Certainly neither would be official federal policy. Religion oppressing the public and/or government oppressing religion is such a pernicious evil church and state must be wholly separate—except where it sacrifices a paid vacation day. It is a principle so vital as to be categorically supported, except not REALLY categorically; only in cases where it does not actively benefit most individuals.

That makes it not so much principle as privilege: Why not declare it one and abolish religions empty trappings, as so desirable throughout the rest of government?

The Jewish Problem, as you surely know, goes back centuries prior to the '30s. Before its collapse a generation earlier, the Dual Monarchys government spent a century debating how to grant a large Jewish minority full citizenship, and the issue was old news even then. Fortunately or not, the problem was exported to Israel in the '40s, relieving the collective guilt from centuries of pogroms and inquisitions culminating in the Holocaust, while simultaneously legitimizing anti-semitism so long as it concedes the Holocausts reality and masquerades as sympathy for Palestinians (never mind that the first atrocity led directly to the later ones.)

Israels restoration is very reminiscent of Liberias creation, except that the US has not incessantly condemned Liberia (while supporting all its foes) since creating the country. To a great extent, the Jewish Problem (re-)CREATED Israel, because much of Zionisms origin lies in Nineteenth Century Jewish intellectuals despairing of Europe ever solving it. About the only good news is that, unlike with Liberia, most unwelcome citizens wanted to leave, and can now be respectably disdained from a distance: If ones country has few or no Jewish residents, one cannot be anti-semitic, Q.E.D. (Ahmadinejad would likely agree. ) The (or a) downside is that when the Mullahs Krekar look around the globe for places that hate Israel as much as they do, but will not execute them as infidels, guess who heads the list.

I do not live in Sweden, so can not say firsthand whether enclaves exist, but would be shocked by the anomaly if they do not. They are neither novel nor unique, but as typical as Warsaws Jewish ghetto once was in Europe. The American mafia, in all its forms (in the thirties, virtually every ethnicity had one to some degree) was born of the same phenomenon. The problem is two-fold: Not only do many natives not want to integrate immigrants, many immigrants do not want to assimilate. Consequently, bigots who despise each other nevertheless agree on (and create popular support for) immigrant communities existing as nations-within-nations, subject to their own laws, customs and traditions—and no others. The debate usually devolves into one side demanding total assimilation while the other demands total segregation, with both making some valid points despite having very destructive (though directly opposed) ultimate goals.

I do not expect Sweden to be subsumed beneath Shariah law, but hope we both know many immigrants wish their local communities governed by naught else. The specific incident that led my earlier conversation to Sweden was that of a Malmö boy allegedly murdering his sister for the crime of seeking a Swedish boyfriend, supposedly at their mothers insistence. It should go without saying those so inclined view federal recognition of Christmas and Holy Week less as a chance to make extra money than as an annual profanity with which they are annually confronted by the godless infidels surrounding them.

That is not to say they should all convert to Christianity or abandon religion altogether, but that their interests and desires must somehow be reconciled with the rest of the countrys. My earlier observation was initially intended only to underscore the incongruity of a nation with no state religion recognizing the holidays of one to the exclusion of all others. However, it does provide an example of how a nation can accomodate immigrants without harming its own culture, just as abandoning "honor" killings is a way immigrants can accommodate their new countries culture without harming their pre-existing one. The rule of thumb, IMHO, should be that where no conflict exists diversity adds the strength and innovation of more perspectives, but where conflict is unavoidable, the immigrant culture should yield to the native one unless that would be undeniably harmful, in which case they should remain distinct. That is still not a perfect one-size-fits-all solution, but worlds better than the customary competing goals of homogeneity or segregation.