interesting that the immense military underground tunnel infrastructure, a remarkable architectural achievement in itself, was not mentioned. There was also no mention of another kind of physical destruction – the one of Israeli communities. No destroyed and abandoned kibbutzim, no apartments demolished by Qassam rockets and no homes burned to the ground with entire families still inside. There were no hostages, no executions and no organized rape and sexual violence. The whole event felt like a motivational inspirational gathering for activists, where all the speakers clearly presented a Palestinian narrative, and many in the audience were members of the so-called "pro-Palestinian" movement. Some wore kaffiyehs, a couple of them even had red triangles (a Hamas symbol) on them.
In itself, all this is completely legitimate. In a democracy, people are free to organize whatever seminar they wish. What is, however, somewhat troubling is that Medelhavsmuseet is part of a government agency (Statens museer för världskultur) funded by taxpayers, with tens of millions of Swedish Crowns each year. When Rani Kasapi, Head of Content and Learning at Världskulturmuseerna, opened the seminar, she also mentioned that other institutions were also involved in organizing it: the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII), and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. All of these are also fully or partially funded by Swedish taxpayers, raising the question – why should funds that could be spent on education and culture for the benefit of all be used for a one-sided, highly political event based on foreign policy propaganda?
Perhaps, the idea was to have another event to balance the message and show another side and a different narrative. And indeed, on October 7th, a very symbolic and politically charged date, another event was planned by the museum. This time the title was: What’s Happening in Israel Now? (Vad händer i Israel nu?). In a perfect world, this could have been the the missing piece, the event that shows that the situation is more complex than just propaganda. But the world isn’t perfect. According to publications, the event had only one speaker – Göran Rosenberg. The same Rosenberg who only a few months earlier described Israel as a "morally dead project" and questioned its future existents in its current form. It’s as if the museum invited an anti-vaxer to lecture about the importance of vaccinations. Was it really so hard to find another voice to describe the situation in Israel? One who at least believes in its future? Medelhavsmuseet has hosted more events about the region in the last couple of years — for example, there was a book talk with Cecilia Uddén, one of Swedish media’s most critical voices when it comes to Israel. There was also a UI event featuring several Israeli left-wing activists. But the bigger picture is that, aside from rare exceptions, Medelhavsmuseet largely presents different shades of the same narrative, one that excludes a balanced, mainstream Israeli perspective. This in itself is not necessarily a problem. However, if public funds are being used, why not invest in presenting all sides of the story? Are Israelis so dehumanized that their pain, loss, and sacrifice are not considered worthy of being told?
Looking a bit deeper, it’s obvious that Medelhavsmusset doesn’t ignore the Israeli perspective only when it comes to the current conflict. For some reason, it ignores Israel’s existence all together (apart from occasionally mentioning it as a colonial bully destructing the fascinating, authentic and noble people of the orient). Israel as a modern state and the ancient Jewish entities in the Eastern Mediterranean like the Kingdoms of Jehuda and The Northern Kingdom of Israel are a treasure of history, archaeology and ancient culture. They’re the origin story of Christianity and Western civilization and a fascinating story of cultural, social and linguistic revival. Still, in the last twenty years of exhibitions, it seems like Medelhavsmuseet hasn’t had a single exhibition presenting Israeli or Jewish culture and history. I spoke with two historians who have studied this in detail. One of them said that “ancient Jewish history is almost completely erased from the museum’s portrayal of the ancient Mediterranean region”. The other said that for historical reasons, the museum focuses on Egypt and Cyprus, which is fine, but even when those cultures had strong connections to Jews in the region, those connections are usually not mentioned, and even on the rare occasions that they are the name Israel never is.
And they're right. Medelhavsmuseet has presented many exhibitions about Egypt, Greece, Rome, Syria, Cyprus, Turkey – and even non-Mediterranean countries such as Iraq. In fact, the only recent exhibition that touched on Israel was “Nakba,” which according to the Jewish Central Council was highly one-sided and sparked debate over whether the museum was pursuing a political agenda. The museum responded that “it is not a historical exhibition, but a small audio exhibition with stories”. When representatives from the Jewish Central Council met with the superintendent of Statens museer för världskultur regarding this, their concerns were not taken seriously.
There’s no doubt that the story of the Nakba should be told. It’s an important part of the region’s history. But if this was only a “small audio exhibition with stories”, where is the next audio exhibition with the other stories from the same war – for example, those about Holocaust survivors who were killed in the battle field after being freed from Auschwitz, or those about massacres of Jews that took place during the same time, or the ones about the Jordanians expelling the Jews from Jerusalem’s old town or the Egyptians illegally occupying Gaza?
During the debate with the Jewish Central Council, the museum mentioned one exhibition – Egypt’s Jews (Egyptens judar), perhaps as one with a more “Jewish narrative”. But the truth is that even when the exhibition explains how Egyptian Jews were attacked, harassed, arrested and expelled in the 1950s and 60s, it’s clear that the message is that this is a direct result of Zionism. The exhibition explains how for 3,000 years Jews were “totally integrated in the surrounding society” (helt integrerade i det omgivande samhället) and only when the UN decided to “divide Palestine” and the 1948 war broke out, Egyptians started “anti-Zionists riots” and resisted “foreign influence”. These texts are a wonderful example of verbal acrobatics. There’s no Egyptian antisemitism, no Muslim Brotherhood (the mother movement of Hamas) promoting genocidal racism against Jews, just an unfortunate mixing up (ihopblandning) of “Jews” and “Zionists”. This makes sense since one of the exhibition’s production partners was Magda Haroun, Head of the Jewish Community Council in Egypt and a vocal opponent of Israel who claims that Zionism is a racist movement. Interestingly, the exhibition which mentions the wars between Israel and Egypt, doesn’t discuss Egyptian President Saadat’s historic recognition of Israel and the resulting Israel-Egypt peace agreement. One can only assume that the reason is that if the museum tells its visitors about Egypt recognizing Israel, this may lead to a demand that Medelhavsmuseet does the same.
Reactions to the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach have largely focused on the hateful rhetoric believed to have contributed to the violent extremism that claimed 15 lives – the deadliest attack on Jews since October 7. That focus is understandable after two years of global demonstrations under slogans such as “globalize the intifada.”
At the same time, the attack is rooted in more than a toxic debate climate. It also involves a geopolitical and security dimension that has primarily been raised by Israeli officials.
According to Israeli intelligence assessments, links had already existed for several months between Australian pro-Palestinian activists and groups such as the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Against this backdrop, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Australia’s prime minister of betraying the country’s Jews. After the attack, Netanyahu stated that he had already warned in August that recognizing Palestine would, in his words, “pour fuel on the antisemitic fire, reward Hamas terrorists, and encourage threats against Australia’s Jews.”
This raises a number of questions. Does Australia really need Israeli intelligence to identify threats against its Jewish population? And more importantly: is Netanyahu truly the right person to lecture others about being unprepared for Islamist terrorism, when his own government bears responsibility for Israel’s worst catastrophe in decades?
But Netanyahu is not the central issue. What matters is that the warnings proved correct. A massacre of Jews took place in Australia, carried out by men who had ISIS flags in their car. Australian authorities knew that one of the perpetrators had ties to ISIS and that his father, the other perpetrator, legally owned at least six weapons. Despite this, no warning flags were raised, and the Jewish event lacked police protection when the attack occurred.
Islamists operate freely in Sweden
Against this background, Europe should ask itself a clear question. If Australia’s policies over the past two years resemble those pursued in many European countries, could what happened at Bondi Beach happen here?
Both domestic and foreign policy must be scrutinized. Domestically, this concerns insufficient resources to protect Jewish sites, an inability to counter conspiracy theories, and complacency toward Islamist actors. These challenges affect all European countries, including Sweden. Swedish journalists have recently exposed how Islamists operate freely in Sweden, how Iranian actors direct terrorist activity via Swedish organized crime, and what links Swedish activists have to terrorist movements such as the PFLP.
“Jews in countries that do not take Islamist terrorism seriously end up paying the price, regardless of whether government passivity stems from fear, incompetence, or indifference.”
Sweden is not alone. According to a recent Europol report, jihadist terrorism remains a central security challenge for the EU, with groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State exploiting the conflict in Gaza. Added to this is Hamas, which, according to Israel’s Mossad and European intelligence services, has planned attacks against Jews in Europe since 2023. The causal link is clear: Jews in countries that do not take Islamist terrorism seriously pay the price.
Kvartal
Why foreign policy matters
How, then, does foreign policy factor in? Can recognition of Palestine or harsh criticism of Israel encourage terrorism? Countries such as Spain, Norway, and Ireland pursue a clear line against Israel. Like Australia, they have recently recognized Palestine; they voice strong opposition to Israel in international forums and serve as comfortable host countries for movements that not only oppose Israeli policy but view the state itself as an illegitimate colonial project.
Australia’s prime minister firmly rejected Netanyahu’s claim that the country’s foreign policy had any connection to the attack. He may be right – such accusations require evidence. But that does not mean foreign policy is irrelevant to the climate surrounding antisemitic hate crimes.
First, governments – unlike individuals – must understand the unique situation Jews face. Demonstrations are marked by hatred, aggression, Nazi comparisons, terrorist symbols, and boycotts. Of course, protests are legitimate in a democracy, and no one seriously claims that all participants are violent antisemites. But at the political level, it is unclear whether countries such as Norway fully grasp what their Jewish populations are forced to endure. The situation is worsened by the fact that no other conflict in the world is covered as intensely – and, according to many, as one-sidedly – in Norwegian media. This has an enormous impact on Norway’s small Jewish community.
Second, does the tax-funded public sphere remain neutral, or does it contribute to an unsafe environment for Jews? What do teachers say? What do libraries display? How do healthcare professionals behave? This is a matter of public safety, not freedom of speech. In February, a video went viral showing two nurses at Bankstown Hospital in Sydney boasting about refusing care to – or even killing – Israeli patients. In Ireland, an official report found that school textbooks contain serious distortions of the Holocaust and Jewish history, which Jews in the country say fuel antisemitism. In Spain, Jewish organizations similarly warn that some teachers use classrooms for anti-Israel activism.
