Norway is far from being considered an anti-Semitic country, which is why it is interesting to read the findings of a study by the Norwegian Institute for Holocaust Research and Religious Minorities on Norwegian attitudes toward Jews and Muslims.
The survey was conducted from January to April 2017 and was followed by in-depth interviews with local Jews and Muslims. A similar survey had been conducted six years earlier, and the contrast between the results is remarkable. The worst number: While in 2011 only 3% of Norwegians thought physical attacks on Jews were justified in retribution for Israel's policy in the Palestinian territories, in 2017 that rose to 12%. Among Norwegian Muslims, that figure is 20%.
There are only about 3,000 Jews in Norway, the northernmost Jewish community in the world. The number has never gone higher than that. Meanwhile, an estimated 150,000 Muslims live in Norway, and this could be a low eastimate. A few hundred Jews arrived in the cold nothern country after being expelled from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497. But less than 200 years later, in 1687, King Christian V decided to follow suit and banned Jews from his country, jailing and then expelling the few Jews living in Norway.
In 1814, Sweden and Norway united (in a pact that held until 1905), and their joint constitution included an explicit ban on Jews, with some exemptions. It was only in 1851 that the Norwegian parliament lifted the ban on Jews, allowing them to enter the country and have religious rights on par with those of Christian dissenters.
Few Jews took up the offer. Most of those who did settled in Oslo and founded a well-ordered community, with synagogues, ritual baths, and other such accommodations. Before World War II, the Norwegian Jewish community numbered 2,170. Under the rule of the pro-Nazi puppet Vidkun Quisling during the war, 765 Norwegian Jews were sent to the Nazi death camps and a similar number were arrested or deported. About 900 Norwegian Jews were smuggled across the border into Sweden with help from the Norwegian underground. After this dark period, which remains a stain on Norway's history, only abput 550 of the deported Jews returned and rebuilt their small community.
Apart from the growing support for violence against Jews, most of the survey's results indicate that attitudes toward Jews have improved since the previous survey: 69% of Norwegians reject negative generalizations about Jews, only 13% believe world Judaism is secretly working to promote Jewish interests, and only 5.9% said they would not want Jews as neighbors.
The survey found that anti-Muslim sentiment is much more prevalent, with 34% expressing prejudice against Muslims, 47% saying they believe Muslims should "blame themselves" for the increased attacks on Muslims, 39% saying they believe Muslims present a threat to Norwegian society, and 30% saying they believe that Muslims are trying to take over Europe. Some 20% said they would not want Muslims as neighbors.
Among Muslims in Norway, hostility toward Jews is significant: 42% believe Jews have too much influence on the world economy and 30% think Jews exploit the Holocaust to promote their own interests.
Most of the respondents who expressed hatred toward Muslims and Jews were uneducated men, and there was a large overlap between those who expressed hatred for Jews and those who hated Muslims. However, the Muslim hostility toward Jews largely prevents them from cooperating with Jews to tackle xenophobia.
