As Antisemitism surges, Norway’s Jews face new threats

During Oslo’s annual International Women’s Day march in March 2024, roughly 50 Norwegian Jewish women were physically prevented, at times violently, from joining the parade. The group had secured prior agreement with organisers to participate, but were blocked and told to leave after carrying signs condemning sexual violence against Israeli women during the Hamas-led 7 October attacks and calling for the release of Israeli hostages.

The police did eventually interfere and pushed back the angry mob that surrounded them and pushed them while chanting "No Zionist in our streets," "Vermin," and "Whores."

Claudia Lenz, a researcher at the HL-Senteret, Oslo’s Holocaust Center, noted that the incident drew media attention and sparked public outcry.

"The chants of 'no Zionists in our streets' are taken from the anti-fascist slogan of 'no Nazis in our streets,' which is quite outrageous and that was crossing a line for many leftists," Lenz told FairPlanet. Klassekampen [The Class Struggle], one of our main daily newspapers, which is the paper of the left, had a leading headline the next day saying that this was crossing the line and we can’t have that."

Lenz and others we spoke with observed that the current discourse in Norway largely prioritises the suffering of Palestinians, often to the exclusion of the fears and threats faced by the local Jewish community. They stressed, however, that pro-Palestinian activism in the country is not a monolithic movement with a uniform antisemitic agenda. The public outcry over the incident has had an impact, and the slogan in question is now absent from most local demonstrations.

The March 8 incident was not an isolated case. A new report from Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry notes a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Norway since 7 October, 2023. The country’s Jewish community - numbering only about 1,500 - reports facing the highest levels of hostility since World War II, with 69 per cent personally experiencing hostility linked to their Jewish identity.

In May 2024, the HL Center conducted a survey on public attitudes following the Hamas-led attack and the ensuing war, finding that 30 per cent of respondents believed Israel’s actions in Gaza had fueled more negative views of Jews in general. According to the HL Centre, antisemitic attitudes in Norway rose from 9.3 per cent of the population in 2022 to 11.5 per cent in 2024 - figures echoed in similar reports by the Norwegian government.

"A nightmare to be a Jew in Norway"

Among those attacked in the March incident was the 70-year-old mother of Louise Kahn, a Norwegian Jew who now divides her time between Tel Aviv and Oslo. Kahn, who works in IT, also runs Kos & kaos [“coziness and chaos”], a state-funded Nordic Jewish network dedicated to supporting diverse Jewish identities.

"It is a nightmare to be a Jew in Norway these days," Kahn said in Hebrew during a phone interview. Like other interviewees, Kahn claimed that the most common derogatory word used in Norwegian schools these days is Jøde, meaning 'Jew.'

Claudia Lenz, who also works on a Norwegian Education Ministry-backed project aimed at preventing racism and antisemitism in schools, said the situation is not new, though it has worsened in recent months.

"One of the things that sparked this project to combat racism and antisemitism back in 2012 was a certain finding in research done in the Oslo area [in 2010], which uncovered that 60 per cent of all students had heard the word Jøde used as a derogatory term," she told FairPlanet.  

“That was a wake-up call. We then found out it was one of three words often used, the others being the N-word and homo. But we need to remember that there are very few Jewish students in Norwegian schools, as it is such a small minority, and therefore students don’t always see the full consequences of using this word."

It is different, she further stated, with Islamophobic slurs, as they are more likely to be directed at an actual Muslim classmate. But, according to Lens, the current context is shifting with the escalation in the Middle East and the war in Gaza. Now, the word Jøde is being used more pointedly and with greater negativity. However, there is still insufficient data to fully assess the trend.

A brief history of antisemitism in Norway 

To understand the current situation of Norway’s Jewish community, it is necessary to look at its relatively brief history. In the 17th century, King Christian V, who ruled both Denmark and Norway, enforced two separate laws for Jews in his realms. While Jews were permitted to settle in Denmark, a 1687 decree banned them from Norway, following public demands for their exclusion. Any Jew entering Norway without special permission was subject to imprisonment and expulsion.

Even after Norway gained independence in 1814, the constitutional ban on Jews remained in place until 1851, when the Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament, abolished it under pressure from prominent intellectuals and activists such as poet Henrik Wergeland and school headmaster Hans Holmboe.

The first Jewish community in Oslo was not established until 1892. It remained small, and gradually grew to a peak of roughly 2,100 members by the 1930s.

Unlike neighbouring Scandinavian countries that protected their Jewish populations, Norway’s Jewish community was devastated during the Holocaust, with nearly half its members killed in Nazi death camps. Some, like activist Leif Knutsen, believe the community has never fully recovered from the impact of World War II.

"In Norway the Jewish minority is so small that it makes it more vulnerable, both historically and now," said Lenz. "We don’t have the means to mobilise the way our neighbouring Jewish communities do in Sweden and Denmark. They are also relatively small communities, but we are much smaller." 

