Judisk Kvinnoklubben, Stockholm

Our Swedish affiliate is JKK – the Judiska Kvinnoklubben of Stockholm. JKK is a rather small society, but it is fairly active in the Swedish Jewish community. We participate in several kinds of voluntary work, especially at the Jewish Home for the Elderly in Stockholm. We pay regular visits there and arrange entertainments, from showing films to inviting outstanding singers and musicians.

JKK’s rules say that we shall encourage Jewish culture. To that end we arrange several events such as lectures and museum visits every year. These events attract a lot of people, and the fees that they generate help the JKK to finance their community work at the Home for the Elderly, and to give scholarships to students who study Jewish subjects, and to support other activities, such as the group caring for the Jews in Baltic countries.

We run a popular traditional Succot lunch, at which I spoke about the history of ICJW. People seemed interested and JKK gained some new members, perhaps partly due to this international connection.

JKK works mostly within the Jewish community, although we all take a strong interest in what is going on in Swedish society.

Sweden, like many other European countries, faces increasing anti-Semitism. This may be partly due to the many Muslim immigrants who have arrived recently in Sweden, but that is far from the whole truth as most of these immigrants are not fundamentalists and not anti-Jewish. We suspect that it is the old anti-Semitism which has been awakened, combined with strong anti-Israel opinions. Fortunately, the Swedish Jewish community has a very strong and active group against anti-Semitism, which JKK supports both financially and ideologically.