<<

'The Golden Chain of Pious ' NJ The origin and development of Finnish Jewish Orthodoxy Simo Muir and Riikka Tuori

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.77253

Abstract • This article provides the first historiographical analysis of the origins of Jewish Ortho- doxy in and describes the development of the rabbinate from the establishment of the con- gregation in the late 1850s up to the early 1980s. The origins of the Finnish Jewish community lies in the nineteenth-century Russian army. The majority of Jewish soldiers in Helsinki originated from the realm of Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) culture, that is, mainly non-Hasidic Jewish Orthodoxy that emerged in the late eighteenth century. Initially, the Finnish Jewish religious establishment contin- ued this Orthodox-Litvak tradition. After the independence of , the Helsinki congregation hired academic, Modern Orthodox rabbis educated in Western . Following the devastation of the Shoah and the Second World War, the recruitment of rabbis faced new challenges. Overall, the recruitments were in congruence with the social and cultural development of the Helsinki community, yet respected its Orthodox roots.

Introduction1 from generation to generation from the Cantonists,­ 3 the former Jewish soldiers who The liturgical customs of the Jewish Com­ estab­lished the community.4 munity of Helsinki were codified in 2001, when the long-serving rabbi Moshe Edel­ stein 1997: 63, 74). According to Edel- mann compiled an extensive manual entitled mann (2001), Helsinki has always held on The Traditional Order of Service in to the traditions of the forefathers (Heb. the Jewish Community of Helsinki. In the pref- avotenu be-yadenu). 3 Jewish soldiers from the time of Nicholas I ace, Edelmann (2001) notes that this trad­ were generally referred to as ‘Nicholas’s sol- 2 ition, Minhag Polin, has been passed down diers’, and among them only those who had attended a Cantonist school were called 1 We are grateful to the following individuals Cantonists. In Finland, however, the term who have assisted us in gathering infor- is often applied to all Jewish soldiers who mation or offered valuable comments on served in the tsar’s army (Muir 2004: 20). the contents of the article: Meliza Amity, 4 There are many alternative spellings for Professor Wout van Bekkum, Mercédesz Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian , Czimbalmos MA, Dr Laura Ekholm, reflecting the geopolitics of the area. In Professor Galit Hasan-Rokem, Professor this article, we use those place names Sacha Stern, Dor Treistman, Professor Bart that were mostly used at the time of the Wallet and Professor Mordechai Zalkin. life of the individual, and, when needed, All the remaining mistakes in the article show in brackets their modern names. The are ours. transliter­ation of follows the gen- 2 Minhag Polin represents the eastern version eral guidelines of YIVO standard spelling, of the Ashkenazi liturgical rite (Lowen- and Hebrew the SBL Handbook of Style.

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

8 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian | Vol. 30, No. 1 Who were the rabbis employed by the of the fifty-year jubilee of the Helsinki syna- Cantonists that ingrained Minhag Polin in gogue. Weinstein provides the first descrip- the Jewish Community of Helsinki? What tion of the development of religious life kind of Orthodoxy did they represent and with its institutions and a list of rabbis up how did the rabbinate develop over time? to the mid-1950s. He had studied law at the How have local sources described their back- Imperial Alexander University in Helsinki, grounds and what did they do after leaving and worked for several years as the secretary Finland? These are the questions we seek to of the Jewish congregation and researched answer in this article. We aim to give the first the history of the community (Muir 2010). overview and analysis of the origin of rab- Unfortunately, his 1956 chronicle does not bis and the development of Finnish Jewish provide much information about his sources. Orthodoxy; our approach is historiographic­al There are big gaps in the Finnish Jewish and is based on existing literature, rather archives at the National Archives of Finland than historical documents. Our focus is on relating to the late nineteenth century, and it the Jewish Community of Helsinki, which is likely that besides oral history and his own was and still is the biggest Jewish congrega- memories, Weinstein had to hand documen- tion in Finland. Jewish soldiers had served in tation that no longer exists. Weinstein does Helsinki since 1827, when the law enabling not supply any information about the back- Jewish recruitment was passed, but the actual grounds of the rabbis before their arrival in congregation seems to have been founded in Helsinki. 1858. In this year, the former Jewish soldiers, Weinstein’s manuscript has served as a many of whom had served twenty-five years source for later studies and works concern- in the tsarist army, were allowed to settle in ing the Helsinki community. The political the towns where they had served.5 historian Taimi Torvinen’s Kadimah. Suomen There are few local sources on the rabbis’ juutalaisten historia (‘The History of in lives during their time in Finland. None of Finland’, 1989), which still is the most com- the rabbis died in Finland, and it seems that prehensive work on the history of the com- many of them took their personal archives munity, relies mostly on Weinstein when dis- with them when they left the country cussing the evolution of the Finnish Jewish (Edelmann 2006: 24). One of the few early religious establishment. Torvinen’s work, sources about the religious and cultural life though, focuses on the historical develop- of the Jewish community during the Russian ment of the community, civil rights and period and beginning of Finnish independ- Jewish during the Second World ence, gained in 1917, is the unpublished War, and in general pays little attention to manuscript, ‘Commemorative Chronicle’, religious life and customs. written in 1956 by the Helsinki-born mer- Moshe Edelmann, the previous chief chant Jac Weinstein (1883–1976) in honour rabbi of Finland, was the first to study ­ ish religious life in Helsinki. His work has resulted in many publications, such as The 5 Before 1809, Swedish law forbade Jews from living in Finland, and after Finland’s Trad­itional Order of Synagogue Service (men- annexation to in 1809, the old tioned above) and several collections of rab- Swed­­ish constitution remained in force binical literature, sermons and until Finland became independent in 1917. lectures, many of them concerning Finland. On Jewish soldiers in the Russian army, see, e.g., Petrovsky-Shtern 2008. Besides Weinstein’s manuscript, Edelmann

