Sweden–Israel Friendship Association

Under statutes unanimously adopted by its congress on 23 May 2021, the organization is a nationwide association of local associations, formally constituted as a non-profit independent of religion and political parties, with its registered seat in Stockholm County and organization number 802400-3322.[1]

The organization's highest decision-making body is an annual congress, which elects a national board of eleven members and five alternates, a nomination committee, and auditors, and which approves the membership fee, budget, and activity plan.[1] Membership fees are set by the congress and distributed between the national organization and its local associations; advertised fees are 300 Swedish kronor for an individual member, 100 kronor for each additional family member, and 50 kronor for a youth member under 26.[2] The organization reports more than 3,000 members across Sweden.[2]

Local divisions are geographically organized across the country, including chapters in Blekinge, Dalarna, Gävle-Sandviken, Göteborg/Västra Sverige, Gotland, Helsingborg, Huvudstadsregionen, Kalmar län, Kristianstad, Mälardalen, Malmö-Lund, Norrbotten, Örebro, Östergötland, Sundsvall, Uppsala, and Värmland. The Örnsköldsvik and Umeå divisions are described as dormant with plans for possible reactivation.[3]

The national organization is responsible under the statutes for member recruitment, maintaining a common membership register, operating a regularly updated website, conducting centralized public-opinion and advocacy work, supporting and coordinating local associations, producing reports on Swedish-Israeli relations, publishing factual material about Israel, and seeking supplementary financing for nationwide activities.[1] It does not receive public funding and depends on donations and membership fees.[4]

The organization's historical page lists its national chairs as Torgny T:son Segerstedt (1978–1985), Knut Ahnlund (1985–1989), Ann-Cathrine Haglund (1989–1994), Jan-Erik Wikström (1994–1997), Örjan Kättström (1997–2000), Hadar Cars (2000–2003), Gunnar Hökmark (2003–2012), Elisabeth Svantesson (2012–2013), Annelie Enochson (2013–2015), Mathias Sundin (2015–2018), and Lars Adaktusson beginning in 2018.[5] The current homepage identifies David Lega as chairman, although the available pages do not establish the date of the leadership transition.[2]

The association was founded on 8 May 1953 as Samfundet Sverige-Israel, following an appeal by historian Hugo Valentin at the Swedish Parliament building.[5] The stated purpose of the founding appeal was to promote greater spiritual exchange between Sweden and Israel and to increase knowledge of Israel in Sweden.[5]

The association's public launch took place at a ceremony in Stockholm City Hall's Golden Hall in February 1954, with Israel's then-minister of labor, Golda Meir, serving as guest of honor and keynote speaker.[5] Other prominent Israeli figures — including David Ben-Gurion, Abba Eban, and Yigal Allon — were association guests during the 1950s.[5] Local chapters were established in Gothenburg and Malmö in 1954, and the organization reports having 560 members that year; Herbert Tingsten was named its first honorary member.[5]

From its earliest years the association included prominent non-Jewish Swedes among its members, reflecting a broader Nordic goodwill toward Israel expressed in civic life, parliamentary debates, and governmental declarations.[6] The first Stockholm chair was law professor Åke Holmbäck, followed by botanist Hugo Oswald (1957–1968), pastor Einar Rimmerfors (1968–1973), Bishop Ingemar Ström (1973–1975), and Professor Torgny Segerstedt (1975–1978).[5]

Although the idea of a national coordinating body existed from the outset, it was formally placed on the agenda in 1974, when a cooperation committee was appointed with Torgny Segerstedt as chair and Erik Sandberg of Västerås as executive officer.[5] The nationwide Samfundet Sverige-Israel formally commenced in 1978.[5] Sweden was also listed among European countries with Israel Friendship Leagues by the late 1970s, part of a wider network coordinated through the Council of Israel Friendship Leagues.[7]

The association describes itself as a meeting place and platform for Israel supporters, promoting lectures, speakers, newsletters, videos, public events, and local activities.[2] It publishes a newsletter called Israelnytt and has participated in major Swedish public forums.[2]

Friendship leagues of this type generally organized lectures, seminars, Israeli art exhibitions, concerts, receptions for Israeli personalities, and annual study tours to Israel, as well as publishing pamphlets, quarterlies, and books about life in Israel.[7] These details describe friendship leagues generally rather than the Swedish association specifically.

