Talk:History of the Jews in Norway

Antisemitism in Norway
This article erroneously gives the impression that the recent and growing antisemitism and threats/attacks on Jews and synagogues in Norway is committed by Norwegians. Whereas it is true that many on the political left are anti-Zionists, antisemitism is more or less exclusively a view held by Muslim immigrants. Not going into a debate whether they are 'Norwegians' or not, it is still an important distinction to be made.


 * I strongly disagree that there are many on the political left that are anti-Zionists, I think it is a big mistake to say that when someone does not agree or support Israel 100% then you are either Anti-Zionists or Anti-Semitic.
 * The fact of the matter is that most(close to all) Norwegians support Israel's right to exist however many do not agree with the tactics that are being used.
 * Norwegians in general know that there were three states founded after WWII and that only two remain where as one is assimilated into one of the other and the last is occupied.
 * Somehow objecting to these facts means hating Jews and I who object to these things (and who do not hate Jews or any other person based on their religion or nationality for that mather) and being a "lefty" object to being labelled in that way.
 * There are idiots on the far RIGHT (Where the Nazis are found) and a select few groups that are Anti-Zionists and they also hate many other things, most do not but they will voice their objections and should be able to do so freely.AlexanderAngel 02:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * What three states exactly are you referring to? I kinda your trail around that part. Could you be a bit more specific? Manxruler 02:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

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I'm finding that the pages about Jews in Norway is scant and is missing a few basic historic facts, such as that Norway was not an independent country until 1905. Most of the laws that baned Jews from Norway should be put into better historic context and it should be pointed out that they were made by the Swedish and Danish rulers of Norway. They were also not unique for the time. What I am looking for right now are suggestions on how to put more historic context as well as more modern information into the article without being accused of vandalism (which I consider to be both rude and unfounded). --Karpenl 14:49, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I agree with you, on all counts. Tomer TALK  16:21, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm all for adding more context and history, but the examples from Karpenl are historically false. It was the Constitutional Assembly in Eidsvoll that passed the relevant paragraph in the constitution, and these were all representatives elected from their area.  As a matter of fact, after 1782 Sweden had no restrictions on Jewish immigration; Denmark had allowed Jewish restricted immigration since the 1600s; interestingly, they removed all practical restrictions on Jews in 1814.  The Danish and Swedish kings had nothing to do with Norway's attitude toward Jews. Swedish Jews who wanted to lay a wreath on Wergeland's grave had to get special dispensation for the trip.  In general, please justify edits in the talk page - so far, the edits have been either silly or unfounded, or both.  --Leifern 17:20, May 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * I must say I find it an interesting claim that saying that the kings of Sweden and Denmark had nothing to do with Norways attitude towards Jews, and at the same time pointing to the edict from King Kristian the fifth. Kristian was king over Norway and Denmark.  If the danes allowed Jews restricted immigration since the 1600s, why was this edict put in place?  Who called for it?  If it was by request from the norwegian people?  What made Denmark and Norway differ on this matter, even with the same head of state?  At any rate, this should be mentioned. As it currently stands, it very much looks like a King of nothing but Norway took this action, which is historically misleading at best, maybe adding a reference to the Wikipedia article about the king in question might be useful?  Further, the banning of all non-christians mentioned in the beginning of the article did affect Jews, yes, but adding information about religious demographics at the time, as well as the political climate apart from mentioning that the "ban was presumably targeted" at pagans, might put some historical perspective on the act.  The article also says that "nearly all Jews were either deported to death camps or fled to Sweden and beyond".  From the numbers in the article, one-thirds of the Jews in Norway before the war were still in the country after the war.  As the numbers are listed, and are presented for the reader to see, I don't feel that using the term "nearly all" when dealing with the size of the population adds significant historical value to the article. --Terjekv 20:17, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The information is presented in a very terse manner, for a reason, and we explicitly mention the name of the king that issued the edict. I don't know if we know much about public attitudes toward Jews at the time; we can certainly write that prevailing attitudes were based on little education, institutionalized racism, etc., but a) that hardly distinguished Norway from any other European country at the time; and b) seems kind of self-evident.

