About the project
The project builds on the theoretical assumption that ‘Jewishness’ – as any group identity – is always enlivened, reinterpreted and contested, both within the Jewish community and in relation to the Norwegian majority and other minorities. It will also investigate how the conditions for being a Jew in Norway have been affected by societal and cultural changes in the last decades. More specifically, these changes relate to macro-level factors such as anti-Semitic incidents, increased migration and nationalism in Europe, Israeli politics and meso- or group-level factors like the role of Jewish institutions in a secularized and diverse Norway, divergent theological definitions of Jewish traditions, questioning of the Holocaust as a collective memory, as well as identity (minority) politics amongst new generations of Jews. The specific Norwegian-Jewish history is also crucial for understanding how Norwegian-Jewish identities and cultural practices have been and still are developed.
Cathrine Thorleifsson is leading the study on Young Norwegian Jewish Identities in an Age of Globalization.
