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The first Jewish families in Norway made a living as merchants, manual labourers and craftsmen. The first synagogue was raised at Grünerløkka in Oslo in 1892. A small Jewish community developed in this predominantly working class area of Oslo. Most of the first Jewish immigrants spoke Jiddish, but later generations of Norwegian Jews adopted Norwegian as their mother tongue. However, there are still some Jiddish-speakers among the older generation. It is interesting to note that the young performance artist and singer Bente Kahan, uses Jiddish as an artist.
Under the Norwegian Constitution of 1814 Jews were not allowed to enter the Kingdom of Norway. The Norwegian Parliament repealed this shameful paragraph in 1851, not least due to extensive efforts by the liberal Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland. Norwegian Jews later raised a memorial monument by Wergeland’s grave at Vår Frelsers Gravlund in Oslo.
During the 1880s Jewish immigration to Norway increased, first and foremost from Eastern Europe, where Jews fled from anti-Semitism and pogroms after the death of the liberal Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Between 1852 and 1920 around 1200 Jews immigrated to Norway, mainly from Lithuania, Latvia and Russia. The vast majority settled in Trondheim and Oslo.
The first Jewish congregation was established in Oslo in 1892, the second in Trondheim in 1905.
The Norwegian Nazi Party was established in 1933. This was a small party with minor support. Nazi Germany occupied Norway from 1940 until 1945. On November 26 1942 the ship ”Donau” left Norway with 532 deported Jews onboard. Altogether 770 Jews out of almost 2200 Jews in Norway were sent to death camps in Europe. Only 30 returned. During the Holocaust, 320 Jewish families in Norway were totally extinguished. The Holocaust Memorial site in Oslo is located at the Jewish graveyard at Helsfyr in Oslo and was raised in 1948.
The synagogue that remains today in Oslo is located in Bergstien, St. Hanshaugen, and was opened in 1920. The synagogue was not destroyed during the war, as happened with the other synagogue in Oslo and the synagogue in Trondheim. The synagogue is a brilliant example of Jewish architecture and art, and is, together with the new Jewish community house, the main meeting place for Jews in Oslo. A Jewish kindergarten, the Jewish youth organisation Bnei Akiva, religion classes for children and the Jewish home for elderly people are located in the house, or nearby.
Today there are about 1300 Jews in Norway. Even though the Jewish community in Norway is small, Norwegian Jews have contributed to academia, cultural life and politics in Norway, for example through Jo Benkow's work as a politician for the Conservative Party, and through Berthold Grünfeldt’s and Leo Eitinger’s academic production and participation in public debate. Jan Benjamin Rødner, who is Jewish, holds the position of being head of The Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities in Norway.
The Jewish Museum in Trondheim opened in 1997, and displays a small collection from the Jewish life in the city. The Jewish Museum in Oslo is scheduled to open in 2008 in the old buildings of the synagogue in Calmeyer's Street, which was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II.
In 1999 the Norwegian Parliament decided to give moral and economic compensation to Jews whose property was confiscated by the Nazi regime in Norway during World War II, and also a general compensation to the Jewish community. The compensation was given to survivors and families that lost family members or property during the war, to Jewish institutions that safeguard the Jewish cultural and religious life in Norway, as well as economic and political support to establish a centre for research on genocide.
The Centre for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities was inaugurated on 23 August 2006, and is located at Villa Grande, home of the disgraced Norwegian Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling, who was executed after the war. The Centre presents a modern exhibition on the Holocaust as well as the Nazi State’s mass murder and persecution of other peoples and minorities.
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