Jewish outrage flares after Sweden authorizes Torah burning next to Israeli embassy – The Times of Israel

Jewish groups and others expressed outrage on Friday after police in the Swedish capital Stockholm approved a request for a Saturday rally where activists would burn a Jewish Torah and a Christian Bible.

In Sweden, where around 15,000 to 20,000 Jews live, the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities regretted the police decision and drew a direct link to the gathering from Europe’s long history of deadly anti-Jewish hatred.

“Our tragic European history connects the burning of Jewish books with pogroms, expulsions, inquisitions and the Holocaust,” it said. The Swedish Jewish Youth Association also condemned what it said was a “hateful and despicable act”.

“There are better ways of expressing freedom of expression than desecrating sacred texts,” it tweeted.

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Local police said on Friday they had approved a request by a person in his 30s to hold a rally outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on July 15 to burn a Jewish Torah and a Christian Bible.

The man who tabled the protestant decree on Saturday said he wanted to burn the Torah and Bible outside the Israeli embassy in response to the Koran burning outside a Stockholm mosque last month by an Iraqi immigrant. He called it “a symbolic gathering in the name of freedom of expression.”

Three people are expected to take part in the demonstration outside the Israeli embassy at 1 p.m. Saturday, according to the police decision obtained by The Associated Press.

German Nazis carry Jewish books, presumably to be burned, during Kristallnacht, most likely in the city of Fürth, Germany, on November 10, 1938. (Yad Vashem via AP)

Jewish groups in Europe, the US, Israel and elsewhere have called on Sweden to cancel the planned gathering. Many of them referred to the continent’s history of intolerance towards Jews, including the burning of Jewish religious texts.

“It is clear that the act of burning a Bible is before us [the] Israeli Embassy [is] “Anything but peaceful,” the European Jewish Association said in a joint statement with the European Coalition for Israel, a Christian Zionist group. “Instead, it’s provocative, totally inappropriate and designed only to offend.”

The European Jewish Congress also issued a statement strongly condemning the act.

“Provocative, racist, anti-Semitic and disgusting acts like these have no place in any civilized society,” said EJC President Ariel Muzicant.

To illustrate, Danish Jews arrived in Malmo, Sweden, in September 2012 to show their solidarity with the city’s Jewish community. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)

“Treading down people’s deepest religious and cultural feelings is the clearest expression possible to send a message that minorities are unwelcome and disrespected,” added Muzicant. “These actions, based on twisted and flimsy free speech arguments, are a disgrace to Sweden and any democratic government worthy of the name should prevent them.”

Doron Almog, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a parastatal organization, held meetings with Jewish leaders in Sweden on Friday to deal with the situation, public broadcaster Kan reported.

Yaakov Hagoel, head of the World Zionist Organization, said in a statement that granting the permit was “not freedom of expression but anti-Semitism”.

In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League condemned book burnings as “a repulsive act that incites fear and incites hatred.” It pointed out that Swedish Muslims support Jews, just as Jews opposed the burning of a Koran in Stockholm last month.

In January, Stockholm police turned down a man’s request to burn a Torah in front of the Israeli embassy. He was responding to the police’s protection of a right-wing extremist who had repeatedly burned the Koran in front of mosques. Secretary of State Eli Cohen and Ambassador Ziv Nevo Kulman said they had been involved in suppressing the blaze, a move reportedly largely supported by the Muslim community.

Nathan Diament, who heads the Advocacy Center of the Orthodox Union, tweeted that the OU “strongly condemns allowing the public burning of a #Torah in Sweden.” Such a despicable act has been committed by anti-Semites for centuries when they persecuted Jews.”

Supporters of the Pakistan Central Muslim League party burn a depiction of the Swedish flag during a demonstration to denounce the burning of Islam’s holy book “Quran” in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, July 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sayyad)

The World Jewish Congress warned that allowing the sacred works to be burned “excludes and offends the Swedish Jewish community and all those who value pluralism and multiculturalism.”

The office of US Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special envoy for combating antisemitism abroad, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would approach Stockholm on the matter.

Israeli officials earlier Friday spoke out against the planned arson attacks, urging Swedish authorities to reverse the police decision.

Cohen called the decision “a hate crime, a provocation that is causing grave harm to the Jewish people and tradition.”

“I appeal to the authorities in Sweden to prevent this shameful act,” he said.

Two weeks ago, Swedish police, citing freedom of expression, allowed the Koran to be burned outside a mosque in Stockholm after a court lifted a ban on Koran burning.

Young girls take part in a rally called by the group Muslim Women League. Join a rally to denounce the recent desecration of the holy book of Islam by far-right activists in Sweden and the Netherlands in Lahore, Pakistan on Sunday January 29th. 2023. (AP Photo/KM Chaudary)

The Swedish government condemned the Koran burning, calling it an “anti-Islamic” act after the Saudi Arabia-based Organization for Islamic Cooperation called for collective action to prevent future Koran burnings.

The 57-strong panel met at its Jeddah headquarters to respond to the incident in which an Iraqi national living in Sweden, Salwan Momika, 37, trampled on the Islamic holy book, stuffing some pages with bacon and setting fire to several others .

“The burning of the Koran or any other sacred text is an insulting and disrespectful act and a clear provocation. Expressions of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance have no place in Sweden or in Europe,” said the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

Salwan Momika holds up a Koran before setting some pages on fire during a protest outside a mosque in Stockholm June 28, 2023 during the Eid al-Adha holiday. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP)

At the same time, the ministry added that Sweden has a “constitutionally protected right to freedom of assembly, expression and demonstration”.

Authorities later said they had opened an investigation into “incitement against an ethnic group” and pointed out that Momika burned pages from the Islamic holy book not far from Stockholm’s largest mosque.

The Associated Press and AFP contributed to this report.