Some of you know that, since arriving in Oslo in July, we
have been making sporadic efforts to visit the one synagogue here. These
involved (1) visiting the synagogue in person, but finding no way to gain
entrance or leave a calling card, so to speak; (2) visiting the synagogue’s
website to get email address and phone number and then both emailing and
calling them several times but never getting a response; (3) stepping up effort
(2) as the High Holy Days approached but still with no luck; (4) contacting our
friend, Anna, the librarian for the new Jewish Museum here (created a few years
ago with reparations money from the Norwegian government in recognition of Norway’s
collaboration in sending approximately 700 of Norway’s 1500 Jews to the camps).
Anna was leaving town the next day so could not help beyond giving us the name
and number of a synagogue member who might be able to help; (5) calling this
synagogue member who somehow misunderstood our call and believed we were asking
ourselves to dinner at his house on Rosh Hashana (to which he said No, I have
too many guests already); (6) receiving the next day an email from someone at
the Temple, affirming that there would be Services on Rosh Hashana but not
telling us WHEN; (7) preparing to just show up on Rosh Hashana at a time that
seemed appropriate to us. But as we were readying ourselves, Bram began showing
signs of illness, so we gave up and stayed home.
Yom Kippur? We didn’t even try.
In fact, I booked a roundtrip ferry ride to Copenhagen for
that weekend, driven by the realization that this was the last weekend of the
season that Tivoli, the grand old amusement park, which opened in the 1840s,
was open, and not by any intentional disregard for piety (although the fact
that I did this shows a lack of piety.) By the way, the ferry ride to and from
was marvelous, and Tivoli was both beautiful and lots of fun.
Relaxing on board the ship.
Fun on yet another ride.
Tivoli palace at night.
We happened to be wandering on foot around downtown
Copenhagen on Yom Kippur, and when we came across the synagogue, I wanted to
stop. Surprisingly, the synagogue is surrounded by a high iron fence. At the
gates, which were locked, stood three armed guards, who immediately approached
us and wanted to know what we were doing lingering in front of the synagogue. I
told them that we were Americans, currently living in Oslo, and that we wished
to see the synagogue. They shook their heads no, and appointed one among their
triad to deal with us. She said that we couldn’t be admitted to the synagogue
grounds without identification, and when offered our American passports, she
indicated that these were inadequate. I am still not sure what kind of identification
would have worked. We were told that we could take a photo of the synagogue and
they pointed down the street, suggesting a good vantage point. I didn’t think
it looked better than where I stood so gathered that they were indicating
indirectly that they themselves were not to be in any of the photos.
Copenhagen synagogue half a block from the entrance.
So we walked back down the street, where we encountered a
woman on her way to Services. She must have heard us speaking, as she
approached us and began speaking in English. “Don’t you know what today is?
It’s Yom Kippur!” I assured her that we knew this. After I explained that we
were Americans from Oslo, she relaxed a little and admitted that she too, was
an American, but has lived in Denmark since 1969. Then she explained the reason
for the high security: the Copenhagen synagogue was bombed in 1985, along with
an adjacent nursing home. She said that one person—a North African non-Jewish
man, in fact—was killed. Later, I looked up the incident on the web and saw
that 27 were injured. The website did not mention any deaths, so perhaps his
was not immediate but a result of injuries. That bombing can’t alone—to my
mind—explain the intense security almost 30 years later, so I gather that there
have been other incidents, not necessarily violent ones, that have led the
synagogue to feel that it and its members are somehow under assault. I don’t
know this for sure, however.
We learned from this woman that the rabbi of the synagogue
is a Melchior, and that a Melchior was the rabbi there during World War II
(most of Denmark’s Jews were saved from the camps through the help of the
Danish underground), and that the family has a lock on the rabbinate throughout
Scandinavia. So I googled the Melchiors when we got back to Oslo and found
that, indeed, the rabbi at the Oslo synagogue is a Melchior and that his father
is the Chief Rabbi of Norway, even though he now lives in Israel. Apparently,
he emigrated there in the 1980s and then entered the Knesset, where he was in a
coalition with Labour, when they—oh, so long ago!—were in power. He works with
Muslims and Christians in Israel to promote peace, through a two-state
solution. I read an interview he did with journalist dubious about the
two-state idea. Melchior stated that there is a powerful Israeli lobby in
America, but that they are not the ones obstructing a two-state solution; it is
the Israelis themselves who are responsible for this and they must lead the way
to sanity.