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 9 had access to some previously unused arch­ the rabbis interacted with local religious life ival material. In 2006, Edelmann published and encountered modernisation in the small articles about three rabbis in Helsinki in the Jewish community, confronting, for example, Jewish journal Hakehila, and revised ver- the pressing problems of mixed marriages sions of these articles were later published and their consequences, including conversion in the Kansallisbiografia (‘Finnish National procedures. Biography’). The article covers a long period of time, Besides this literature on the rabbis in during which major changes were taking Helsinki, a few other sources in Yiddish, place in East European Jewish society. Ac­­ Hebrew, Polish and English are available. cord­ing to Marc B. Shapiro: Some works and several entries in encyclo- pedias have been written about some of the By the last two decades of the nineteenth more prominent rabbis, for instance about century, although most east European Naftali , who was a student Jews were still traditional, the guardians of of Rabbi Salanter, the father of the tradition were confronted with an entirely Musar movement, and Simon Federbusch, new challenge, and never before had it who was one of the founders and leaders of been so difficult to retain the allegiance of the religious-Zionist Mizrachi movement the young […] and important elements of in , . One of the rabbis, Mika traditional society […] began to be ques- Weiss, wrote an autobiography, where he also tioned. (Shapiro 1999: 1) reflected on his time in Finland. In addition, Meliza Amity’s genealogical website offers Even though it was on the periphery, invaluable details about the life of the Finnish away from the Jewish centres, this change was Jewish community, including the rabbis. taking place in Helsinki too: as we show, at Sometimes our depictions of the rabbis the beginning of the twentieth century there remain somewhat limited owing to a lack was a shift in the rabbinate from traditional of details in our literature and sources. We East European Orthodoxy towards modern discuss the rabbis’ families, especially the Western Orthodoxy. After the Shoah, find- wives, who were sometimes the main provid- ing suitable candidates for the rabbinate in ers for their families.6 We also examine how Helsinki from Europe became extremely challenging, and the Jewish community 6 Rabbis’ wives (known in Yiddish as the turned its eyes towards Israel. rebetsin­) have always played an important We show that the case of Helsinki – and role in Jewish societies. However, depic- Finland – is unique: because Finnish Jewry tions of these wives or Jewish women in general are brief in the literature dealing survived the Shoah more or less intact, its with the rabbis, and historical works Orthodoxy represents a direct continuum written by the women themselves are rare. from the establishment of the community For a rare depiction of the changing role up to today. We also demonstrate how the of Jewish women and family in nine- Shoah indirectly influenced the commu- teenth-century Russia on the threshold of modernity, see the memoirs of Pauline nity and the recruitments of the rabbis in Wengeroff (1833–1916) (Wengeroff 1908). Helsinki. We can thus analyse how the rab- In 1866–70, Wengeroff lived in Helsinki binate continued and developed after the with her family among the Cantonist Shoah in a community that originally rep- soldiers in Sveaborg as her husband worked as a supplier in the Russian army. resented East European Orthodoxy. In what

