The rise of anti-Semitism in Sweden has forced Danish actor Kim Bodnia to quit the hit television show The Bridge. Bodnia played detective Martin Rohde in two seasons of the Scandi-crime drama, but after first signing up for a third, he later dropped out.
The 50-year-old previously cited issues with the script, but has now said his departure from a show screened in over 100 countries was also driven by the unease he felt being a Jew working in the city of Malmo, Sweden. He revealed the reason in an interview with Israel’s Walla! website.
“It’s growing, and especially in Malmo, where we shot The Bridge in Sweden, it’s not very nice and comfortable to be there as a Jewish person,” he told the Walla! portal.
“When they didn’t have the script right I could say, ‘no, I don’t feel so safe there’. It’s not funny. It’s growing. We have to deal with it every day and we have to fight against it.”
As Breitbart London has reported, Malmo has a reputation for growing violence where gun fights and grenade attacks between warring migrant tribes from Syria and the Middle East are driving a wedge through what was once a peaceful community.
On a wider scale, some fear Sweden is facing collapse thanks to the recent huge influx of migrants into the country. An estimated 190,000 migrants poured into the country last year, with law and order beginning to break down as Sweden plays witness to numerous arson attacks, stabbings and gang rapes.
The Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom has warned a country of just 9.8 million people cannot continue to take migrants at the present rate without services breaking down. In an interview, Mrs Wallstrom said: “I think most people feel that we cannot maintain a system where perhaps 190,000 people will arrive every year – in the long run, our system will collapse.
“And that welcome is not going to receive popular support.”
Bodnia, who is of Russian and Polish descent, made an appearance at Copenhagen’s synagogue in the days after it was attacked last year to pay his respects to Dan Uzan, the security guard who was killed.
He told Walla! that he was so worried by the issue of anti-Semitism that he had lobbied the scriptwriters to bring the issue into the plot of the third series, pushing them to have his character Rhode encounter Muslims with fanatical anti-Jewish beliefs while in prison.
“The situation is if people go to jail, they have this possibility to grow their hate of Jewish people,” he said. “It’s growing in the prison. So I suggested that when Martin is undercover in the prison, why didn’t we do something about that?”.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.