"Center calls for permanent police presence at Malmö Jewish institutions, as at other endangered communities across Europe"
Paris, 28 September 2012
An explosion occurred last night, after midnight, at the Malmö Jewish Community Center. The exact circumstances arecurrently underinvestigation.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centrer expresses its solidarity with the 700-member Jewish community and its Rabbi, who has beenincessantly targetted.
Rabbi Kesselman and his children have been physically and verbally assaulted some fifteen times in the last year. This YomKippur, his newly purchased car was vandalized with engravings including "Palestina".
Subsequent to a firebombing of the synagogue, assaults on a pro-Israel demonstration and a series of other anti-Semiticincidents, theWiesenthal Center met in December 2011 in Malmö with the Mayor, law enforcement officials, theJewish community and Muslim and Roma leaders. The Centre's Associate Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and its Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, also met with SwedishJustice Minister, Beatrice Ask in Stockholm,(pictured) seeking a commitment to providing physical security for Jewish institutions. The Centre also advised the Minister that - due to thecontinued provocations of Malmö Mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, in constantly introducing the Middle East conflictinto localdiscourse and thereby exacerbating tensions among the 70,000 Muslim community - it was imposing a travel advisory on Malmö. Samuels, in March 2011,accompanied President Obama's Special Envoy on Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal, to meetings with Muslim and other minority leaders in the city. At aMalmö University conference on hate crime, he also explained, "The Center's concern that Malmö had become a microcosm of contemporary threat to Jews, andserves as a case model for anti-Semitic hatemongering beyond Sweden."
The Center felt vindicated in that physical security of the synagogue is now partly provided by the central government inStockholm. "Yet theMayor's continued indifference, the ban on cameras due to privacy considerations and the lackof a police presence has not prevented thisnew attack. The Wiesenthal Centre was now again appealing to Stockholmto provide permanent police surveillance as in other endangered communities across Europe." The explosion was apparently heard several blocks away and cracked the bullet-proof main door of the Jewish Community Center. "Such damage requiredsufficient expertise to fabricate a device that, though primitive, sets a precedent for more sophisticated explosives.
"We are grateful that, this time, there were no casualties and understand that two suspects have been detained. We aremonitoring the situation and, especially, the reaction of the Mayor. Whether it was Ahmadinejad's Yom Kippur hate-speech at the United Nations or localsentiment fed by Islamist or other racist websites, we await rigourous condemnation and expressions of sympathy from Muslim leaders and a promptprosecution of the perpetrators. In the meantime, the Center's travel advisory remains in place," concluded Samuels.
For further information contact Shimon Samuels on +33(0)609770158, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow@simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States.It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament(Parlatino).
Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, also met with Swedish