By: Fern Sidman – Jewish Voice News

A storm of indignation is sweeping through Norway’s Jewish community after the Center Against Racism, a taxpayer-funded organization in Oslo, announced plans to commemorate Kristallnacht—the Nazi pogrom of November 9–10, 1938—under the banner of “fighting racism” while placing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the center of its program. The controversy has deepened after Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre confirmed he would attend the center’s ceremony rather than the official Jewish community memorial, prompting accusations that the government is legitimizing antisemitism and distorting Holocaust memory for political ends.

As Israel Hayom reported on Saturday, the event—ostensibly intended to mark the night when Nazi mobs terrorized Jews, burned synagogues, and destroyed thousands of Jewish businesses—has drawn sharp criticism for its inclusion of speakers and themes hostile to Israel and Zionism. The Center Against Racism, led by Omar Ashraf, has been accused of equating Zionism with racism and promoting the baseless claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Sources in Norway’s Jewish community told Israel Hayom that they were “shocked and dismayed” by the blatant politicization of a day sacred to Jewish memory. “While the Jewish community holds a memorial event for the horrific event that occurred on Kristallnacht,” one community representative said, “a non-Jewish organization that opposes Zionism and the State of Israel will hold a so-called ‘memorial event’ that exploits the disaster that befell the Jewish people for a false narrative against the State of the Jews—as if Israelis and Jews who support Israel are the new Nazis. It’s simply unbelievable.”

Community leaders called attention to the grotesque irony of a Holocaust commemoration becoming a platform for Israel’s demonization. “There are organizations here trying to rewrite history,” another source told Israel Hayom. “Representatives of human rights groups have even claimed that Jews exaggerate antisemitism to deflect from Israel’s alleged crimes. And now, the prime minister of Norway is attending such an event, legitimizing it in the eyes of the nation.”

The Jewish Community of Oslo—representing Norway’s small but historic Jewish population—sent a formal letter to Prime Minister Støre and Oslo’s mayor, Anne Lindboe, protesting the government’s participation in the controversial event. The letter emphasized that the Center Against Racism’s ceremony is not a memorial, but an act of appropriation, and urged the prime minister to instead attend the official remembrance service held at the synagogue.

“In recent years,” the letter noted, “we’ve been forced to hold our memorial ceremonies inside synagogues due to the growing hostility surrounding these events. The Center Against Racism’s decision to hold a parallel ‘memorial’ distorts the meaning of Kristallnacht and compounds our pain. The prime minister is warmly invited to participate in our synagogue ceremony, where Jewish victims are honored with dignity and respect.”

As the Israel Hayom report observed, the divide between the two commemorations has become emblematic of a deeper cultural rift in Norway—between those who uphold the integrity of Holocaust memory and those who manipulate it to serve modern ideological agendas.

At the heart of the controversy lies the Center Against Racism’s invitation list, which includes several anti-Israel organizations and activists known for incendiary rhetoric. Among them is Jonathan Shapira, a self-described “peace activist” and former Israeli Air Force pilot who has repeatedly accused Israel of war crimes and sided publicly with Hamas-aligned groups before and after the October 7, 2023, massacre.

According to the information provided in the Israel Hayom report, Shapira’s inclusion as a speaker was widely interpreted as an intentional provocation. “They invite leftists who will echo their own biases,” a Jewish community source said, “Jews who won’t accuse them of antisemitism but will give them moral cover to rewrite history and transform the victim into the aggressor—making Jews victims all over again.”

Adding to the outrage, the center’s director, Omar Ashraf, recently attacked Erwin Kohn, a senior member of Norway’s Jewish community, labeling him an “extremist voice” after Kohn condemned Amnesty International for its relentless one-sided criticism of Israel. The Center Against Racism, critics argue, has made a practice of marginalizing Jewish voices who defend Israel while championing anti-Zionist narratives under the guise of “human rights.”

Oslo’s Chief Rabbi Joav Melchior issued a public warning that the upcoming event risks devolving into a political rally rather than a solemn commemoration. “It’s not easy for us to speak of distortion on such a day,” Rabbi Melchior told NRK, Norway’s national broadcaster, as quoted by Israel Hayom, “but it’s not only that the Center Against Racism ignores our narrative—it actively attacks it. Choosing this specific day, given what many Norwegian Jews are going through during this period, shows a profound lack of empathy.”

Melchior stressed that the essence of Kristallnacht remembrance lies in recognizing the hatred that destroyed European Jewry, not in exploiting that history to vilify the Jewish state. “Jews may, of course, be criticized like anyone else,” he said, “but using the memory of our persecution as a stage to condemn Israel is unconscionable.”

Norwegian-Israeli activist On Elpeleg, speaking to Israel Hayom, echoed these sentiments even more forcefully: “It’s incomprehensible that Norway’s prime minister chose to mark the Kristallnacht anniversary alongside antisemitic organizations and Israel boycotters, while ignoring the Jewish community’s official memorial. In doing so, he doesn’t weaken antisemitism—he strengthens it. This is dangerous irresponsibility from the country’s leader, precisely when Norway’s Jews need solidarity the most.”

Despite growing criticism, the prime minister’s office has not retracted his attendance. Government officials have maintained that the event is part of Norway’s broader effort to promote tolerance and combat all forms of racism. Yet Jewish leaders see this as moral equivalence gone awry.

As the Israel Hayom report highlighted, the conflation of Holocaust remembrance with modern political disputes—especially one that casts Israel as the villain—represents a troubling moral inversion. To equate the Jewish state’s defensive war against Hamas with the genocidal campaign of Nazi Germany is, as one Norwegian Jewish leader put it, “to abandon historical truth for ideological convenience.”

Norway’s official involvement in such an event carries heavy symbolic weight. The country’s wartime history—marked by both Nazi collaboration and heroic resistance—renders Kristallnacht a deeply resonant occasion. For many Jews, the prime minister’s decision signals a regression to the same indifference that allowed antisemitism to fester before the Holocaust.

As the Israel Hayom report observed, this is not merely a debate about protocol but about the moral integrity of remembrance itself. “When Holocaust commemoration is hijacked by those who accuse Jews of genocide,” the newspaper wrote, “it ceases to be remembrance at all—it becomes desecration.”

The Jewish community’s plea remains simple yet profound: let Kristallnacht stand for what it was—a night of terror that heralded humanity’s darkest chapter. To reframe it as an indictment of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination is to erase the very lesson it was meant to teach.

Responding to mounting backlash, Omar Ashraf insisted in comments to NRK, cited in the Israel Hayom report, that the event “is not antisemitic” and that “all organizations, including the Jewish community, were invited.” He denied any connection between the event and “Palestine,” claiming it simply aims to “remember victims of antisemitic violence while standing against all racism.”

But few in Norway’s Jewish community are convinced. “When those who deny Israel’s legitimacy organize your Holocaust memorial, something has gone terribly wrong,” one community elder told Israel Hayom.

On Sunday, as Norway’s prime minister stands at a lectern surrounded by activists accusing Israel of crimes against humanity, the true survivors of Kristallnacht—those who remember shattered glass, burned synagogues, and silence from their neighbors—will gather quietly in Oslo’s synagogue, mourning not only the past but the distortion of memory itself.

As the Israel Hayom noted, “The sound of broken glass once symbolized a world’s moral collapse. Eighty-six years later, it echoes again—this time not from the streets of Berlin, but from the heart of Oslo.”