Anti-Semitism in Sweden

SHUTTING UP AND FADING INTO THE WOODWORK, HOW JEWS SURVIVE IN ANTISEMITIC SWEDEN…….

 

That Jews have to live below the line of visibility in Sweden, says a lot about the value of the multicultural experiment. This is duplicated all around Europe.

silence

How to Survive as a Jew in Sweden

Shut up and fade into the woodwork.

By Annika Hernroth-Rothstein
The following, written as a private letter to Michel Gurfinkiel, appears here by permission of the author.

Dear Mr. Gurfinkiel,

On April 26 of this year, I was on a train with my five-year-old son Charlie. We were on our way to spend shabbat with friends in the city. You see, our town, significant in the history of Swedish Jewry, shut its synagogue in the late 90s. All that remains now is a plaque stating that there was once Jewish life here, while we are left with an hour-long train ride every weekend to attend services.

 My son was wearing his kippah as we got on the train. He loves his kippah. He is not yet old enough to know the dangers entailed in wearing it, for this is a fact from which I have tried to protect him. But April 26 would change all that.

There was a gentleman sitting in our reserved seat. An Arab, maybe fifty years old, listening to music. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I asked him politely for our seat. He got up, inspected my son, and then leaned over me, saying: You people always take what you want. You need to learn.

He then walked straight into my son, causing him to fall over, and took the seat behind us.

We sat. Hiding my trembling hands from my son’s sight, I picked up Shabbes for Kids and started to review the week’s Torah portion with him. We hadn’t progressed as far as a page before the man stood up and screamed:  Quiet! I don’t want to hear that! You take what you want and never think of others! Shut up!

He stamped his feet, grunting and glaring at my son. Fighting tears of rage, I assured Charlie that the man was just grumpy and tried to turned the episode into a game, one that required us to remain super quiet for as long as possible. I even managed to coax a conspiratorial smile out of him.

But even this failed to appease our tormentor, who spent the rest of the trip repeatedly kicking the back of my son’s seat. At one point I glanced around our compartment: there were four other people there, four adults witnessing a single mother and her five-year-old child being attacked by a grown man. They did nothing. I tried forcing them to meet my gaze; but they just turned away, put on their headphones, stared at their screens, ignored what was happening in front of them.

I did not summon the railway police. I did not scream back at the man. I know better. I know that the only way to survive as a Jew in my country is not to be seen as one. Not to be exposed but to shut up and fade into the woodwork. I’ve known this for quite some time. Unfortunately, my son knows it now, too.

In your fascinating and informative article you mention that ritual slaughter, kosher as well as hallal, is under threat in Europe. Well, in Sweden kosher butchering was outlawed in 1937 and has been illegal ever since. The threat is not a threat but a reality—for me as, on a much graver scale, it had been for my grandparents, forced into hiding in a Sweden silently collaborating with the Nazis throughout the world war. The next threat on the horizon is a ban on even importing kosher products, compelling me and many of my friends to smuggle kosher meat from Israel on our return trips from that land.

By contrast, hallal slaughter is not banned in Sweden. My government, when asked about the disparity, replies that the methods of slaughter in Judaism are uniquely barbaric.

“Barbaric” is also what I was called just this past June. As a political adviser to a Swedish party, I was debating the anti-circumcision bill that had just been proposed by another, right-wing party in our parliament, and things got heated. The bill called for a general ban on all circumcision unless medically prescribed, and it enjoyed much bipartisan support. During the debate, I outed myself as a Jew, only to be informed that what “we” were doing to our children was inhumane and barbaric, and should be summarily outlawed. I did my best to maintain my composure, but ended up crying in the courtyard—not for the first time, or for the last.

In your essay you mention that Jewish religious and cultural activities in Western Europe are everywhere on the rise. This, too, is not my reality. What I see is that the Holocaust wing at the Jewish Museum is crowded with visitors, while the synagogues are empty. I see cute Woody Allen-ish activities being promoted, and actual Jewish life being banned. The dead, suffering Jew is glorified; the healthy, active Jew is vilified.

There are 20,000 Jews in Sweden, a country of close to nine million. As for Muslim immigrants and their children, they, as you point out in your article, amount to 10 percent or more of the population: perhaps as many as a million people, fifty times the number of Jews. Still, I would not say that demography is the only threat to Jewish life in Western Europe, and maybe not even the biggest one. What frightens me most is that my government is proscribing Jewish life. Yes, by outlawing circumcision, banning kosher slaughter, and telling us forthrightly that the only way to avoid being harassed in the streets is to distance ourselves from Israel, they are reinventing the conditions of the Eastern Europe past that brought our community to this country in the first place. This is what is driving us out: one by one, bill by bill.

In the “Comments” section following your essay, I noticed a debate among readers over the perceived harshness of your article. I am writing to you because I do not believe it was harsh enough. I value Jewish thought, but I crave Jewish action. More than I need eloquent eulogies, I need people—the same people who so passionately debate our future in Mosaic and elsewhere—to help me fight.

We in Sweden are still here, but we are feeling lonely and forgotten. We want a strong Jewish community in the Diaspora. We want to live. We are fighting every day against the pressure to turn us into plaques on the wall of former synagogues or into exhibits in guilt-wallowing museums. We need the help of our kinsmen.

My son no longer wears his kippah in public. Now he does what the men at my shul have done for years. He carries it in his pocket, donning it only when we are safely within the iron gates. Guarded and hidden from the world.

With kind regards,

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein

24 Responses

  1. I say this as an American Christian who cannot comprehend what is happening to the Europe I once loved so much. Fight back. Demand that Sweden protect your rights. If there is still law in Sweden, put it to use.

