Two tribes from a distance

Image from Ideogram.ai

Having lived in Iceland for five years and two years respectively, Mike Klein and Adam Gordon are relative newcomers, but also have had a chance to see their adopted countrymen and countrywomen up close.  

Here, they discuss what they see as the differences between Jews and Icelanders, and what they find to be surprising similarities

Adam, how would you describe the biggest similarities between Jews and Icelanders?

ADAM: I find that there are a surprising number of similarities. From close-knit communities, resilience and adaptability, a focus on education, a reliance on humor… it can be remarkably familiar on a day to day basis. One similarity that particularly stands out to me is our shared literary traditions and culture that is deep-rooted in the story of our history. In our case, the Torah, and in their case the Sagas. Both play a role in present life.

MIKE: There’s a lot to unpack in what you’ve said.  

ADAM: Indeed! Where to begin?

MIKE:  Two things jump out at me - one is the reverence for texts.  For very different reasons, the physical histories of our peoples are relatively limited - ours because we lacked a home for many years, theirs because the natural inhospitability of their home has made it difficult to maintain ancient structures and relics.  So our histories are largely a function of our texts and our oral stories.

Another is about resilience.  In many of the small fishing villages I’ve visited, there’s a memorial to the fishermen and sailors who went out to sea and never returned.  Their not like the war memorials that you see in the US, for instance.  They reflect an ongoing battle with the inhospitability of the elements.  Our memorials, though of different kinds of loss, reflect this them of an ongoing struggle to survive and the sacrifices made for that collective survival. 

ADAM: Both Icelanders and Jews have survived against the odds. Iceland has never been an easy place to live. The stories of natural disasters, of suffering, are manifold. Frankly, it’s still not an easy place to live. 

MIKE: Indeed the scales of loss of life have been comparable.

ADAM: And I think our shared history of struggle - though theirs of the challenge of a place and ours not ever having a place - plays a large role in our literary traditions. The oral histories, the reverence for our stories. They are now displaying the original Saga manuscripts for short period of time and it is an incredible sight to see - the meaning these manuscripts have. It reminds me of how central our books are to our identity as well. That what allows our ‘ancient’ peoples to persist is a rootedness in history and our books.

MIKE: I’ve not read much Icelandic literature - though I’ll finally put Independent People on my reading list for 2025. 

ADAM: Laxness is a treasure. There is a distinct different in the literary outputs of our two cultures, in my opinion, though each culture is prolific in its output. We both share a sort of existential angst, but we have different ways of approaching it in literature. Independent People is an interesting example. It is not a story about how to life a righteous life, of what a good life means, as it might be for a jewish writer, or certainly myself as a writer, but rather the purpose of life is clear and that is not to be beholden to others. The story is about the striving for that aim.

MIKE: Both of our tribes see themselves as “small” and vulnerable.  Icelanders are less collectively minded than we are, or indeed, than many other societies are. 

ADAM: And we are! Though the number of Icelanders makes the global Jewish community seem humongous by comparison. Notably, both cultures can read ancient texts with ease. The Icelandic language has not changed so much over a thousand years, and it is unique in the world. Hebrew, and the rebirth of the language, is similar. We are rooted to the past through stories and words.

But I want to disagree on the ‘less collective mindedness” for Icelanders. While independence is prized, there is a remarkable amout of collective culture here. It is very trendy! Everyone reads the same books, watches the same TV, and when certain fashion is in, it’s everywhere. That may be a function of living isolated on a small rock in the middle of the Atlantic, but there is an interesting juxtaposition between the independent spirit and the trendiness of the culture.

MIKE:  Still, Icelanders have like nine political parties for 400,000 people. Also, what you call “collective-mindedness” is to me more like social competition.  To be fair, we have our own tradition of “keeping up with the Goldbergs”, though it’s nothing like the sheer virality with which trends get adopted and spat out here.  Like everyone suddenly needing an outdoor pizza oven or taking on ultra-marathoning.

ADAM: I even bought a pizza oven! Though I’m not built for marathoning… and I feel left out at times. Thankfully chess is considered a sport here. 

As for politics, the old saying that goes something like a room with two Jews will have three political opinions is not dissimilar to Iceland. Such a small country and such robust political dialogue and engagement. There are a lot of political opinions here! Though, to lean into the similarity, there is also a consensus on the primacy of taking care of their people amidst a much larger outside world. 

MIKE: One thing that’s intensely in common is the desire of strangers who meet in each community to identify their mutual connections.  We have a word for it: “Jewish Geography”, but the Icelanders take it to a far higher level of intensity - all the more challenging given their aversion to family names.  Everyone’s connected familially, school-wise or neighborhood or, particularly, their families’ ancestral homes in the countryside. We start with the same town or the same profession.  They start at the same street.

