Stortorget in Malmö, Sweden. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Antisemitic hate crimes in Sweden increased by 53 percent last year compared to 2016, according to its government in a report released last week that showed a 69 percent increase in racist or xenophobic hate crimes over that time period.

In the report published on Thursday, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention stated that there were 280 hate crimes against Jews, compared to 182 a few years ago.

The latest figures are the highest recorded since the council collected aggregated data in 2006.

The report did not list the sources behind the antisemitic hate crimes against Jews.

In 2018, 4 percent of hate crimes were antisemitic.

An estimated 20,000 Jews live in Sweden, or 0.2 percent of the country’s population.