When asked whether the Norwegian establishment is turning a blind eye to the rise in antisemitism, Knutsen responded:

"I think that is becoming apparent now. There is a lot of virtue-signalling, and in those rallies people would give speeches about how it's important to protect the minority and make sure that nothing like the holocaust ever happens again, and that antisemitism is met with resistance in whichever form it takes - but the people who promise to do all those things aren’t doing that.

"Other than the attack on the women’s march, in those rallies they shout in Arabic things like Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud, or show these red triangles and other things that the police do not recognise for the threat that they are and therefore is not doing anything about it."

Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahud is an Arabic rallying cry referencing the Battle of Khaybar in 628 CE, when Muhammad led a Muslim army against the Jewish community of Khaybar. The inverted red triangle is a Hamas symbol, originating from combat footage released by the group, and is used by protesters to signal affiliation or support.

"These demonstrations have managed to influence very little of the public opinio, and that made them even more agitated and more hostile, at least verbally," Knutsen added. 

Knutsen further state that the Jewish community in Norway faces a heightened security threat, which prompts round-the-clock protection at the synagogue by heavily armed police, the only place in the country where officers routinely patrol with assault rifles ready for immediate use.

The measure follows numerous threats and several incidents in which children have been attacked or abused, and community members have been spat on.

Historical Shadows and Present-Day Tensions

Louise Kahn believes Norway’s historical background helps explain the differences in the experiences of Jewish communities across Scandinavia.

"Unlike Sweden and Denmark," Kahn said, "where both the public and the government care more for Jewish security, in Norway there’s some guilty feelings about the holocaust; there’s a lot of literature about it today, they have made movies and series about it. But when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I think a lot of people see it as a chance to clear their conscience."

However, the Norwegian government has made official attempts to address the sharp rise in antisemitism, including being among the first countries to adopt a national action plan with specific measures to combat antisemitism, alongside other related initiatives.

"Yes, the government identified that there is a problem," Kahn said, "but you don’t need to be a genius or a specialist to recognise that. We are a recognised 'national minority' and, therefore, we are supposed to have some funding exactly for these kinds of causes, for education against bigotry. But the problem is that the authorities give this funding [to institutions that are] led almost without any Jewish members, including the HL senteret, the holocaust centre."

She added, "Imagine a similar institution for Afro-Americans ran without any Black people?"

She further argued that pro-Palestinian sentiments have increasingly overshadowed the missions of institutions in Norway dedicated to commemorating the persecution of Jews and educating the public about its historical significance.

Kahn spoke softly, barely audible. When asked to speak louder, she explained that she is on public transport in Oslo, where there have been numerous incidents of spitting or physical attacks against people identified as speaking Hebrew.

Kahn, like many other young Jewish Norwegians who left for Israel or the United States, left the country at a young age. She now divides her time between Israel, Oslo and Costa Rica, but recalls moving to Tel Aviv at 18 after experiencing significant antisemitism in school during a period when Neo-Nazi skinhead groups had a strong presence.

The police took little action against it until 2001, when a Neo-Nazi gang in her area murdered Benjamin Hermansen, whose father was from Ghana. He was stabbed to death by members of the group Boot Boys, and the public outcry over the killing finally pushed the police to confront the entrenched Neo-Nazi presence in the region. By then, however, Kahn was already living in Tel Aviv, having left her family behind in Norway.

Criticism of government initiatives, particularly the Holocaust Centre and the national action plan to combat antisemitism, comes up in nearly every conversation with members of Norway’s Jewish community. Many see these efforts as focused largely on surveys measuring the scope of the problem, while offering few practical solutions beyond a handful of educational programmes.

To understand their frustration, it is necessary to consider the history of the Holocaust Centre itself: it was established as part of an economic restitution process for the losses suffered by Norway’s Jews during the Holocaust. That process began only in the late 1990s, and many in the community now feel that the institution, once intended as a staunch ally, has been co-opted - or, as Kahn put it, "hijacked" - by the Free Palestine movement.

FairPlanet contacted the Holocaust Centre to ask why, upon entering its website, the first thing visitors encounter is a survey addressing both antisemitism and Islamophobia, presented together, even though no other minority groups are mentioned.

"The survey you saw was the fourth one we did on the subject and as we had no funding it is limited," said Vibeke Moe, a researcher at the Centre.

"Those surveys have found an increase in antisemitic attitudes and, yes, it is now also including Islamophobic attitudes," Moe said, adding that the Centre measures xenophobic attitudes, but racism is not among its primary areas of focus. Its work, Moe stated, concentrates more on religious minorities, which is why Muslims are included but not, for example, Black communities.

Many in Norway's Jewish community find it bewildering that a Centre dedicated to studying the Holocaust, a genocide driven by Nazi racial ideology, in which Jews were persecuted and annihilated for their race rather than their religion, classifies Jews solely as a religious minority, rather than as an ethnic or racial group. As a result, research into the issue is approached differently.

Image by Ithamar Handelman-Smith.