The Norwegian fjords are a world away from Long Island geographically and Jewishly, but not for one Hadassah family. In October, Tali Spiegel, a two-generation life member from Commack, N.Y., attended the centennial of the synagogue building in Trondheim whose congregation her great-grandfather, Rabbi Samuel Brandhandler, helped found in 1900.

Despite there being only 1,500 Norwegian Jews—200 in Trondheim, the rest primarily in Oslo—the ceremony drew King Harald and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store. Roughly 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the shul was once the northernmost in the world. Because of that, depending on the season, Trondheim can get as little as four hours of sunlight per day and as much as 20 hours.

According to Jewish law, Shabbat begins several minutes before sunset and ends about an hour after sunset the next day. Brandhandler decreed it would begin at 5:30 p.m. Friday and end at 6:30 p.m. Saturday all year. The Trondheim community still follows that tradition, making it the only Orthodox shul in the world to do so. 

Spiegel’s mother, Rachell Berkowitz, a former Hadassah chapter president on Long Island, marvels at her grandfather’s innovation and the reason behind it.

“If the kids were asleep at 3 in the morning, they couldn’t be at a Shabbat table,” she said. “So the only way he felt he could keep the Jewish tradition alive was to make it easier for families to participate in Judaism.” 

Alas, Norway itself hasn’t always made keeping Jewish traditions easy. Berkowitz said her family immigrated to America in the 1920s, citing Norway’s ban of kosher slaughter as a major reason. That turned out to be a lifesaving choice for her family, since 165 Trondheim Jews—about half the Jewish population—were murdered during the Holocaust. Now, a display of 165 empty coat hangers memorializes the victims in the Trondheim Jewish Museum, housed in the synagogue.

According to a recent report from Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry, antisemitism is on the rise in Norway, with 69 percent of the Jewish community experiencing it in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel and the ensuing war. Spiegel thinks that rise was the main reason the king and prime minister attended the centennial—as a public showing of support for the country’s Jews.

She also noted that the Trondheim community is supported by their Jewish compatriots, many of whom made the trip north to attend the centennial, something they do at holiday times as well.

“They live outside Trondheim,” Spiegel said, “and they travel hours during the holidays to come to be at the synagogue and to feel a sense of Judaism and to connect with Jewish people. I have probably five synagogues in my town, and how often do I go? This is how much their Judaism means to them.”