The Muslim Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester recently took a trip to Norway where they visited the country’s Jewish Museum.
The Muslim Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester exists to promote friendship between the Muslim and Jewish Communities of Greater Manchester.
For over 15 years, some Forum members have gone on holiday together each year (except when prevented by the pandemic), at their own expense, to places of Muslim and Jewish interest. This year five of them went to Oslo, capital of Norway, the first time any of them had visited Oslo.
Before the visit, the travellers knew very little of Norway’s history, and how it was ruled for about 300 years by Denmark and then after the Napoleonic wars by Sweden for about a century before peacefully attaining independence.
Norway’s most famous artists are probably the playwright Ibsen, whose plays are performed more than anyone’s after Shakespeare, and the painter Edvard Munch.
There was an impressive modern museum building dedicated to Munch’s works quite close to the visitors’ hotel.
Forum Co-Chair Cllr Heather Fletcher, who is Jewish, said: “We had a very enjoyable time in the modern city of Oslo, and we learnt a lot on our visit too. We learnt about Norwegian culture and its people when we visited the Norwegian Folk Museum. We also visited major attractions such as the Hollmenkollen ski jump and the Vigeland sculpture park. It was also interesting to learn that there are now approximately 85,000 Muslims in Oslo but sadly the Jewish community now numbers just 1,000 residents.”
Forum Co-Chair Mohammed Amin said: “The visit to the Jewish Museum was particularly moving. The displays focused on telling the stories of individuals and specific families who perished in the Holocaust, as well as some who survived. This is a vital reminder that the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust were not just a number, they were individuals with hopes and aspirations, with more than a million children among the dead.”