(JTA) — Baby dolls splashed with red paint were strung outside a synagogue in Sweden next to a sign that described Passover as a Jewish celebration of the death of Egyptian children.
The display in Norrkoping, a city situated 100 miles southwest of Stockholm, was discovered on Sunday morning and reported to police, who are investigating it as a hate crime, Expressen reported. It is believed to have been erected on Saturday night.
Also Sunday, the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group with a history of harassing Jews on Jewish holidays, published on its website a picture of the display that was taken at night. The Anti-Defamation League on Twitter called on Swedish police to treat the Nordic Resistance Movement as a prime suspect.
The description of Passover, a holiday celebrating freedom, as a celebration of death misrepresents the Haggadah, the text that contains the story in which God inflicts 10 plagues of escalating severity on the people of biblical Egypt over their ruler’s refusal to set free the kingdom’s Hebrew slaves.
In the final plague, God kills all the firstborn sons of Egypt but passes over the firstborn Jewish sons, giving the holiday its name.
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