“Zero tolerance” is no longer enough
We can continue debating the limits of protest, but we must also scrutinize institutions. The state must protect freedom of expression, but it must also guarantee safety. That requires schools, hospitals, and libraries free from political propaganda and symbolic acts intended to influence public opinion.
Finally, it is a fact that jihadist terrorists in Europe are often exposed with the help of Israeli intelligence. Can Jews in Spain and Ireland truly trust that their governments will cooperate with the Mossad to save lives, when those same governments cannot even tolerate Israel’s participation in Eurovision?
After Bondi Beach, Europe’s governments must decide where they place their resources and political capital. If they are serious about protecting their Jewish populations, “zero tolerance” and symbolic gestures of solidarity are no longer sufficient. Political action is required – and it's required urgently.
As Sweden is marking 250 years of Jewish life, the reactions to the October 7th massacre, the war in Gaza and the tone of the rhetoric in the public debate are reasons to be concerned about Swedish antisemitism. But what is the true extent of this scourge, what is 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.
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 78, 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. It was a period with a clear wave of antisemitism in Sweden and other European countries during and after the Lebanon War in 1982. Antisemitism was not 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. On the basis of SCAA´s report to Sweden’s Chancellor of Justice, Rami was convicted of hate speech. But it was clear that in those days we stood pretty much alone. Not many people understood the problem, people did not want to talk about it and there were many known figures who came to Rami’s defence saying it was only criticism of Israel, not antisemitism”.
A lot has changed in Sweden since then and SCAA probably has an important part in the change. Shastin Ravid says that since the nineties, the organization has become more than just an activist watchdog. 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 is 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 pupils 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 is my understanding that there is 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. But there is still much work to do..”
When Shastin Ravid is asked for an up-to-date description of antisemitism in Sweden, he starts by saying that more research is needed to get a better understanding of the problem. That said, it is clear that in many ways Sweden is not different from other countries. “The development in Sweden is connected to global developments”, he says, “antisemitic conspiracy theories have been spread and legitimized by important political actors in recent years. In Europe we have for example seen it in countries like Hungary and Poland amongst right-wing nationalist parties and governments, but we have also seen it in other countries including the US where amongst others Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the MAGA movement have legitimized and spread antisemitic propaganda. This global phenomenon has affected Sweden too and has sparked hate speech and hate crimes. And then there is, of course, the strong global wave of antisemitism after Hamas’ attack in Israel on the 7th of October 2023 and the war in Gaza. It is not the first time an escalation of the Israel-Palestinian conflict triggers antisemitism in Sweden and other countries, but the level of propaganda, hate, threats and attacks against Jews has been unusually high.”
“Studies show that antisemitism in the form of negative beliefs and attitudes towards Jews exists, in varying degrees, in all Swedish society, in many different groups and milieus. Within Swedish mainstream politics, the problem has long been 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 antisemitism continues to be a problem in the party. We often find high- and low-level representatives of the party spreading antisemitic propaganda and we see many connections between the party and right-wing and even Nazi extremists. In addition, the Sweden-Democrats do not deal with antisemitism within their ranks unless they are 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, including antisemitism, Shastin Ravid says, is “a joke”.
“But the nationalist and populist right is just part of the problem. Antisemitism does, for example, also regularly appear within the pro-Palestine movement and parts of the Swedish left, where it is often related to Israel and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In these circles there is sometimes a denial or an unwillingness to see the problem of antisemitism, sometimes rooted in the misperception that Jews are “white” and therefore cannot be victims of racism. In the last year, there has been a big debate in Sweden about the fact that several representatives of the Swedish Left Party have spread antisemitic propaganda, many times on social media. And when criticized, those party representatives have been backed by many others within and around the party who have denied that the propaganda is antisemitic. The SCAA and many others have strongly criticized all of this, and the fact that the party leadership many times has been slow to act and condemn the spread of such anti-Jewish racism and those party members who defend and excuse it.”
“And of course, movements linked to radical Islamism must also be taken into account”, Shastin Ravid adds. According to him, antisemitism is most virulent within those movements and Nazi and other right-wing extremist movements. “For all of 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. Recently, it was revealed that the Iranian regime is suspected of having planned to murder Swedish Jews, among them Aron Verständig, the chair of the Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities (Judiska Centralrådet). According to the Swedish Security Services (Säpo), Iran has also recruited Swedish criminal networks to carry out attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets. The Swedish National Centre for Terrorist Threat Assessment (NCT) has reported that the biggest terror threats in Sweden come from violent Islamists and right-wing extremists, which both have Jews and Jewish institutions as some of their primary targets”.
Even without physical violence, Swedish antisemitism is present in the public sphere and one of its main outlets are the numerous demonstrations in support of the Palestinians and denouncing the “genocide” in Gaza. The days right after October 7th, and before the Israeli ground attack on Gaza began, were a good example. While the massacre in southern Israel was still ongoing, there were a couple of spontaneous demonstrations in southern Sweden which included music, dancing and convoys of cars honking their horns in support of the Hamas attack. Right after that, in the course of one weekend in Stockholm, three different organizations demonstrated separately but with similar slogans. A part from the mainstream Pro-Palestinian movements, there were more radical organizations on the streets. One 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 who demonstrated in support of the Hamas attack. They were 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.”
Since then, there have been numerous demonstrations in Sweden, many of them on a weekly basis. These demonstrations are legal, the organizers deny that they feature antisemitic content and they are seen by many Swedes as legitimate opposition to Israel and solidarity with Palestinians. However, they often include slogans which are considered antisemitic by many such as supporting a “global intifada” and “crushing Zionism”, promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and calling for a “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea”.
Still, demonstrations are not the main concern when it comes to current Swedish antisemitism. There have been numerous reports of activists who have used school classes, universities and even pre-schools to spread radical anti-Israeli political propaganda which is seen by many as antisemitic, the culture world has been full of calls for boycotting Israel and ending cooperation with Israeli artists, the BDS movement which was hardly present in Sweden before the war has been publicly active in promoting boycotts against companies which they claim are complicit with Israel’s “illegal occupation and apartheid politics” and parts of Swedish academia have become hostile to Jewish and Israeli students. In Gothenburg University, for example, activists were allowed to take over the premises of the university’s art and design school and they distributed Hamas propaganda. In Stockholm, Lund and Uppsala there have been reports in Swedish media of pro-Palestinian encampments and so-called “liberated zones” which together with harsh rhetoric from members of senior university staff who are also political activists made students hide their Jewish identity and caused concerns about their safety and well-being.
Demonstration in Stockholm, June 2025
How prevalent are antisemitic crimes?
“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 have not 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 (Brottsförebyggande rådet, Brå). They show that there is a small and inconsistent increase in the number of reported antisemitic hate crimes over the years, but some years there is a sharp rise. “These are often the years when the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has escalated, like the last war in Gaza. According to a study from Brå, there was a sharp rise in reported antisemitic hate crimes during the last part of 2023, almost 5 times as many as during the same period the year before”.
But other global events may also have been important in this respect. “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 is Zionists or Globalist or specific names like Soros or Rothschild. These words are used globally as symbols of a big Jewish conspiracy, and they are widely spread in Sweden too”.
Another study Shastin Ravid speaks of was made by a government agency called The Living History Forum (Forum för Levande historia), which was founded in the beginning of the 2000s to “work for democracy and equality between all people, using lessons learned from the Holocaust”. According to Shastin Ravid, the study from 2020, showed that there had been a decline in antisemitic attitudes and notions over a period of 15 years, but that antisemitism still exists within different parts of the population. “I think that this is an important point to make”, he says, “the study showed that around 5 % of 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 %. This does not mean that 34 % can be said to be antisemitic, but it indicates that antisemitic ideas exist among a bigger part of the population than many think. We should not only focus on the most extreme groups. According to the study, higher levels of antisemitic beliefs correlated among other things with, and were more common amongst people who are: older, have lower levels of education and have a low trust in public institutions. Antisemitic beliefs were 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 tended to be slightly more common among men, and Israel-related antisemitic attitudes and notions tended to be slightly more common among women”. However, Shastin Ravid points out, the study is now a few years old, and many things have happened since that could affect the results of the next study, which is supposed to be published in 2026.
One group which is particularly exposed to antisemitic hatred is the group of school pupils and teachers who in many cases are scared to be open with their Jewish identity. “We have studies from among other places Malmö and Stockholm which show that there are serious problems with antisemitism in some Swedish schools. Sometimes it is 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”.
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 Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities (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 of 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 who served as 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 was set up to be a ‘one point of contact’ authority, which is something we’ve suggested before”, she says, “it was founded in January 2023 and the first issue that it focused on was government funding for security for Jewish institutions like synagogues and schools. The second issue was, and still is, addressing antisemitism”. Kahn Nord explains that the previous government had the political will to secure security funding, but the budget mechanism didn’t really work. The current government, however, addressed the issue, increased funding and gave additional funding after October 7th. 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 indeed happened and various issues which Jews in Sweden were concerned about were discussed seriously. These included the threats of illegalizing Jewish circumcision and banning the import of Kosher meat which were supported by some political parties. Another important issue was the status of Jewish schools in Sweden which doesn’t have almost any real private schools. There are so-called independent schools, including a couple of Jewish ones, within a charter system, but because of reports of radicalization in some of Sweden’s independent Muslim schools, new legislation was put in place which affected Jewish schools too. The new legislation imposed the definition of “denominational schools”, and with-it necessary restrictions, on existing Jewish schools. Another concern was an initiative to limit the establishment of new denominational schools. These were all concerns in the Swedish-Jewish pre-October 7th reality. Community leaders were saying then that “Swedish Jews may be able to survive a terror attack, but not legislation forbidding Brit Mila or Jewish schools”.
