Jewish museums in Norway closed for fear of attacks

Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) — Police in Norway recommended the temporary closure of two Jewish museums for fear of attacks, while Danish policed dispersed a pro-Israel rally out of concern for participants’ safety.

Following the police advice in Norway, the Jewish museum in Trondheim closed indefinitely on Friday while the larger Jewish museum of Oslo is to remain shuttered until Tuesday at least, the NRK broadcaster reported.

Police advised the museum to close down amid reports that jihadists with fighting experience from Syria were planning an imminent terrorist attack on Norwegian soil. Extra security was posted at other potential targets, including Oslo’s main airport.

Also on Friday, police in Copenhagen cut short a demonstration of support for Israel and peace in the Middle East that the Danish Zionist Organization had organized near parliament with a group of Iranian dissidents, according to an account of the event by Vilhjalmur Orn Vilhjalmsson, an Iceland-born academic who attended the rally.

“The police couldn’t guarantee any longer the security of the participants in the rally, due to increasing threats from young Muslim troublemakers who were clustering in ever louder and violent groups nearby and even driving past in their cars shouting anti-Semitic slogans and waving Hamas flags,” he wrote on his blog.

He filmed several young men shouting “f**king Jews” at the demonstrators.

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