Jewishness and Space: Negotiating Jewish Identity and the Jewish Cemetery in the Local Context of Trondheim, Norway

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines the connection between Jewish identity and place in a Jewish community. The focus is on the Jewish cemetery in Trondheim, in the central part of Norway, and the aim is to explore how Jewish identity affects preferences for cemetery space. Against the backdrop of a larger ethnographic study and national research project, this study tracks narratives about burial decisions, illuminating the confluence of Jewish identity and Jewish burial space. The way the Jewish cemetery may mobilize or immobilize Jewish identity and belonging to the Jewish community is a multifaceted subject that relates to such wider experiences as mobility, relations to places of origin and Jewish networks. As discussed in the chapter, several aspects, religion, the Holocaust, and their Jewish kin relations, are in play for the participants and contribute to negotiating their burial decision.