Today, after October 7th, it’s clear that the majority of political parties, and certainly the ones which are part of the Swedish Government, are committed to addressing these Jewish concerns. Antisemitism, however, is not necessarily a problem which the government can easily address since its origins are well-rooted and widespread in many parts of Swedish society. All recent Swedish governments have therefore realized that combating antisemitism is as complicated as it’s important. And it’s a work in progress. Petra 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, however, the party hasn’t caused any policy shifts aimed at the Jewish minority. But October 7th created a new reality. We’ve seen an increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in schools and universities, we’ve seen politicians, especially in the Swedish Left, who spread antisemitic propaganda and we’ve seen support for Hamas in demonstrations and online”. Kahn Nord says that schools and social media are a particular concern. “The problem in these arenas is serious”, she claims, “and it can’t be dealt with by using old “action plans” that previous governments suggested. Many of these plans, including pledges made in Malmö four 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 establish a new Holocaust Museum in Stockholm (which has indeed been opened since then) 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 now, especially after October 7th, it’s time to focus on the living ones”.
And indeed, when it comes to living Jews and real concrete Jewish communities, combating antisemitism and taking measures to improve Jewish depends on 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-two-year-old minister from the center-right Moderate party. Liljestrand, immigrated to Sweden as a young child from Iran and worked as a teacher and school head-master before getting involved in local politics. In 2022 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 2000 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.
“Our government was appointed in October 2022 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. Sweden ranks well in global measurements of antisemitism, but there’s still widespread antisemitism in Sweden which we need to actively fight. This became even more evident after Hamas’s horrific attack on October 7, 2023. As in many other countries, we have seen the threat perception towards Swedish Jews increase, as has open antisemitism. The government takes this very seriously.
But it is not enough to work against antisemitism. 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 Government Task Force for Jewish Life 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 a 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”.
Parisa Liljestrand, Photo by Ninni Andersson Regeringskansliet
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”.
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?
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 and universities remain hostile dangerous places for Jewish students and teachers, who continue to suffer from harassment, social pressure and occasionally also violence, while teachers and principals avoid confronting the aggressors. It has been reported that in some schools, Shoah survivors haven’t been 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 and the press, it remains possible. Molotov cocktails have been thrown at Jewish cemeteries, funeral homes, and synagogues, the Israeki embassy has been attacked and other 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 also a cause for concern. The scale of the protests against singer Eden Golan’s participation in the Eurovision 2024 final in Malmö made international headlines, but the truth is that although those demonstrations may have been the biggest, they weren’t the most aggressive.
For many Jews who live in Sweden it’s not about the size of the demonstration and not about the legitimate right to demonstrate. Anyone who’s uncomfortable with these demonstrations can just avoid them. The problem is that when Sweden’s Jews see thousands of people who are collectively calling Israel, which is an important part of their identity, the worse things in the world and promoting a very high level of hate, they know that in that crowd there may be familiar faces – perhaps their children’s pre-school teacher or their local clinic’s nurse or doctor. And it’s not only that. The separation that some of the demonstrators try to make between criticizing Israel and attacking Jews doesn’t always work. When demonstrators wanted to burn an Israeli flag in Malmö in November 2023, they didn’t get on a train and go to Israel’s embassy in Stockholm. They did it outside the local synagogue. A couple of months later protesters from a group called ”Together for Palestine” chanted anti-Israeli slogans at people who were entering Stockholm’s Great synagogue for a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. Some of the people who encountered this were Holocaust survivors. The demonstrators demanded that Sweden’s Jews will denounce Israel and its war in Gaza. These events send a message that 250 years after Jews were officially allowed to live and create a community in Sweden, their legitimacy is now conditional. If they speak out against their historic homeland and its government, they are tolerated. If not, all hell may to break loose.
A look at the Radio Islam website is a thought-provoking experience. It features lengthy 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 organizations and civil society organizations have turned Sweden into a country known for its rigorous combat against antisemitism. However, with populist and racist political movements on the rise, with Islamist propaganda on and off-line, with an increasingly aggressive discourse against Israel and Zionism, demonstrations, boycotts, and burnings of flags and books on a weekly basis, it’s now clearer than ever that the fight against antisemitism still has a long way to go.
Lund University will host a conference on the 'instrumentalization of antisemitism,' and last month, a lecturer at Stockholm University denounced the leader of the local Jewish community as a 'murderer.' Jewish scholars see these incidents as signs that they are no longer welcome in Sweden.
STOCKHOLM – On Monday, Lund University in southern Sweden will host a conference titled "Beyond Polarization and Instrumentalization: Antisemitism and Other Racisms."
According to an advertisement on the university website, it will explore the "broader context" of "whiteness, the nation-state, Europeanness, politics of belonging, racial capitalism, gender, sexuality, religion/secularism, and (anti-)Zionism," and also the "instrumentalization [of antisemitism] in relation to support and opposition to Israel, before and after October 7th 2023."
This attempt to redefine antisemitism "and reduce it to a definition most Jews cannot support," says a Jewish historian in Sweden who asked not to be identified, effectively bars many Jewish scholars from participating in the discussion. The organizers of the conference, being hosted by the department of gender studies, rejected a request from Haaretz to attend and declined to answer questions.
A demonstration outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. Photo: David Stavrou
A few weeks ago, another Swedish university – defying growing calls from students and faculty to boycott Israel – notified its doctoral candidates about a fellowship opportunity in Israel. But less than a week later, Uppsala University issued an unusual apology. "We understand that the information we forwarded has caused strong reactions, and we apologize for this," it said, adding that it intended to review procedures for passing on such information.
Asked for comment, a university representative dismissed the retraction as a technicality. "We realized that several recipients perceived the information passed on from the career office as a statement from Uppsala University," said Cecilia Edin, head of the career office. "This was never our intention, and we wanted to say sorry for the feelings this misunderstanding caused. PhDs at Uppsala University aren't the main target group for the career office, and we don't usually communicate with them. Therefore, the routines for passing on information to this group will be reviewed.
But an email complaint circulated among Uppsala staff and shared with Haaretz suggests there were other reasons for the apology. "It's inappropriate to advertise Ph.D./postdoc opportunities at any institution or foundation complicit in apartheid," it said.
These two incidents indicate just how fraught the discourse surrounding antisemitism and Israel has become at Swedish universities. Indeed, just a few months ago, Uppsala – Sweden's oldest institute of higher education and one of its most prestigious – was accused of "canceling" its Jewish connections when it removed the name of Hugo Valentin – a prominent Jewish historian and ardent Zionist – from its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The move has been described by international scholars and historians as "removing the Jewish perspective from the Holocaust," which may explain why this academic center has repeatedly rejected requests to honor Jewish Holocaust historian Paul Levine, who was one of its leading historians. Although Levine, who died in 2019, was a groundbreaking Holocaust historian and a laureate of the Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Medal, the center refused to create a memorial page on its website or place a plaque at the center to recognize his contribution.
In March, tensions between the Jewish community and the Swedish academy escalated even further when a lecturer at Stockholm University denounced the leader of the local Jewish community as a "murderer." Aron Verständig, chairman of the Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, responded by filing a complaint to the Swedish police against sociologist Pär Engholm for slandering him.
Swedish journalists Sofie Löwenmark and Lars Jonson have since revealed, in a piece for the online magazine Doku, other vociferously anti-Israel statements by this Stockholm-based academic, including his depiction of Israelis as "Zionist monsters who must be forced back to Eastern Europe and the United States. "Engholm has referred to Jewish leaders and terrorism researchers as "obnoxious" and "disgusting Zionists." He propagated theories suggesting that Israel murdered its own citizens on October 7 and defended Hamas, accusing Israelis and Americans of being the true terrorists.
Verständig later reported to the Swedish Committee Against Antisemitism that Engholm attacked him because he had called out another Swedish institution of higher education, Gothenburg University, for allowing pro-Palestinians student activists to take over the premises of its school of art and design and distribute Hamas propaganda. Commenting on the increasingly hostile climate on campuses, Daniel Janouch, chairman of the Swedish Jewish Youth Union, told Haaretz: "Jewish and Israeli students are worried and feel uncertain about how the situation will develop and what it will mean for them. There is concern about whether students' grades could be affected if they are simply open about being Jewish or having a connection to Israel." He added: "Jewish students should not have to take a detour on their own campus to feel safe."
Swedish school curriculum and school laws require factual accuracy, objectivity, and scientific basis from all teachers. Nevertheless, more than once or twice, Swedish teachers who are also political activists use tax-funded schools for spreding their political propaganda.
It was an ordinary Friday in January at an ordinary high school in Stockholm. At the end of a religious studies lesson, which was dedicated to self-study in preparation for a test, the teacher asked the students to direct their attention to a film.
The film showed a speech lasting about 20 minutes. Although it was supposed to be a lesson about Judaism, the film strangely wasn't about Jewish theology, Jewish traditions, Jewish texts, Jewish holidays, or Jewish history. Instead, it showed a radical political speech given in France in May 2024. It was about 'Israel's genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes in Gaza' and Zionism as a murderous ideology that specializes in killing women and infants. The speaker also claimed that the USA, the UK, and France are 'fascists, neo-Nazis, and Israel’s best friends' and that 'there is no freedom of speech in Europe.'
The speaker, a self-declared 'anti-Zionist Jew' from the UK, referred to Hamas terrorists as 'real freedom fighters.' About Israelis, he said, 'they are not only not Jewish, they are also not human,' adding that 'a nation like Israel has no right to exist.'
Of course, the speaker did not mention the genocidal-like Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, nothing about the women, children, and elderly taken hostage, nothing about the lack of democracy and human rights in the Palestinian autonomous areas, or about Islamist terrorism and antisemitism, which have been characteristics of the Palestinian national movement since the 1930s.
Given all this, it is clear that the film did not belong in a religious studies lesson. However, according to a student who was there, the film was shown without context, without discussion, without questions, and without any explanation (except for the claim that it showed 'not all Jews are Zionists').
Moreover, the teacher's deep involvement in the issue and the teacher's personal views became clear as the students watched the video. It included sections with standing ovations from the audience. Belive it or not, one of the people seen cheering in the film was the Swedish teacher, making it clear where the teacher stands politically. When asked about it, the teacher confirmed this.
