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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2026
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It's incredible that you are doubting that Jews are unsafe in Europe. Just search on the web for antisemitic attacks against Jews in Europe and you will find lots of news worse than this specific one in the OP. I would specifically recommend reading interviews with Jewish leaders telling about the hate crimes that they experience on a near daily basis. If you want one specific event that actually threatened human life then I can link you to the 2017 Gothenburg Synagogue attack where Palestinians and syrians threw firebombs at a Synagogue where Jewish youth were currently having a youth event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Gothenburg_Synagogue_attack?wprov=sfla1
And when it comes to Israel we are on the same side here. Isteal is horrible. Isreal is a good explanation for why Muslims in Europe are antisemitic. But it's an explanation, not a good justification. I don't doubt that some of the 9/11 survivors turned out to become great haters of Muslims after the attack. That's a good explanation, but not a good justification for hatred.
I want Jews to feel safe in Europe, but I think we need to stop and think a little bit before we målar fan på väggen. Let's use some actual data. According to the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry in Tel Aviv:
Despite the name of the publisher, this figure signifies the number of Jews in the global diaspora killed in in 2025. Of course, 15 of those were the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia. So let's do some quick maffs to put this into context. There are approximately 8.5 million Jews outside of Israel, and in the worst year for Jews in at least 3 decades, the incidence of violence with a fatal outcome was 0.23 per 100,000 people. The homicide rate globally approximately 6 (six) per 100,000, which is about 25 (twenty-five) times higher. For comparison, the homicide rate in Israel is 3.718, and in Sweden it is 0.867.
Now, homicide is not exactly the same as terror killings, not only because the motives differ but because the relationship between perpetrator and victim differ.
So let's be fair. Let's use Jewish Israeli victims of terror, specifically Palestinian terror, since 2000. We're excluding some major incidents, most notably the October 7, 2023 attacks. Here's the list, tallying 1,529 Jewish victims of terror up until March 2026.
That's an average of 60 deaths per year, every year, for 26 years. I'm counting 22 victims of Palestinian terror in Israel in 2025 alone. Same figure for Sweden for 2025 was 0 by the way.
Long story short, Israel is much more unsafe for Jews than Europe is.
We should keep that in mind when we talk about how European Jews flee to Israel on account of them feeling unsafe. Because it is not only completely bonkers, it is also part of an Israeli Zionist agenda. They are being fed propaganda because it fits the agenda of a colonialist, apartheid state that is committing a genocide. Do not play into their hands.
A small number of events does not mean they are unsafe. Your example resulted in no deaths nor injuries and occurred 9 years ago.
I would agree that antisemitism is on the rise and attacks such as these are becoming slightly more common, as well as more day to day confrontations, but I don't think it's significant enough to say "Europe is unsafe for Jews". It is concerning, and needs to be monitored, but by and large the region is not unsafe.
How do you define safe? The Jewish student union at Vienna university needs police guards every time they have a get together since they have received so many threats. Police guarding when they have a movie night. That is absolutely insane. With the police guards they are quite safe yes. But if the environment they live in requires them to take precautions like this, is that environment really safe?
If you have to hide your Jewish identity when you are out and about in public to be safe. Is your environment really safe? If you have to inform the police anytime you have even a private Jewish community event to be safe? Is your environment really a safe one? I would argue no, if you have to go to these lengths for your safety you are not in a safe location. Arguing otherwise would be like saying a certain location is safe for women because despite there being full of rapists on the streets at night the women can simply stay inside at night or be escorted by a man. That's not true safety.
Having police or security is different to needing them.
You say they need police "every time", and yet the event you seem to be referring to was a one off screening of the Eurovision final. Israel's participation in Eurovision has been highly controversial in recent years, so having a showing openly in support of them is of course going to be controversial as well. Not that the threats were warranted, but they should have been expected and they refused to take any measures themselves to address the risk they courted, hence the university following their duty of care and requiring additional security from the police.
I imagine most Jewish people in Europe feel about the same as most Russians in Europe feel about their cultural identity. Tolerated to an extent, but held under suspicion when expressed, due to a potential allegiance with a violent state. I imagine they feel like many Germans felt in the 1950s onwards.