    1. I read this article and kept asking myself why isn’t this woman take her child and go to Israel? For a child it is not easy to grow with anti semitism. They feel small and unable to change their situation.

  2. Why doesn’t she immigrate to Israel? Can she not see the writing on the wall? It says the only good Jew is a dead Jew. Time to leave Sweden. It is death to stay.

  3. I really feel for the woman and her son. But perhaps she could have a word with Barbara Learner Spectre and ask why so many of her influential co-religionists are a major force in promoting mass third world ( and muslim in particular) immigration to western countries?

    1. Perhaps you should have a word with the people in the SWEDISH political establishment who put mrs. Specter in power, instead of repeating the fashionable conspiracist nonsense about the Jews. Then ask yourself whether it’s really reasonable to expect minorities in Sweden to be more vocal and active about protecting Sweden from the rampant idiocy of the Swedes. Oh, I forgot, it’s “da joos” who miraculously turned swedes into retarded islamophilic fans of Paleswine, right ?

  4. No, halal slaughter is not allowed in Sweden – yet. We all know that the life for jews living in Sweden is getting harder. In my opinion due to the mass immigration of muslims, especially in larger cities like Malmö.

    During WW2 many jews found a free haven in Sweden and have since lived a peaceful life, well integrated with the Swedish population.

    1. Eh Pic pica….. We must remember that Malmö was the hot bed of national socialism during WWII.

  5. Islam is invading the world with all it violence ,hate,and decadence…I am humanist,my father was jewish,my mother a Christian. Multiculturalism would work among peaceful people but Mahomet like Hitler were crazy,violent,cult leaders turned to politics…Dangerous combination indeed.

    1. Sylvie, no, multiculturalism would not work regardless of Islam, it’s a socialist construct.

  6. I fucking hate muzzies,Sweden was a really peaceful place for jews to live in, but after they (muslims) started to immigrate it has turned to hellhole.

    Next target will be atheist, then christians .

    Scum of the earth= muslims

  7. Why are so many Christians and atheists a major force in promoting mass third world & Muslim in particular, immigration to western countries? There are a lot of traitors, from all backgrounds, who have contributed to the mess in the West, not just Jewish ones.

    1. Jane, Jews are massively overrepresented in those who would ram multiculturism down our throats whilst encouraging mass third world immigration. Sure others are involved too. The one thing that seems to unite them is a warped left-wing mindset.

      1. Paris Claims –

        Your remarks that Jews are “massively overrepresented in those who would ram multiculturalism down our throats…” are unfair, and misleading. Idiots from ALL groups are massively overrepresented in destroying the West.

        The key phrase is “warped left-wing mindset” – people from all backgrounds – be they Christians, atheists, or Jews, etc. have made Marxism their religion, and are so brainwashed that they are blind to the damage they have caused.

        The demise of the West cannot, and should not, be attributed primarily to the Jews. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and countless others are not Jews, yet they willfully destroyed their nations and their people, by flooding all of Europe with Muslims and third world immigrants in a deliberate effort to destroy nation states for the EU.

        Sadly, you are not alone in your views. Many lay the blame for the West’s demise, primarily on Jews. It’s much easier to collectively blame the Jews, than face the truth the one’s fellow citizens & politicians have been traitors – just like they were with the Nazis prior to the outbreak of World War II. Europeans have a history of caving to fascism. Jews didn’t make them cower in the face of evil during the 30s, and they aren’t making them do it now.

        Anti-Semitism is on the rise – everywhere. I find it particularly distasteful, and dangerous, that once again Jews are being scapegoated. When will Europeans find the guts to push back against the rise of Islam – without blaming the Jews for their own cowardice and failures?

        1. Onething that the Nazis did right, apart from running trains in time, was to oppose the negrification of French areas of occupation.

          Doesn’t balance out the quantity of fellow Europeans that they killed, but that was also the result of a mutual leve
          of fratricide. Fascism wasn’t that much of a problem in Spain, Chile, Italy, Finland etc etc. the Nazis kicked it into overdrive, which lead to this demographic impasse.

    2. The son of the bitch …. They were in Israel and they were slaughtered and the rest went to Europe. And those who are in Israel now are told every second of every hour to “get out of Israel”. They were in Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, Berlin…. They were slaughtered and told to go elsewhere.

  8. Why do diaspora Jews so consistently favour mass migration into western nations?

    Do Jewish lawmakers, journalists and managers think it’ll make it easier to hide?

    Diaspora multiculturalism is a key problem.

    1. Many more Jews are now against mass migration, and more more were against it from the beginning. Your beef is with Leftists/ism, there are sorts are found within their ranks.

  9. What a shameful condemnation of the Swedish world view as decribed by Annika.

    The chickens are coming home to roost however.

    And as decent Jewish families decide to get up and leave, and as Muslims continue their ongoing stealth jihad, Sweden is slowly going down the toilet.

    The attitude of fellow commuters on the train says it all.

    Just keep your heads down – nothing to see here folks – and move right along.

    Shame on Sweden and its ongoing appeasement of those who have no interest in Swedish values or culture.

    1. Raymond – It’s the 30’s all over again. Re – “keep your heads down” – that’s precisely how the Nazis were able to take control.

  10. I can’t believe that pig of a man. I wish I had been on that train.

  11. Annika – Are you sacrificing yourself and your child just to make Sweden and Swedes better? Sweden and Swedes don’t want a Jewish community in their midst, and they don’t deserve to have one. You and all Jews have much better options, in Israel and in the diaspora, where you could feel at home and live freely, openly and fully accepted as who you are. You’d also be of much greater value to our people elsewhere. This will be the Swede’s loss – and better for all to see that this magnificently tolerant, liberal society is Judenrein; Sweden should be left to save itself if it can, and to prove that it’s worthy of hosting you.

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