Malmö's "Damn Jew" Problem

This is another good piece from Paulina Neuding which appears in Tablet. While giving a current picture of life for Jews in Sweden, Neuding points to the thought processes which guide Sweden's ruling elites. It's not a far jump from wrongheadedness to ignoring reality when it contradicts operative theory. While even the Local ran a story prematurely predicting Mayor Reepalu's demise, in the end his Social Democrat party made sympathetic noises to the Jewish community leadership, but ultimately backed him up. Here's why:

Sweden’s ‘Damn Jew’ Problem

Wearing a yarmulke is no longer safe in the city of Malmö. The mayor blames the Jews, while other Swedish politicians point to ‘social inequality.’


It’s true—Jews aren’t the only residents of Malmö with safety concerns. Malmö’s high rates of crime have earned the city the moniker “Sweden’s Chicago.” In 2011 and early 2012, several people were killed in the city in what are believed to be gang shootings. When a teenage boy was shot dead on New Year’s Eve, more than a thousand people took to the streets to protest against the violence under the slogan “Enough, damn it.”
High crime rates, especially among certain immigrant communities, have caused deep anxiety for the people of Malmö—and yet politicians and pundits are reluctant to discuss the issue, partly out of a genuine fear of stirring up racism and Islamophobia. When I met with Ask in 2009, for example, I asked her whether crime among immigrants in Sweden caused her to worry. She would not hear of it. “What we in fact can see, however, is that many victims of crime are immigrants,” she told me. “And that worries me.”

Full article here.