Jews have lived in Göteborg since 1782. The Conservative (masorti) rite synagogue is located at the same address as the community center. There is also an Orthodox minyan in Göteborg. Before settling in the city of Gothenburg in 1792, Jews were welcomed along with other minorities to the nearby island of Marstrand. Although the first synagogue was built in 1808, the presence of a rabbi did ...
Plus d'infosContenus associés au mot-clé “jewish life”
Uppsala
The large university city of Uppsala does not have a Jewish community but it does have a Jewish studies department.
Plus d'infosSweden
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.
Plus d'infosHelsinki
, a fortress island opposite Helsinki, was the site of the first Jewish place of worship. According to legal developments, a decree from 1869 and the letter from the Senate from 1876, demobilised soldiers were allowed to work in the civilian sector. The city of Helsinki decided to donate a plot of land to the Jewish community in 1900 in order to build a synagogue. It is located on Malminkatu ...
Plus d'infosFinland
The first Jews who settled in Finland were of Russian origin and were soldiers of the czar's army, called cantonists. With its independence in 1917, the country promptly granted civil rights to the Jews. In 1939, when Finland became an ally of the Third Reich against the Soviet Union, Finnish Jews found themselves in the uneasy position of serving in an army allied with the Nazis: a prayer ...
Plus d'infosScandinavia
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, ...
Plus d'infosSaint 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 ...
Plus d'infosMoscow
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 ...
Plus d'infosRussia
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 ...
Plus d'infosTallinn
The modern synagogue is a low building, resembling a large majority of synagogues before the Shoah. The Jewish presence in the city of Tallinn seems to date from at least the 14th century, according to documents found. From 1561 to 1710, when the city was captured by the Swedish army, the settlement of Jews was prohibited in the area. After the Swedish rule, Tallinn was captured by Russia. ...
Plus d'infosLatvia’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 ...
Plus d'infosRiga
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 ...
Plus d'infosPanevezys
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 ...
Plus d'infosKlaipeda
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.
Plus d'infosKaunas
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 ...
Plus d'infosVilnius
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 ...
Plus d'infosGomel
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- ...
Plus d'infosGrodno
Grodno, seat of a Catholic bishopric, was once a major city within the Polish-Lithuanian Union, as evidenced by Farny, the beautiful Baroque Jesuit church that towers over Sovietskaya Square. Jews began settling here in the fourteenth century: they were permitted to live in the town by Grand Duke Witold in 1389. In the nineteenth century, over 60% of the population was Jewish; at 42% in 1931. ...
Plus d'infosSlonim
In the nineteenth century, more than 70% of Slonim’s population was Jewish. The ratio was 53% before the war. The ghetto was burned down between 29 June and 15 July 1942. At the city’s edge, at the site of the former cemetery, a monument commemorates the city’s 35000 Jews exterminated during the war. In the city center, set back in the relation to the marketplace, the ruins ...
Plus d'infosRuzhany
It is worth exiting the highway midway between Brest and Minsk and heading toward Slonim: in the middle of the village of Ruzhany, a beautiful synagogue still stands today. Its roof is in imminent danger of collapsing, however.
Plus d'infosBrest (Brest-Litovsk)
The first city across the Polish border, Brest is located on the right bank of the Bug River. Its name evokes the famous Brest-Litovsk Treaty of April 1918, whereby Trotsky’s Red Army put an end to the war with Germany by ceding to the latter large amounts of Russian territory (the treaty was annulled in November of that same year by the Soviet government). On 22 June 1941, in Brest, ...
Plus d'infosBobruysk
The city of Bobruysk was once a typical Belarusian shtetl. In 1897, 20759 Jews lived here (60,5% of the population), while in 1926, the Jewish community had a population of 21558 (42%). To form an image of what a Jewish city once looked like, explore the downtown area of Dzerjinsky Street and its marketplace. Stroll down Karl Marx Street and Komsomolskaya Street with their typical balconies, ...
Plus d'infosMinsk
Minsk, the capital of Belarus, first welcomed Jews in the fifteenth century. They settled here to engage in the trade between Poland and Russia. After Poland was divided, the Jewish community began to grow: it consisted of 47560 members at the time of the 1897 census, or 52% of the population. The Germans arrived in Minsk on 28 June 1941, only six days after launching their offensive, and the ...
Plus d'infosStolac
For nearly two centuries, Stolac was the destination for a pilgrimage to the grave of rabbi Moshe Danon. In 1820, Grand rabbi of Sarajevo Moshe Danon and ten other prominent members of the Jewish community were accused of assassinating a local dervish, a Jewish convert to Islam named Ahmed. The pasha of Sarajevo threatened the death penalty unless they handed over a ransom of 500000 groschen, ...
Plus d'infosMostar
The city’s Jewish cemetery, which dates back to the eighteenth century, was severely damaged during the 1992-95 war, though it has been partly rebuilt since. The city still houses a tiny Jewish community.
Plus d'infosSarajevo 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) ...
Plus d'infosIráklion
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 ...
Plus d'infosCanea
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 ...
Plus d'infosCrete
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 ...
Plus d'infosRhodes
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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