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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE
An Online Resource Centre
SWEDEN
Stockholm
Gothenburg
Malmo [Malmö]
Norrkoping [Norrköping]
Jews were not legally welcome in Sweden until the late 18th century, when a small community was officially established under King Gustaf III (ruled 1771-1792). In 1779 Jews were granted the right to live in Stockholm, Goteborg [Göteborg] and Norrköping, under certain conditions. In 1782, Jews were given permission to build synagogues, perform communal services and engage in those trades that were not controlled by the guilds in these cities. Although non-Christians weren't allowed to participate in government, Jews were allowed autonomy in their own affairs.
Regulations issued against the Jews in 1685 suggest that Jews were already living in Sweden, if illegally. Small exceptions were made for Jews visiting on business, although they were still not allowed to settle.
The process of Jewish emancipation began in 1838 when King Charles XIV removed some restrictions placed on Jews, granting them legal protection and many civil rights. One of the last prohibitions - that Jews could not hold political office - was not removed until 1951. On becoming full citizens, Jews were accepted into the community and anti-Semitism became rare.
Due to immigration from Russia and Poland, the Jewish population increased tremendously between 1850 and 1920, reaching nearly 6,500 in 1920. Immigration was regulated following the First World War. Swedish Jewish and other refugee organisations put pressure on the government to develop a more liberal immigration policy, but Swedes all over the country protested strongly, fearing that a threat to job opportunities would result from increased immigration. From 1933-9, only 3,000 Jews were allowed to immigrate to Sweden and another 1,000 permitted to use Sweden as a transit base en route to other locations. But once the oppression of the Nazi regime in Germany became apparent, Sweden opened her doors. Public opinion, too, had changed as Sweden was by now experiencing a shortage of workers.
Sweden tried to stay neutral during the Second World War. The country's Jewish populations were protected, and its government was involved in many efforts to save Jews from Nazi brutality and murder. In 1942 after the Nazi invasion of Norway, Sweden allowed the immigration of 900 Norwegian Jews. In October 1943, the country gave asylum to more than 8,000 Danish Jews who escaped there in small fishing boats. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Hungarian Jews in Budapest. Count Folke Bernadotte helped bring both Jews and non-Jews out of concentration camps. In the post-war period, many Holocaust survivors were brought to Sweden for rehabilitation.
Following the war, and in response to the activities of the Swedish anti-Semite Einar Aberg, a law was passed in Sweden in the 1950's, prohibiting incitement of ethnic hatred. In 1956, Sweden accepted hundreds of Hungarian Jewish refugees fleeing the Communists and in 1968, thousands more, including many intellectuals, students and young professionals, fleeing state-sponsored anti-Semitism in other Communist countries. As a
result, the Jewish population of Sweden doubled between 1945 and 1970.
In November 1997, the Swedish government introduced a large-scale educational program, called the Living History Project, to educate Swedes about anti-Semitism.
In January 2000 the International Forum on the Holocaust, attended by 45 heads of state, was held in Stockholm. The forum declared that the Holocaust 'challenged the foundations of civilization', and Sweden as a result became a leading force for the raising of Holocaust awareness. Following the Forum, The European Institute of Jewish Studies in Sweden - Paideia - was established as a non-governmental, not-for-profit educational organization; it has since become a leader in developing Holocaust education curricula in Europe. In January 2001, Stockholm was the venue for the Second International Forum for Combating Intolerance, which had as its goal 'counteracting and preventing xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and other extremist ideas and movements'.
In Sweden today, there are approximately 18,000 Jews in a population of 9 million. Stockholm, Sweden's capital, boasts the largest community. There are also Jewish communities in Malmö, Göteborg, Boras, Helsingborg, Lund and Uppsala. All of the denominations and Jewish communities are linked to the Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden. Swedish Jewry is active in international Jewish welfare activities. There are branches of the WIZO, General Organization of Jewish Women, Emunah, B'nai Brith and B'nai Akiva in Sweden.
There are synagogues in Stockholm (2 Orthodox and 1 Conservative), Göteborg (1 Orthodox and 1 Conservative), Malmö (1 Orthodox) and Norrköping. Jewish cemeteries can be found in Göteborg, Gotand, Kalmar, Karlskrona, Karlstad, Larbro, Malmö, Norrköping, Stockholm and Sundsvall.