The incident appears to be yet another case of political activism in a Swedish school, which harms individual students and involves the misuse of the taxpayer-funded school system to spread extreme ideologies. In this case, the teacher is also a union representative and one of the organizers of a discussion evening about Gaza, held in Stockholm last May. As one of 'the union’s internationally responsible officers,' the teacher gave the other teachers an introduction and explained the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The teacher, who has also expressed extremely radical views in other contexts, is clearly not suitable to present a balanced view of the conflict. Yet, the teacher was allowed to do so for other teachers. This may be one of the reasons for other cases where extremist political views have been part of teaching in Stockholm's schools.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Swedish schools have seen many such cases. Last May, SvD published an article about preschool teachers who imposed their political activism on 4- and 5-year-olds. At one preschool in Stockholm, for example, the children made jewelry with paint and beads in the colors of the Palestinian flag and handprints, which they placed on white sheets of paper with the heading 'Support Palestine.' According to a post on social media, the preschool was also involved in collecting money for Palestinian groups. In Jönköping, a couple of preschool teachers had children draw watermelons to 'show love and solidarity with Palestine.'
Older students in 39 Swedish schools were given their share of political propaganda from another direction. According to another article in SvD, these schools are 'partner schools' of Amnesty, an organization deeply involved in political activism focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and far from impartial. These schools use the 'Amnesty model' for teacher training, themed days, reading materials, and lectures. They even participate in global campaigns. Amnesty is known as an organization that disproportionately criticizes Israel, supports boycott campaigns against Israel, almost completely ignores attacks on Israeli civilians, uses information from Hamas propaganda, and some of its overseas partners have connections to terrorist organizations and Islamist movements.
A student at a high school in Stockholm shared that since the lessons on the Israel-Palestine conflict started, they feel 'I have to go to school to defend Israel. It's not that the teacher is lying, but it is very one-sided. For example, we had two lessons on the Palestinian Nakba and only half a slide about the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries.' When students were given texts on the subject, they received study questions like: 'What support is there to describe Israel as an apartheid state?' 'It’s uncomfortable,' says the student, who is concerned about their classmates. 'I feel like I need to present the other side. The others in the class don’t know the full picture.'
A mother of another student shared that her son had lost motivation for his social studies because of how the war was presented. The teacher continuously referred to all of Israel as occupied land and presented Hamas as one of what seemed to be two reasonable alternatives: a terrorist organization or an anti-colonial liberation movement.
Sometimes, Swedish teachers have not spoken about the topic at all but failed to protect students from politically motivated attacks. A few weeks after the war began, classmates of a Jewish boy in a primary school in southern Sweden asked him who he supported in the war. The 10-year-old boy replied that he supported Israel. The two others drew a crossed-out Israeli flag, crumpled it up, and threw it at him while saying, 'We hate Israel.' The teacher present in the classroom did nothing until the student’s mother contacted them.
The mother of a 16-year-old boy from a Jewish family attending a high school in western Sweden shared another disturbing story. She says a girl stood up in class and screamed, 'Slaughter, rape, and torture all Jews' at her son. The teacher did not react, did not stop the girl, or report her to the principal. The other students were also silent
Returning back to the Stockholm case from January, the school refused to disclose what sanction, if any, was taken against the teacher who used a high school classroom to spread extreme propaganda against Israel. The school’s principal says that the school does not comment on potential actions regarding individual staff matters. But it was confirmed that the teacher is still teaching at the school.Thus other teachers, students and parents will have to keep guessing – they know that the teacher exploited authority, a power position, taxpayer money and school infrastructure to advocate for political views that have nothing to do with the subject matter of the teaching. They also know that school curriculum and school laws require all teachers to be factual, objective, and based on scientific foundations. Still, we'll all have to stay in the dark when it comes to the implications of not doing so.
It is important to emphasize that the problem here is not discussing sensitive topics or censoring anyone. Different opinions are welcome, discussions in schools are important, and teachers, like everyone else, have the right to their political beliefs. The problem is the abuse of Swedish schools for pure political propaganda at the expence of the students and Swedish society.
One of the students who took part in the lesson in January has a Jewish background. She is now being taught by another teacher in religious studies. Since the school in this case reacted by separating the teacher from the student, even though it is clear that the problem lies with the teacher and not with the student, one must ask: would propaganda in teaching go unchallenged or without consequences if it concerned something other than Israel and Jews?
STOCKHOLM – Years before the Nazis rose to power, Hugo Valentin, a prominent member of Stockholm's Jewish community, recognized the dangers of Nazi ideology. A historian and scholar, he warned against the "wild psychosis of hatred" as far back as 1930, and even before the outbreak of World War II, he cautioned against the "total eradication of German Jewry." When the Third Reich began implementing the Final Solution, he was among the first to inform the Swedish public that the Jews of Europe were being annihilated. Already in 1942, he wrote in a Swedish daily newspaper that 700,000 Polish Jews had been murdered, and he continued to report about the mass killings of Jews around Europe over the next few years for the Swedish Jewish Chronicle.
Until his death in 1963, Valentin was considered a leading authority on antisemitism. He connected ancient, medieval, and modern antisemitism and argued that "it is not the Jews who are hated, but an imaginary image of them." A pioneer of Swedish-Jewish studies, Valetin was also a vocal supporter of Zionism and of the young state of Israel. In 2009, nearly half a century after his death, Uppsala University – Sweden's oldest institute of higher education and one of its most prestigious – merged its Center for Multiethnic Studies with the Program for Holocaust and Genocide studies. Since Valentin had been a distinguished scholar of the history of the local Jewish community and antisemitism, as well as Nazism and genocide, it seemed only natural to name the center after him.
And so, the Hugo Valentin Center was established – the only academic center in Sweden named after a Jew. Late last year, the university announced that a decision had been taken to change its name: As of January 1 this year, it would be called the Uppsala Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Hugo Valentin apparently got cancelled.
"The removal of Valentin's name is part of a dangerous trend of taking antisemitism out of the Holocaust," said Aron Verständig, chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden. Speaking with Haaretz, he described the deceased historian as "the foremost writer of Jewish history in Sweden and one of the first to write about the Holocaust."
Pontus Rudberg, an associate professor of history at Uppsala University who was previously affiliated with the center, was also concerned. "It's disgraceful," he said. "It supports the trend that removes Jewish perspectives and Jewish history from Holocaust and genocide studies. It's also disgraceful because you don't remove the name of the person your institution is named after unless he's done something wrong."
Rudberg said he was surprised by the decision-making process. "I was asked by the director of the center for my opinion in a vague way during an informal meeting a week or two before the decision was made," he told Haaretz. "I said I was against it, but I didn't realize it was an actual process, and I found out about the decision, which was made with no informed and open debate, only when it was published just before the Christmas holidays."
In a protest letter addressed to Anders Hagfeldt, vice chancellor of the university, Professor Emeritus Harald Runblom, another Uppsala historian, wrote that "erasing a name in this context is like tearing down a statue, and it raises legitimate questions. Has he become persona non grata? Is there political opportunism behind this?"
Another letter addressed to the vice chancellor, signed by 93 international scholars, warned that erasing Valentin's name could set in motion "a broader trend of distancing Holocaust and genocide studies from Jewish history" and described the move as "an affront to Hugo Valentin's legacy and a diminution of his remarkable contributions." Among those signed on this letter were the distinguished Holocaust historians Christopher Browning and Jan Grabowski.
Weighing in on the controversy, journalist Nathan Shachar recently penned an op-ed in Dagens Nyheter, a leading Swedish daily, titled "Uppsala University embarrasses itself – does not dare to be linked to Sweden's most famous Zionist." "In the difficult reality since October 7, the center wants to tone down its Jewish affiliation for populist reasons of convenience and avoid being associated with the most famous of Swedish Zionists," he wrote.
Rudberg offered a somewhat different explanation for Valentin's erasure. "It's ignorance, rather than bad intentions," he said, "The people who made the decision don't know much about Valentin. They think he was mostly involved in Jewish history and antisemitism studies. They don't understand he was also a pioneer in Holocaust and Genocide studies."
Still, the decision seems to be in line with the current zeitgeist on campus. In November, a group of 131 university members published a letter in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet demanding that the university cuts all ties with Israeli universities "complicit in the genocide."
The letter was the latest in a series of calls at Uppsala to boycott Israel, and although the university's leaders have refused to bow to such demands from student groups, the fact that many professors and researchers support such sanctions against Israel has many Jews on campus feeling uneasy. Since October 7, the Uppsala campus has emerged as a hotbed of the Swedish pro-Palestinian protest movement. On a number of occasions during the past year, students disrupted university activities and the administration made the decision to summon police over what it perceived as threatening disruptions to campus life.
Several Jewish students, who agreed to speak with Haaretz on condition of anonymity, said they felt protests against Israel have crossed the line into antisemitism. They said that posters sighted at demonstrations and encampments on campus over the past year have supported violent resistance and denied Israel's right to exist.
Asked for comment, Elsa Bådagård from Uppsala University's office for Humanities and Social Sciences, issued the following statement: "Uppsala Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is a center within the Faculty of Arts, and the decision regarding its name has been made by the faculty board upon request from the board of the Hugo Valentin Center in December 2024.
The different reactions to the name change have been received and noted by the Faculty of Arts. However, since the request originated with the center, the faculty will not overturn its collegial decision on the basis of these opinions. Furthermore, the proposition to change the name has the support of the current employees at the center."
Bådagård insisted that the reason for the name change was that the board wanted it to reflect the primary field of research of the center, which is Holocaust and Genocide Studies. "It was not part of any political agenda, and the name change will not lead to any change regarding the focus of the various activities at the Center," she said, adding that "this is a purely organizational decision, and should not be read as a wish for the Faculty of Arts to distance itself from Hugo Valentin and his work."
