Denmark

On the approximately 8000 Jews living in the country of Denmark, the great majority of them as Ashkenazim who make Copenhagen their home. In 1968, 2500 Polish Jews fled the anti-Semitic purges led by the Communist government there and settled in the capital and in Arhus.

Jews of the Danish Antilles

What are today the U.S. Virgin Islands were a Danish possession from 1672 to 1916. The Danish influence remains in the architecture (notably on Saint Thomas), and in the name of places (Christiansted) and people -or in the Jewish community of the island. The synagogue of Saint Thomas, still active, was built in 1796 (reconstructed after a fire in 1833). Denmark named Jewish governors, and in 1850, half the European inhabitants there were Jewish, coming for the most part from the Dutch Antilles.