Norwegian Prime Minister falls in 'anti-Semitic trap', says Jewish chairman

On Sunday afternoon, the South African archbishop and peace activist Desmond Tutu was honoured in a memorial service in Oslo Cathedral. During the service, Prime Minister Støre (Labour Party) described how the white population in South Africa feared revenge if Apartheid no longer held down the black part of the population.

About the black population, Støre said: "There was the contrast to the idea of revenge. There was the mighty idea of liberation and reconciliation from the New Testament, more important than an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth from the Old."

In the Norwegian daily Dagen Ervin Kohn, head of the Mosaic Faith Society, "rejects very strongly" the Prime Minister's statement. "This list has been repeated over the centuries. They have taken what the Torah says about proportional compensation, what the current insurance industry is also based on, and presented it as revenge."

Not as it is meant to be

Støre has misunderstood the biblical text, Kohn continues. "He has heard this repeatedly, but it is not the way it is meant to be, and it is not the way the Jews understand it."

The head of the Jewish Congregation does not want to accuse the Prime Minister of anti-Semitism. Kohn: "He is simply falling into an anti-Semitic trap. The trap consists of what is written in the Jewish Bible. Against this background, Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice" created the vengeful Jewish figure, Shylock. To portray Jews as vengeful is anti-Semitic. That is not what Støre does, but he helps to strengthen the basis for an anti-Semitic stereotype."

Kohn wants a settlement with the misrepresentation of Jews. He believes that society should listen to the Jews rather than interpret them with "Christian glasses". "It is the lists that lay the foundation for anti-Semitic ideas. If, on the one hand, you have a notion that Judaism is a vengeful religion, then the road is short of labelling the Jews as vengeful."

Footsteps of anti-Semitism

Kohn receives support from a researcher at the Holocaust Center in Oslo, Øivind Kopperud, who has written several books on anti-Semitism in Norway. "Contrasting the Old Testament as evil and the New Testament as good has followed in the footsteps of anti-Semitism in all years. People have often talked about a good Christian god and the bad Jew", says Kopperud, who adds that this happens "all too often". He understands "well that a Norwegian Jew feels that such a statement hurts".