10 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 follows, we analyse the historiography of rab- established in Langén’s villa on Siltasaari bis in Helsinki, from the first known rabbi in Island, and as a consequence the synagogue 1867 until the last rabbi trained in Europe in Sveaborg was closed down. The rent for left his office in1982 . We have divided this the synagogue was paid by the Russian offi- time into three periods: 1) rabbis during the cials as part of the privileges of the former Grand Duchy of Finland (the ‘Spiritual’), Cantonists (Weinstein 1956, 1964.) 2) rabbis after the independence of Finland During Russian rule, Jewish communities (the ‘Academics’), and 3) rabbis during the had to have a rabbi officially approved by the Cold War (the ‘Shoah survivors’) (see the state. These rabbis were known as ‘crown rab- chart ‘Rabbis in Helsinki 1867–1982’ at the bis’ (Russian kazionnyi ravvin), who main- end of this article). tained the Jewish population register and represented the community to the author­ The Spiritual: ities, enforcing loyalty to the Empire and its rabbis during the Grand Duchy of Finland laws. Many were trained in Russian-language rabbinical seminars with an emphasis on In his ‘Commemorative Chronicle’, Wein­ secular education, and hence lacked author- stein describes the early state and develop- ity in religious matters (Kaplan Appel 2010; ment of religious life among the Cantonist Shapiro 1999: 19). According to Weinstein soldiers in Helsinki. He indicates that there (1956), the only in Finland was was already a prayer house on the fortress Jakob Jakobowitsch (1849–1922),8 who held island of Sveaborg (Suomenlinna), which the position from the mid-1870s to the early guarded Helsinki, in the middle of the 1830s. 1900s. In 1858, when the former Cantonists were Edelmann (2010b) claims that the crown granted permission to settle in the towns rabbis’ knowledge of Jewish law was often where they had served, a specific location was poor and that they were ‘morally dubious designated for general synagogue services from a traditional religious point of view’. in mainland Helsinki that was also visited Congregations preferred their own employ- by new Jewish recruits (Halén 2004: 27). ees, the traditional rabbis selected by the The first persons nominated to the post of congregants, known in Russian as dukhovnyi rabbi were themselves former soldiers, who ravvin (‘spiritual rabbi’). Weinstein lists four seem to have lacked proper qualifications to such rabbis serving the Jewish Community act as rabbis.7 In 1870, what Weinstein calls of Helsinki during the Russian rule: Naftali ‘the first actual synagogue’ in Helsinki was Amsterdam, Avrohom Schain, Aba Werner- Homa and Schmuel Noson Bukantz.9 As 7 According to Harry Halén (2004: 27–9), at we show below, all of them originated from the request of the community the Russian officials nominated rank-and-filer Zelig 8 According to Meliza Amity’s genealogic­ Voislovski as a rabbi on 19 February 1858. ­al website, Jakobowitsch was born in Ten years later, 31 July 1868, the com- Lututów, Łódź province. Besides acting as munity applied for permission to invite a a ‘Jewish priest’, he was also registered as a qualified person to run the services. Until soldier and a tailor (see Amity 1). that year, the war invalid Israel 9 We do not know whether this is a complete Morduch (Mordock) had been in charge. list of rabbis who served during this time. In September 1868, Rabbi Hirsch Rain Weinstein himself refers to lack of docu- arrived from Vyborg (Viipuri) to lead the mentation when listing religious workers in synagogue. general.

