Global, Justice

Muslims, Jews and Anti-Semitism in Sweden: Part 1, It’s Complicated

I bristle at reports of Muslim anti-Semitism against Jews in my home country of Sweden. (Even though I have to admit it’s a thing.)
Growing up in Sweden in the 1980s and ‘90s I inhabited a space somewhere between “Swede” and the catch-all “immigrant.” In part because I was Jewish and my mom wasn’t originally from Sweden, in part because, well, I don’t look Swedish. Swedishness is pretty much ethnically defined – though that was never discussed back then. People in Sweden often ask if I am from somewhere else, or simply assume. This goes for other Swedes of foreign descent too. People from Iran, Lebanon or former Yugoslavia would be extra friendly to me and sometimes ask, hopefully, where I was from. I’d say “Stockholm.” When pressed, I’d say, “I’m Jewish.” Sometimes this lead to awkward silence, more often it lead to a comment along the lines of, “then we’re cousins.”

Swedish Jews and allies at a Kippah Walk in Stockholm
Swedish Jews and allies at a “Kippah Walk” in Stockholm last Summer
Photo: Oriel Danielson
I grew up alongside many Muslims of Middle-Eastern descent. Like them, I knew a weird alphabet, was exempt from pork products at school and celebrated exotic holidays. When the reports began to pile up, a few years ago, about anti-Semitic incidents in Malmö and elsewhere, with fingers pointed at Swedish Muslims, my first reaction was to minimize the problem and tell people that the greater issue, the real threat to all minorities, including Jews, is Swedish nationalism and racism. I still believe this, to an extent. The political establishment has failed old minorities, new arrivals and the ethnically Swedish working class. In the last election all seven major parties lost votes, while the right-wing, anti-immigration, Sverigedemokraterna, “The Sweden Democrats” – once the lunatic fringe – became the third-largest party.
Something clicked into place when I watched a Swedish TV-documentary last month. Two gentile journalists wore a yarmulke and stars of David around Malmö. This was shortly after the most recent attacks in Paris and just before the ones in Copenhagen. They got some weird looks, comments and in one instance, a warning to leave the neighborhood they were in. [pullquote] Neither Swedish Jews, nor Swedish Muslims, no matter how secular, are seen as truly Swedish.
[/pullquote] In this documentary reactions from local officials to anti-Semitic incidents – such as a long list of threats and physical attacks against Shneur Kesselman, the Chabad sh’liach in Malmö – range from an ineffectual “this is outrageous,” to “well, he does set himself apart,” to “Malmö has groups from all over the world. No surprise international conflicts spill over here.”
The price for citizenship and protection in Sweden is assimilation into a Swedish mainstream that perceives itself as religiously and ethnically neutral. Don’t “look Swedish?” Don’t wear “normal” clothes? Sucks to be you.
Then there’s the comment about international conflicts coming home to roost in Malmö. Neither Swedish Jews, nor Swedish Muslims, no matter how secular, are seen as truly Swedish. Björn Söder, Sweden Democrat and deputy speaker of the parliament said as much this past December. It follows that conflict between these groups isn’t considered a Swedish problem.
The truth is, it is. I feel let down by Sweden. Let down by the left I continue to support and let down by those who regard fighting Islamophobia as incompatible with resisting anti-Semitism. This last idea is widespread and usually unspoken, though recently articulated by Swedish writer Jan Guillou, in a column in a major newspaper.
I don’t believe in answering nationalism with more nationalism. I don’t believe in competitive victimhood. Nor do I see any one form of prejudice being more benign than the other. But I do know that something is terribly wrong.
Read “Muslims, Jews and Anti-Semitism in Sweden: Part 2, Siavosh Derakhti stands up.”

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