New Fund Proposed for Groups at Risk—Including Malmö’s Jews

During this past week public health minister Maria Larsson (KD) visited the Jewish Community in Malmö. She came in order to talk about the Chrisitian Democrats’ proposal for a new fund which will help provide security arrangements for exposed groups such as the Jews in Malmö.

The Christian Democrats in Malmö have introduced the new initiative for a fund to which exposed minorities can apply for aid. The fund will ease the pressure on small communities—such as the Jewish community in Malmö—which yearly have to pay large security expenses (a third of the budget) in order to keep the members of the community safe.

The leader of the Christian Democrats in Malmö has stated that his party, together with the other allied parties, wants to put forward the motion in the city council after the election. He also stated “that a fund to strengthen the security measures would show that the city is taking responsibility in order to create safety in Malmö.”

If the new fund would become a reality this would greatly ease the high costs that the Malmö Jewish community is dealing with today. A third of the Malmö Jewish community’s expenses are today channeled towards security arrangements, an unsustainable formula for a continuously shrinking community.
Public health minister Maria Larsson of the Christian Democrats is one out of many ministers who have paid visits lately to the targeted Jewish community in Malmö. Larsson herself commented, “I am here to follow up on what has happened. Malmö has a big responsibility to make sure that legal rights are upheld and that everyone can live in a safe and democratic society.”

During 2010 the Malmö Jewish community and its members have been exposed to several attacks. The latest one was when explosive material was set off  outside the community synagogue and shattered several windows in the building. The Jewish community certainly would appreciate this initiative, which, if put into effect, would mean that the government is finally shouldering its responsibility to protect all of its citizens. It is high time for the small and beleaguered Malmö Jewish community to get real government assistance in paying for its heavy security expenses.

But more importantly, the government must develop a clear policy to deal with anti-Semitic hate crime—the root of the whole issue. Unless the authorities resolve to have a “no tolerance” policy on hate crime, the situation will only escalate. The current situation is bad enough to drive Jews out of Malmö now; without serious efforts to change the situation the authorities in Malmö will find that they have been treating the symptoms without recognizing or curing the actual disease—hate crime in Sweden.