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The only Jew in remote Greenland sometimes feels like ‘the last person on earth’
NARSAQ, Greenland (JTA) — This picturesque village on the southwestern coast of Greenland where famed Viking Erik the Red first arrived more than 1,000 years ago is about as off-the-beaten-path as one can get.
Sheep outnumber the town’s population 20-1 and the only way to reach an airport is via helicopter or ship.
Yet for Paul Cohen, an American Jew who has lived here with his wife Monika for 22 years, Narsaq’s remoteness is more than offset by its stunning landscapes, clean air and laidback lifestyle.
“It’s the Garden of Eden in many ways,” said Cohen, who is 61. “I feel like I’m living in the heart of a national park. There’s this little spot of civilization surrounded by pristine wilderness and I have the unique privilege of being able to live and work here.”
Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, is the world’s largest island. Located between the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans, it’s three times the size of Texas. But its population is only 56,000, most of whom are Inuit, making Greenland the least densely populated territory in the world. About 80% of the island’s surface is covered by an ice sheet.
The story of how Cohen ended up living in Greenland — as likely the territory’s only resident Jew — has nearly as many undulations as the icebergs floating in nearby Tunulliarfik Fjord.
Describing himself as “non-observant but culturally Jewish,” Cohen grew up in Wisconsin and graduated with a degree in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1991, he moved to Germany, where he met Monika. The two have been married 32 years and live alone in Narsaq with their Japanese Spitz dog they named Mikisoq (“little one” in Greenlandic).
A sample of the dramatic scenery in southern Greenland. (Dan Fellner)
Fluent in four languages — English, German, French and Danish — Cohen worked for nearly a decade as a translator and producer at DW-TV in Berlin. He and Monika first visited Greenland in 1993 as tourists.
“I was just blown away by the warmth of the sun,” he said. “Endless summer days. We were just amazed at what we saw, but we had it in our heads that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We thought we’d never come back.”
They did come back three years later and decided then that it was a place that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives, despite the skepticism of their friends and family.
“I think they thought it was some sort of phase,” Cohen recalled. “They didn’t think it would work out. It’s so off-the-charts in terms of a place to live.”
They bought a “fixer-upper” house and returned in subsequent years to renovate it before making a permanent move to Narsaq in 2001.
“You could say that Greenland infected us, like a virus, and we simply couldn’t get it out of our system,” Cohen said. “Why fight it?”
Initially, the plan was for Cohen to work remotely as a translator. However, the internet in Narsaq at the time was “glacial in terms of its speed,” so the couple made a living painting houses instead.
As internet speed improved, Cohen started to get more translating projects. He formed a business called Tuluttut Translations (tuluttut is the Greenlandic word for “English”). On a website for translators to promote their services, he jokingly wrote that he “will work for blubber.”
“What was unique about me as a translator was that I was the only translator people knew who lived in Greenland,” he says. “I just thought it would make a fun tongue-in-cheek tagline.”
Cohen has translated hundreds of articles from German to English for the English website of the news publication Der Spiegel as well as numerous academic books, including a 2014 book by German professor Marc Buggeln titled “Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps,” published by Oxford University Press. Most of his translation work is German to English, but increasingly Danish to English.
Cohen, seen translating an academic article from Danish into English, works remotely as a translator. (Dan Fellner)
Additionally, Cohen and his wife run a business in Narsaq renting properties to travelers. The couple currently owns two summer cottages that can sleep a total of eight people. They do most of the renovations and repairs themselves.
When asked if he misses any of the creature comforts he took for granted in the United States and Western Europe, he pondered for a few seconds before saying he has pretty much everything in Narsaq he wants, other than some of his favorite fruits and vegetables —such as eggplant — that can be hard to come by at the local supermarket.
Perhaps his biggest challenge is getting home to visit his 85-year-old mother in Wisconsin, which he manages to do every couple of years. But it’s an arduous journey, involving either a helicopter ride or ferry trip from Narsaq to the nearest airport in Narsarsuaq, about 30 miles away — since there are no roads in Greenland that connect towns and settlements.
From Narsarsuaq, Cohen flies to Iceland or Denmark as there are no flights from anywhere in Greenland to North America. Due to flight delays and bad weather, his last trip home from Wisconsin in February took 12 days.