Since my article about Amnesty and Swedish schools was written and published in Swedish and since the debate with Amnesty Sweden's Secretery Genral in Svenska Dagbladet was also in Swedish, I finally got round to translating the original texts into English so that non-Swedish speakers can see what the all the fuss was about…
When a Jewish woman from Umeå was featured on DN's first page after she decided to leave town, at least one writer, Göran Rosenberg, was critical. The article explained that the woman was leaving because of decades of antisemitic harassment. Still, Rosenberg wasn't impressed. "Today, DN publishes on its entire front page that a woman in Umeå (of Israeli origin) intends to leave the city because of her experiences of antisemitism ", he wrote and added that DN failed to explain the background: "consequently, we are not told that the same woman was very active in supporting Israel in the Gaza war". A couple of days later he explained in Expressen that antisemitism is being used as a political weapon. The woman from Umeå, it seems, had it coming. After all, she's not a "Swedish Jew", rather she's "a woman in Umeå (of Israeli origin)". Rosenberg's message is clear: while Antisemitism against regular Jews like himself, is despicable, Zionists and Israelis just "experience" antisemitism which is actually just good old criticism of Israel, or as Swedes elegantly call it – Israelkritik.
I thought of this when I talked to an organization called "Zikaron" last week. This small but extremely important organization offers lectures on the fates of Holocaust survivors to Swedish schools. The lectures are carried out by young people, grandchildren or great grandchildren of survivors who are taking over the historic burden of remembrance. Naturally, this has nothing to do with Israel. The Holocaust took place before there was an Israel and the victims were not "settler colonialist" or responsible for the "blockade of Gaza". And yet, it turns out that sometimes even the Holocaust is too problematic for some schools. When I talked to one of Zikaron's organizers, she told me that after the massacre of October 7th last year there were about ten schools that cancelled their lectures due to reasons like "wrong timing" or "sensitive timing" and since then, there has been less demand for their lectures. Could this also be "Israelkritik" or is it just that Swedish schools are too scared of upsetting the sensitive souls who find Holocaust education provocative. Or perhaps they don’t want to get in trouble with activist bullies who didn't get the memo saying that it's ok to talk about dead Jews from the 40s and the problem is only with the other kind of Jews, the ones with guns from the Middle-East. Whatever it is, anyone who's worried about Swedish schools being cowards can rest assured. They found their courage elsewhere.
While Holocaust education may be too sensitive, foreign policy political activism seems to be no problem at all. Otherwise, how could 39 Swedish schools be "partner schools (samarbetsskolor)" of Amnesty, a political organization which is as far from mainstream as it gets. These schools use Amnesty's "Schools for Human Rights" model (skola för mänskliga rättigheter) for teacher's education, planning "theme days" (temadagar) and providing material and lectures. They even take part in global campaigns. This model may be great for highlighting human rights and democracy, but there's a serious problem when it comes to the conflict in the Middle-East, since Amnesty is anything but impartial.
In recent years Amnesty International positioned itself clearly as opposed to everything Israeli. It has disproportionately targeted Israel for years, it has supported boycott campaigns and some of its campaigners and partners have supported or even been linked to terror organization and Islamist movements (to name some: Yasmin Hussein, Saleh Hijazi and Moazzam Begg). It almost entirely ignores attacks against Israel and atrocities committed against its civilians, it bases its information about Gaza casualties on Hamas' propaganda and it makes claims which are obviously false like "Israel's military operations in Gaza continue to kill people on a scale that has never been seen before".
But it's not only talk. Amnesty Sweden actively campaigned against policies of the Swedish government, like the decision to pause funding for UNRWA (based on information that some of its employees took part in the October 7th massacre) and the decision to stop funding Swedish Ibn Rushd study circle (after accusations that the organization has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and spreads antisemitism). In fact, whoever wants an idea of what Amnesty really supports can take a look at the kind of people it awards its prizes to. Elin Forghani, a Vänsterpartiet activist from Östersund just won Amnesty's new "Noismaker" prize after publicly claiming that: "Israel is a colonial project and an outpost of the West in the Middle East and always has been". And just to make clear what should be done with the colonizers she wrote: "we can make Israel and their sponsors sweat, tremble and fall. Liberation is in sight".
Naturally, in a democracy political activism is more than legitimate. However, it's also clear that Amnesty is in no way neutral or objective. It's a political player in global geo-politics, but it's still marching into Swedish schools, presenting itself as a non-biased public informer and bearer of a universal truth. Although political parties and organizations are allowed in Swedish schools and naturally Democracy and human rights should be part of their education, this isn't a case of mainstream education. Amnesty is getting a special "partner" status as a long-term official partner while other political actors are just guests, implying that Amnesty represents facts while the others represent opinions.
It's unclear why Swedish schools should be discussing the war in Gaza in the first place, but if they must, the material should be written and supervised carefully by serious state actors. This isn’t the place to start outsourcing. I spoke to a few parents and students in a Stockholm high school. They told me about their complaints to the school management regarding Amnesty's Gaza war education material and about lessons using material from Globalis, an organization run by "Svenska FN-förbundet" an organization which claims to "work for a better and stronger UN ". The UN in the title shouldn't be confused with impartiality. When I spoke to one student, he told me that since the lessons about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict started "it feels like I have to go to school to defend Israel twice a week. It's not that the teacher lies but it's so one-sided. For example, there were two lessons about the Palestinian Nakba and only half a slide about the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran and even that, according to the teacher, could be understood as a result of "Mossad activity". When the students were given texts on the subject, they were given guiding questions like: "what support is there for the claim that Israel is an apartheid state?". Student I spoke to talked about feeling very uncomfortable and worried about their classmates. "I feel I have to give the other side", one of them said, "because the other students in the class don't know the whole picture".
In an incident in another school, UN day was celebrated in the schoolyard by waving flags of different countries. According to one of the teachers, when some angry spectators who were passing by threatened to enter the school and remove the Israeli flag, the reaction wasn’t standing up to the threatening bullies and informing the police. Instead, the flag was removed and the person waving it was asked not to wave it again.
It seems that our schools are becoming a ridiculous case of Dr. Jackyle and Mr. Hyde. On one hand, they're wannabe rebels, dealing with the world's most complicated conflicts by employing radical political activists, while on the other hand, they're so afraid of controversy and conflict that they can't even wave a flag of a UN member country or talk about the Holocaust.
It's true, only a few schools cancelled Holocaust lectures and only some are Amnesty partners. But it's also true that only some pro-Palestinian demonstrators support violence (which is what shouting "Intifada!" means), only part of vänsterpartiet supports the PFLP and only a handful burned an Israeli flag outside a synagogue. Not to mention that just several thousand attended a Hamas conference in Malmö, and only a few hundred contribute to Islamist, antisemitic movements, and only one Imam praised Hezbollah's leader and only one or two artist spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, and only a small minority screamed at Holocaust survivors entering a memorial ceremony. How many minorities will it take to get the message? and when will our schools become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Amnesty Sweden's comment (originally in Swedish):
Our schoolwork is based on international conventions and Swedish school's governing documents.
On December 10th, 1948, the newly formed UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For the first time, the world had an agreement that viewed all people as free and equal, regardless of gender, skin color, religion or other beliefs or characteristics.
In 2011, knowledge of human rights was incorporated into the Swedish curriculum. Since 2012, Amnesty has been supporting upper secondary schools with teaching materials, lectures, and a model for working with human rights, based on both international conventions and Sweden's school governing documents.
David Stavrou, guest columnist for Svenska Dagbladet, criticizes Amnesty for supporting upper secondary schools in their work on human rights education, by making directly false accusations about Amnesty as an organization and our work. But these claims are easy to refute: No, Amnesty does not support the call for a boycott of Israel. Yes, Amnesty has condemned attacks on civilian Israelis and called for those responsible for these war crimes to be held accountable. No, our teaching materials and lectures are not about Israel and Palestine.
David Stavrou claims that we are a biased organization and that our criticism of Israel is disproportionate. This is a direct false statement that is often made by representatives of the Israeli government. Amnesty is an impartial, politically independent organization. We do not accept government funds because we want to be free to investigate human rights violations without being dependent on anyone. Our demands and criticisms are based on international law and respect for human rights. And we assess all states by the same standards.
Even though our lectures in high schools this fall did not address the war in Gaza, high school students have asked many questions about the situation in Gaza. Human rights, contrary to what David Stavrou suggests, apply both in times of peace and in conflicts. Amnesty's focus in all conflicts is the protection of civilians and their human rights.
Amnesty is not alone in criticizing Israel's indiscriminate attacks on civilians, the forced displacement of Palestinian civilians, and the denial of humanitarian aid into Gaza, three clear examples of violations of the laws of war. Knowledge of human rights is necessary. We are happy to contribute to helping upper secondary schools fulfill the curriculum, providing students with more knowledge and the conditions to protect their own rights and work to ensure that others' rights are respected, both now and in the future.
Anna Johansson, Secretary General, Amnesty International Sweden.
David Stavrou's reply:
It’s great that Amnesty Sweden takes texts which are published in Svenska Dagbladet seriously. However, it’s a bit surprising because, during the process of writing the article, I contacted their press service to ask questions that had arisen after conversations with students at their partner schools. No one responded. To avoid mistakes, I wrote again, but I was ignored once more. On the other hand, Amnesty’s response suggests it might not matter – it’s filled with answers to questions no one asked and avoids addressing the questions that were actually raised.
No one suggested that schools shouldn’t teach human rights and democracy. No one asked whether human rights are important during wartime. Even if one appreciates the Secretary General of Amnesty’s inspiring words, that wasn’t at all what the article was about. Everyone knows human rights are important. The question is whether her organization is qualified to be the one teaching our children about them.
One question that goes unanswered, however, in the one addressing Amnesty’s partners abroad that have had connections to terrorist organizations and Islamist movements. Perhaps it’s because she is aware of the collaboration with Moazzam Begg, for example. Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee, was invited to Sweden by Amnesty despite having supported the Taliban. This isn’t something I’m claiming – it’s what a senior official within Amnesty in London, Gita Sahgal, said. She argued that collaboration with "Britain’s most famous Taliban supporter" and links to groups promoting Islamic right-wing ideas damage Amnesty’s integrity and pose a threat to human rights. Amnesty’s reaction – she was dismissed.
Then there’s the claim that Amnesty doesn’t support a boycott of Israel. If that’s the case, why did Amnesty’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa write the following: "We urge the international community to cease all forms of support – whether direct or indirect, through actions or omissions – for Israel’s apartheid system"? (Direct quote from Amnesty’s website).
