Police have granted a public gathering outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Friday. The woman behind the application states that she plans to "light the Torah with a lighter".The demonstration is scheduled for 12 noon on Friday."We are conducting a dialogue with the organizer and other parties who may be affected, for example the Israeli embassy,"says Mats Eriksson, press spokesperson at the police.The application is submitted by a woman in her 50s who states that it is a "manifestation for children's rights in Sweden which are systematically violated". She writes that the plan is to "light the Torah with a lighter".
What, exactly, does burning a Torah (more likely a printed Chumash) have to do with children's rights?
There are only two answers - both of which are profoundly antisemitic.
One is that they have nothing to do with each other, but the woman wants publicity, and she knows that attacking Jewish holy objects will get her the publicity she wants. Which means that every crank in Sweden will now seek to burn sacred Jewish objects to get their cause in the newspapers, and antisemitism has become a gimmick.
The other is that somehow she is associating Judaism with violating children's rights. Which is not so far fetched - "progressives" in Europe and the US always associate Israel with every social justice crime they can think of.
And as this incident shows, the modern antisemites don't distinguish between Judaism and Israel, as much as they claim to. Otherwise, why is she intending to do her stunt outside the Israeli embassy?
Either way, antisemitism is becoming cheapened and commoditized, which means that people are becoming less and less outraged at attacks on Jews and Judaism as more of these stunts get approved.
I support freedom of speech. Technically, what she wants to do is legal. Nazis in 1933 could also justify their book burnings as freedom of their own expression - yet everyone knows what it really meant.
History shows that book burners are the people who care the least about freedom of expression.
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