Narsaq’s economy is built on sheep farming and fishing. There is some tourism but the number of visitors is low compared to some other towns in western Greenland like Nuuk, Illulissat and Qaqortoqall, all of which attract more cruise ships. While Narsaq’s population is only about 1,300, that still makes it Greenland’s ninth-largest town.
As for Cohen’s neighbors, most of whom live in pastel-colored wooden homes that are a trademark of Greenland, he said he enjoys their go-with-the-flow outlook on life.
The town of Narsaq, located on the southwestern coast of Greenland, is home to about 1,300 people. (Dan Fellner)
“You can generally just drop by and visit people without calling ahead of time and making some kind of arrangement,” he said. “That makes life more spontaneous.”
There has never been an organized Jewish community in Greenland, other than the U.S. military base at Thule in far northwestern Greenland. Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson, an Icelandic-born historian and former senior researcher at the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, wrote a chapter about Jewish life in Greenland in the 2019 book “Antisemitism in the North” that originally appeared in a Danish journal called Rambam.
Vilhjálmsson writes that “there were certainly Jews among the first Dutch whalers in the 16th and 17th centuries.” But there were no definitive reports of Jewish life in Greenland until World War II, when the United States established a military base in Thule, which is just 950 miles from the North Pole.
In the 1950s, there were more than 50 Jewish servicemen stationed in Thule at one time. Passover seders and services were held for Shabbat and high holidays, at the time giving Greenland the distinction, Vilhjálmsson writes, of “having the northernmost minyan in the world.”
But in the rest of Greenland, there are no records of any Jewish services or events. There have been Jewish scientists, journalists, nurses and other professionals working in the territory but most were on short-term assignments.
In the absence of definitive records, it’s highly likely that Cohen has made history as the Jewish person with the longest continuous tenure living in Greenland — 22 years and counting. He chuckled at the notion, saying it makes him feel like “some sort of rare orchid on the tundra.”
“I like the idea,” he said. “There are very few Americans living here. So I’m used to feeling like the oddball.”
A sign welcomes visitors to Narsaq. (Dan Fellner)
Cohen says few Jewish tourists come to Narsaq, but when they do visit, they have a way of finding him. One observant Israeli couple whom he ate dinner with served food on paper plates with plastic cutlery, which they used in lieu of kosher dishes.
“My name just screams ‘Judaism,’” Cohen said. “It’s almost as if there’s an unspoken secret handshake.”
While Cohen isn’t religious, he has a silver mezuzah hanging in his Narsaq home and enjoys late-night Hanukkah candle-lighting Zoom sessions with his family back in America.
He said that he and Monika plan to live the rest of the remainder of their lives in Narsaq, health permitting. For now, the couple has no desire to leave behind the solitude and unspoiled magnificence of Greenland’s southwest coast.
“Sometimes the ice recedes a bit and you find yourself walking on land that hasn’t been exposed for thousands of years,” he said. “There are days when I feel not only like I’m the only Jew in Greenland, but maybe the last person on Earth.”
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Rubio Condemns Mass Killings of Alawites in Syria, Says US Stands With Country’s Minority Communities
Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday denounced the mass killing of more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians from the Alawite minority group, in Syria, calling on the newly installed Syrian government to hold the perpetrators “accountable” for the massacres.
“The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days,” Rubio said in a statement. “The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
In a series of clashes beginning on Thursday, fighters allied with the new Syrian government carried out mass executions of Alawite Muslim civilians in the coastal towns of Latakia and Tartus. According to Syria’s interior ministry, the pro-government fighters conducted “sweeping operations” in the towns to dismantle the remaining “remnants” of the regime of former President Bashaar al-Assad, targeting primarily adult men.
According to Syrian officials, the fighting started when a group of Alawite fighters loyal to Assad killed their forces in a premeditated attack.
The ensuing mass killing of Alawites, who comprise roughly 10 percent of the Syrian population, highlights growing concerns over the safety of minority groups in the country.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed Sharaa decried the massacres, claiming they undermined his efforts to unite the country and vowing to seek retribution for the violence.
“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” Sharaa told Reuters. “We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us.”
In late January, Sharaa became Syria’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose decades-long Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz denounced the Syrian president as a “terrorist” who “switched his robe for a suit and presented a moderate face.”
“Now he’s taken off the mask and exposed his true face: A jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population,” Katz said in a statement. “Israel will defend itself against any threat from Syria.”