As for Amnesty having condemned attacks on Israeli civilians, it is true that they’ve done so on certain occasions. After October 7th, it would have been absurd if they hadn’t. But anyone familiar with Amnesty’s publications knows that the Secretary General’s statement is misleading. During September and October, Amnesty International published 14 texts on their website criticizing Israel. That’s as many as the texts about Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq – combined. Iran received seven texts during the same period, Sudan and South Sudan six in total, and Belarus only four. During these two months, 7,517 rockets were fired at Israel. Amnesty published nothing about these attacks, which kill and injure and have forced over 140,000 Israeli citizens to live as internally displaced persons for more than a year.
"We assess all states by the same standards," writes Amnesty’s Secretary General. That’s hard to believe when reading about their "regional activist seminars" in Stockholm and Malmö in November. The program begins with "Palestine then and now" and continues with "a deeper understanding of the Palestine issue through a Palestinian perspective." Then there’s a lecture on the Palestine groups in Malmö, followed by "panel discussion: Academics for Palestine." Later in the day, there’s "panel discussion: on Palestine, struggle, and conflict." It seems like the Rohingyas, Uighurs, the Belarusian opposition, and Tigrayans from Ethiopia will have to wait for the next seminar because the next workshop is "What can I do? A guide to action for Palestinian liberation." This is organized by, drumroll, BDS Sweden. Yes, BDS – Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (remember the Secretary General’s statement: "But these claims are easy to refute: No, Amnesty does not support the call for a boycott of Israel." Does she think we can’t read?).
None of the speakers at the seminar are pro-Israel; instead, it’s full of well-known pro-Palestinian activists. And that’s entirely okay. The Svenska Dagbladet article wasn’t about whether Amnesty is right or wrong or about their right to be pro-Palestinian. It was about impartiality. I wonder if any of the young people who participated in the activist seminar are students from one of Amnesty’s 39 partner schools. I suggest that Sweden’s school principals take what the Secretary General wrote seriously. When she writes that she’s glad to "give students more knowledge," it becomes clear that their schools are her recruitment ground.
It was a regular day at a regular Stockholm pre-school. The children arrived in the morning and after the parents rushed off to work, they got busy making cute creations using paint and beads. But this day had a special theme – the bracelets the children made were all in the colors of the Palestinian flag, as were the hand prints that they put on white sheets of paper titled "Support Palestine". According to a social media post, the pre-school was also involved in raising money for the Sewedish Palestinagrupperna NGO.
This wasn't just a local initiative. It turns out that a self-titled "preschool teacher and lecturer who fights to strengthen the preschool's mission", who has tens of thousands of followers on social media, has been giving ideas and inspiration for what he called "pre-schools for Palestine day". The content itself was hardly impressive, but it made an impression on some pre-school teachers who decided to impose their political activism on 4 and 5-year-olds. In Jönköping, for example, a couple of pre-school teachers got children to draw watermelons to "show love and solidarity with Palestine". in Upplands-Bro, a pre-school teacher claimed on social media that "the children have been given beads and crafts in the colors of the Palestinian flag" and went on to say that the children will ask their parents to buy food for Palestinians and let Palestinians live in their homes.
Where is all this coming from? Surely, Swedish educators know that political activism in schools is opposed to the school law. In order to understand the phenomena, I went to a teacher's union meeting dedicated to a discussion about the union's policy concerning Gaza. Since the teachers attending the meeting, some of them wearing so-called Palestinasjals, didn't know who I was, they spoke freely about their concerns.
One spoke passionately about the disgrace of Swedish teachers supporting the Nazis in the 1940s. She then said "in twenty years someone will write – 'my teachers were silent!' I don't want to bear that shame". Another spoke about the cowardly silence in Swedish schools and said that many teachers are willing to speak out and show civil courage. The use of "civil courage" is interesting here. Civil courage means that there's a price for your actions. Otherwise, why is it courage? Raoul Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest 1944. The price – death in a KGB prison. Nelson Mandela fought for equality in apartheid South-Africa. The price – 27 years in prison. Miss Gunilla promotes Hamas narratives. The price – a reasonable salary from the Municipality of Stockholm funded by Swedish tax payers. There is, of course, a real price too, but it's not paid by the teachers. It's paid by children who feel unsafe and unwelcome when they encounter pro-Palestinian activism where there supposed to feel protected and appreciated.
In the union meeting, however, the teachers claimed that it's not about being pro-Palestinian, it's about values. "we have the Children's Rights Convention in our curriculum, human rights, children's rights", one of the said, "children are being slaughtered, burned to death in tents, and we cannot even make a statement". This claim is worth addressing since human rights are, and should be, part of the school plan. But since the world is a complicated place, school programs stick to values, history and social sciences and generally avoid ongoing, political conflicts. If schools would deal with this war, they'd have to deal with others. There are active genocides, civil wars and massacres going on in dozens of countries and still, Swedish schools don't dedicate their resources to Tigrayans, Darfurians, Curds, Uyghurs and Rohingya people and they certainly didn't discuss the victims of the October 7th massacre in Israel. Should Gaza be an exception just because it's a fashionable topic in Swedish activist circles? Even if the Palestinians were defenseless victims of a one-sided genocide and even if drawing watermelons could somehow save them, the result of turning Swedish schools into a political Hyde-Park will be even less time left for mathematics, Swedish, arts and science. Do Swedish students really excel in these subjects so much that they can allow themselves this righteous indulgence?
But even if they did, focusing on Gaza would be problematic. The current war in Israel and Gaza has victims on both sides. Israeli children as well as Palestinians were killed, Israeli teen-agers were raped and kidnapped, Israeli students also lost their homes and became orphans and their schools are being bombed and destroyed too. Swedish activists who publicly "support Gaza", don't see this as an equally important issue. The teacher's union leadership even explained that solidarity help funds only go to UNRWA because Israel "can take care of itself". This comes from believing in a specific narrative: Israel is a colonialist state based on ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians who are now victims of a genocide.
There are, however, competing narratives. For example: the Jewish national movement (aka Zionism) and the Palestinian national movement both have justified claims on the same territory and they're involved in a bloody conflict which can only be solved by compromise. And here's another: Iran is using its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies in order to annihilate Jews while it's engaging in an influence campaign in Europe which is designed to acquire western allies (such as Swedish teachers) who'll support its antisemitic genocidal aggression. The battle between these narratives is important, it's what politics are all about, and it should take place in many places, but not in schools, and aiming at 4-year-olds is a particularly cheap shot.
And finally, there's antisemitism. A Malmö school report (2021), a Stockholm school report (2022) and a government report (2024) all clearly show that Jewish students and Jewish teachers in Swedish schools are victims of antisemitism and that one of the reasons for this is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is present in classrooms and schoolyards. Does anybody seriously believe that even more of it will help addressing antisemitism? Of course not. But fighting antisemitism isn't as fashionable as it used to be, and it's not only about schools anymore.
It's happening everywhere. Political activists preach against indifference and demand that teachers, nurses, midwives, and social-workers "stand up for Palestine". That's all very well, but here's another option; perhaps teachers can stand up for their students, midwives can stand up for future mothers and nurses for their patients. Political activists can arrange demonstrations, write op-eds and promote the "global intifada" in their spare time, just like people with similar hobbies burn the Quran or shave their heads and march for "white power" after work and not during office hours. At the end of the union meeting, one of the teachers said: "I'm a child of the revolution. I came to Sweden from Iran and the revolution there started from the teachers". Sweden's teachers can exercise their freedom of speech because they live in a democracy, but considering the results of the revolution in Iran, perhaps it's best if they do it as far away from children as possible.
Sweden's 20,000-strong Jewish community was looking forward to marking a landmark event next year – but October 7 changed everything. Now, with antisemitic incidents skyrocketing, there are fears that a community that was only founded in 1775 could be at risk.
STOCKHOLM – Sweden's Jewish community is preparing to celebrate its 250th anniversary next year, but what was being heralded as an unprecedentedly good moment for the community changed in the blink of an eye on Oct. 7.
This is a story about both ancient and modern history, and how a country went from having no Jews to having a vibrant Jewish community – yet could still end up having very few local Jewish communities if the recent tensions continue.
Prior to 1774, there was no Jewish community in Sweden. Although some Jews had settled there earlier, there was no Jewish community as Jews who immigrated there had to be baptized into the Lutheran religion.
Aaron Isaac, Credit: Wikipedia
That all changed 250 years ago, though, when a Jewish seal engraver named Aaron Isaac arrived in Stockholm from German Mecklenburg. "Isaac became the first person who was allowed to live as a Jew in Sweden," says Daniel Leviathan, a Swedish-Jewish historian who's also active in some of the country's Jewish organizations. "He was able to secure the right to form a minyan [prayer group] and to found a Jewish cemetery and mikveh."
Within the space of a year, Stockholm had a proper Jewish community, which included new arrivals from Germany, Denmark and Holland. Around the same period, under King Gustav III, a second Jewish community was established in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. "In 1782, a Jewish ordinance was issued as a demand of the Swedish aristocracy," Leviathan recounts. Apart from regulating the right for Jews to live in Sweden, the ordinance set some restrictions. Jews were only allowed to move to the country if they had a minimum capital worth today's equivalent of about $100,000; they had to live in one of three towns; and local guilds stopped them from working in certain fields. "At the beginning of the 19th century," he says, "there were only about 1,000 Jews living in Sweden. Many of them were young and industrious people who thought they could make a better life for themselves in Sweden. At this point, they couldn't yet assimilate into Swedish society, and since it was a small community they all knew each other. They competed with each other but were also dependent on each other."
"At the beginning of the 19th century," he says, "there were only about 1,000 Jews living in Sweden. Many of them were young and industrious people who thought they could make a better life for themselves in Sweden. At this point, they couldn't yet assimilate into Swedish society, and since it was a small community they all knew each other. They competed with each other but were also dependent on each other."
Daniel Leviathan, photo: Hugh Gordon
According to Leviathan, the second part of the 19th century brought great change: Sweden opened its borders more widely, with pogroms and hardships in the Russian Empire bringing poor Orthodox Jews to the country. At the same time, the Jews who had been in Sweden for several generations enjoyed full emancipation in 1870.
