Jewish Cultural Festival Trondheim honored with new cultural award
The Jewish Cultural Festival Trondheim has been awarded the Jewish Museum in Oslo's first cultural award. Together with Professor Einhart Lorenz, the festival was honored for its work in highlighting Jewish culture and history in Norway.
photo and text: Martin Farstad Borg
Newly created cultural award
The Jewish Museum in Oslo established a cultural prize in the spring of 2025 that will go to individuals or organizations that promote Jewish culture and identity in Norway. The prize is 20,000 kroner, and the first winners were recently announced: Professor Emeritus Einhart Lorenz and the Jewish Cultural Festival Trondheim, by festival director Rita Abrahamsen together with Henriette Kahn and Tine Komissar.
A key researcher
Lorenz has been a key researcher and communicator of Jewish history in Europe for many years, with particular emphasis on the Holocaust in Norway. As professor of modern European history at the University of Oslo, he has both mentored new generations of historians and contributed to an extensive non-fiction production.
Festival with a unique starting point
Since 2011, the Jewish Cultural Festival Trondheim has created an arena where Jewish culture, language, music and food traditions are shared with a wide audience. The festival is unique in the world, based on what is the world's northernmost Jewish congregation.
The jury's reasoning
The jury's reasoning highlights how both Lorenz and the festival have contributed to bringing Jewish history to the forefront in a Norwegian public that has long lacked this perspective:
"Both Lorenz and the Culture Festival, Trondheim have put Jewish life, history, culture and society on the agenda and raised it so that the Norwegian community at large can take part in it."
Recognition of long-term work
For the festival, the award is a strong recognition of the work over 15 years of building bridges between Jewish tradition and the broad Norwegian cultural audience.
👉 Read more at the Jewish Museum in Oslo.
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