Following Assad’s fall in December, Israel moved troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to secure a military position to prevent terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state. The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War. However, Israel considered the agreement void after the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Syria’s new government has called for Israel to withdraw its forces.
Alawite leaders in Syria have also issued a statement to Israel, calling on the Jewish state to deploy forces in the country to protect its minority civilians.
“Following the fall of Assad’s regime, and after the massacres that took place in Alawite areas against our people, we call on the Israeli government to provide protection, assistance, and support,” the leaders wrote, according to i24 News.
The leaders lamented that “the world is silent about the massacres happening in Syria” and that if the Jewish state offered help, the Alawite Muslims “will be your most loyal and good friends.”
The post Rubio Condemns Mass Killings of Alawites in Syria, Says US Stands With Country’s Minority Communities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Inflection Point’: UCLA Announces Initiative to Combat Antisemitism
Anti-Israel protesters set up camp on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2024. Photo: Alberto Sibaja via Reuters Connect.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) announced on Monday an “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism,” a move that follows a series of incidents which have fueled allegations that the campus has become a hub of anti-Jewish discrimination.
“With honest reflection, it is clear that while we have made progress in addressing antisemitism, we have more to do in our shared goal of eradicating it in its entirety,” UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk said in a statement. “Through this initiative, UCLA will implement recommendations of the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.”
He continued, “These recommendations include: enhancing relevant training and education, improving the complaint system, assuring enforcement of current and new laws and polices, and cooperating with stakeholders.”
“This is an opportunity for UCLA to rise to the challenge of being an exemplary university,” Frenk concluded.
The Initiative to Combat Antisemitism is the second stage of a process begun by UCLA when it created an antisemitism task force in February 2024. Commissioned to study the problem and issue recommendations, the task force last year issued a report which noted, among other things, that two-thirds of Jewish UCLA students believe that antisemitism on the campus “is a problem or a serious problem,” and a higher share of them, 70 percent, attributed the atmosphere of hatred to the university’s decision to allow a “Gaza encampment” protest during the final days of the 2023-2024 spring semester.
That decision proved fateful, as it prompted a lawsuit accusing UCLA of fostering a discriminatory learning environment. Filed by several students, the complaint argued that the encampment was a source of antisemitism from the moment pro-Hamas agitators installed it. Students there chanted “death to the Jews,” the complaint recounted, set up illegal checkpoints through which no one could pass unless they denounced Israel, and ordered campus security assigned there by the university to ensure that no Jews entered it.
Alleging that UCLA refused to clear the encampment despite knowing what was happening there, the complaint charged that administrators put on a “remarkable display of cowardice, appeasement, and illegality,” and in doing so, allowed a “Jewish Exclusion Zone” on its property, violating its own policies as well as “the basic guarantee of equal access to educational facilities that receive federal funding” and other equal protection laws.
In addition to students, university officials have also been targeted by pro-Hamas activists — as The Algemeiner has previously reported.
On Feb. 5 some 50 members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the allied campus group Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine amassed on the property of Jay Sures — a Jewish member of the Board of Regents, the governing body for the University of California (UC) system — and threatened that he must “divest now or pay.” As part of the demonstration, the students imprinted their hands, which had been submerged in red paint to symbolize the spilling of blood, all over Sures’ garage door and cordoned the area with caution tape.
The behavior crossed the line, Frenk said in an email sent to the entire student body, and he suspended both groups while commissioning the school’s Office of Student Conduct to complete a thorough investigation into the incident. Defying the disciplinary measures, an estimated 150 people — including members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), among other anti-Israel groups — the next day marched through the campus demanding that SJP’s punishment be repealed while arguing it is they and not Sures who are victims of racism.
“If you look at who actually experienced violence, it’s overwhelming our own students, and that was the fault of our university administration” Michael Chwe, a professor of political science and member of FJP, was quoted by The Daily Bruin as saying. “For them to be claiming that our students are violent is completely backward.”
That same month, a Jewish faculty group at the university issued an open letter calling attention to a slew of indignities to which they have been subjected in recent months. The missive enumerated a litany of falsehoods spread about Jews by a task force created to study anti-Arab bigotry on the campus — including that Jewish faculty have conspired to undermine academic freedom with “coordinated repression,” promoted the interests of conservative groups, and harmed minority students by opposing “racial justice.”