They were considered Swedish citizens of the Jewish faith, no longer a "foreign" element. Many were assimilated and belonged to the elite of Swedish society. They could live anywhere, had a brand-new synagogue in the capital, and many considered themselves Reform Jews. By the time immigration came to a halt because of World War I, Sweden had about 7,000 Jews.
Sweden's World War II story is well-known: It managed to maintain so-called neutrality and wasn't officially part of the war. As for immigration, it was extremely restrictive both before and at the start of the war, but this changed dramatically in 1942 when it allowed about half of Norway's Jews, all of Denmark's Jews and many more refugees from across the continent find refuge within its borders. "After the war, Sweden accepted around 15,000 Jews," says Leviathan. "Many of the Holocaust survivors immigrated later to the United States or Israel, but 5,000 or 6,000 stayed. They were joined by other waves of immigration in later decades: Poles in 1969, Russians in the 1990s, and also Israelis. Today, the community is in many ways similar to Swedish society – modern, liberal and relatively secular. Because of its unique wartime history, it's different to most European communities because it became much bigger after the war than it was before it."
Today, it's estimated that about 20,000 Jews live in Sweden – though there are thousands more who can claim Jewish heritage. The largest community is in Stockholm, which has three synagogues and a relatively new cultural center called Bajit that is home to a Jewish elementary school and kindergarten, Jewish activities, a kosher shop and a café. The city also houses plenty of Jewish cultural and educational institutions, and organizations. Other Jewish communities and associations exist in Malmö, Gothenburg and a few smaller towns.
Sweden's Jewish groups are united under an umbrella organization called the Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, and its chairman, Aron Verständig, says the local community is a vibrant and diverse one. "It's more diverse now than it was 150 or even 50 years ago," he says. "There are families like my own that have been here for three or four generations and are established in Sweden. And there are also many Jews who live here but weren't born here." Verständig adds that this diversity is of a religious nature too. "These days, Stockholm has – for the first time – a progressive community with a progressive rabbi, but there's also renewed interest in the Great Synagogue [which is Conservative] and Orthodox Judaism. Chabad, which has been here for over 20 years, has also become a respected part of the community."
But there are many challenges too. One is the fact that the smaller Jewish communities aren't as vibrant as the one in the capital. "The optimism that you can see in Stockholm, where the community is growing, isn't what you see in the smaller communities – and this has been the case for many decades," says Verständig. "Initially, many members of the smaller communities moved to Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Now Gothenburg and Malmö's communities are getting smaller too, and many are moving to Stockholm. It's increasingly hard to live a Jewish life outside of Stockholm, and organized Jewish life in the smaller towns is quite slim."
Other challenges, according to Verständig, include staying relevant who those who are not observant and finding ways to attract new members in a country where assimilation rates are very high. He adds, though, that things have changed in that regard in his lifetime. "When I was growing up, they said that if you married a non-Jew, your kids wouldn't be Jewish – but nowadays it's not like that," he says. "We see that children of interfaith marriages are sent to Jewish schools and summer camps. There's a great need for Jewish education when you have a non-Jewish spouse, and it's a challenge to be inclusive enough for different groups from very different backgrounds."
However, while issues such as the legal status of circumcision, importing kosher meat and the legal framework of Jewish schools are undoubtedly issues for the community, all pale in comparison to the main problem these days: antisemitism. The issue of antisemitism has been discussed extensively over several decades in Sweden. In fact, all Swedish governments since the turn of the century have made concerted attempts to address it. The current (center-right) government appointed a special interministerial task force in order to combat antisemitism and strengthen Jewish life. This was a follow-up to 2021's Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism, which had been arranged by the previous (center-left) government.
These measures acknowledged that antisemitism comes in many different forms, including right-wing nationalism, left-wing radicalism and Islamism, which arrived through large waves of immigration from the Middle East starting in the last few decades. It was also clear that antisemitism can be found in many different arenas: online, in the workplace, public spaces and, perhaps worst of all, in schools. "A report that was written as a result of our request, and as one of the pledges of the Malmö conference, was released a few weeks ago," says Verständig. "In general, there are many suggestions that I think improve the possibility of living a Jewish life in Sweden – including safeguarding the right for Brit Milah [circumcision], financing security [at Jewish institutions], funding maintenance of synagogues and setting up a Jewish information center."
Yet the situation has deteriorated dramatically since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7. "Antisemitism has skyrocketed," says Verständig. "Many are feeling afraid, insecure and anxious," he says – and this was said on Tuesday, a day before a grenade was found outside the Israeli Embassy in central Stockholm. "A survey we did in November shows that many Jews have considered leaving Sweden. The government has reacted in an excellent way – but in civil society, reactions are sometimes very different."
Leviathan also expresses concerns over recent developments. "What's new in the current situation is that antisemitism is much harder to avoid," he says. "We always had antisemitism, but you could avoid it by moving to a different neighborhood or changing your job. Now it's everywhere – in the streets and squares, even in the 'nice' neighborhoods. It's in schools and universities. Youngsters are being bullied and exposed to antisemitism on TikTok, and adults are losing friends and colleagues who post anti-Israeli propaganda online. You're not even safe in your private space: you never know if the postman will react to the Jewish name on your mailbox. This is what I hear from young people in Sweden, and it's what I've experienced myself: there's no safe space anymore."
Leviathan's views are echoed by others in the community. Sweden has a vibrant Jewish cultural scene, but the difference between the period prior to Oct. 7 and afterward are dramatic.
The week before Oct. 7, the most important cultural event in the region, the Gothenburg Book Fair, hosted an institution called Jewish Culture in Sweden – founded and managed by Swedish-Israeli Lizzie Oved Scheja – as a guest of honor. This was a historic moment for Swedish-Jewish culture: Jewish literature, philosophy, music and humor were celebrated by a very wide audience, in what many described as an almost euphoric atmosphere.
What followed changed everything.
"My life has changed drastically since Oct. 7, both personally and professionally," says Natalie Lantz, a PhD scholar in Hebrew Bible studies who's also a columnist and translator of Hebrew literature (her translations include works by David Grossman, Amos Oz and Sara Shilo). "In 2013, I started writing and lecturing about Jewish and Hebrew culture and literature. My field of expertise has always spurred curiosity and positive reactions. Before Oct. 7, I had only been treated with suspicion by colleagues a few times. I remember a social gathering at a cultural institution when I was presented as the translator of Amos Oz's 'Dear Zealots,' and a person immediately took two steps back and said with disgust: 'I just want to be very clear that I don't support the Israeli occupation.' The conversation was abruptly shot down. Painfully, I realized that some people in the cultural world consider the Hebrew language and Israeli cultural expressions as being evil to the core. But such incidents were rare before Oct. 7. Now, there seems to be no end to the aggressive calls for a boycott of Israeli academia and culture."
She recounts how a petition signed by cultural workers, including some from public institutions, was peppered with terms like "apartheid system" and "Zionist-motivated genocide." "There are BDS rallies at the universities and I hear of faculties that are asked by students and staff to report if they have academic cooperation with Israeli universities," Lantz says.
Natalie Lantz, photo: Hugh Gordon
For her, it's not only about her feelings but also her livelihood. "I'm dependent on being in dialogue with the intellectual arenas of Israel in order to conduct my work in an insightful manner," she says. "Now I fear that the calls for boycott may result in a difficulty to get funding for academic and cultural exchanges between Sweden and Israel. I myself have become very anxious in interactions with colleagues and institutions.
"Will my upcoming university lecture on the history of Jewish Bible translations provoke someone?" she asks. "Is [Austrian-Israeli philosopher] Martin Buber going to be canceled? Can I film the planned family program about Purim for Swedish television without being aggressively attacked? And, most scarily, can I continue to be an openly Jewish public figure in Sweden? I feel vulnerable and exposed. My world is shrinking."
Lantz is accustomed to the sight of a heavy security presence outside synagogues and Stockholm's Jewish school, "even though it feels absurd that community members have to be protected just for being Jewish. I've never really felt frightened of taking part in Jewish activities, but this has changed. I was out walking in the city center last Saturday when I accidentally got caught in a pro-Palestinian demonstration. This was on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. That evening, some people from the demonstration stood outside the synagogue where we hosted a memorial ceremony with Holocaust survivors present. They filmed people entering the synagogue and screamed 'child murderers,' 'death to Israel' and 'intifada.' That horrified me."
She believes the Swedish government has an "enormous responsibility" to combat this wave of antisemitism. "It seems to me that the politicians are taking the matter seriously, as they're not only allocating funds for security to Jewish institutions but also have a strategy to strengthen Jewish life – which focuses on the transmission of Jewish culture and Yiddish to future generations."
Yiddish is one of five official minority languages in Sweden, which is why Lantz believes focusing on it makes sense. That said, she still has concerns. "I fear that the strong focus on Yiddish in Sweden comes at the expense of possibilities to strengthen the knowledge of Hebrew, which is important as a common language for Jews globally," she says. "I was puzzled to note that 'Yiddish' appears 327 times in the strategy document while 'Hebrew' appears only 15 times. To me, strengthening Jewish life in Sweden is also about providing tools to partake in the international Hebrew cultural scene. After all, we'll need Hebrew translators also in future generations. At least, I hope so."
Students stay home from class or attend and suffer abuse, protesters call for Israel’s erasure, and radical Islamist groups operate unfettered. Sweden’s Jewish community fears for its safety against the backdrop of the war and mass killings in Gaza.
STOCKHOLM – It’s unclear whether Swedes are aware of what the country’s Jewish community has been facing – their neighbors, coworkers, customers, and teachers. The community has been in a state of anxiety since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 and the start of Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip. Swedish Jews fear for their safety, and it seems the authorities aren’t grasping the urgency of the situation.
October 13. Threats by Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal to spark an international “day of rage” circulated through social media. Parents, many of them in mourning and worried about family and friends in Israel, wrote in private WhatsApp groups that the school’s regular security was inadequate. Some volunteered to watch the surroundings outside the school, and the local police stationed a patrol car nearby for a few hours.
