Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Anti-Semitism Envoy Meets Swedish Mayor

Hannah Rosenthal, the U.S. envoy to combat anti-Semitism, will meet with the mayor of Malmo, Sweden, who is accused of fomenting anti-Semitism.

“I will be meeting with the mayor, I am aware of his remarks and I will express my concern,” Rosenthal told JTA on Wednesday just before her departure for a tour of Sweden and Latvia.

Ilmar Reepalu last month told a Swedish magazine that the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Sweden Democrats Party had “infiltrated” the city’s Jewish community in order to turn it against Muslims. Reepalu later said he had no basis for his remarks and that he “shouldn’t have said it that way.”

He has also said that his city’s tiny Jewish community bears some responsibility for physical attacks against it because the community has not condemned Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

Rosenthal had said she was planning to visit Sweden this year in any case to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews before disappearing under Soviet occupation. However, she was spurred to go now because of the Malmo controversy.

Rosenthal also will visit Latvia to observe its Holocaust commemorations and tour its Holocaust commemoration sites.

She said she will raise with Latvian leaders the issue of an annual march honoring that nation’s veterans of the Waffen SS, the armed wing of the Nazi party.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.