The group added that discrimination at the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) has wreaked demonstrable harm on Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
In Monday’s announcement, Frenk called for reforming UCLA’s culture to ensure that all are accepted, regardless of race, ethnicity, and creed.
“UCLA is at an inflection point,” he said. “Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively. The principles on which UCLA was founded — and which we continue to advance — point us toward a clear course of action: We must persevere in our fight to end hate, however it manifests itself.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Inflection Point’: UCLA Announces Initiative to Combat Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Connecticut Men Charged With Hate Crime for Vandalizing Menorah
Illustrative: A menorah knocked to the ground by an antisemitic vandal who attacked a Jewish educational center in eastern Moscow. Photo: SHAMIR.
Police in Guilford, Connecticut have arrested and charged Steven Prinz Jr., 25, and Troy Prinz, 22, for allegedly vandalizing a menorah set up for public display.
The menorah’s owner reported the damage to law enforcement on Jan. 13 and provided surveillance video of the Jan. 5 crime. The suspects hid their faces, one with a gas mask and the other with fabric, and knocked over the menorah before stomping it on the ground, breaking multiple parts. Before discovering the footage, the owner had originally reported that wind had knocked down the menorah.
The two brothers, who were arrested on Wednesday, face charges of second-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias, second-degree conspiracy to commit intimidation based on bigotry or bias, first-degree criminal mischief, and first-degree conspiracy to commit criminal mischief. Police released both men after they posted $25,000 court-set bonds.
The Guilford Police Department’s Lt. Martina Jakober said in a statement that the investigation “involved significant cooperation between the police and members of our community in order to locate and preserve the essential evidence needed to properly identify these suspects.”
Jakober added that “the men and women of the Guilford Police Department wish to extend our deepest appreciation to all who live and work in the community” and that “our collective efforts, as the police and the community, ultimately resulted in their identification and arrest.”
Rabbi Yossi Yaffe, director for Chabad-Lubavitch of the Shoreline which had set up the menorah, released a statement following the arrests.
“This aberration does not represent the Guilford community. For 25 years, Chabad of the Shoreline’s menorah has illuminated Guilford without incident,” Yaffe stated. “Throughout the years, many residents from different faith communities and from across the political spectrum have expressed their appreciation and pride in having a menorah on the Guilford town green. With G-d’s help, we will continue to share the menorah’s light for many years to come!”
Yaffe announced that the hate crime targeting the menorah had inspired the community to increase its efforts to promote the holiday, with plans to increase displays and distribution of menorahs next Hanukkah.
Jakober said that the police department intends “to reflect on this incident and continuously work to figure out an ever-strengthening partnership with the community.” She added that “together, we can be sure that acts of hate or bias have no place in Guilford.”
Last week, the legal system made further efforts to counter alleged hate crimes in New York and Florida.
In Manhattan on Thursday, prosecutors said that Utah man Luis Ramirez, 23, allegedly proclaimed himself “Hitler reincarnated,” threatened to kill “as many Jews as I killed in [World War II],” and targeted New York City’s Central Synagogue. The judge denied bail for Ramirez and required him to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Prosecutors said that Ramirez had shown signs of paranoia and delusion which included calling himself by the names of “biblical characters.” Court documents stated that Ramirez had been diagnosed as “schizophrenic, suffering from hallucinations, delusions, and not being connected to reality.” A military officer cadet training school had reportedly discharged Ramirez for psychological reasons. Photos from Ramirez’s court appearance show him grinning.
Ramirez faces as much as 15 years’ imprisonment for a terrorism charge. “He is now charged with significant terrorism and hate crime charges and was remanded into custody,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said. “Any form of antisemitism is despicable, and I want Manhattan’s Jewish community to know we are remaining extremely vigilant.”
The judge scheduled Ramirez’s next court appearance for March 20.
Meanwhile, in Florida on Wednesday, the Boynton Beach Police Department arrested Adam Elshazly, charging him with allegedly targeting his former employer with violent and antisemitic threats via texts on July 2, 2024. The messages included antisemitic images and threats of violent sexual abuse against the victim’s wife and daughter. The victim told police that he had hired Elshazly 10 years ago for a job and fired him three days later for poor performance, not to hear from him again until receiving the text messages.
Police charged Elshazly with a count of intimidation with prejudice while committing an offense and released him the next day following the posting of a $30,000 bond. A judge scheduled his arraignment for Thursday.
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