Israel's embassy in Norway condemned the events organized by the Norwegian Holocaust Center in Oslo, saying they 'legitimize antisemitism.' The center said the aim is to 'understand shadows of historical traumas without equating them'
Published in Haaretz: Norwegian Holocaust Center Events on Nakba, Gaza War Draw Ire From Israeli Embassy – Jewish World
Israel's Embassy in Norway called for an independent Holocaust studies center in Oslo to cancel two upcoming events that it claims are a "grotesque distortion of Holocaust memory."
As part of a lecture series titled "In Shadow of War – The Way Forward," the Norwegian Center for Holocaust Studies and Religious Minorities is hosting two events with the University of Oslo this spring. The first event, which took place on Thursday, was a lecture by Prof. Nadim Khoury titled "Nakba and Holocaust as cultural traumas."
According to the University of Oslo's website ahead of the event, Khoury – a Palestinian professor of international studies at the Innland Norway University of Applied Sciences – "will trace their trajectories since 1948 and explore how they are intertwined and how the tensions between them are shaping the path forward in Israeli and Palestinian lives."
A second event, scheduled for June 3, will feature Israeli historian and Brown University professor Omer Bartov, whose contributions to Holocaust scholarship were recognized by Yad Vashem in 2019.
In an April 28 X post, Israel's embassy in Norway called on the HL Center to cancel the events "immediately."
"The Norwegian Holocaust Center's decision to host events drawing parallels between the Holocaust, the 'Nakba' and the war in Gaza is a grotesque distortion of Holocaust memory," the post read. The embassy added that the center has chosen political activism over historical responsibility and it called upon it to cancel the events and stop "legitimizing antisemitism in its modern forms."
Addressing the criticism in a social media post, the HL Center explained that it invited academics from different environments and backgrounds as speakers in order to "address and reflect on challenging topics without ending up in polarized debates where constructive nuance tends to disappear."
HL Center director Jan Heiret told Haaretz that the event with Khoury was supposed to follow another event hosting Martin Auerbach, former director of the National Israeli Center for Psychosocial Support of Survivors of the Holocaust and the Second Generation (AMCHA). Auerbach couldn't come due to uncertainty around the ongoing conflict with Iran, but Heiret said the center will make another attempt to host him in the autumn.
Heiret added that both events are meant "to find a way out of a destructive spiral of hatred, dehumanization and violence."
"We must understand the long-lasting shadows of historical traumas without equating, or even putting up, the Holocaust with the Nakba – which would be a historical distortion given the events are so different in nature, course and scope," Heiret said. "We acknowledge that the consequences for the individuals and collectives traumatized by them are interconnected, and that the denial of the trauma of the other lies at the core of the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Leif Knutsen, an activist and the chair of the Jewish Community of Norway, says the academics invited to speak at the HL Center "represent a fringe element," and that it's a recurring issue.
"The center doesn't question them; it doesn't bring anyone to balance the discussion and it doesn't present their perspectives in anything like a critical light," Knutsen said. "It's always in the same direction – one that's beyond critical to Israel. Someone should be sitting on stage and presenting an alternative point of view or at least a nuanced one."
Knutsen said Norway's Jewish population of about 2,000 is particularly vulnerable due to a sharp rise in antisemitic attitudes. In its most recent report published in early 2024, the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies documented an increase in antisemitic attitudes among Norwegians, with 11.5 percent of survey respondents having "pronounced prejudices" against Jews.
Images from Norway, 2024
"The center should be combating antisemitism rather than promoting a one-sided program," he said. "Even worse is the effect that such extreme voices have on Norwegian Jews who are being lectured about their own understanding of reality on the basis of a supposedly academic framework that completely ignores the real conditions in Norway."
According to its website, the Norwegian Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities is a research, education and documentation center intended to focus on the Holocaust and other genocides, as well as antisemitism and minority rights in Norway. The center's exhibitions receive roughly 50,000 visitors each year. It was established in 2001 using capital from a national restitution settlement over World War II between Norway and the country's Jewish community.
The center has previously faced criticism for its programming. In a letter sent in September 2024, more than 100 Norwegian Holocaust survivors and their descendants accused the center of failing to use "its mandate to combat the hostility we experience," and that instead of fighting antisemitism it was positioning itself as a "critic of Israel's policies and military tactics." The letter also said the center manifests "bias in its choice of experts and supporting a narrative that's negative toward Israel as a Jewish state."
In another letter from January 2025, the Norwegian branch of B'nai Brith criticized Heiret for mentioning Palestinians twice while delivering a speech on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, amid Israel's war in Gaza.
"By focusing on Gaza and Palestinian civilians who have lost their lives during the commemoration of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Jews in Europe, at a time when one-sided and anti-Israel portrayals make debates related to Israel very un-nuanced, the director has in a blatant way contributed to the tendency to relativize the Holocaust and the genocide of the Jews," the letter said.
"As the center's own research shows, demonization of Israel leads to increasing antisemitism in Norway. Trivialization of the Holocaust is, as is well-known, defined as antisemitism."
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