The Star of David pendant protest: "For the children who don't dare"
Liberal Party chair Simona Mohamsson arrived at a studio in Sweden wearing a Star of David pendant. She later shared the moving reason behind it.
The first major election debate in Sweden ahead of next month's general election featured an unusual moment last night when the chair of the Liberal Party, Simona Mohamsson, arrived at the studio wearing a Star of David pendant. Mohamsson clarified that this was a deliberate political gesture intended to express solidarity with the Jews of Sweden and to draw attention to antisemitism in the country.
"I am wearing the Star of David for the children who do not dare to do so in today's Sweden," Mohamsson said before the debate, which was organized by the newspapers Expressen and Dagens Industri.
At the same time, she attacked the Left Party and accused figures within it of failing to properly address antisemitism. The issue of antisemitism subsequently became one of the most prominent topics in the debate.
In one of the most notable moments, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, Ebba Busch, placed her hand on the Star of David that Mohamsson was wearing and addressed the leader of the Left Party, Nooshi Dadgostar:
"It is not Swedish to think that a five-year-old girl in Gothenburg who wears such a Star of David deserves to hear threats, hatred, and even that she should die."
Busch accused Dadgostar of failing to purge her party of "Islamist antisemitism." Dadgostar replied that it is actually her opponents who are frightening the public when they "repeatedly pit person against person."
Mohamsson's gesture is particularly striking given her family background. Her father is Palestinian and her mother is Lebanese. Her father grew up in a refugee camp in Lebanon and later fled to Sweden. Her parents later moved to Hamburg, Germany, where Mohamsson was born. When she was eight, the family returned to Sweden and settled in the small town of Överlida. Mohamsson has previously said that she grew up in a "Middle Eastern family where people speak loudly and take up space," and she had to find her place in Swedish society.
Mohamsson, 32, was elected to head the Liberal Party in June 2025 after serving as the party's secretary and being active for years in the Liberal Youth movement and local politics in Gothenburg. She said that in her youth she considered joining the Left Party, but was ultimately drawn to the Liberals because of their emphasis on individual liberty. Upon taking office, she described herself as someone who was never the "natural candidate."
She is now leading the Liberals into her first election campaign as party leader, as she tries to differentiate it from both the Left and her partners in the right-wing bloc. The choice to wear a Star of David at the main debate has become one of her most prominent political statements to date.