About a week after Yom Kippur, Doug received an email from
someone at the Oslo synagogue. The assistant to the rabbi was inviting us to
the synagogue AND telling us when services are! We were told we could come at 9
am on Saturday for regular services, where the men sit in the main sanctuary
and the women sit in the balcony. Or, the message seemed to say, we could
attend the family service at 11 am, which would be conducted in Norwegian and
English and involve activities, songs and games. I was very happy about this
development and we decided to go today, it being Sukkot. I leaned toward the
early service but Doug did not want to attend a segregated service so we opted
for the family service, which, by its very name, we presumed would be
unsegregated.
We arrived a bit before 11 am and were surprised to find
doors locked, no one anywhere, and no way to indicate our arrival to anyone
inside. After standing there, dumbfounded, for about a minute, a security guard
suddenly appeared. Suspiciously, he asked us what we wanted. I told him we had
arrived for services. “They’re going on right now!” he responded, as if in
challenge to what I had claimed. I explained to him the content of the email we
had received and he said he had no idea what we were talking about. Trying not
to show the umbrage I was feeling, I asked him whether we could come in or not.
He decided “yes,” but wanted to scrutinize our identification cards (we showed
him our Norwegian Residency Cards). After this, he somewhat apologetically admitted
us. Then we were turned over to a young
woman, who was friendly but seemed not to know what to do with us. She denied
any knowledge of a family service. She did walk us up several flights of stairs
to the Sukkah and said that soon, others would show up.
After what seemed like a long wait, a group of young kids
began trickling in. Then two young adult women came in. They introduced
themselves to us, but it was clear they knew very little English. So I
introduced us to them in Norwegian and that didn’t work either. We soon
realized that they were Israelis and were fluent only in Hebrew. They sat down
with all of us at the tables in the Sukkah, passed out song books, and
proceeded to sing song after song with the kids. The words and the tunes were
completely unfamiliar to us, and despite an admirable attempt by Rabbi Melissa Simon
to teach me Hebrew two years ago, I remain illiterate, having forgotten all but
three letters of the alphabet.
Then there was a story in Hebrew, that was translated into
Norwegian by a helpful mom who wandered in. I could understand it, but the rest
of the family couldn’t but it didn’t matter. At this point, Addie and Bram were
just waiting for it to end, exercising their usual patience, but displaying
none of their usual joyousness. This was becoming a marathon of endurance that
only I seemed committed to smiling through. We were waiting things out until we
could sneak home, and encouraging this feeling was the lack of friendliness
that I so strongly associate with organized Jewish worship. This may show both
my lack of experience and/or the extraordinariness of Shir Tikvah, our
synagogue in Minneapolis. After all the confusion about gaining entry to the
synagogue and the imprecision about when things were going to occur, I
commented to Doug that it was like being in Latin America. “Yes, but without
the warmth,” was Doug’s rejoinder.
I puzzled over whether this lack of friendliness was a
reflection of their Norwegianity (is there such a word?). Is it reasonable,
ever, to engage in cultural stereotyping? Whether or not it is, we have noticed
that Norwegians, in general, are very reserved, and not apt to smile at
strangers) or of their experiences as a Jewish community that has suffered at
least one violent assault. This occurred about 7 years ago, when shots were
fired into the synagogue from the street. The synagogue’s response was to erect
cement barriers in the street, which make it impossible to drive up to, or
past, the synagogue. Additionally, security guards were hired and a steel,
locked door installed.
Oslo's synagogue
. There are about 800 members, and because they come from a variety of religious traditions, the synagogue observes Orthodox practices, so that no one is left out.
