The police in the Skåne province have noted that hate crimes against Jews doubled last year. This has sparked an increasing number of Jews in Malmö to leave Sweden. Comments made by Malmö Mayor Ilmar Reepalu in news interviews has been interpreted as that he believes that the Jews themselves has debt in the harassment against them, because they had not clearly distanced themselves from Israel's war in Gaza. Reepalu claims that he has been misquoted and deliberately misunderstood. But when the U.K. newspaper the Daily Telegraph yesterday drew attention to Malmö's problem with anti-Semitism in a reportage, some kind of line had been passed. Reepalu was then criticised by Mona Sahlin, the party leader of his own party, the Social Democrats. “The Jews deserve to have strong support, and you should never confuse the debate about anti-Semitism and Zionism,” Sahlin said to news agency TT. “There were some unfortunate statements by Ilmar which came to be perceived that way,” Sahlin adds. “I have asked him to have a proper dialogue with the Jewish community in Malmö so that it is sorted out”. That dialogue was held today, on Reepalu's initiative.
Not informed
“We should have had this meeting a long time ago. I have not been sufficiently informed about the seriousness of the situation”, Mayor Reepalu said after the meeting with people from the city's Jewish congregation. For one and a half hours Reepalu talked with the congregation chairman Fred Kahn and Information Officer Frederick Sieradzki. “Words of seriousness have been exchanged. But we had a good discussion climate and could be very honest with each other," Fred Kahn said afterwards. The parties also willingly allowed themselves to be photographed together. Reepalu admitted that he has not known enough about the Jewish population's vulnerability in the city. Now he has received facts from both the police and the Jewish congregations own security people. He says he is ready to act. A letter will be sent to all local authorities with the call to be vigilant against signs of anti-Semitism or xenophobia. Kahn and Sieadzki welcomed the initiative with a cautious comment. “This is the beginning of a process. We'll see where it leads.”
stockholmnews