In 2016, the association participated in the Göteborg Book Fair, where it invited the director of the Sderot Media Center and the Jerusalem Discovery photography and multimedia show to present an audiovisual program titled "From Rockets to Rainbows."[8] At the fair's International Square, the association maintained a booth described by the source as seeking to counter anti-Israel messaging present at the event.[8]

In 2018, the association for the first time established a pavilion at Almedalen Week on Gotland — an annual forum attended by figures from Sweden's political, business, and media sectors and whose 2018 edition marked its 50th anniversary.[9] Stefan Dozzi, identified in 2018 as the association's secretary-general and as working full time for the organization, represented it at the event.[10]

In September 2022, the association was scheduled to participate alongside NGO Monitor at the Globala Torget forum held in conjunction with the Gothenburg Book Fair. NGO Monitor reported that other organizations demanded its removal from the program.[11]

The association's stated purpose is to disseminate knowledge about Israel, increase understanding of Israel in Sweden, strengthen Swedish-Israeli friendship ties, oppose hostility toward Israel, and condemn all forms of antisemitism.[1] Its slogan is "Tillsammans för vänskap, kunskap och stöd för Israel i Sverige" — "Together for friendship, knowledge, and support for Israel in Sweden."[2]

The organization's statutes articulate two foundational positions: that the Jewish people have a right to a national home in the land of Israel, and that it is in Sweden's national interest to maintain close contacts with Israel because of Israel's achievements in fields considered globally beneficial.[1] Members are required to pay the established membership fee and to support the organization's purpose and these basic positions.[1]

The association has engaged directly with Swedish governmental positions on Israel. In 2018, it issued a statement criticizing Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström's language toward Palestinians, asserting that her wording suggested the Swedish government had placed itself on the Palestinian side "in their armed struggle to wipe out Israel."[12]

A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs publication identified Ilya Meyer as vice-chair of the association while discussing the contested case of Lennart Eriksson, a non-Jewish manager at the Swedish Migration Board who, according to that account, was demoted in 2007 because of opinions expressed on his private pro-Israel website. Meyer argued that a person from another country who received equivalent treatment would have been granted political asylum in Sweden on grounds of political persecution.[13]

In 2018, Meyer was separately described as a former deputy chair of a branch of the association. In that context, he criticized a Swedish government proposal aimed at ending faith schools, calling the measure "a bizarre move by the increasingly repressive Swedish government."[14]

Association members have faced harassment and violence during public activities. On 5 July 2018, members of the Nordic Resistance Movement — a neo-Nazi organization — gathered around the association's pavilion at Almedalen Week on Gotland.[9] When activist Christina Toledano Asbrink intervened after NRM members attempted to cover the pavilion's Israeli flag with their own banner, several men grabbed, shook, and pushed her to the ground; she was hit in the head and treated for minor injuries.[9] Stefan Dozzi was lightly injured in a separate scuffle during the same incident.[9] A U.S. Department of State report also recorded that NRM members pushed a woman representing the association to the ground while attempting to cover an Israeli flag with a banner.[15]

Following the assault, police made no immediate arrests but increased their presence and monitoring of neo-Nazi activity on Gotland.[9] Toledano Asbrink said that members of the same group had visited the pavilion the previous day and asked what she described as strange questions.[9] After the attack she stated: "I'm so damn pissed and upset. But we will not be cowed into silence. We're still here."[9]

The pavilion also became a target of other reported threats during the same Almedalen event. Dozzi said that at least two men he described as Muslims threatened to burn the Israeli flag on display and that the flag was later stolen during a break.[10] Dozzi remarked, "We have two kinds of enemies," characterizing the threats as coming from both neo-Nazi and Islamist directions.[10] In a 2018 opinion article, Dozzi was quoted as expressing grave concern about the broader environment facing Swedish Jews, saying "we will eventually have to flee this country."[16]