Danish Jews torn between concern and calm

Behind Copenhagen’s central synagogue, in the cellar of the recently built Jewish community centre, is a security room. Early on Sunday morning, it was tested for the first time.

After midnight, around 80 guests at a bat mitzvah for a local 12-year-old girl, including many children and teenagers, were hurried downstairs and locked in. Minutes earlier a gunman had shot dead Dan Uzan, a member of the community standing guard on the street outside, and injured two policemen.

After 90 minutes waiting in the secure room, police in riot gear entered and the children were evacuated on a bus under armed guard.

They were taken in for questioning and trauma counselling; many didn’t get home until dawn on Sunday morning. All stayed home from school yesterday morning.

Last night Danes gathered in Copenhagen to show solidarity with victims of the weekend attacks on the synagogue and a city cafe. But many Danish Jews in the crowd were haunted by two questions: how did the gunman know the bat mitzvah was taking place in a community centre not visible from the street? And what would have happened if he had gotten inside?

Tiny community

With fewer than 2,000 members, Denmark’s Jewish community is tiny in a country of 5.7 million, even when you extend the definition to an estimated 10,000 who say they feel Jewish in a wider sense.

Largely integrated into Danish society, Jews have been a part of Danish life for 350 years. Unlike many other communities in Europe, Denmark's Jews were spared the horrors of the Holocaust thanks to an organised transport to Sweden.

Many Danish Jews say the same thing: they were shocked but not surprised by the attacks. They have expected something like this for a decade, ever since the Jyllands- Posten newspaper's Muhammad caricatures, and particular after last month's Paris massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket.

After years of hoping for the best while preparing for the worst, many Danish Jews are torn: between feeling concerned about what might have happened at the weekend and what might lie ahead, and not wanting to make a fuss.

“People are asking if there were enough police on duty, particularly as the community asked for extra protection when they heard of the earlier shooting,” said Henrik Lewis-Guttermann, a Danish anthropologist and writer whose cousin’s son attended the bat mitzvah.

“But the synagogue is in the centre of town and it was Saturday night, so cordoning off the street would have annoyed a lot of people.”

For some Danish Jews, the attacks reminded them that their safety is not a given as two separate problems merge into one.

The first, similar to elsewhere in Europe, is a younger generation of radicalised young Muslim men who have turned parts of Copenhagen – streets and schools – into no-go areas for observant Jews.

The second factor is the hardening of already critical mainstream opinion towards Israel since the recent Gaza conflict. Studies since 2012 show a marked rise in both verbal and physical anti-Jewish incidents.

Last September, for example, an Imam in Copenhagen was filmed preaching for “Allah to kill [Jews] to the very last one”. A month earlier, a Jewish school in the capital was defaced with graffiti and its windows smashed.

In the Jewish community and beyond is concern the attacks will radicalise an increasingly tense political landscape, where some opinion polls indicate the populist Danish People’s Party is the largest political force.

Within a decade it has entered the political mainstream from the fringes by criticising immigration and multiculturalism, and presenting itself as a defender of traditional Danish cultural values.

In the aftermath of the weekend attacks, Danish Jews were heartened by the shows of solidarity, such as Sunday’s post-mass march by the Bishop of Copenhagen and his congregation to the central synagogue.

Hours later, Danish prime minister Helle Thorning- Schmidt laid flowers there and warned that "when you attack the Jewish community, you attack our democracy. The whole of Denmark is attacked."

Come home

Meanwhile, the call of Israeli prime minister

Benjamin Netanyahu

to come “home to Israel” has prompted almost uniform rejection.

Denmark's Jewish society said they "appreciated" the invitation but would not be moving. Jair Melchior, chief rabbi of Denmark since last September, agreed, saying: "Terror's goal is to change our lives and we won't let it . . . terror is no reason to move to Israel."

Melchior's grandfather, Bent Melchior, a former chief rabbi respected far beyond the Jewish community, described Netanyahu's remarks as "terribly stupid".

“Here in Denmark we do not do politics with such tragedies, and Netanyahu shouldn’t have either,” he said. “Israel should be a Jewish centre and inspire Jews in the world, but Jews should live everywhere, just as there should be room for Christians and Muslims in the Israeli society.”