Jews here, or at least some, also feel that there is
hostility to them. When we first arrived here, we met with Anna from the Jewish
Museum (who is not Jewish herself), who told us “it is not safe to be a Jew
here in Oslo.” The anti-semitism, in her telling, is coming from the Muslim immigrants.
Twenty-five percent of Oslo’s population are immigrants; the largest
contingents are from Sweden and Poland, but they are not as noticeable here as
those from South Asian and Africa, many of whom are Muslim, and some of whom wear
the hijab. According to Anna, these kids openly make anti-semitic comments at
school. A recent study of school kids in Norway showed that over 30% of Jewish
children had experienced bullying of some kind. The Israeli press has written
about anti-Semitism in Norway. However, the press there has refused to lay the
blame solely with Muslims. They suggest it is those of Nordic heritage who are
driving the hostility to the Jews. As evidence, the journalists point to Norway’s
criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
I do not agree that criticism of Israel’s policies and
behaviors as a State are the same as anti-Semitism. It’s fallacious, as I
expect that some of those who wield the accusation well understand. However,
this doesn’t mean that there is not anti-semitism in Norway that does not have
Islamic roots. In our neighborhood, for example (which sits on the edge of a
posh shopping district) and is largely Caucasian, there are the remnants of
several posters advertising a neo-Nazi rally of some kind; their appeal is to
white youth, not Muslims. Additionally, the so-called Progress Party (the FrP)
just won 16% of the vote here. This is down from the 25% is snagged in the last
election, before the party was partially discredited when it became known that
the mass-shooter, Anders Breivig, had been an FrP member. The FrP is very
anti-Muslim (they sponsored legislation a couple of years ago to ban the
hijab), but this is not because they are pro-Jew. They are pro “traditional”
Norway, i.e. the Norway of myth that is peopled only by the blond-haired and blue-eyed.
(This is of course mythic as anyone who has paid a visit to an exhibit on the
Vikings will immediately realize. But what use is history anyway?)
Poster remnant a half a block from our apartment.
The accusation of anti-Semitism stings here because of World
War II and what happened here. Norway had few Jews but half of them were sent
to the camps. Yes, Norway was occupied by the Nazis, but it also had a Quisling
government that fully cooperated with the invaders. A visit to the Resistance
Museum here will make clear that there were many Norwegians who wanted nothing
to do with the Nazis. Their extraordinary cleverness and bravery are
astounding. (With the help of the Resistance, half of Norway's Jews escaped to Sweden or elsewhere.) Given its name, the museum offers only the admission, in one
sentence, that some Norwegians welcomed the Nazis. In fact, this figure may be
as high as 30%. (I recommend Jo Nesbø’s Redbreast,
his best book, and one that discusses the zeal of some Norwegians for what the
Nazis could offer.) In response to Israeli accusations of anti-semitism, the
Minister of Education (who leads one of the socialist parties and has been
critical of Israel’s foreign policy) mandated a program of anti-anti-semitism
in the public schools. (I assume that this program will go forward despite the
results of the recent election, which gave a victory to the conservative
parties and means that neither the socialist parties nor Labour, will be party
of the governing coalition.)
The Resistance Museum (the execution ground, where the Nazis shot many Resistance fighters is just outside the building)
After the Sukkah activities, we were directed to the
sanctuary. The kids were to go up on the bima with Doug; I was not allowed, but
could go up to the women’s area. Addie and Doug both seemed concerned about my
exclusion but I was eager to head up to the balcony and observe. I had glanced
into the sanctuary and had no interest in going in. It reminded me, in layout,
of a Lutheran church, complete with a raised altar above the bima approached
only by climbing narrow, steep stairs. It felt austere and cold. There was a
rabbi on the bima, chanting in Hebrew; he faced the ark rather than the
worshippers. I had not seen that since my visit, as a guest of my best friend, to
a Catholic Church. It was a few years after the Second Vatican, but the priest
still offered the prayers in Latin with his back to the congregation. As a
child, I had found this unfathomably strange, and as an adult, I felt the same
way.