The Jewish Community in Stockholm numbers just over 5,000. The community estimates that there are at least another 3,000-5,000 Jews living in the city. The Jewish Community of Stockholm is known as a unified community, meaning that all synagogues regardless of organisational or denominational affiliation belong to one umbrella organization.
An elected council of 21 persons governs the Community, which has a Religious Department, Social Welfare Department, Community Centre (JCC), Finance Department, and others. It runs a primary school, a kindergarten, the Judaica House, a communal library, a summer camp Glämsta, a bi-monthly publication Judisk Kronika and a weekly Jewish radio programme.
There are a number of other Jewish organizations and institutions active in Stockholm, too, the largest of which is Hillel, which manages the Jewish school and kindergarten.
Adat Jeschurun/Congregation Jeshurun
The interior furnishings of this Orthodox synagogue come from a synagogue in Hamburg, Germany that survived the 1938 Kristallnacht. It is situated on the 1st floor above ground level of the building housing the Hillel School.
Address
Telephone
Website
Adat Jisrael/Congregation Israel
This synagogue was long known as the 'polische minyan' (Polish minyan).
It is now situated in an 18th-century building that was renovated about 20 years ago.
Address
Telephone
Website
An inscription in Hebrew over the main entrance of Stockholm synagogue marks 1870 as its building date: in that year, Jews obtained full legal equality in Sweden. The synagogue, designed by Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander, is a massive rectilinear structure of plastered brick, framed by four flat-topped corner towers containing staircases. The three-part façade with its heavy cornices recalls, in a general way, ancient Near Eastern forms and Biblical descriptions of the Jerusalem Temple, giving the synagogue an exotic Eastern identity. The arrangement of the galleried interior recalls 19th-century trends in synagogue design promoted primarily by Reform congregations, with the bimah installed in front of the Ark in the east wall. The structure has been maintained and restored. It holds 830 people. An organ and women's choir provides music during services.
A memorial to victims of the Holocaust is engraved on the wall leading from the synagogue entrance to an adjacent community building. It was dedicated in 1998 by Carl Gustaf XVI, King of Sweden, and contains over 8,000 names of victims who were relatives of Swedish Jews.
Address
Telephone
Wahrendorffsgatan 3b 10391 (next to the Community offices)
679 5160
12 June - 8 September 2006:
Guided tours of the Great Synagogue and Holocaust Monument:
Times
Groups: Telephone
Admission
Website
Monday to Thursday 11:00 and 14:00; Friday 11:00
Souvenirs and postcards can be purchased.
0708 211 897
SEK 75 (USD 10; EURO 8)
www.jf-stockholm.org/tourist/
This is currently the only museum of its kind in Scandinavia. It features artefacts illustrating early Jewish life in Sweden and photographs of prominent Swedish Jews. Items in the museum include the first Jewish prayer composed for King Gustaf, Aaron Isaac's Bible, and a scale model of the Malmö synagogue. Photographs capture the many facets of Swedish society, from journalism to department stores to the theatre, in which Jews have been influential.
Address
Telephone
Website
Opening hours
The Jewish Library, underneath the Great Synagogue, has books in Swedish, English, Hebrew, Yiddish, German and other languages.
Address
Opening hours
Wahrendorffsgatan 3
13:00 to 17:00, Monday to Thursday
The Jewish Community Centre is located here. The centre sponsors Israeli folk dancing, sports clubs, and other activities. A kosher dining facility (dairy) functions in Judaica House, but check to see if it is open; a gymnasium and a suite of Jewish student club meeting rooms also form part of the complex. The centre was built in 1963, with a grant from the JDC (Joint Distribution Committee); it also acts as a meeting house for a wide range of Jewish groups and cultural organisations. Most of the time, at least one shaliach (advisor and teacher from Israel) resides in Stockholm and maintains his or her office here. The building also contains offices, a mikveh, and a gift and bookshop. Please contact the centre in advance to see if the kosher cafeteria is open.
Address
Telephone
Opening hours
Nybrogatan 19
662 6686 or 663 6566
10:00 to 17:00, Monday to Thursday; 10:00 to 15:00 Friday
Raoul Wallenberg Square
Raoul Wallenberg was a diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Second World War by issuing Swedish papers and setting up safehouses in Budapest under the Swedish flag. He disappeared in the wake of the Soviet advance on Budapest and is believed to have died in Soviet captivity. The waterside square includes a monument to Wallenberg.
