The large university city of Uppsala does not have a Jewish community but it does have a Jewish studies department.
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Sweden
Sweden's Jewish community is the most important one in Scandinavia, as much in terms of the number of practicing faithful (18000-20000) as culturally. In February 2000, the Swedish capital hosted the International Conference of the Shoah, dedicated to drawing attention to the process of Jewish stolen goods and to the teaching of the genocide.
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Hornbaek
The only glatt kosher hotel in Scandinavia, the Strand Hotel is located in the well-known spa town of Hornbaek. It operates between Passover and Rosh Hashanah and has a synagogue on the premises.
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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.
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Scandinavia
Scandinavia has not always been divided along its current national borders. When King Christian IV (1588-1648) opened Denmark to the Jews, the country included not only southern Sweden and several cities in northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein), where the majority of Danish Jews lived, but also a part of the Virgin Islands in the Antilles, where Danish Jews had a central role. In contrast, ...
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Saint Petersburg
Despite the prohibition against Jews living in Russia, beyond a clearly defined zone, there were a few remarkable exceptions in the eighteenth century, particularly in the capital, Saint Petersburg, where the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia was concentrated. In 1900, Jews in Saint Petersburg already numbered 20385, or 1,4% of the population. This figure would climb to 50000 by 1917 (2%), 95000 ...
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Moscow
Due to the expulsion of Jews from Russia and their strict confinement within the “residential zone”, they were few Jews in Moscow prior to 1900, which explains the absence of a Jewish quarter in the capital. The 1902 census lists 9048 Jews in Moscow, or well below 1% of the city’s population. The synagogues With columns worthy of a Roman temple, the was built in 1891 in ...
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Russia
Until the early twentieth century, the history of Russia's Jews unfolded primarily in territories that no longer belong to the present-day Russian federation (Ukraine, Belarus, Bessarabia, and Lithuania). With a few rare exceptions, Jews were forbidden to settle in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and the city of Central Russia. Of course, Jewish colonies have existed since antiquity on the shores ...
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Latvia’s Jewish Cemeteries
The number of active Jewish communities in Latvia is much smaller since the Shoah. All information concerning them is likely to quickly prove obsolete, since demographic trends in the communities leave little doubt about their dying out in the near future. The aliyah toward Israel is likewise becoming increasingly significant. Inquiries can be made at the offices of the . Despite present ...
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Riga
Around 9000 Jews live in Riga. Riga is also home to to the only Jewish hospital in the former Soviet Union. The Latvian Society for Jewish Culture is the principal organization of the Jewish community. Today, the Latvian capital remains an important financial and cultural center. The Jewish presence in Riga dates back at least to the 13th century. Expelled in the 14th century, they resettled ...
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Panevezys
Panevezys is Lithuanian for Ponevezh, famous for its yeshiva that its prewar leader, Rav Yosef Kahaneman, reestablished following the war in Bnei Brak, the Orthodox quarter of Tel Aviv. The Ponevezh yeshiva in Israel is today the principal center for the Mitnagdim sect and has given birth to the Israeli political party Degel Hatorah. Rav Eliezer Schach, Degel Hatorah’s leader was, until ...
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Klaipeda
Klaipeda is the former German city of Memel, a place where Judaism came under the influence of the modern nineteenth-century Orthodoxy originating in Germany. The city is still home to some 300 Jews.
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Kaunas
Nothing of the Jewish presence in Kaunas remains but the synagogue, whereas before the war there was a yeshiva, a kosher slaughterhouse, and a prison. The birthplace of Emmanuel Levinas, Kaunas was before the Shoah a major center of European Judaism, with a population of 40000 Jews. The large yeshiva of Slobodka was located in a suburban district today called Vilijampole. The Jewish presence ...
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Vilnius
The capital of Vilnius, once known as the “Jerusalem of the east” has few Jewish monuments today. However, in the last few years, the Museum of the Gaon of Vilnius has made significant efforts to promote the city’s Jewish culture and heritage. The Shulhof, the large 3000-seat synagogue built in 1630, was partly destroyed by the Nazis in 1941. The remains of the synagogue ...
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Gomel
In 1897, 20385 Jews lived in Gomel (54,8% of the population), as compared with 37475 (43,7%) in 1926. Today, little remains of their life here. The Jewish quarter was located on the right bank of the river. A beautiful with colonnades once occupied the slight bend that forms on the main road (Lenin Street). In its place stands the Mir Cinema, whose columns -those of the former synagogue- ...
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Sarajevo and Surrounding Areas
When the grand vizier Syavush Pasha came to Sarajevo in 1581, the local representatives of the Sublime Porte asked him to separate the Jews from the rest of the population, for “they lit too many fires and made too much noise”. Syavush Pasha ordered the construction of communitarian housing for the Jews, with a courtyard and synagogue. The Velika Avlija (Old Temple Synagogue) ...
