The world is coming to Malmö - and Jews are fleeing the city

WORLD The world is coming to Malmö - and Jews are fleeing the city Adrian Ericson • 3 hours • 4 minutes reading time The Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö further fuels anti-Semitic sentiment in Sweden. Pro-Palestinian organizations and artists are loudly calling for Israel to be excluded from the competition. The Jewish community is expecting the worst. After a long winter, even by Swedish standards, the sun has finally returned. People are walking along the seafront promenades in Malmö again and there is something going on all over the city. Because the world has come to Malmö: the organizers are expecting around 100,000 visitors to the Eurovision Song Contest. The large public park in the heart of the city was transformed into the “Eurovision Village”, a meeting place for partying and dancing. But not all residents share the enthusiasm. Posters calling for a boycott of the ESC have been hanging in the windows of popular cafés for weeks. Pro-Palestinian organizations are protesting against the event on social media and are planning several large demonstrations. The message: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and should be excluded from the music competition. Thousands of Swedish artists, from hip-hop stars to opera singers, have also joined the demand. The organizer of the competition, the European Broadcasting Union, has consistently rejected Israel's exclusion. “Malmö says no to genocide – Israel out of Eurovision and Eurovision out of Malmö” reads a poster in the host city But 20-year-old Eda Golan, who represents the country with the song “Hurricane,” will face a wall of rejection on the streets of Malmö. “There is a general feeling of insecurity. “You feel like you’re not welcome in your own city,” says Daniel Janouch, chairman of the Jewish Youth Association. “I know several Jews who want to leave Malmö during the ESC.” Since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 and the war in Gaza, anti-Semitism has escalated in the Swedish city. Shortly after the Hamas attack, Palestinians drove cars through Malmö, waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans such as “Intifada” and “Destruct Zionism.” The Israeli flag was burned in front of the synagogue in Malmö, schools report anti-Semitic graffiti on lockers and Hitler salutes in the classroom. According to a report from the National Council for Crime Prevention, the number of anti-Semitic hate crimes has skyrocketed this fall. In a survey by the Central Council of Jews in Sweden, three out of four respondents said they were afraid to openly wear Jewish symbols. One in two people is thinking about leaving the country. The terrorist threat in Sweden has been at level four out of five since the Koran burnings last year. And now the ESC is further aggravating the tense security situation. The Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 is sending a television team to Malmö ahead of the competition to report on the anti-Semitic mood in the city. At a pro-Palestinian demonstration, a man attacked the television crew, grabbed the camera and spat on the journalists. Jewish community expects the worst The police have been preparing for operations during the ESC for months. “We will have a huge deployment throughout the week with many police officers, not just at the venues but across Malmö,” says Jimmy Modin, police press officer. Reinforcements were requested from all over Sweden as well as from Norway and Denmark. Security checkpoints will be set up around the event site; Bags are prohibited. As a visitor there is no need to worry, says Modin, “but as always it is good to be vigilant. We can never completely rule out the possibility that something could happen.” The Jewish community in Malmö is also following the situation with concern and is prepared for the worst. Before the ESC, a group of Jews urged that the Jewish Central Council call on Israel to withdraw - because of the hostile atmosphere. “The fact that the ESC is taking place in Malmö is not well received in Jewish circles,” said council chairman Aron Vernicht to the Swedish newspaper “Expressen”. “But to capitulate and say Israel shouldn’t go there, I don’t think is the right path.” It was not foreseeable for a long time that Malmö would one day have to struggle with rampant anti-Semitism. Just over 80 years ago, in the fall of 1943, more than 7,000 Jews fled to Sweden from the Nazi occupiers in Denmark. At this time, Malmö was certainly not free from anti-Semitism.