Norwegians, Swedes and Why Their Attitudes Have Worsened Toward Jews

Nadene Goldfoot
My maternal grandmother, Augusta Johansson-Gustafson, was born in Sweden in 1870 and came to the states when she was 18 years old in 1888.  She always said, "Oh, those Norwegians!".    I never knew why she didn't respect them.  Now our family has members from both countries.  We follow our father's religion, Judaism,  and it's discouraging to see the change in attitude in these two countries from the time of World War II.
Norway
Before the 19th Century, Jews couldn't even enter Norway without a "Letter of Protection," because the Danish limited the amount of Jews entering the country.  In 1840 this changed when a poet, Henrik Wergelang, argued for Jews to be allowed to enter and got the Parliament to agree.  650 Jews were admitted by 1891 when emancipation took place.  They lived in Oslo and Trondheim.  By 1920 there was a whopping 1,456 Jews in Norway.  In 1940 Norway was invaded by Germany and found 1,800 Jews living there with all but 200 being Norwegian citizens.

Norway's army surrendered and they had a collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling.  The Nazis demanded anti-Jewish laws which were implemented quickly so that by 1942, 770 Jews were sent to Nazi concentration camps.  760 were killed in death camps, but the underground had smuggling out 930 Jews across to the Swedish border. After the war, 800 Jews had survived and they, with displaced persons, were invited back by the Norwegian government. By 1996 Norway thought about restitution of Jewish property that had been confiscated by the Quisling regime.

Today there is one rabbi in all of Norway who is at the synagogue in Oslo.  Norway doesn't allow the koshering of meat, so it is imported from Denmark.  There is a 2nd synagogue in Trondheim and is the most northern synagogue in the world.  I have met online a Norwegian Jewish girl whose family didn't know they were Jewish.  She wound up going to Israel to find out about her religion more.  It was a result of the family escaping from the Holocaust and winding up in Norway.

Today there is a lot of anti-Semitism going on in Norway.  Their Center Party just proposed a law against male circumcision, a Jewish practice for baby boys at the age of 8 days.  If this law passes, they will be the first country to do so.  Just such a proposal was made in San Francisco, California recently  and was not passed.  In 1814 Norway had "The Jewish Clause" in their constitution which excluded Jews from the country.  This had gone on till it was repealed in 1851.


 The country has also taken in many Muslims, and wherever both groups reside causes lots of sparking hatred. Most of the anti-Semitic acts going on are committed by Muslims.  Muslim children are taught this hatred and it's showing up in the schools.  In 2009, 39 % of primary-school students in Oslo came from  immigrant families.   The latest event is about bullying a Jewish boy in school for the past several years which has resulted in his tormentors burning him on the neck with a burning-hot coin at an Oslo secondary school barbeque.  Why?  The boy's father is an Israeli, and this ticked off the students in their hatred for our tiny country.

 Though the country declares that they have a zero tolerance for bullying, nothing was done about this incident. Other Jewish students have been assaulted in their schools and teachers are known to just look the other way.  Their media plays a major role in reinforcing anti-Semitism.  For example only one media in Norway reported the burned student, and that was a Christian, Israel-friendly daily newspaper.  The political left shows a hatred for Jews.
Sweden
Jews living in Sweden are descendants of World War II refugees and Holocaust survivors who came after the war.  They also have Jewish refugees who fled Hungary in 1956 and others who left Poland in 1968.  Recently, Jews went there from the former Soviet Union instead of immigrating to Israel.  Stockholm has 3 synagogues and 2 rabbis.  One synagogue was built in 1870.  Gothenburg and Malmo also have a synagogue.  Here also, kosher meat must be imported from Denmark which is bought in Stockholm and Malmo.

Malmo has recently had an influx of Muslims, and the city has become a hotbed of attacks on Jews. There are only 760 Jews but 45,000 Muslims of Palestinian, Iraqi, Somali and even Yugoslavian heritage in this city of 293,900.   It has become so bad that many of these  Jews have had to move out of the city as they feared for their life.  Marcus Eilenberg, 32 year old attorney is taking his family and moving to Israel now.  The mayor is siding with the new population and has done nothing to stop the situation.  It really is a disgrace.  I even attempted to write some comments in an English newspaper online and was horrified by what people were saying and believing.

Both countries have their cultural elite whose attitude towards the Muslim influx seems to be that when their leaders rant against Israel and the Jews, their response is to join them in their rantings, calling this "solidarity."