The Gothenburg synagogue, built in 1855, is a national landmark. Its interior is an eclectic mix of styles, including both Moorish and Romanesque. Its straight-backed, L-shaped pews are puritan and plain; its balconies are covered with earth-colored designs. The side columns feature intertwined motifs resembling Viking or Celtic interlacing. The red-carpeted octagonal bimah is trimmed in gilt, while the steps up to the Ark are painted to look like marble.
Outside, the building has an entrance topped by three arched windows, flanked by smaller ones edged with subtle scalloping. The building's corners are topped by small, windowed octagons, with copper cupolas decorated with a small Magen David design. The building recently underwent its first-ever renovation.
Address
Ostra Larmgatan 12
The centre's facilities contain a small display of Jewish-related reading materials, including the 1713 first edition in Swedish of Flavius Josephus's history, and a 1655 edition of the Psalms in Danish.
Address
Ostra Larmgatan 12, 41107
For more on Jewish Malmö see
www.ijk-s.se/jfm/e_jfm1.htm.
The Orthodox synagogue of Malmö, built in 1903, is an unusual mix of Moorish, Art Nouveau and Byzantine Revival styles. It two-towered face and large central cupola give it a Byzantine appearance, but the large horseshoe arches on the façade tie it to the Moorish designs popular throughout much of Europe in the second half of the 19th century. The applied painted decoration is more of its time, drawing on contemporary Art Nouveau patterns.
Address
Foreningsgatan, Malmö
The Jewish cemetery was established in 1872. It includes a monument to the victims of the Holocaust. Thousands of survivors from Nazi concentration camps found refuge in Sweden immediately after the war. Many, however, died within a short time of their arrival. There is thus a whole section in the Malmö Cemetery of so-called 'Refugee Graves'. To commemorate all the victims of the Holocaust, a monument created by Willy Gordon, a Swedish-Jewish artist, has been built in the cemetery.
Among those buried in this cemetery are the son of Shalom Aleichem, the Yiddish writer; and two pilots of the British Royal Air Force, one British and one Australian, whose bodies were found on the Swedish coast after being shot down by German forces.
According to the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, in February 2000 the old Jewish cemetery was vandalized. Gravestones were damaged and a swastika was carved on the cemetery chapel door. Two months later the old cemetery was vandalized again. Some 50 graves were severely damaged or destroyed and 156 gravestones toppled.
A new Jewish cemetery was established in 1978.
Built in 1962 and financed by the Claims Conference against Germany, some Swedish government funds and voluntary contributions. The Community Centre houses a mikveh, offices, clubs, an auditorium, a small Kosher restaurant, the Chinuch kindergarten, the Cheder Afternoon Religious School, an old people's home, and other services.
Address
Website
A first small synagogue was built in Norrköping by Jacob Marcus in 1790. Marcus had arrived in the town in 1782 with permission to trade and to open factories. The present synagogue was dedicated in 1858. In 1860, the congregation had 99 members. Today, only about 30 use the large structure, which was listed as an historic building in 1978. In the 1990s the synagogue was the target of several anti-Semitic attacks. That in 1996 was reportedly the worst of all; the building was entirely covered with anti-Semitic slogans.
Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden:
Address
Telephone
Wahrendorffsgatan 3 B
10391 Stockholm
08 587 858 00
Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem, 1972, 15, 546-554.
Frank, Ben G.
A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe: Second Edition. Gretna: Pelican, 1996.
Funke, Phyllis Ellen. 'The Jewish Traveller: Gothenburg',
Hadassah Magazine April 2002 83: 8.
www.hadassah.org/news/content/per_hadassah/archive/2002/Apr_02/traveler.htm
Gutman, Israel, ed.
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990, 4, 1436-1440.
Jewish Community of Malmö:
www.ijk-s.se/jfm/e_jfm1.htm
Jewish Community of Stockholm:
www.jf-stockholm.org/tourist/
Krinsky, Carol Herselle.
Synagogues of Europe, Cambridge, MA (USA), 1985, 404-406.
Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Global Report, 1997-2005, online at:
www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/CR.htm
Tigay, Alan M.
The Jewish Traveler. Northvale: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1994.
Weiner, Rebecca. 'The Virtual Jewish History Tour: Sweden',
Jewish Virtual Library. 2006.
Chevy Chase: AICE, Accessed online 12 April 2006.
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Sweden.htm
Jews in Norrköping
www.kungsgard.norrkoping.se/_comenius/jews_in_norrkoping.ppt
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