ADAM: That feels very familiar. And it also makes it a difficult place to integrate for that reason. Though I am starting to just assume everyone knows each other, particularly because I can’t rely on last names. Gossip is a dangerous game in such a small culture. Thankfully, when you praise someone, it also gets to them quickly.

MIKE: Gossip is a dangerous game everywhere - and given the intensity of political opinions here, it’s very easy to cross that kind of a line, and that’s been particularly true in recent months.  Someone very antagonistic politically could be a very close (marital) relation. Outsiders can become well known very quickly and word spreads quickly.  

ADAM: That reminds me of a new Icelandic word I’ve learned that has been very helpful in understanding how to navigate things here: frændhygli. It loosely means ‘nepotism’ but it is a very Icelandic sense of the world. Beyond the immediate family, extended family members are called frændi. I believe it doesn’t even have to be terribly close relations. But what it communicates, I think, is there is a certain reliance on trusting someone’s character. That doesn’t feel too different from our community.

MIKE: They use it for uncles and cousins interchangeably.  Kind of like Jews do more broadly with each other - we often use the term “tribe” (as in “he’s Tribe”) or even “mishpacha” - family.

ADAM: When we still lived in NYC and would do apartment swaps to spend summers in Iceland, I always felt safe opening my space to strangers. There was an inherent trust with Icelanders. Not because I knew them, per se, but because they were from the ‘tribe’. And if I didn’t know them, I certainly knew someone who did. 

MIKE: Yes - a one or two step connection is huge here.  The biggest difference for me is that there’s a very different relationship between Jews and outsiders and Icelanders and outsiders.  Icelanders keep their distance from outsiders on the one hand, and have a view that “everyone should just get along” - a preachy kind of pacifism that’s a lot more sustainable on an isolated Island than among antagonistic close neighbors.  

ADAM: That is a good observation. It certainly depends on the Jewish community, of course, but I find that to be generally true. I think the Jewish community has had more experience navigating the cruelty of man, not simply the cruelty of nature. 

MIKE: Precisely - we have a shared bond of survival against cruel forces, but very different relations with that cruelty and its sources. 

ADAM: I think there is something to be said in relation to that with our relationship to religiosity as well. Or at least from my perspective as a cultural Jew with a complicated relationship to the religious aspects. Judaism welcomes the non-believing or questioning Jew as part of the community. Iceland is, I believe, the most atheist country in the world, and yet, there is a national church that plays an important role in society.

MIKE: Indeed most Icelanders belong to the State Church.  To a certain extent, the State Church defines the boundaries of Icelandicness more than its faith system.  But as a Lutheran-origin church, it lacks the affinity for Christianity’s Jewish origin than other Protestant churches or even the Catholic Church.  That has a lot to do with the distance between our communities here.  

ADAM: I hadn’t considered the relationship between the church and ‘icelandicness’ before and it’s fascinating. I do wish Icelanders understood Jewishness better though.It is very similar to that identity forged by their church, while not necessarily being religious, in addition to reverence for cultural history.  

MIKE:  They have very little experience with and of Jews - there were a couple of Danish-Jewish merchants in Iceland, and they certainly didn’t open up when Jewish refugees knocked on their doors during the War.  I don’t think there’s a natural antipathy, though the lack of people in our community who can represent us in Icelandic in the media is a huge challenge, and the weak relationship has come under immense strain over the last year.

ADAM: I agree. And those of us that are here, talking about being Jewish isn’t the first thing we would prefer to talk about if we were given a microphone. We each have other identities and commitments as well. To move here to begin with requires a relationship with Judaism that allows you to live without much of it. Good luck forming a minyan! Yet, here we are in this conversation, perhaps breaking the faux pas of not using our position to talk about this part of our identities. 

MIKE:  I think the first step is for us to assess where we’re coming from and where we see our adoptive society coming from, and not seeing it purely through the lens of politics and current events.  Another step is engagement - being open and willing to exchange in a broader context. 

As for your comment about “living in Iceland requires a relationship with Judaism that allows you to live without much of it” - I think there’s a duality to it.  On the one hand, the nearest decent deli is an ocean away, On the other, it’s really about being on the front lines in our engagement with the broader world. 

ADAM: I never thought I could miss a Jewish deli this much. Thankfully you can now get bagels (or beyglur here) and certainly there is lox (or lax here)... but it is just enough to not be enough.

Now if only we could find common ground in our humor. I’m still waiting on a good Icelandic Jewish joke. It will come, eventually, I’m sure.  

MIKE:  How many Icelandic Jews does it take to screw in a lightbulb in June?

ADAM: How many?

MIKE: NONE: It’s bright all night so why bother.

ADAM: Like I said, I’m still waiting on a good Icelandic Jewish joke… 

Image by Ideogram.AI