Jewish life in Norway is facing a crisis, according to Berit Reisel, the former head of Norway’s Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities.
A little-noticed change in government regulation in 2022 essentially downgraded Jews from their status as one of the national minorities, she said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in Oslo last month, ahead of the general elections in September.
“They are pulling the rug out from under our feet, and we cannot exist without official funding,” she added.
In 1999, Norway ratified the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. This bestowed national minority status on Jews, Kvens (Norwegian Finns), Roma, Forest Finns, and Romani/Tartars.
According to the Council of Europe, a national minority must have lived in the country for at least 100 years, making their cultural heritage a part of the nation’s cultural heritage. As such, by ratifying the convention, Norway promised to be responsible for preserving the cultural heritage and cultural traditions of the minorities and to support further strengthening the traditions and cultures of those minorities.
National minority status allowed individuals belonging to the five groups to apply for project grants from the Norwegian Directorate of Culture. The total available funds of 4,787,000 kroner ($476,450) is available to private individuals, voluntary organizations, municipalities, institutions, and enterprises to help strengthen their language, culture, and identity of national minorities.
Or so it seems. What is not stated on the website is that the Norwegian government covertly added a new regulation to the small print of the convention on June 21, 2022: “Persons who have moved to Norway after 1950, or their descendants, are not considered to belong to or constitute a national minority.”
Jewish organizations weren't prepared for the change
THE NORDIC Jewish organization Kos & Kaos applied for 2,000,000 kroner ($199,060) in operating grants from the funding scheme for national minority organizations in November 2024.
The money was needed to finance two positions, administrative coordinator and project manager, Ester Nafstad of Kos & Kaos told the Post in Oslo. The organization said it had been run by voluntary efforts until then and needed these positions to achieve its goals.
The Directorate for Cultural Heritage rejected the application on January 24, 2025.
Kos & Kaos appealed the decision on February 6, emphasizing its uniqueness as the only Jewish organization outside a religious context and that it welcomes Jews of all backgrounds. The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (KDD) upheld the rejection, citing the 1950 Criterion.
“This was the first we learned of the criteria change,” Hafstad said.
In response, Kos & Kaos said the criterion raised serious questions under international law, administrative law, and on principled grounds.
The Council of Europe’s Framework Convention and the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR Art. 27) emphasize individual self-identification and the group’s long-term attachment to the country – not citizenship, length of residence, or kinship, Nafstad told the Post.
According to human-rights experts, minority rights apply to all of a minority group’s members living in the country, regardless of whether they have roots there, and it is the long-term presence of the group or culture that is the deciding factor.
Nafstad said Kos & Kaos could not find any basis, either in national or international law, for distinguishing between the rights of Jews with long-standing affiliation in Norway and newcomers or descendants who arrived after 1950.
Kos & Kaos met with the KDD, which “went as far as to agree that the 1950 wording is unfortunate and that it should be removed from the regulation, but noted that this is a political process,” she said.
According to the KDD, the wording was amended in 2022, replacing the previous wording that referred to “persons who have moved to Norway in recent times.”
Hadi Strømmen Lile, a professor of law and human rights at Østfold University College, told the Post a regulation is, in principle, a law adopted by the government and not the Parliament, which means in such cases, the government must be careful not to exceed its mandate.
“One may question whether it has the authority to change the definition of national minorities in a way that goes beyond the framework granted by Parliament,” he said. “I am somewhat uncertain as to what authorization [from Parliament, based on legislation,] the government actually has to establish a new definition of what constitutes national minorities.”
While no Jewish organizations had submitted feedback at the time of the change in 2022, the Kven Finnish Federation was very critical of the change, Lile said.
In its challenge to the change, the Kven Finnish Federation wrote: “If this sentence remains in place, it will pose difficult challenges for us.”
THE CHANGE would upend the existing rule that allowed persons of the same ethnicity as Norway’s national minorities who join the national minority through marriage, family ties, community involvement, or similar to be included in the Norwegian national minority, the federation said.
The 1950 change meant that individuals who have worked in minority-political organizations and institutions risk being “cast out” of the minority, it said.
The legal basis for the regulation change was said to be Parliament’s annual budget decisions, Lile told the Post, adding that he did not consider that a legitimate foundation for changing the definition of who belongs to a national minority, especially a change that impacts the rights one has to funding.
“If the change lacks a legitimate legal basis, according to Article 113 of the Constitution, it is an invalid decision,” he added.
General elections in Norway could be a game-changer
WITH THE general elections approaching, several parties have pledged to reduce the already small funding for national minorities.
Last December, Progress Party leader Bengt Rune Strifeldt told Norway-based, Kven-language newspaper Ruijan Kaiku his party wanted to cut the “grant scheme for national minorities” by 12 million kroner. That amounts to just under 15%, compared with the government’s proposal of 80.435 million kroner.
Furthermore, the financing of minorities is to be decided in the upcoming elections. The Progress Party, for example, announced in its program for 2025-2029 that it wants to remove financial support for religious communities, while ensuring funding for church buildings with cultural-historical value, as well as legally required duties.
“Nearly every party is against funding for minorities,” Reisel said.
“So, the combination of this decision that we are no longer a national identity, and the political decision of minorities not being able to get funding, might end up with us being erased from the government’s economic map,” she said.
Reisel said she plans to oppose the potential funding cuts for religious minorities as soon as the results of the elections become clear.
Such cuts would go against the Norwegian Constitution, Section 16, which says: “The Church of Norway, an Evangelical-Lutheran Church, shall remain the people’s church of Norway and shall be supported as such by the State. Further provisions shall be made by law. All religious and belief-based communities shall be supported on equal terms,” Reisel said.