Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on February 24, 2015

OSLO, Feb 21 (Reuters) - More than 1000 Muslims formed a human shield around Oslo's synagogue on Saturday, offering symbolic protection for the city's Jewish community and condemning an attack on a synagogue in neighbouring Denmark last weekend.

Chanting "No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia," Norway's Muslims formed what they called a ring of peace a week after Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, a Danish-born son of Palestinian immigrants, killed two people at a synagogue and an event promoting free speech in Copenhagen last weekend.

"Humanity is one and we are here to demonstrate that," Zeeshan Abdullah, one of the protest's organizers told a crowd of Muslim immigrants and ethnic Norwegians who filled the small street around Oslo's only functioning synagogue.

"There are many more peace mongers than warmongers," Abdullah said as organisers and Jewish community leaders stood side by side. "There's still hope for humanity, for peace and love, across religious differences and backgrounds."

Hakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB Scanpix/AP Photo More than 1,000 people formed a "ring of peace" around the Norwegian capital's synagogue, an initiative taken by young Muslims in Norway after a series of attacks against Jews in Europe, in Oslo, Saturday, Feb. 21 2015. Norways Chief Rabbi Michael Melchior sang the traditional Jewish end of Shabaat song outside the Oslo synagogue before a large crowd holding hands.

Norway's Jewish community is one of Europe's smallest, numbering around 1000, and the Muslim population, which has been growing steadily through immigration, is 150,000 to 200,000. Norway has a population of about 5.2 million.

The debate over immigration in the country came to the forefront in 2011 when Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people and accused the government and the then-ruling Labour party of facilitating Muslim immigration and adulterating pure Norwegian blood.

Support for immigration has been rising steadily since those attacks, however, and an opinion poll late last year found that 77 percent of people thought immigrants made an important contribution to Norwegian society.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Pravin Char and Stephen Powell)

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Norway's Muslims form ring around synagogue

Category: Synagogue
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