Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Minister for civil defence tal

It is my great honour to stand in front of you all on this occasion, which is really two formed into one. On the one hand, 250 years of Jewish life in Sweden, on the other hand the celebration of the 77th occasion of the Israeli Independence Day.

Among historians there is an ongoing debate on how much emphasis should be placed on historical actors in comparison to larger structural changes. I am not sure which camp I belong to in that regard, but nevertheless, I think that a day like this at least presents an opportunity to salute one quite special historic actor, namely Aron Isaac, the first Jewish citizen in Sweden who was not forced to convert. He was obviously a man with little fear for the unknown.

Upon making his way from Germany to Sweden his brother, wife and his children urged him not to go to Sweden. The North was claimed to be an unsophisticated and hostile place, where people knew few languages and not the least, a place where the state forced Jews to convert.

Isaac had no intention of converting, but also no intention of listening to his family. So, he went. Instead of accepting the same faith as Jews who had come before him to Sweden, he decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to take wrestle with Swedish bureaucracy, a daunting task even by today’s standards. After many ins and outs he won that battle, and that in turn paved the way for his founding of the Jewish confederation in Sweden. Something we can all be grateful for over 250 years later.

There are countless examples of how Jewish life has contributed to Swedish society in general, and I truly appreciate the efforts that are now being made to commemorate that on a number of different occasions. One can always wonder, how can a relatively small minority make such a positive and large contribution to a society in general.

I think it derives from the fact that Judaism teaches universal values, such as justice, compassion and the sanctity of human life. Values that, when implemented, have given rise to some of the most successful societies in human history. If you pair this with the unique longevity of Jewish identity and common historical experience among the Jewish people you will find that there is not a country where the Jewish minority has not made a great contribution to that society, while also integrating deeply without losing its Jewish identity. That is worth cherishing on this special occasion.

Even though this is a day of festivity, when acknowledging the profound contributions from Jewish culture and history it is impossible to not also see how Jewish history, by the acts of non-Jews, time and time again has forced the Jewish minority into the darkest pages of human history and experience.

As the soviet Jewish author Vasilij Grossman put it in his work “life and faith”: Antisemitism has been as strong in the age of atomic reactors and computers as in the age of oil lamps, sailing boats and spinning wheels. Antisemitism is always a mean rather than an end; it is a

measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and state systems.

He concludes: Tell me what you accuse the Jews of – and I will tell you what you are guilty of yourself.

Grossman’s law, if we might call it that, has unfortunately proven true in every time when antisemitism has shown its face, even to this day.

I challenge all the adversaries of Israel to find one allegation against the Jewish people or the Jewish state of Israel, delivered for example by the leadership of Hamas or the Mullahs of Iran, which they are not themselves guilty of at orders of magnitude worse.

In a time where the questioning of the Jewish state’s existence has become less and less a subtle fringe movement in the western world and more widespread mainstream, the rest of us must take a stand and point out that this strain of history, regardless of its latest reincarnation, is the strain of human failure. A failure in protecting the Jewish people is therefore a core failure of humanity.

This celebration that we are gathered for here today is the antithesis of such a failure.

So let me therefore propose a toast, to Aaron Isaac and the people who followed him, to the state of Israel, to the universal values that we cherish together, to the sanctity of life itself.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Minister for civil defence

14th May 2025