Neo-Nazis Get Green Light To March Outside Swedish Synagogue On Yom Kippur
The neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement demonstrates against migrants in central Stockholm. Image by JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink September 11, 2017
Members of the Jewish community in Sweden’s second-largest city are protesting a police decision to allow a neo-Nazi march less than 500 feet from a synagogue on Yom Kippur.
“Aside from out of fear for our own security, it evokes uncomfortable associations for us Jews,” Aron Verständig, the chairman of the Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, and Allan Stutzinsky, chairman of the Jewish Community in Gothenburg, wrote in a newspaper op-ed on Monday. “During the Holocaust it wasn’t unusual for the German Nazis to conduct their horrendous atrocities on the most important days of the Jewish calendar.”
Veständig told Radio Sweden that he understood that the Nordic Resistance Movement had a right to march in Gothenburg, but hoped that the rally could be moved or rescheduled.
“We’re definitely not against the march itself,” he said. “The problem is that when this passes so close to the synagogue, it causes a lot of worry among the members of the community and it also creates a security risk.”
The Nordic Resistance Movement’s route will place them at Gustaf Adolf’s Square, less than 500 feet from the Judiska Församlingen synagogue and community center.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
