World
Nordic neo-Nazi group targets Jewish communities over Yom Kippur
Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) confronts worshipers outside shuls and fixes antisemtic posters in public areas
September 29, 2020 10:56
Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) confronts worshipers outside shuls and fixes antisemtic posters in public areas
September 29, 2020 10:56A Nordic neo-Nazi organisation has launched a string of targeted campaigns against Jewish communities in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland over Yom Kippur.
Members of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) were shown on the group’s website confronting worshipers standing in front of synagogues, fixing antisemitic posters placed in public areas and distributing leaflets in public areas.
The NRM said they had launched the campaign over Yom Kippur to "make the Nordic people aware of foreign customs and Zionist ruling plans throughout the Nordic region," with posters attacking kosher slaughter, circumcision and the custom of kaparot.
Actions also included the distribution of antisemitic handbills in several Swedish cities, as well as outside a synagogue in Norrköping, Sweden, during religious services.
One NRM leaflet circulated the antisemitic trope that Jews sought "proactive forgiveness for all the lies and injustices that they will commit until the next Yom Kippur.”
Finland’s Supreme Court issued a cease-and-desist order to the NRM last week - the first such order issued since the 1970s.
The court said that “the use of violence linked to the organisation’s activities has to be considered a part of the organisation’s operations,” according to a report in the Helsinki Times.
World Jewish Congress President Ronald S Lauder condemned the group’s actions saying: “This Yom Kippur marks the second year in a row that antisemitism has reared its ugly head in Europe. Last year, we saw a murderous antisemitic attack targeting the synagogue in Halle, Germany, and this year, the modern-day successors of the Nazis of the 1930s and 1940s, known as the Nordic Resistance Movement, have mounted a vile and vicious campaign of hate against Jews in Northern Europe.
“The Nordic Resistance Movement represents a violent, racist, antisemitic ideology, and should be outlawed. Perpetrators of this type of incitement against Jews, horrifically disseminated on the most solemn day of the Jewish year, must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
“On behalf of the World Jewish Congress, I call on all Nordic governments to follow Finland’s example and move swiftly to ban the Nordic Resistance Movement and rid its violent propaganda from our streets.”