Explosion at the Malmö Synagogue

Early Friday morning a large firework was detonated outside the synagogue in Malmö, Sweden’s most culturally enriched city. The synagogue has been attacked in the past, but not with explosives.

Our Swedish correspondent MS has translated two articles about the incident. The first is from Sydsvenskan:

Explosion at synagogue worries congregation

MALMO. A blast caused by a large firework next to the synagogue on the night before Friday has the Jewish community worried.

Malmö Synagogue“It’s incredibly sad that this should happen again,” said [synagogue] President Fred Kahn.

No one was injured by the powerful blast, but three window panes were shattered. Even worse, however, was the feeling the day after that once again they had been the victim of an attack:

“We thought we were finished with this sort of thing,” says Fred Kahn.

The police investigated the crime scene during the night, and in the near future will strengthen their surveillance in the area of the synagogue.

Bjorn Lagerback, Coordinator of the Dialogue Forum, which works against hate crimes, thinks vandalism is extremely serious.

“We condemn this completely. Such an event is not just directed against the synagogue, but also at other targets that could be described as ethnic or religious.”

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A somewhat more detailed account comes from Dagens Nyheter:

No threats of attacks on synagogue

No threat appears to have been issued prior to the explosion during the night before Friday, on the steps of the synagogue at Betaniaplan in Malmö.

A few minutes after two o’clock the police were alerted by several callers who heard a loud bang and saw a glow in the area. Police patrols found a charred black residue at the synagogue, but have determined that a major charge was not detonated.

“Probably some form of fireworks,” said police officer Goran Billberg.

The damage to the building is limited to a few small broken panes of glass.

Following the incident police have tightened their surveillance of the synagogue, and are consulting with the Jewish community. Malmö’s synagogue and its congregation have been subjected to threats and attacks several times in the past, but police said no incidents of this type have been reported in years prior to the night’s blast. The offense is classified as vandalism.



Hat tip: LN.

3 thoughts on “Explosion at the Malmö Synagogue

  1. “We thought we were finished with this sort of thing,” says Fred Kahn.

    Sadly, Mr. Kahn is quite probably delusional. Given the steady escalation of Musilim festivities in the Malmö area, this is most likely just a foretaste of far more serious things to come.

    Bjorn Lagerback, Coordinator of the Dialogue Forum, which works against hate crimes, think[s] vandalism is extremely serious.

    Yet, somehow this is just a bit of playful “vandalism” and not any sort of [gasp!] anti-Semitism.

    The offense is classified as vandalism.

    Oops, I forgot, the victims were people of sufficiently white skin color so there is no way on earth that this could possibly be a Hate Crime™.

    More and more, it appears as though Islam’s recalcitrant attitude about terrorism and jihad is going to be solved only through a few short episodes of large-scale glass manufacturing.

  2. Know what Zenster? At my grammar school the head and the teaching staff had a very strict policy.
    If someone did something wrong and the perpetrator wasn’t immdediately obvious the class was given an ultimatim. The perpetrator owns up or the whole class is punished.
    Now most perpetrators were braggarts and I doubt this has changed.(and grammar schools were for the intellectal elite in those days)
    In most cases the perpetrator acted with honour and owned up (might it have been because he/she would get a severe beating and “sent to Coventry” for the duration by the rest of us? Maybe – but this known response prevented many from doing what they might otherwise have done. A “self regulation” if you like.
    I think that lack of effective discipline on many levels in the immigrant communities is the basal cause (along with the K) of much of what now happens.
    The perpetrators will undoubtedly be braggarts (few are clever enough not to boast and talk)so many in their community will be privy to their acts and plans. Doesn’t that make them accomplices and conspirators – to damage, assault, theft and even murder?
    My school class wasn’t deported but was collectively punished.

    Some problem families on “sink estates” have been “deported” to another area.
    Once upon a time they would really have been deported – to Australia in particular – but that option isn’t now available.
    Some of the members of such families may not have been the cause of the trouble but they were “deported” anyway.
    I won’t spell it out. You can see where I’m going.

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