It is true that nearly all Jews either fled or were deported during World War II. The remaining one-third - with a small number of exceptions - were returning refugees. I'll make that clearer. --Leifern 20:36, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

The name of the King is mentioned, yes, but he's also described as the King of Norway. I do still think that title is misleading at best. And when reading the article, I still get the general impression that the way the attitude is presented means to distinguish Norway from the rest of Europe, and not that it's self-evident how this was much the same as the rest of Europe. Oh, and I appreciate the clearing up of the deportation / fleeing part, thanks! --Terjekv 20:50, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Apologies for doing this without prior discussion, but I took the liberty to remove the sentence "However, it is unclear why a remote Arab people would arouse so much concern among the Norwegian public, that at the same shows little, if any, sympathy to the victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks." added by Keverich1 yesterday, as I consider it (1) fairly blatant POV, and perhaps (2) original research. It's unsourced (should at least point to polls among the public or statistics regarding difference in media coverage of the two sides). Since I don't think a reliable source for this information can be found (I don't think it's the case at all), I removed the sentence. And (3) it does not contribute factual information to the article at all (it amounts to a question about why public opinion in Norway is as claimed, although the claim is dubious). Please reinsert the sentence and comment if you believe this requires more discussion before deletion.

I also changed the phrasing from "hostility to Israel" to "criticism of Israel", since nobody at all thinks that the Norwegian public and press treats Israel as an enemy (hostile nation), but rather gives strong criticism to Israeli policies regarding Palestinians. This wording should be less loaded and factually correct.

As always, third party opinions would be welcome to establish consensus.

--Larssl (talk) 09:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * OK... I was going to sit this one out, but the things that have been added just now by Keverich1 are a bit over the top. Although it is completely true that some people, like those cited in the refs, have very strong anti-Zionist views, and that Mr. Gaarder wrote an editorial that was quite tacky and poorly thought-through, and maybe, perhaps, he has some controversial views, it's going way too far to bombastically state that all Norwegian media is violently anti-Semitic at all times. This smells a lot like selective use of a limited number of sources regarding some isolated cases in order to present personal views. Manxruler (talk) 15:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * My goodness. The paragraph as it stands now is terrible and outright attack on mainstream Norwegian press. Not to mention that some of it's been added without sourcing (haven't checked the reliability of the sources that are actually used) and without any discussion here. I would remove it myself, but I have somewhere to be right now...

--Larssl (talk) 17:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

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Okay, I can't stand this. "Norwegian media" have nothing to do with antisemitism. We are a free country with freedom of speech, and the people drawing cartoons or posting critical articles are not in any way representatives for neither the press/media or the Norwegian public. This would be like claiming the USA are national socialists because of the KKK. -- Anonymous

Portuguese Jews’ legal status in Norway
Please refer to http://utne.nvg.org/j/njhist.html for some sources that show that Portuguese Jews were permitted to travel freely (i.e., no travel pass / letter of safe conduct necessary) in Norway in major parts of the timespan 1657–1851:
 * 19 January, 1657 – “A new decret of January 19, 1657 granted the ‘Portuguese’ Jews the right of travelling and doing business freely and unhindered in the [Danish] King's countries, a privilege that of all likelihood had purely financial reasons. But from the expression ‘the King’s countries’, it seems clear that the permission also was extended to Norway [which was ruled by the Danish king]” (Henrik Wergeland
 * 30 July, 1684 – “Decret concerning Portuguese of the Hebrew nation; (which confirms their privileges of January 19, 1657, that are confirmed on December 14, 1670, so that the Decret of April 16, 1681 is not to be aimed towards them. See Pl. of January 23, 1750.]” (Schous Forordninger)
 * 23 January, 1750 – “... the Jews that were permitted entrance to the country at the time when the Constitution was issued, which, according to a decret of January 23, 1750 — being more recent than any of the regulations that prohibit Jews from entering Norway, was the case for the so-called Portuguese-Jews. ... Christiania [Oslo], the Supreme Court, March 19, 1842.”

Between the seemingly full ban in 1687 and the decret of 1750 confirming Portuguese Jews’ rights, police records of 1710 show, according to Wergeland, that there were Jews who were permitted to “dwell, live, and build” in Bergen at that time. Otherwise, the general rule during this period was that Ashkenazim needed to apply for a letter of safe conduct whilst Sephardim did not. Hence, the records show Ashkenazi Jews applying for travel passes, but otherwise my impression is that we see mainly Sephardim being involved in business (such as Samuel Teixeira, Magnus Gabriel and members of the Hambro and Mariboe families). -- Olve 05:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

" In the first part of the century, anti-semitism played a role in Norway"
I keep deleting this sentence, because I'm not sure what it's supposed to accomplish. The article deliberately avoids any analysis of the motivations behind the constitutional ban in general and antisemitism in particular. I would suspect that antisemitism was pretty much a non-issue except for Wergeland's efforts to rescind the relevant sections of paragraph 2. If anti-semitism "played a role," what role did it play? Are we to infer that it didn't play that role earlier or later? --Leifern 19:15, May 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * A better reason to keep deleting it is because it simply doesn't mean anything of relevance. In my freshman composition class at university, my professor called this kind of writing "deadwood".  Tomer TALK  02:40, May 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh. And a better question than "what rôle did it play?" is "played a rôle in what?!"  Tomer TALK  02:41, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

