opinion
How Fostering Jewish Life Would
Safeguard Malmö’s Jews
Daniel Radomski | JNS
B 16
DECEMBER 29, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
The Stortorget, a large plaza in the center of Malmö.

Current Malmö Mayor Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh
has worked closely with the local Jewish commu-
nity to combat antisemitism, including appointing
a special coordinator. She also has entered into an
agreement with the Jewish community to jointly
strengthen public knowledge about Jewish life and
history, as a manner of countering antisemitism
and reducing the community’s vulnerability. She
embodies the need for government and Jewish
communal offi cials to collaborate, and I hope to
see these initiatives fl ourish under her leadership.

Also under Stjernfeldt Jammeh’s stewardship,
the city’s coordinator against antisemitism, Mirjam
Katzin, last month published a second report about
the Malmö Jewish community and its perception of
local challenges. While the qualitative report con-
cluded that Jewish residents of Malmö face hatred
against Jews, particularly in times of growing
tensions in the Middle East, several Jewish Malmö
residents also shared that they had an “optimistic
view of the situation.”
In other words, the Jewish community wants to
counter antisemitism, but does not view it as the
defi ning factor of Jewish life and identity in the
city of Malmö.

Positively featuring Jewish life and culture in the
public square would strengthen the connection
between the city and its Jewish citizens, accord-
ing to the respondents. Just as essential, it would
help to educate the community at large about the
need for Jews to enjoy a proud and public Jewish
identity, critical in curtailing growth of the world’s
oldest hatred.

In other words, the Jewish community of Malmö
is sophisticated in its interests and nuanced in
its complexity and needs to work alongside the
Malmö government in jointly developing a deep-
ened and accessible sense of Jewish pride. Already,
the city has partnered with the Jewish community
to open a Jewish Knowledge Center in the city’s
synagogue, to improve awareness of the Jewish
national minority in schools, and to develop mean-
ingful interfaith eff orts, among other outcomes.

At the same time, Swedish leaders must be clear
and consistent in their immediate and forceful con-
demnation of threats against their Jewish citizens,
whatever the source or motivation.

Finally, Jewish life anywhere, especially in a
city as rich in Jewish history as Malmö, must
not be reduced to a chronicle of persecution,
as in the case of my own family’s experiences
before their arrival in Sweden. Instead, coordi-
nated actions against antisemitism, combined with
eff orts to strengthen Jewish identity and the com-
munity’s understanding of the Jewish people, will
serve as a model for other locales and safeguard
Jews not only in Malmö, but elsewhere around
the globe. JE
Daniel Radomski is the head of strategy and programs for
the World Jewish Congress and executive director of its
Jewish Diplomatic Corps. He grew up in Malmö, Sweden.

Christian Beiwinkel via Wikimedia Commons
igotry anywhere is a grave injustice, yet it
becomes all the more real to me when I hear
about antisemitism in Sweden.

This nation, which was a respite for thousands
of Jewish refugees shortly after World War II,
eventually became a symbol of humanism and
hospitality. Among those saved were my paternal
grandparents, who arrived in Malmö aided by
Count Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish diplomat who
co-chaired the Red Cross. As was often the case
with Holocaust survivors, my grandparents soon
began to rebuild their shattered lives after their
arrival, and in 1946, they welcomed Chaim, my
father, into the world.

In 1969, Sweden was again a safe haven for my
family. My mother, Dora, a 19-year-old Polish student
of chemistry at the University of Wrocław, immigrated
to escape a further wave of antisemitism.

And today, my extended family still lives in
Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city, and sees it as
their home.

While I now reside in the United States, I
will always feel indebted to Sweden. However, I
fi nd myself heartbroken because Malmö, whose
Jewish community dates back to the 17th century,
has become associated not with tolerance, but
with antisemitism, specifi cally motivated by hatred
toward Israel.

Unfortunately, numerous physical and verbal
attacks against Jews have occurred, in addition to
several pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have
featured overt antisemitism. In December 2017, for
example, several hundred people marched through
Malmö shouting, “We have announced the intifada
from Malmö. We want our freedom back, and we
will shoot the Jews.”
Ilmar Reepalu, who served as the city’s mayor
from 1994 to 2013, essentially accused the Jewish
community of generating hatred, arguing that it did
not distance itself clearly enough from Israel. Can
you imagine a politician blaming any other group
for the hatred they experience?
I, for one, cannot.

Fortunately, Malmö’s current leadership strikes a
diff erent tone. In 2021, the city hosted the Malmö
Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating
Antisemitism, which I proudly attended in my pro-
fessional role for the World Jewish Congress. At
that time, the international community made spe-
cifi c commitments to counter Holocaust distortion
and denial and fi ght antisemitism.