My parents and I arrived in Sweden 60 years ago almost to the day. The country gave shelter to Jewish refugees before, during and after World War II.

As a child, my wife, together with her mother, were taken to Sweden by the Swedish Red Cross from a concentration camp a couple of weeks before Germany’s final surrender in May 1945. My mother’s two surviving sisters were rescued at the same time. The Swedes cared very well for the refugees and did their best to bring them back to normality.   

Though not always with enthusiasm, they acted in a similar fashion toward the Jews who got there from Germany before the war and from Denmark during the war. When, thanks to the efforts of my aunts, we came from war-ravaged Poland, we received similarly good treatment.

I believe that the Swedes acted not out of love for Jews, but out of a sense of secularized Protestant duty. They recognized the Jews as the underdog and saw it as their responsibility to provide shelter for them. Even now, when I know how shallow Sweden’s ostensible neutrality was during World War II and how many Swedes were Nazi sympathizers throughout, I remain deeply grateful for what the country did for me and my family.

But things are very different now. Attitudes changed once Jews ceased to be the underdog. Nowadays, when Jews are at ease and the Jewish state is strong, Palestinians have been identified as victims and Jews as villains.

Moreover, in recent years, Sweden has received many immigrants from Muslim countries who have actively stimulated anti-Israel attitudes and further contributed to Sweden’s change of heart and mind. Our friends in need became adversaries once – and perhaps because – we now can look after ourselves.  

In view of the anti-Semitism that has always been there and is very much in evidence today – usually disguised as attacks on the Jewish state – it’s understandable that many Jews suspect that more than politically motivated criticism of Israel is at stake. Perhaps the humanitarian actions from which we once benefited were the exception and the present stance is the rule.  

But as Jews, we are now infinitely better off than we were then, when we depended on the kindness of strangers. Thanks to the existence of Israel, no Jew need be a refugee now. As despicable as anti-Semitism is and as essential as it is to fight it, the survival of our people is no longer contingent upon the goodwill of others.   

Therefore, our indignation about how little may have changed in the way others treat us must be tampered by celebration of how much the Jewish people has progressed in the last six decades.