Between glitter tourists and pro-Palestine demonstrations, Jews flee Malmö during the ESC. Some for a week. Others want to leave completely. Visiting a city that may have already passed the tipping point.
For the first time in her life, Yael Sages Wahlström hides the necklace with the Star of David under her collar. It was Thursday evening when she and 200 people in Malmö demonstratively danced and sang in the street to the song by Israeli ESC participant Eden Golan. The 47-year-old Wahlström feels free; after months of tension, she dares to be openly Jewish, she later says. Dancing and singing on the street surrounded by like-minded people after the trauma of October 7th. But she says: “We knew that without the police this wouldn’t be possible.” That’s why Yael Sages Wahlström hides the Star of David on the way there and home, the only feature that makes her recognizable as a Jew.