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Iráklion
Within the Venetian outer walls of ancient Candia, the old Jewish quarter is found right beside the seafront. Four synagogues once stood in this district, its perimeter today delimited by Venizelou, Makariou, and Giamalki streets. The last, still active at the start of the Second World War, was bombed. The Hotel Xenia has been built upon its ruins. Several neighboring Venetianhouses were ...
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Canea
The oldest synagogue in Canea, , lives again after a half century of neglect. Raised from its ruins by Nicholas Stavroulakis, former director and founder of the Jewish Museum of Athens, it was rededicated in October 1999. (It should be noted that its reopening was violently protested by the island’s prefect.) Etz Hayyim appears to have been the former Venetian oratory of Santa ...
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Crete
The Jews have a unique and turbulent history on Crete, one of the most important islands in the Mediterranean. Under the Byzantine Empire, Cretan Jews believed the hour of the final redemption had rung: in 430 C.E., a false messiah, the rabbi Moses, promised to lead them all to Jerusalem; they then threw themselves en masse into the raging sea and drowned. Several centuries later, the hand of ...
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Rhodes
In the fourteenth century, a Jewish community settled behind the ramparts of Rhodes erected by the knights of Saint John after their flight from the Holy Land. These Jews had the strange destiny of finding common ground with the Crusaders in their war against the Ottomans, only to be forced by Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson to convert to Christianity or flee. The waves of expulsion from ...
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Delos
Visiting the site in Delos is quite easy throughout the summer, the island being accessible by boat from nearby Mykonos. If one place attests to the presence of a Jewish community in Ancient Greece, it is certainly that of Delos, an arid island of the Cyclades. The existence of Jews here is referred to in the Book of Maccabees, while Flavius Josephus mentions them as well. Too tiny to flex ...
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Corfu
In the late twelfth century, Jewish traveler Benjamin de Tudela encountered a lone Jew on Corfu. Three centuries later, however, Jews had become so numerous here that the Venetians, then in control of this much-coveted, strategically important Adriatic island, had them confined to ghettos. A local Christian legend, which, strangely, spoke of Judas as a native of Corfu, made Jewish life here ...
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Thessaloníki
When David Ben Gurion moved to Thessaloníki to learn Turkish in 1910, he was surprised to discover a city like none found in “Eretz Israel”: The Shabbat marked the day of rest here, and even the dockworkers were Jewish. He was advised not to admit he was Ashkenazic (all the procurers were). Jewish and Sephardic, Thessaloníki had been called “Mother of ...
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Athens
3,2,1… go! Set off on a marathon walk through time, 2500 years to be precise, to discover the monuments of Athens and its Jewish cultural heritage. Starting with the Panathenaic Stadium. An ancient stadium dating back to 330 BC, it was renovated in 1896 to host the first Olympic Games of the modern era, with 28,400 spectators cheering the athletes. Then, cross over. Either to the right, ...
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Istanbul and Surrounding Areas
Sumptuous and decadent, immense and frenetic, Istanbul is “the world in one city”, as it is often described by Western travelers overwhelmed by the city’s splendor. The skyline of Istanbul is punctuated by hundreds of minarets, majestic onion domes, and bell towers. “An aged hand covered with rings held out toward Europe”, according to Jean Cocteau, the great ...
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Plovdiv
The Zion Synagogue dates from the nineteenth century. It is still active, but only a small minority of 300 to 400 Jewish inhabitants are still practicing. Restored in 2003, the synagogue is adorned with a delightful Venetian-glass chandelier and a richly decorated dome. In the surrounding area, traces of what was once a sizable Jewish quarter can still be found today. This includes Stars of ...
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Samokov
Some of the richest Sephardic families in Europe made their fortune in the small city of Samokov, located about thirty-seven miles south of Sofia. A branch of the Apollo family, which originated in Vienna, founded a veritable empire here, with ventures in metallurgy, tanning, weaving, banking, and real estate. The beautiful synagogue, today a national historic monument, along with a number of ...
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Sibiu
The Grand Synagogue of Sibiu has been declared a historical monument by the Romanian Academy. With its elegant interior and Renaissance facade enhanced by Gothic elements, it remains a popular tourist attraction. The city also has a .
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Timisoara
The first Jews probably settled in Timisoara in the 17th century. Gravestones were found in the city dating from that era. At the end of the conflict between the Austrians and the Turks, a Jewish Community life quickly developed. Both Sephardic and Ashkenazic. Places of worship were created but also cultural establishments as well as schools. Facing regular waves of anti-Semitism, the results ...
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Bucharest
Jewish Bucharest has almost completely disappeared. Of a population estimated at 158000 souls in 1948, there remain only 2000 people today. Spread out across the four corners of the capital, the are doubtlessly too old or in too precarious an economic situation to contemplate emigration. The old Jewish quarter The old Jewish quarter was located near the Unirei (Union) Square on the other side ...
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