A Swedish tv reporter who wanted to test the attitudes of people towards Jews by walking in the streets of the city of Malmo while wearing a kippah and a Star of David necklace received direct anti-Semitic threats and fled for fear of serious violence.
Swedish Television this week aired secretly recorded footage from Peter Lindgren’s walk through Malmo, which documented some of the incidents that occurred within the space a few hours.
The journalist said of his three-hour journey around Malmo: “Wearing the kippah for a few hours was enough to instill feelings of fear. Even when I didn’t feel afraid I was made to feel different and unwelcome.”
Equipped with a hidden camera and microphone, he documented his activities. One man who saw what he was wearing called him a “Jewish shit” and demanded he leave immediately. Another yelled, “Satan Jew” at him as he harmlessly walked around the city.
His experiment was documented in “Jew-Hatred in Malmo,” an hour-long segment uploaded to YouTube.
In one scene, Lindgren was filmed sitting at a café in central Malmo reading a newspaper, as several passersby hurled anti-Semitic insults at him.
In the heavily Muslim Rosengard neighborhood, the journalist was surrounded by a dozen men who shouted anti-Semitic slogans as eggs were hurled at his direction from apartments overhead. He then fled the area.
The report stated that the remaining few within Malmo’s dwindling Jewish community “are afraid to leave their homes; many want to leave the city and do not want their children to grow up there.”
Dozens of anti-Semitic incidents are recorded annually in Malmo, a city where first- and second- generation immigrants from the Middle East make up one third of the population. Several hundred Jews live in the Swedish southern city.
Many Jews who don’t feel safe in Malmo have left for the capital, Stockholm.
Fred Kahn, a leader of the local Jewish community stressed that most incidents are perpetrated by Muslims or Arabs.
Hanna Thome, a municipal councilor for culture and anti-discrimination, told the Expressen daily that she was shocked by the events documented by Ljunggren.
“There is much more to do, and both the municipality and the police have a great responsibility. But I also want to emphasize that there is great solidarity in the city,” she said in reference to several so-called kippah walks, where Jews and non-Jews marched through Malmo’s street while wearing yarmulkes to protest against anti-Semitism.
Sweden's government has come under criticism for failing to provide adequate protection to the country's Jewish community and address the issue of anti-Semitism.
Shneur Kessleman, the Chief Rabbi of Malmo said that he had regularly reported incidents against himself to the police, but had yet to see any criminals brought to justice.
“On the same day I had three, four incidents within two three hours, when I was out of town. It's insane. And then it can go a few months without anything happening,” he said.
Since the terror attacks in Paris two weeks ago, Jews in Sweden have received numerous threats from Islamic groups. “We have received emails and letters from Islamists containing threats. The police and security services have raised the threat level accordingly,” the head of the Jewish Council, Lena Posner Körös, said.
“We currently have increased surveillance at some ten properties in central Stockholm where Jewish activities take place,” Fredrik Näslund from the Stockholm Police told television network SVT.
The Jewish Council was already on high alert after receiving two bomb threats last summer. The group operates synagogues, a library, a community centre, and a school, along with a range of other activities and events.