#umea

Villa by the River Umeå, Sweden,

The existing dwelling is one of three modernist villas designed by architect Istvan Poroszlay, of which only two were ever completed.

Recently, there was an anti-Israel demonstration in the Swedish city of Umeå that featured a display depicting hanged mannequins dressed in striped concentration camp uniforms, complete with yellow stars and prisoner numbers, behind a depiction of a Palestinian woman holding a baby.

The sign says "A genocide is a genocide is a genocide."

People complained that this was incitement and a hate crime. But on Tuesday, the Swedish Prosecutor's Office decided that it was perfectly fine.

"I interpret the message as meaning that the authors believe that what is happening in the Gaza Strip is a genocide just as much as the Holocaust was. The fact that one seems to compare the Holocaust with the conflict in the Gaza Strip does not, in my opinion, mean that one denies, excuses or obviously belittles the genocide of the Jews," said senior prosecutor Irene Falk.

Sweden was one of the original countries to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which includes in its examples, "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."

If this isn't trivializing and inverting the Holocaust, nothing is.

In 2017, the Jewish Association in Umeå shut down following constant threats by neo-Nazis in that town.

Two years before that, the Jews of Umeå were not invited to a march marking Kristallnacht out of fear that pro-Palestinian demonstrators would attack them after the event was watered down into a general "anti-racism" march. 

This is why my clear, easy to use definition of antisemitism is so important. It is not ambiguous: it describes exactly what antisemitism is and what it isn't.

Doughnuts were an all-girl 90's straightedge hardcore band out of Umeå, Sweden.