VIENNA — Last month, firecrackers were thrown at the only synagogue in the Swedish city of Malmo, breaking three windows. The day before, a bomb threat had been left at the building, warning of what was about to happen. Two weeks earlier, another attack was launched against the same synagogue.
For months, local Jews have testified to an increasingly hostile atmosphere, with many saying they are frightened to go out on the streets wearing anything that might identify them as Jews.
Earlier this year, Daniel Schwammenthal, writing in The Wall Street Journal, explained why in the starkest possible terms: "Screaming 'Sieg Heil' and 'Hitler, Hitler,' a mostly Muslim mob threw bottles and stones at a small group of Jews peacefully demonstrating for Israel at this town's central square last year. Worshippers on their way to synagogue and Jewish kids in schools are routinely accosted as 'Dirty Jews.' "