Resource: http://www.jonathan5742.com/Right_Wing_Zionist_Homepage_Scandinavia
http://frontpagemag.com   Jew-Hatred in Norway by Bruce Bawer
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/05/viciousanti-semitism-in-malmo-sweden.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/search?q=Malmo%2CSweden
http://forward.com/articles/129233/for-jews-swedish-city-is-a-place-to-move-away-f/

Demonizing Israel Through Methods of Reporting

Nadene Goldfoot
Josephus was a Jew who wrote history for his Roman captors.  He wrote about the siege of Masada and how all the960  inhabitants living on top of this mountain had killed themselves rather than be taken captives by the Roman conquerors in a time between 66-73 CE.  .  He was writing for a Roman audience and if he did not please them, most likely he wouldn't live very long and would have died a ghastly death. Some even think he was writing for a Jewish audience.   He had to slant his material just a little and still write very descriptively about what he was seeing, perhaps with some embellishments as well  Today people are questioning his slant on the reporting and how accurate his report was   It was interesting enough for writers to base their book from with "Antagonists" by Ernest K. Gann and "The Voices of Masada" by David Kossoff.

There are underground smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.  They are used to smuggle weapons into Gaza. Not only weapons but materials are brought in to construct rockets and missiles to rain down on southern Israel.   Iranian terrorist trainers enter Gaza through these tunnels.

Rugaya Izzidien wrote about these tunnels for the New York Times on May 29, 2012, but took a different slant on them, something more palatable for the readers. Arabs are the good guys and were humanized while the Israelis were demonized as the bad guys.  The use of the tunnels was only said to be the artery to bring in needed supplies, like everything you can think of; food, building materials, clothes, electronics, cars, wedding supplies and writes that Gazans consider the tunnels a regular accepted route for their period in the "blockade."  Then of course the reporter goes on to mention that the tunnels are targets in air strikes because they seem them as an illegal  smuggling route.

The writer neglects to tell the readers some important facts that are left out, like Israel makes sure that there is the importation of thousands of all manner of goods that are brought into the Gaza Strip every day.

What we know about journalists is that they also have political sympathies and it shows up when they write, even though they are told to remain neutral and just print "the facts."  the facts turn out to be opinionated facts.  .  Many reporters are even more far left of their audience.  One person, Professor Aarebrot of Norway,  is trying to make the case that a journalist can write without any slant  They may be expected to, but too often it just doesn't happen.  The personal views of journalists have an impact on how they report.

Even Glenn Beck has that happen to him.  Being very conservative, he spoke about the shooting in Norway at a camp and said: "There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics?"

Frank Aarebrot, a scientist,  retorted by calling Beck names and comparing him to Joseph Goebbles.  He showed his side and that he is a Labor Party supporter.  Both men could not hold back their opinions and take on the situation at all.

Dan Rather, former anchor on CBS, and 60 Minutes, canceled a  scheduled appearance on the O'Reilly Factor on Fox News evidently to be able to appear on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart to argue that there is no left-wing bias in the mass media.  Walter Cronkite, of CBS Evening News was also considered by O'Reilly to be a very left-wing guy which he didn't hide well at all.  Bernard Goldberg stresses that most journalists don't really see themselves or their work as biased and think of themselves as smart, well-meaning and educated people without prejudice.

We go along with that thought and allow them to be referred to as the Enlightened Class in the USA.  Their job is to spread enlightened values to us masses.  Their job is also to dispel myths and ward off evils and the conservatives who carry superstition and primitive dogma.

I note that Fox News has an afternoon program about 5 reporters, 4 conservatives and 1 of the Enlightened and they love to give him a bad time, but he dishes it out and takes what comes well.  It's the grooviest program to see how people who disagree with each other can banter freely and not get all hot under the collar over some very dicey subjects.  Also what's terrific is that 3 of these conservative reporters are beautiful lawyers, more like models, who are  wonderful role models for young women who can see that you can be intelligent, most knowledgeable and yet sexy as well.

Then there are newspapers who will not print anything positive about Israel.  Dos this not sell newspapers?  Evidently not.  They'd rather take the slant of the left and print only bad press about Israel.  There is no balance because those of us who try to write rebuttals against a particularly nasty letter rarely ever  get it published, even for those of us who do a lot of writing.

The lesson of all this is that one has to be very careful in reading the written page to find out the truth.  Reporters, especially those on major media must be taken with a grain of salt until all is checked out.  At one time Portland had a morning paper, the Oregonian, and an evening paper, the Journal.  Each took a different political viewpoint and one had the chance to compare and contrast to come to a better evaluation of events, but it's much harder today.  We should be thankful that at least a few conservative viewpoints are still existing on TV.  There isn't much hope for newspapers as they are running into the red and dying out.  We don't want to be at the point where we have one source for news from just Big Brother.

