COPENHAGEN—At an official ceremony on October 11 marking the 75th anniversary of the rescue of more than 7,000 Jews in Denmark during the Holocaust, Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen declared : ‘’The Denmark that saved the Jews 75 years ago is the same Denmark today. Then, now and in the future. An attack on the Jews of Denmark is an attack on all of Denmark.”
Do the 5,000 Danish Jews feel secure today three years after a terrorist attack against the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen on Krystalgade in which a 37-year-old Jewish security guard, Dan Uzan, was killed by a jihadist ? The terrible attack took place as a Bat Mitzvah ceremony attended by 80 people was taking place there.
‘’The security issue has been for a while our main concern,’’ Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, president of the Jewish community of Denmark, told European Jewish Press (EJP) in an interview in Copenhagen.
‘’After the 2015 attack, the government took the security issue seriously and we have basically police and soldiers standing in front of every Jewish institution. So we feel secure although we feel sad it is necessary to guard our institutions,’’ he added.
But today, it’s not safe to wear a kippah on the street of the Danish capital, particularly in areas where a large Muslism community lives.
‘’I wear a Star of David during private events but never when a I get out, especially in those areas,’’ says Max Meyer, president of the Danish Zionist Federation.
‘’It would be playing with the fire,’’ he told EJP.
There are frequently reports of harassment and also physical and verbal attacks against Jews, all coming from Muslims.
Last year, Dan Rosenberg Asmussen’s organisation contacted police after an imam at a mosque in Copenhagen’s Norrebro neighbourhood encouraged attacks on Jews during a Friday service. His sermon was posted on Youtube. According to daily newspaper Politiken, the imam was connected to the Hizb ut-Tahrir group, an Islamic group that openly supports the establishment of a caliphate and that has been at the centre of numerous controversies in Denmark. The man who attacked the Copenhagen synagogue was a visitor to the Masjid al-Faruq mosque in Nørrebro.
Four years ago, a Jewish school in the Danish capital informed parents that its pupils are no longer allowed to wear religious sybols near school grounds. ‘’If a boy wears a kippah, we will ask him to put in a cap so it is no longer visible,’’ said then the school principal.
But in addition to the security issue, the Jewish community has to cope with attacks against its rituals, the Shechita (ritual slaughter) and Brit Milah (circumcision).
‘’These days the main challenge is that of being a religious minority in a country which is getting increasingly secular,’’ says Dan Rosenberg Asmussen.
While Denmark has already outlawed the slaughter of animals without stunning them first, as required by Jewish and Muslim religious laws, since 2014, the Riksdag, the Danish parliament, is set to discuss in late November a proposal to ban the circumcision or more precisely to impose an age limit to perform it.
The Danish promoters of the ban made a breakthrough following an amendment earlier this year saying that a citizen petition that receives 50,000 signatures within six months of their posting on the parliament’s website are expected to be brought to a vote as a nonbinding draft motion in parliament. The circumcision proposal cleared the signature hurdle within four months.
The language of the draft motion on circumcision that is pending a vote in parliament cites ‘’child welfare’’ concerns.“The introduction of an 18-year minimum age for circumcision puts children’s interests and rights at the forefront,” the text states. It calls for a jail term of up to six years for anyone who performs a circumcision, and holds parents and guardians responsible whether the act happened in Denmark or not.
According to Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, the main reason behind the opposition to ritual slaughter and circumcision is islamic extremism and the fight against a parallel society not wanting to abide to local legislation.’’ ‘’Jewish rituals are part of the collateral damage.’’ Over the past decade, Denmark has developed some of Europe’s strictest immigration policies.
‘’It is a very heated and tough debate on the circumcision issue. But we know from debates related to this proposal that there is not a political majority for that proposal and the government does not support it,’’ the Jewish leader adds.
Speaking during the ceremony marking the anniversary of the rescue of Jews of Denmark, World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald S.Lauder took the opportunity to acknowledge Denmark’s ongoing commitment to protect its Jewish citizens in the face of extremism and adversity, and for protecting the right of Jews to continue the age-old covenant of Brit Milah. ”Once again, Denmark has taken responsibility for protecting its Jewish citizens and again, we thank you,” he declared.
