Macedonian Muslim Looks Good in Sweden

Muslim-Jewish tensions roil a Swedish city

By KARL RITTER | Published: 03/20/10 

Bejzat Becirov

Sweden prides itself on having taken in tens of thousands of the world’s war refugees, and Malmo, its third largest city, should be a showcase: 7 percent of its 285,000 people were born in the Middle East, according to city statistics, and it has large numbers of from the Balkans, including the Macedonian who heads the city’s largest mosque. 

After the Holocaust, it took in many Jews who survived the World War II Nazi genocide. 

Bejzat Becirov, the mosque head, said he feels “great sympathy for the Jewish community” and knows what it’s going through because “the Muslim community, too, is exposed to Islamophobia.”