(JTA) — Iceland welcomed its first permanent Torah scroll. The final letters of the Torah were written at a reception last Thursday at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Iceland, Jeffrey Ross Gunter, who is Jewish, according to Chabad.com. The new scroll, which took a year to write, was donated to the Jewish community…
On the face of it, this year’s Passover in Reykjavik, Iceland resembled last year’s celebration. Both were held in a downtown hotel meeting room set with a dozen long tables. And both had relatively casual atmospheres, featuring bottled water, plastic silverware and bronze and white paper seder plates. But the two holidays couldn’t have been…
Dear Father Jakob Rolland, We the members of Torat Chayim would like to express our profound gratitude to you, your colleagues, and the Catholic Church in Iceland for your unwavering support in the face of multiple attacks lodged at our core practice — the ritual of circumcision. Your defense of our freedom of religion, in…
(JTA) REYKJAVIK, Iceland (JTA) — At a windswept harbor of this Nordic capital, a bearded man wearing a black hat dips eating utensils into the icy water while hissing from pain induced by the bitter cold. Perplexed by the spectacle, a caretaker helpfully offers to let the man and his three companions use a washing…
The politician behind a bill in Iceland that would ban circumcision on children younger than 18 admitted that she didn’t consult Jewish and Muslim groups who would be affected by the ban. “I didn’t think it was necessary to consult,” Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir, a member of parliament from the Progressive Party, told The Independent on…
Scandinavia is the darling of liberals the world over. Yet for Jews living in there, life isn’t all free health care and minimalist design. In Iceland, the tiny Jewish population is now facing the most serious legal challenge to male circumcision in Europe. A new bill that criminalizes circumcision of minors and penalizes parents and…
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, known for sending rabbis around the world to engage in outreach with Jewish communities, announced Sunday that it will soon plant a flag in the last remaining European capital without a rabbi — Reykjavik, Iceland. There are only between 100 and 250 Jews in the entire island nation (which itself only has…
(JTA) — Lawmakers from four political parties in Iceland introduced a bill in parliament that would ban the nonmedical circumcision of boys younger than 18 and impose imprisonment of up to six years on offenders. Members of the ruling Left Green Movement, the Progressive Party, People’s Party and the Pirate Party submitted the bill to…
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