Talk:History of the Jews in Norway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is part of WikiProject Jewish history. An attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardized and up-to-date resource for all articles related to Jewish history.
If you would like to help improve this and other articles related to the subject, also consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Jewish history articles. |
|
Project Jewish history To-do:
|
|
 |
This article is part of WikiProject Norway, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Norway. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. | |
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) |
|
[edit] 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'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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] " 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)
