As politicians and dignitaries take part in Trondheim Synagogue's centennial celebrations later this month, for the city's small but growing Jewish population it has become a safe haven from post-October 7 antisemitism.
Published in Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2025-10-16/ty-article-magazine/.premium/amid-rising-antisemitism-in-norway-one-of-the-worlds-northernmost-synagogues-turns-100/00000199-e7fe-dde4-a7bd-fffedb130000
TRONDHEIM, Norway – When it comes to the attendance list, it's hard to imagine a more distinguished and high-ranking one in Norway. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre will deliver a speech. Mayor of Trondheim Kent Ranum will be there along with other municipal leaders and senior representatives of the Norwegian government. The Royal Family will also be represented alongside leaders of Norwegian Jewish communities, several bishops and leaders of various Christian denominations, an imam and representatives from the Israeli and American embassies in Norway.
The occasion? The 100th anniversary of one of the northernmost synagogues in the world, the Trondheim Synagogue, which will take place on October 26. The synagogue serves the small Jewish community (numbering approximately 200) in Norway's third most populous city, positioned about 350 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle.
"The events will include religious services, a concert featuring Edan Tamler, a well-known Israeli cantor, and a festive dinner for congregation members and visiting guests," says John Arne Moen, the chairman of the community. Moen, who's a retired journalist and editor, has been a member of the community's board since 2006 and now serves as chairman. "The event will also include a keynote address by Chief Rabbi of Norway, Michael Melchior, who has served as an Israeli government minister and MK (the community itself doesn't have its own permanent rabbi).
The story of Trondheim's Jews goes 150 years back. "The first Jews to arrive in Trondheim came from today's Lithuania and Poland via Sweden in the 1870s," says Moen. "At the end of World War I, there were about 340 Jews in Trondheim and in other towns in Western and Northern Norway. Unlike Jews who came to Oslo, many of whom came from Denmark and German speaking parts of Europe, these were poor immigrants who escaped pogroms and poverty in the Russian Empire."
Moen goes on to say, these Jews "didn't speak Danish or German, which were languages common for educated Norwegians at the time. Instead, they spoke Yiddish and Russian. They came from small shtetls and it must have been really hard for them to settle here. Most of them didn't even intend to stay. They wanted to go to America, and Trondheim was just a stop during which they hoped to make some money for the ship ticket. However, almost all of them ended up staying here."
"These immigrants mostly settled in an area close to the harbor, known for prostitution and poverty, and they transformed it into the only Jewish quarter in Norway. It became rich in Jewish cultural and religious life led by a rabbi who arrived in 1896 from Belarus. A synagogue was founded in a building borrowed and then bought from a Baptist church, and the small community had a women's organization and a Zionist youth organization," Moen says. "There were also unique challenges."
Moen is referring to Trondheim's geographic location. Because of its proximity to the Arctic Circle, the sun in Trondheim sets after 11 p.m. in the summer and before 3 p.m. in the winter. Naturally, this is a challenge for Orthodox Jews when it comes to determining when Shabbat and holidays start and end. "This has been an issue for many years," Moen says. "Rabbi Samuel Brandhändler – the first rabbi in Trondheim – decided to have set times for Shabbat during some weeks in the summer and some winter weeks. Later, in the 1920s, that became the practice year-round making Trondheim probably the only Orthodox Jewish community with set times for Shabbat."
Moen says that the golden age of the community was between the two world wars. It was then that the community moved into its current location – a building which was decommissioned as a train station, purchased by the Salvation Army and then bought by the Jewish community. After extensive renovation work, it was inaugurated in October 1925. The building became the center of Jewish life in Trondheim and it still is today. It serves not only as the synagogue, but also the Jewish community center and home to Jewish Museum Trondheim, the permanent exhibition of this unique community.
"As a museum, we communicate knowledge, we take care of the exhibits, we research and renew," says Agnete Eilersten, 40, who has been the museum's collection manager and curator for the last five years. "The people who come here are mostly school …children [ages] 13 to 18, but we also have [individual visitors] including students, tourists and Norwegians of all ages."
Walking around the museum, Eilersten points out the old ark and Torah scrolls from Trondheim's first synagogue, pictures of the first Jewish families, exhibits about Jewish traditions and an old mikveh (Jewish ritual purification bath) in the cellar. When asked why she was drawn to work at this particular museum Eilersten, who is not Jewish herself, speaks of her fascination with Norwegian-Jewish culture which has been "hidden in many ways." But it's also about combating antisemitism. "We try to counter antisemitism by disseminating knowledge and teaching people about Jewish history," she says, "we believe that more knowledge means less prejudice." And, of course, there's also the war. "It is very important to preserve the history of World War II," she says. "We need to [pass it on] to new generations."
In Norway, this attitude isn't a given. Norway's World War II legacy is complicated by the fact that many Norwegians supported and cooperated with the Nazis. As such, it has remained in the shadows for decades. The Nazis occupied Trondheim and the rest of Norway in 1940. A year later, they took over the synagogue which became barracks for German soldiers. "We think that the soldiers, who were probably drunk, lay in their beds and shot at the ceiling," says Moen, the synagogue chairman. "The building was heavily damaged and during those years more than half of the community's members were deported and murdered. No other Jewish community in the Nordic countries suffered more than Trondheim's."
On the eve of World War II, Norway had around 2,400 Jews, including a few hundred from other nationalities. When Germany invaded and occupied Norway in 1940, the Norwegian king and government fled the country forming a government-in-exile in London, while Norway was ruled by a Nazi official named Josef Terboven, who governed through a pro-Nazi puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling, the leader of a Norwegian fascist party, Nasjonal Samling (The National Union), founded in 1933. The party cooperated with the Nazis in taking over the country, and in many cases Norwegian policemen, not German Nazis, were the ones who arrested and deported the Jews.
Persecution of the Jews began in 1941 with arrests, property confiscation and some executions on false charges. In 1942, mass arrests of hundreds of Jews were carried out. Most were transported on the SS Donau to Auschwitz. Another ship, the MS Gotenland, transported over 150 more to the same destination in February 1943. In total, 772 Norwegian Jews were arrested or deported. The oldest among them was 80 and the youngest an eight-week-old baby. Fewer than 40 came back. Those who survived had mostly escaped to neutral Sweden. When the war was over, they returned, and although they survived they were deeply traumatized. And even worse – they stood alone.
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