A Norwegian teenager was physically removed from a Bergen convenience store on New Year’s Eve after a clerk learned he was a Jew and a Zionist, the 19-year-old shared in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Nataniel Elpeleg was headed into town with friends to celebrate the new year when they stopped at a Narvesen convenience store to buy hot dogs.
The teenager reportedly struck up a conversation with a clerk, who told him he was from Yemen and the Palestinian territories. Elpeleg said he was naively excited and told the clerk he was half-Israeli.
“I really want to have peace with you guys. I hope we can be friends in the future,” Elpeleg recalled.
“Are you a Zionist?” the clerk allegedly responded.
Bergen, Norway 2024, not 1942.My son was kicked out by a Narvesen shop employee for being a Jew.FYA @StateSEAS wake up please. pic.twitter.com/aT81Q0EM3Z
— On Elpeleg ️ (@onelpeleg) January 1, 2025
“Being a Zionist means supporting the right of Jews to have their own state. I agree with that, so I am a Zionist, but right now, I just want to buy a sausage,” Elpeleg reportedly said.
The clerk's response
The clerk allegedly responded by calling Elpeleg a “child murderer” and told him he was no longer allowed in the store. Elpeleg began to film the incident, which was uploaded onto social media by his father last Wednesday.
“Get out! Get out!” The store employee shouted as he pushed Elpeleg out of the store.
“We only want to buy a sausage,” said Elpeleg. “Is it because I’m Jewish?”
“Yes!” The clerk allegedly said.
The video shows the clerk performing a rude gesture as he returns inside the store.
Elpeleg said he was disappointed that no one else in the store said a word in his defense. There were several customers and other Narvesen employees present, but no one intervened.
While he believed he handled the incident very calmly, the entire incident left the youth very frustrated that “Jews still experience these incidents.”
The teenager intended to file a police report last Thursday, and on Saturday, his father, On Elpeleg, on Facebook called on law enforcement to investigate the incident.
The elder Elpeleg said Narvesen and its parent company – Reitan Convenience – didn’t accept that the incident was racism, and both the employee and the company were being sued. Reitan Convenience did not immediately respond to The Jerusalem Post’s request for comment.
Conclusions from the incident
Norwegian outlet BA reported on Saturday that after consulting with employees and surveillance video, Reitan Convenience came to the conclusion that people had entered the store to warm up, and the clerks had told everyone who was not shopping to leave. Elpeleg was supposedly one of those asked to leave, and his expulsion from the store was not due to his Jewish identity, the company said.
On Elpeleg, a teacher, commercial attaché for Somalia, and counter-antisemitism activist, said on social media that until the companies took responsibility, their stores could not be deemed safe for Jews.
“My son was kicked out by a Narvesen shop employee for being a Jew,” he said of the viral X/Twitter video.The teenager’s father said that it was disturbing that Bergen politicians had remained silent about the issue.
Elpeleg reportedly received hostile comments online from far-right and far-left elements as the video of the incident went viral.
Far-right Alliance Alternative for Norway party leader Hans Jorgen Lysglimt Johansen claimed in a Sunday TikTok video that Elpeleg was lying and had gone to the store to harass an Arab worker.
“It’s all Jewish lies like they always do creating these narratives,” said Johansen. “The lies from that part of the world and those people are just non-stop; it’s been going on for thousands of years.”
Johansen also responded to Elpeleg’s video on X last Thursday, threatening, “I’d like to stuff that pork sausage down that j [Jew] throat any time.”
Elpeleg urged other Jews in Norway and around the world to speak up to prevent such incidents from becoming the norm, as it was “not good to hide and be scared.”
When it came to his hope for peace, Elpeleg said he was undeterred.
“I’m an optimistic person, and I believe that we should all be humans and that behavior at the convenience store wasn’t humane, but I still want to have peace.”