Sweden: Synagogue Vandalized to Mark Passover

Hat tip Vlad Tepes, Israel Hayom, and Dagen (se).

-Israel Hayom

As Jews celebrate Passover, this past Sunday morning, Swedish police in the town of Norrköping were called to the scene of the city's synagogue, inaugurated in 1858. There they discovered puppets hanging in front of the synagogue with signs that read that Passover was a holiday where Jews "celebrated the murder of thousands of Egyptian children". 

https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/03/31/dolls-hanged-outside-swedish-synagogue-on-passover/

*Update: This may well be the work of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement. They posted their own article on this incident on their blog with a photo of the puppets taken at night-before they were reported to the police Sunday morning. (Hat tip JNS).

In addition, there is this Swedish report on the incident from a Christian Swedish newspaper, Dagen. Translation by Fousesquawk.

https://www.dagen.se/nyheter/2021/03/28/dockor-upphangda-vid-synagoga-i-norrkoping/

Puppets hanged at synagogue in Norrköping

Police investigate agitation against groups-appeal for tips

Caption below photo: On Sunday, puppets were found hanging in a position outside the synagogue of Norrköping

by Johannes Ottestig

28 March 2021 17:05

On Sunday morning, police were alerted to the synagogue in Norrköping after the public at large saw puppets hanging in a position. In connection with this, a written message was also found.

Police in Östergötland state that the police patrol that proceeded to the synagogue carried out a photo-documentation and the objects were seized. A preliminary investigation into agitation against an (ethnic) group has been initiated.

At present, there are no suspects, but police have received tips and also urge people who were in the vicinity of the synagogue on Sunday morning to come forward with additional information.

The Jewish Passover, Pesach, began on Saturday evening and goes into next week. Police in Östergötland state that they are conscious of the holiday and that patrols will be conducted around the Jewish locations in the city to the extent possible.

Recurring anti-Semitism

Norrköping, together with Stockholm and Gothenburg, is one of the three cities where Jews, at the end of the 1700s were given the right to conduct business and settle. But in spite of the Jewish presence in the city- and the city's synagogue, which was inaugurated in 1858- anti-Semitic acts have been recurring in  Norrköping in recent years.

For example, in the summer of 2014, rocks were thrown into the synagogue. In April 2019, flags and banners with swastikas were hung in several places in the city, and also in April last year, the same thing happened again. Nazi graffiti was also discovered, and in September last year, in connection with the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, the Northern Resistance Movement (NMR) demonstrated outside the synagogue, and posters were put up in several places in the city.

Afterward, members of the Jewish congregation, who for sake of security, wished to be anonymous, told Norrköping's News that they were living in constant fear.