Nonetheless, conversations with parents indicate that in some classes, at least half the students stayed home from school on October 13. Those who attended were strongly advised to avoid displaying Jewish symbols and refrain from speaking Hebrew.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration in front of the Swedish Parliament, October 2023. Photo: Hugh Gordon
A., a former Israeli who lives in Sweden, kept his shop closed on the same Friday, feeling he can’t protect himself and his customers. Another Israeli living in the country encountered violence on the Stockholm Metro after speaking Hebrew on his phone.
Another incident occurred to a man from southern Sweden whose mother is Jewish but who is not religious and does not display Jewish symbols. He describes receiving seven calls from an unknown number this week. A voice told him, “We know where you live. You should watch behind you when leaving home.” It added that he “should no longer live in the city.”
When he contacted the police, he was met with disappointment. They told him that there was nothing they could do because the call came from an unknown number. The police would only intervene if he could provide the caller’s name, an impossible demand for someone receiving an anonymous threat.
Multiple reports have also emerged of students receiving harassment over the Gaza war. The mother of a 16-year-old boy from a Jewish family who goes to a large high school in Goteborg gave one disturbing account. She says a girl stood up in class and shouted, “Slaughter, rape, and torture all the Jews” at her son. The teacher did not react, stop the girl, or report her to the principal, the mother says. The other students also stayed silent. She said they're now considering a transfer to another school.
Two classmates asked a Jewish boy in an elementary school in southern Sweden who he supported in the war. The boy, aged 10, replied that he supported Israel. The two others drew a crossed-out Israeli flag, crumpled it up, and threw it at him, saying, “We hate Israel.” The teacher present in the classroom did nothing until the student’s mother contacted him.
Such attacks and threats have been seen throughout Sweden, with the common denominator being that the victims were Jewish or Israeli.
Swedish academics have also been targeted. A renowned scholar in western Sweden was emailed threats after daring to publicly condemn the October 7 attacks. The head of one department at Uppsala University wrote a social media post stating, “Hamas gave Netanyahu and his radical right partners what they wanted.” Elsewhere, he wrote: “In 1940 and 1941, Hitler developed a plan to systematically starve 30 million Ukrainians, Russians, and Slavs. In 2023, Netanyahu is executing his ‘starvation plan’ in Gaza!”
A Jewish protester, Joanna Istner Byman, at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Stockholm, this week.Credit: David Stavrou
The cultural world has also been rife with tension. Seven hundred cultural figures published a petition urging an end to the “brutal violence in Gaza” and the end of “military, political, and financial support for Israel.” The petition did not mention Hamas’ terrorist attack, its victims, or the Israeli hostages in Gaza. Well-known Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has taken several opportunities to express support for the Palestinians in recent days, omitting any mention of the Palestinian acts of terrorism last month or the Israeli victims.
The war between Israel and Hamas has reverberated throughout the public sphere in Sweden. Numerous demonstrations have been held since the war began, both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli. On the evening of October 7, hours after Hamas went door-to-door to brutalize and kill Israelis, thousands of people, including women and children, participated in rallies across the country. These featured music, dancing, and convoys of cars honking their horns to show support for the Hamas attack.
Even larger and fiercer demonstrations have been held in the subsequent three weeks. At these pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Israel is accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip and there are calls to erase Israel from the map. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” cried the demonstrators in Sweden. The protests have also seen increasingly widespread calls for an “intifada.”
One of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations was organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic group advocating for the creation of a caliphate ruled by Sharia law, which has a small branch in Sweden. It received permission for the demonstration despite being banned in several countries. Demonstrators called for a caliphate stretching from Uzbekistan to Morocco, a war between Islam and the non-Muslim world, and the liberation of “all of Palestine” through military force.
Most of the demonstrations held in Sweden since the war began have been organized by local organizations backing the Palestinians. One weekend in Stockholm's central Sergel Square saw three different organizations demonstrating separately, but with similar slogans. Beside the Palestinian organization, the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, which has a few hundred members, was one of them, the Revolutionary Communist Youth, which argues that Palestinians have a right “to fight with every means against the occupying power to liberate their lands" was another. The latter described the October 7 attacks as an act of liberation that “caught the Zionists in their beds.”
The two organizations, one neo-Nazi and the other Marxist-Leninist, both endorse the Palestinian cry to “crush Zionism.” Another demonstration held in Stockholm’s main square a week later drew more than 5,000 people. Speeches by Palestinians and Swedish leftists called for “an intifada until victory” as they waved Palestinian flags, horrifying images from Gaza, and signs condemning the government’s support for Israel. None of the speakers at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations mentioned the Hamas attacks.
A demonstration in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Stockholm, Sweden, October 2023.Credit: Hugh Gordon
Mikail Yuksel, leader of the Nuance Party, which defines itself as the representative of Sweden’s minorities, with an emphasis on immigrants, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he had participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Stockholm. Yuksel, born in Turkey and now a Stockholm resident, was once a member of Sweden’s Center Party. He was expelled for his ties with the Grey Wolves radical Islamic movement.
On October 7, Yuksel called for the removal of Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations. When Haaretz asked him about this, he replied, “If Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, it is impossible to hold a dialogue with it and reach an arrangement. So long as they are considered terrorists, we isolate and radicalize them. We are in favor of talking with them to reach a settlement.”
He added, “It’s no secret that we are a pro-Palestinian party. Israel is recognized by the UN as an occupying power, which commits war crimes and is an apartheid state. Israel must be stopped, and Netanyahu should be brought to trial at the International Criminal Court.”
Asked about the crimes committed by Hamas, Yuksel replied, “An occupied people have the right to use military force. Violence against civilians is not permitted to any of the sides. Everyone must lay down their arms and not point them against civilians to solve the dispute.”
While speaking with Haaretz, Yuksel condemned the attacks on civilians on October 7 as well as the “continuous Israeli attacks on Gaza.” His position is notable, as no Muslim organization in Sweden has condemned the attacks, including entities that previously cooperated with Sweden’s Jewish community and groups.
One pro-Palestinian demonstrator, prominent Muslim leader Rashid Musa, went as far as writing a sarcastic article mocking demands for condemnation in the national tabloid Expressen. “I, Rashid Musa, as a spokesman for 1.3 billion people worldwide, condemn the Hamas, condemn hummus, condemn Hassan, and [Swedish football club] Hammarby.”
Magnus Ranstorp, a prominent Swedish researcher on domestic Salafi-jihadism, terrorism, and radical groups, is concerned about more than just antisemitic slogans at the demonstrations and incidents at schools and workplaces. He says this could escalate to physical threats against Jewish and Israeli targets. A lecturer and strategic advisor at the Swedish Defense University, Ranstorp says two parallel crises are affecting Sweden’s security.
“The first is related to the burning of Koran books and a false campaign regarding the alleged kidnapping of Muslim children by Swedish welfare services,” he says. “This crisis has put Sweden in the crosshairs of organizations such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Shabab.
“The second crisis is the conflict between Israel and Hamas,” he continues. He says that according to the Swedish Security Service, there were about 2,000 Salafi-jihadists in various Swedish cities in 2017 who had a definite potential for violent activity.
In the cities of Malmö and Helsingborg, large Palestinian communities include families with members previously convicted of terrorist activities in Germany. Malmö is home to Scandinavia’s largest mosque, built recently with the help of millions of euros from Qatar. It is also home to civil society organizations like Group 194. Despite receiving municipal funding, the Swedish Palestinian group endorses terrorism, spreads antisemitism, and has connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was involved in the October 7 attacks.
It also recently emerged that the Left Party had used taxpayer money to support a project related to the PFLP through an organization run by its Danish counterpart. Meanwhile, in May, a large Palestinian European conference was held in Malmö with the participation of Amin Abu Rashid, a Dutch Palestinian leader linked to Hamas.
Although the Left Party canceled its participation in the conference when it learned that Abu Rashid would be present, a member of the Social Democratic Party, Jamal el-Haj, ignored a prohibition by party leaders and participated. El-Haj is a member of parliament, and some say he was saved from being kicked out of the party because of his substantial political base.
Ranstorp notes the case of Die Wahre Religion (“The True Religion”), an organization outlawed in Germany. It was banned in part because some of the people connected to it volunteered and joined the ranks of ISIS. Nevertheless, it operated freely as a legitimate Swedish organization that promoted an educational project on Koran reading.
In another case, a Swedish activist named Ahmad Qadan raised money for ISIS and Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat-al-Nusra) and was sentenced to a few months in jail. It seems that his imprisonment didn’t change much. On October 7, he posted a video on social media of Israelis fleeing Hamas gunmen together with a quote from the Koran, “I will fill the hearts of the unbelievers with fear.”
The international organization Islamic Relief, founded in the U.K. in the 1980s, also has an official Swedish branch. The organization enjoys considerable financial support from the Swedish government and engages in humanitarian activities. Various governments, including the Israeli one, say it’s associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, however. According to Ranstorp, Sweden is an important European center for Islamic Relief and, therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.
Ranstorp and others have spoken of this for years. Although politicians’ approach has changed somewhat, some say Swedish authorities and public opinion still don’t appreciate how grave things are. Swedish money ends up financing terrorism, and Middle Eastern money is invested in organizations that pose a risk to Sweden. The law allows public activities that threaten the country’s stability and security bodies.
In response to a query by Haaretz, the security service refused to estimate of current number of jihadi activists and organizations in Sweden. Asked about specific organizations, a spokesperson replied: “The Swedish Security Service does not go into details describing our operational activities. We follow violent extremists and assess the threat to prevent terrorist acts and other security threatening activities. We follow individuals and do not target organizations.”
Regarding the protection of Jewish institutions in Stockholm, the police said, “What security measures we implement, if and when we implement them, and in what way, is something we do not publicize.”
Despite several requests, Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer, who oversees the police, prosecutions, and the courts, declined to grant an interview to Haaretz.
Hizb ut-Tahrir in Sweden and the Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden (Palestinagrupperna) did not respond to Haaretz's requests for comment. Greta Thunberg also showed no enthusiasm for speaking with Haaretz about the subject. When she was offered an interview in which she could clarify her position, a spokesman said, “Greta is not holding interviews at this time.”
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