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SWC: Raoul Wallenberg Saved 100,000 Jews From Nazi Gas Chambers, Why Can’t Swedish Authorities Protect 700 Jewish Citizens?
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by Joshua Levitt
The synagogue in Malmo, Sweden. Photo: WikiCommons.
Jewish human rights group The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday asked how famed humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg could have saved 100,000 Jews from Nazi gas chambers, while today’s Swedish government can’t protect 700 Jewish citizens from violence?
The provocative statement came as Sweden’s Jewish community was beset with vandalism, with a synagogue’s windows smashed at the weekend, according to the Sydsvenskan daily, while assailants threw glass bottles at the center’s rabbis Klein and Kesselman from speeding cars while screaming “f***ing Jews”.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate SWC dean, made his statement on Monday, the 100th anniversary of Wallenberg’s birth. He said, Wallenberg “would go on to become one of the greatest heroes of the Second World War when he volunteered to go to Budapest in 1944 and managed to save 100,000 Jews from being murdered in Auschwitz death camp.'”
“How tragic is it that on August 4th, 2014, authorities in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, refuse to protect 700 fellow Jewish citizens or the community’s institutions?”
Malmo’s 700 Jews are a tiny percentage of its 300,000 inhabitants, a third of which are now immigrants from Muslim countries or their children. SWC said dozens of anti-Semitic crimes are reported annually in Malmo. Last month, a non-Jewish man was beaten there for displaying an Israeli flag in his window. Arrests are rare and there are no known convictions for anti-Semitic hate crimes in Malmo, the group said.
“Nothing has changed since we slapped a travel advisory on that city in 2012. In face-to face meetings we had with then-Mayor Reepalu and other officials, it became clear they would not take even the minimal steps to deal with serial anti-Semitic intimidation and hate crimes,” the rabbi said.
After reports of the vandalism in Sweden, Cooper asked, “What will it take for national authorities in Stockholm to intervene to hold perpetrators accountable and to secure the safety and well being of the long suffering Rabbi Shneur Kesselman and other members of Malmo Jewish community? Clearly, local and regional officials won’t act.”
“It’s time for Stockholm to take action before, G-d forbid these incidents escalate,” Cooper said.
