Blast rocks Malmö’s Jewish community center
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
09/30/2012 03:58
No injuries but building lightly damaged; Two suspected detained by Swedish police.
Man enters, exits JCC in Malmo, Sweden Photo: REUTERS/Scanpix Sweden
An explosion struck a Jewish community building in the southern Swedish city of
Malmö early Friday morning, Swedish media reported. The blast caused no
injuries.
“There has been an explosion. Something has detonated –
we are certain of that,” police officer Erik Liljenström said to local paper
Sydsvenskan.
While the front door was damaged, the building itself was
not.
Local police brought two men in for questioning after their car was
seen by witnesses leaving the area at a high speed following the
explosion.
Malmö’s Jewish community was previously the target of
anti-Semitic attacks. Earlier this year, a rabbi was physically assaulted and in
2010, a group of Jews were attacked by Swedish Muslims during a peaceful protest
in support of Israel.
In August, several hundred kippa-wearing Jews and
non- Jews marched in Stockholm in solidarity with the city’s persecuted
Jews.
It is time Swedish authorities defended the rights of their Jewish
citizens, said World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder following the
explosion.
“For a number of years now, Malmö has been a hotspot for
anti-Jewish activities,” Lauder said.
“There is real fear among the
Jewish population of Malmö, and it is growing – not least because not a lot has
been done to address the issue,” he added.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center
expressed solidarity with the 700-member Jewish community in Sweden, attacking
Malmö’s mayor for “continued indifference, the ban on cameras... and the lack of
police presence” which allowed the attack to occur. The center also warned that
the blast could “set a precedent” for more sophisticated explosive attacks.