Swedish police have approved the burning of a Bible on Shabbos outside the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, officials said on Friday.
The controversial decision follows similar burnings of the Quran in Sweden by activists that have sparked outrage in the Islamic world.
The demonstration is slated for Shabbos, when the Israeli embassy is closed.
A recent public opinion poll in Sweden found that the majority of citizens now support a ban on the public burning of religious texts such as the Bible or the Quran.
“I would advise individuals to ignore this event and not give it more attention,” Aron Verstandig, chairman of the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, told JNS. He noted that the local community had tried and apparently failed to prevent the development.
Previous police rejections of similar petitions had been overturned by Swedish courts.
Stockholm had weighed stepping in to change the law to allow police to stop Quran burnings in public, in the wake of the damage to the country’s internal security triggered by such events.
“Such explicit acts of bigotry and hatred against the Jewish people is as much revolting as it is reprehensible and has no place amongst the liberal democracies of the world,” Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said in a statement on Friday.
Chikli had previously written to the Swedish prime minister urging his government to intervene.
“The Swedish government deeply regrets when extremists and provocateurs try to sow division in our society, even when they are exercising constitutionally protected acts,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom had replied.
Israeli Ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman on Friday denounced the police decision.
“I utterly condemn the burning of holy books sacred to any religion, as an act of hate and disrespect, that has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” he said.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement released on Friday, “I unequivocally condemn the permission granted in Sweden to burn holy books. As president of the State of Israel, I condemned the burning of the Quran, sacred to Muslims the world over, and I am now heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible, the eternal book of the Jewish people. Permitting the defacement of sacred texts is not an exercise in freedom of expression, it is blatant incitement and an act of pure hate. The whole world must join together in clearly condemning this repulsive act.” JNS
Perhaps we can give him a Sefer Torah written by the woman of the wall or Open Orthodox and their ilk. Sefer Torah shekasuv min yisrof
It is legal to do that in the US. First Amendment and all that.