Anti-semitism in Sweden.....

We've blogged on the anti-semitism sweeping Sweden many times...here's a good overview...

A rapid increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes is tarnishing Sweden's reputation as a tolerant and harmonious land and leading some Jews to quit the country for good.

Swedish police recorded 79 anti-Semitic incidents in the southern region of Skanska last year -- roughly double the total for 2008. (Statistics for the whole of the country will be published in June.) Jonathan Leman, a spokesman for the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism, told AOL News that the actual number of hate crimes committed was probably far higher, as "police believe many more incidents were not reported."

At the center of this hate wave is the city of Malmo (population 300,000), just across the Oresund Strait from the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Forty-nine anti-Semitic acts were reported in Malmo last year. Swastikas were painted on Jewish buildings, a funeral chapel in a Jewish cemetery was torched and masked men chanted "Hitler" at worshipers walking home from prayers, among other incidents.

This air of hostility is causing Malmo's already small Jewish population of 700 to shrink even further. Some 30 families recently left the city for Stockholm, London and Israel. Marcus Eilenberg, a 32-year-old father of two, told the Swedish daily Skanska Dagbladet he was moving to Israel in the spring, as he was no longer willing to be called a "damn Jew" in the street or see his family and friends harassed.

"My children aren't safe here. It's going to get worse," Eilenberg said. "Imagine that my family can't feel safe in fantastic Sweden. It's really terrible."

Although neo-Nazis are believed to be responsible for some attacks, police and the local Jewish community say the majority were carried out by Muslims, who now make up one-fifth of the city's population. Just as Jews were welcomed to Malmo after World War II, the city in recent years opened its arms to people escaping tyranny and terror in the Middle East.

But these new arrivals brought old hatreds with them. "Muslim schoolchildren often ignore me now when I talk about my experiences in the camps," Judith Popinski, 86, who settled in Malmo after being rescued from a Nazi death camp, told The Sunday Telegraph. "It is because of what their parents tell them about Jews. The hatreds of the Middle East have come to Malmo. Schools in Muslim areas of the city simply won't invite Holocaust survivors to speak any more."