This section requires serious editing or a complete rewrite as it is very inaccurate. Also the mixing of being opposed to the actions taken by Israel and this automaticly making a person a so called "new anti-Semite" is not something that should be done. A person must be able to disagree with the actions of a nation, Gaarders article never even mentions the religion and still he is labelled. this serves no purpose. The section in itself must be allowed to stay as it is a serious matter that should be addressed but at this time it does so very poorly and gives the impression that there were major rises and that a large portion of the citizens hate Jews or the state of Israel, which is not the case. AlexanderAngel 02:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, please. The section cites articles and studies on the matter. I'm sorry if it doesn't agree with your opinion. --Leifern 03:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This article and its own category
There seems to be some confusion here. This article is about history, more specifically Jewish history as it relates to the History of Norway. Until a few days ago it did not have its own category but because now that the new main category of Category:Jewish Norwegian history has been created it has made this article the main and only lead article for Category:Jewish Norwegian history. Most of the categories that had previously been here have now been placed under the actual Category:Jewish Norwegian history page, as well as under the Category:Norwegian Jews page (as appropriate), because they became parent categories, and they have not been "deleted." See Categorization. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 12:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Verification request
Please can somebody who speaks the language review reference 17 and see if it fully supports the content that is being pinned on it? It is a video so I can't do a Google Translate on it. The content pinned on it is pretty alarmist, and has recently been expanded to be even more so, hence my concern that we might not be accurately reflecting the source. The same text appears in Antisemitism in Norway so it is doubly important that it can be verified. Please can we check for exaggeration and hyperbole, in particular is the anecdote about the alleged attempted lynching supported? Thanks. --DanielRigal (talk) 17:05, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Religious slaughter
I deleted a sentence that said criticism had been raised because Norway allows Muslim Religious slaughter, but not not Jewish religious slaughter.

That´s misleading. The law is exactly the same for Jews and Muslims and all others. Here is was it says:

"Dyr som eies eller på annen måte holdes i menneskelig varetekt, skal bedøves før avliving. Bedøvingsmetoden skal gi bevissthetstap, og dyret skal være bevisstløst fra før avlivingen påbegynnes og til døden inntrer. Krav om bedøving før avliving gjelder ikke hvis dyret avlives med en metode som gir umiddelbart bevissthetstap. Etter at avliving er utført, skal det påses at dyret er dødt."

Dyrevernsloven § 8, http://www.nspca.no/egenweb/lov.htm

Basically it says that a domesticated animal must be stunned and unconscious before it is slaughtered. Halal slaughters in Norway operate within this law.

Iselilja (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello Iselilja,
 * Is there a reference that "Halal slaughters in Norway operate within this law", because as far as I know, slaughtering an already stunned animal is considered by the Islamic sharia as unacceptable, because the animal may have already been dead. Here are some links on the issue: http://spa.qibla.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=1735&CATE=106, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/growth-in-slaughter-of-nonstunned-animals-is-unacceptable-7715790.html, http://www.organic-halal-meat.com/article/stunning.php, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/06/212477.html.
 * Regards.
 * E3 (talk) 14:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello. "The Islamic Council Norway has accepted that animals meant for halal meat can be stunned. Here is what their homesite says, section Halal-slakting i Norge (Halal slaughter in Norway, the sentences starting with "At kjøtt i Norge" and "Etter 8 måneders utredning".
 * "That meat in Norway is halal slaughtered, means that all Norwegian rules are followed and that there has been a Muslim present who has performed slaughter according to Islamic rules for this.
 * "After 8 months of investigation and documentation of what is acceptable procedures and processes, imams have accepted the practice of consumption of anesthetized meat as long as proactive measures ensure virtually zero mortality before slaughter. With zero mortality meaning that the animal still has cardiac activity at slaughter."
 * So the Islamic Council Norway which include practically all mosques in Norway has found that stunning and halal slaughter can be combined. (There are many other sources for this too). Basically, halal slaughter in Norway means that a Muslim butcher says a prayer before the stunned animal is slaughtered, otherwise it is the same as other slaughters. Not all Muslims are comfortable with this, so some important halal meat the same way that Jews import kosher slaughter from abroad. Iselilja (talk) 15:18, 23 July 2013 (UTC)Regards,
 * Thank you for your much-appreciated reply.
 * Regards.
 * E3 (talk) 15:52, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

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