Upstairs, however, was entirely different. There, we could
hear the chanting of the men, but with the exception of perhaps three women,
whose heads were covered by scarves, no one was really listening or taking it
seriously. Instead, they sat in groups of two or three, many of them a mix of
young women and old. They whispered and laughed softly, they intermittently
hugged each other or draped arms around each other. In the instances when a
woman entered with an infant, everyone gathered around to fawn over the baby,
and take turns holding it to give the mother a break to relax. In the balcony,
it was as if the service were background music that helped create a mood for
this time and place where women, relations or friends, to gather and catch up
with each other. And yet, despite the
inattention to the services, the women did periodically stand, as was
apparently called for by what was happening down below. When the kids finally
approached the bima (about 30 minutes after we’d been told this would happen), many
of the kids looked up to scrutinize the faces in the balcony and wave; the
women smiled and waved back.
When the service finally ended, we headed for the oneg. But
it was not yet time to chat people up. We’d not yet said Kiddush. Several
people walked through the crowd with small glasses of “wine” (which tasted like
sherry, but was nonalcoholic), and then encouraged us to find a place,
somewhere. The room was packed so we ended up back in the Sukkah, in at the
back but left with a bubble of space around us, as if no one else wanted to
stand too close, even if it meant squeezing themselves together. We attracted
stares, too, but no smiles, even when I tried smiling at some kids and older
people. The rabbi eventually entered, said the prayer and we broke bread. Then
a man and woman stood up and invited us to partake of the oneg, indicated that
it was being provided by Israel for Israel, a group eager to promote love and
respect for Israel among the Norwegian people and seeking people and ideas for
making this happen. I wanted to raise my hand and suggest that Israel stop
expanding the settlements, but decided that would not increase the warmth in
the room toward us.
While waiting for a chance at some coffee (not really
coffee; here, at public events, you are offered hot water and instant coffee),
I heard English being spoken, so grabbed my opportunity and struck up a
conversation. It turned out that the woman was American, from Brooklyn, studying at the University of Oslo
through a fabulous program (no longer being offered, unfortunately) that offers
full scholarship plus expenses to undergraduates around the world. Upon hearing
my story about our difficulty making contact with the synagogue, the woman averred
that she had had the exact experience last year when she arrived in Oslo. Is it
because of fear of terrorism that no one responds to calls from unknown people,
I asked? The woman didn’t think so. Her explanation: “Norwegians are lazy.”
I decided to ask someone else. Again, I heard American
English. I approached the person who turned out to be a Norwegian who had
picked up a pretty nearly infallible American accent from four years of study
at the University of Florida. I told him how surprising it was for us, as
Americans, to experience the security and suspicion at the Oslo synagogue,
and told him that things in America are very different. There is a lot of
hatred right now, he explained, but “Soon, both countries will be the same.” I
felt hopeful, and assumed he meant that this hatred, based on the lack of
familiarity between Norwegians Jews and the newly arrived Muslim immigrants would
dissipate over time. Instead, he continued, “Do you know how many Muslims have immigrated
to the U.S.? I hope you will do something about this. These people are filled
with hate. In the U.S., things will soon be like they are here.” Then he left
to catch up with his wife before I could respond.
Meanwhile, Addie and Bram were taking full advantage of the extravagant
oneg, eating lunch and at least five desserts. Doug and I were ready to go but
we had a siddur, a gift from Shir Tikvah, to pass to the rabbi. We had been warned
by another synagogue member that, it being shabbas, the rabbi would not be able
to accept our gift. We decided to give it a try anyway. Rabbi Melchior greeted
us warmly, accepted the siddur, and welcomed us to attend synagogue while we
are in Oslo. “We are an Orthodox synagogue but we are a LIBERAL Orthodox
synagogue,” he said. This did not seem like the place and time to ask him for
his definition of “liberal.” As we walked home, I felt that I would like to
attend services again and talk to more people. But I don’t think we will do
this again soon.