These are important points to keep in mind when reading about Israel.  Much of the material out is slanted heavily against this little state.  Dig out the truth.  A source that is positive is not an evil source.   They just may know something the others may not know or don't want to know.  

Resource:  camera, alert@camera.org the NY Times has tunnel vision on the Gaza Tunnels
frontpagemag.com/2012/06/06/is-it-nonsense-to-talk-about -a-leftist-media-bias/print
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/masada.html
  

My Comments on the Oslo Slaying of 100 By Lone Norwegian Terrorist

Nadene Goldfoot

We finally had someone in Norway that was very sympathetic with Israel and he lost it all and  went on a rampage killing people in car bombings as well as killing almost 100 teenagers in a multi-cultural camp on an island.  Killing innocents around him doesn't help Israel or Jews at all. 

Anders Behring Breivik was reported to have caused all the shocking terrorism in Oslo.  The blonde, probably blue-eyed nice looking Scandinavian left a 1,500 page manifesto as told about by Ben Hartman in "The Jerusalem Post."   One would never think that he would have turned out to be a terrorist.  Anders was bothered about the Muslims and Marxism and concerned about the welfare of Israel and Jews.

I was shocked that he was pro-Israel as it's hard to find such a person in Scandinavian countries.  I had read about Malma, Sweden and how the older Jewish people who had escaped the Holocaust and found shelter there were being driven out of their town by Muslims.  The attitude of the people was very anti-Israel.  I attempted to write a comment in the Swedish English newspaper there, and had received some very derogatory replies showing just how anti-Israel they were. 

Norway hasn't been very helpful in their voting about Israel as well, reflecting possibly the average person's attitude.  The Simon Wiesenthal Center lists Norway as consistently with a failing grade on investigating and prosecuting Nazi war criminals.  The newspapers show blatent anti-semitism and anti-Israeli attitudes by displaying hate cartoons in their leading newspapers, similar to the type Nazi Germany used to produce.  They connect Jews to Nazis, the devil, and animals in these pictures.  The Norwegian government is left wing, and have a most accommodating position towards Palestine and the Hamas terrorists.  An Oslo synagogue was shot at.  The Cantor was attacked. Desecration of Jewish graves has happened as well as Jewish children being harassed in school. " According to the current Israeli ambassador to Norway, Miryam Shomrat, Norway is well known to be the most difficult country in Europe for Israel because of its media's extreme and unfair criticism of Israel and its politicized academic Middle East experts."

Anders was angry with western media who is unfair in focusing on the wrongdoing of Jews, and ignore serious Muslim attacks.  He was angry with Jews who support multiculturalism today feeling this is a threat to Israel as well.  Little does he understand how multi-cultural Israel is in having about 1.3 million Arabs as citizens.  Again, a lack of knowledge  has brought about his outrage as well as being very dissatisfied with his country's politics and attitude and not knowing what to do about it.   This is also something that has caused Muslim terrorism.  They have been fed so many lies about Jews and the history of Jews that they get to this boiling over point.  It's a (shunda) calamity that someone who sympathized with Israel decided to use such terrible force against people and kill instead of using his writing skills or respectable form of persuasion instead to  fight injustices in an acceptable manner.  It's sad that he crossed the line of sanity and could have worked to become a member of Norway's political system to bring about change.

Anders was calling Norwegians to a call to arms in his manifesto, which was described as extreme, bizarre and a ramabling screed of Islamophobia with venomous attacks.   He gave reasons for the importance of nationalism and the effects of Islam in Europe.  He was angry with his country for the 1999 NATO bombing campaign on Serbia and awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to an Islamic terrorist (Arafat) and of being appeasers of Islam.  His philosophy of killing so many now was that if a person decides to strike, it's better to kill too many than not enough. This is to cause the right impact of the strike.  He wanted people to understand that the free people of Europe will strike again and again.  Obviously Anders has become mentally unbalanced.

Did Anders know that earlier this month the Oslo Municipality found out that 33% of Jewish students were physically threatened or abused at least 2 to 3 times per month?  A few days later after finding this information from a survey, an American Jewish group arrived who had been invited by the Oslo Jewish community and they held a two-day seminar on anti-semitism, attempting to improve Norwegian's attitudes.  This was the way to go.  This was a step in the right direction. 

7/25/11 Update:  The deceased at  Labor's Teen Camp is now listed as 68 instead of 100.   (Yahoo News, Oregonian newspaper)

Resource: http://www.jpost.com/LandedPdages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=230762

http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=381&PID=470&IID=1919

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4085695,00.html