The World Jewish Congress appealed to Prime Minister Löfven to take concrete steps to protect the community, including further alleviating the financial burden of security – which currently comprises approximately one-quarter of the Jewish community membership fees.
STOCKHOLM/NEW YORK—Members of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), a neo-Nazi organisation originally founded in Sweden that is openly anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and anti-gay, marched in cities across Sweden on May 1.
The NMR,goal is to create an ethnically pure pan-Nordic nation, according to the group’s website, and to deport most non-ethnic Northern European residents and dismantle the “global Zionist elite”.
The far-right is not the sole challenge of the 20,000-member Jewish community of Sweden. ‘’We face multiple threats, from Muslim extremism to far-right violence,” said Aron Verstandig, president of the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities — an umbrella representative group.
The Jewish Community Center Community of the city of Umea, in northern Sweden, closed and ended its activities in 2017 following threats and intimidation from the far-right, making it the first time in decades that a Jewish organization in Western Europe had acknowledged that it felt compelled to close over safety concerns.
World Jewish Congress CEO and Executive Vice President Robert Singer on Wednesday called on the Swedish government to ban the Nordic Resistance Movement and to engage in a series of measures to increase protection for the Jewish community.
In a letter to Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Singer noted that the terrifying marches by uniformed members of the NMR in the cities of Kungälv and Ludvika took place on Yom Hashoah, a day of solemn remembrance and contemplation honoring the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
These were just the latest demonstrations by the movement, which routinely intimidates and threatens Jews and ethnic minorities in the country.
“As we approach the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we are forcefully reminded that the same ideology of hatred and violent extremism that caused the genocide of European Jewry presents a clear and present danger to Swedish society today. There must be zero tolerance for such manifestations of evil, and it is imperative that your government does its utmost to curtail this worrying development, by way of both firm denouncement as well as unambiguous action,” Singer wrote.
“It is unacceptable that such violent extremists limit the freedom and safety of regular citizens, abusing the essential rights and freedoms of Swedish society in order to intimidate and express an unbridled hatred for Jews and other minorities. The well-documented fact that the NMR marches use racist ideology, applied in a military manner with uniforms and a forceful demeanor to instill fear in others, justifies a legal prohibition of this violent movement. A ban on NMR, as is currently being urged in the courts in Finland, would prevent it from entering the political arena and would serve as a powerful demonstration that there is no place in Swedish society for this type of organized and violent hatred,” he wrote.
Singer also appealed to Prime Minister Löfven to take concrete steps to protect the community, including further alleviating the financial burden of security – which currently comprises approximately one-quarter of the Jewish community membership fees.