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 11 , and three of them were trained in the Finnish Jewish religious establishment the famous Lithuanian yeshivot. The avail- has its roots in this Orthodox-Litvak trad­ able literature does not provide information ition: the earliest rabbis in Helsinki had stud- on how or by whom they were recruited. ied in Litvak yeshivot and followed the teach- However, research on the origins of Jewish ings of prominent Litvak teachers. soldiers in Helsinki shows that a major- According to Jac Weinstein (1956) and ity of them also originated from Lithuania, Santeri Jacobsson (1951: 97–100), many of north-east Poland and Belorussia, in other the Cantonists had become estranged from words from the realm of Lithuanian Jewish, during their twenty-five years of or Litvak, culture (Harviainen 1998: 297; service but tried their best to fulfil their reli- Muir 2004: 21–6). A study on the varieties gious duties. One may ask why they opted of Yiddish spoken in Helsinki also shows the to continue with : prob- predominance of the Lithuanian dialect, and ably they lacked other options, as this was certain cultural traits of the community are the only form of Judaism they had known in Litvak, for instance, not seasoning the gefilte their youth. Arriving from the lower strata of fish with as was customary in Poland society in the shtetls of the , (Muir 2004: 29, 139). they were not familiar, for example, with the Litvak culture encompasses much more Reform movement that was only starting to than ethnicity or linguistic and cultural char- emerge in the major of the Russian acteristics: it refers to non-Hasidic Jewish Empire.11 Most of the Jewish soldiers were Orthodoxy. From the late eighteenth cen- recruited from the area surrounding the Vilna tury onwards, East European Judaism had province, where Hasidism had not gained a been divided into two camps: Hasidism foothold. with its strong dynasties of charismatic lead­ers, , and teachings emphasizing Naftali Amsterdam (1832–1916), social involvement and devotedness to God, rabbi 1867–75 and Mitnaggedim, the mainly Lithuanian opponents of Hasidism. While the Hasidic The first known spiritual rabbi in Helsinki, movement had swiftly gained ground across Naftali Dov Amsterdam, was born in Salantai, Poland, Ukraine and Belorussia, the major Lithuania, in 1832. According to Edelmann cluster that held sway against Hasidism (2010a), not much is known about his birth emerged in Lithuania: ben Shlomo, the family, but he used the patronym Shlomo, or Gaon of Vilna, opposed the changes brought Shlomo Zalman. At a young age Amsterdam to through the charismatic became one of the most prominent students Rebbes and the ‘anti-intellectual’ stance of of (1810–83), the founder of Hasidic innovators.10 As we shall see below, the Musar movement, a Lithuanian Orthodox reaction against the reforming forces of the Maskilim on the one hand, and the success 10 These relations were, obviously, more nuanced from early on, and during the nineteenth century the boundaries separat- ing Hasidim and Mitnaggedim become 11 At this point, religious reform was mostly more blurred (Wodziński 2018: 31–2). successful in those (mostly West European) Nevertheless, both groups also developed countries where Jews could aspire to equal- and maintained their own educational ity; in Russia, this was in general more systems. difficult (Meyer 2010).

12 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 A picture of two influential figures of Lithuanian (Litvak) Judaism, the Gaon of Vilna and Yitshak Elhanan Spektor of Kovno, was found in the cellar of the Helsinki synagogue in 2005. Most of the Jewish soldiers arriving in Finland in the nineteenth century originated from the Litvak communities and recruited the first rabbis from the area. Finnish Jewish Archives, National Archives of Finland. of Hasidism on the other.12 As discussed contact with his teacher (Mirsky 2010). After by Shaul Stampfer (2012) and Immanuel marrying, Amsterdam opened a bakery in Etkes (1993), the proponents of the move- Kovno, but Salanter urged him to continue ment launched an educational reform in the his studies, and his wife Rivka (née yeshivot they established in various locations Ittelson, d. 1902) operated the bakery.13 At in Lithuania, most notably in Slobodka in the this point, Amsterdam’s involvement with suburbs of Kovno. Salanter himself had been the Musar movement and Salanter impeded heavily influenced by the ideas of the earlier his career path: when Salanter tried to his Litvak intellectuals Hayyim of Volozhin and student employed as a rabbi in , local the Gaon of Vilna. Hasidim acted against his appointment. The Amsterdam studied in seminaries founded case reflects the strained relations of Hasidim by Salanter in Kovno and in Vilna, and through­out his life he remained in close 13 In nineteenth-century Poland and Lithu­ 12 The movement emphasized ethical ania, a young woman’s ability to support behaviour based on the sound learning of the family and conduct business was a halakhic works as well as ethical treatises. valued skill in the marriage market: in a For more on the Musar movement and family of a Talmudic scholar, the wife was Salanter’s ideological development, see often the only breadwinner (Etkes 1989: Etkes (1993). 166–7).

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 13 and Mitnaggedim in mid-nineteenth-cen- In 1875, Amsterdam finally returned tury Russia (Edelmann 2010a). home. Two years later, he became the dep- In 1867, Amsterdam accepted a rabbinic­ uty of Yitshak Blazer in St Petersburg, and ­al position in Helsinki. Edelmann correct­ from 1880 onwards he worked as a rabbi in ­ly speculates that his decision was based the Kovno district. After a few more years of on financial reasons: in letters to his friend service, he finally dedicated himself to Torah Yitshak Blazer, the of St Peters­ study with the support of his wife’s bakery burg, Amsterdam describes the difficulties (Edelmann 2010a). Amsterdam remained of combining and supporting close to the yeshivot of the Musar movement the family. Salanter, however, had opposed in Kovno and Slobodka and published art­ Amster­’s decision to work in the bakery icles on education in the Orthodox news­ and recommended that he should rather find paper Ha-Levanon16 (Lipetz et al. 1967: 29). a rabbinical post, which entailed separation In 1906, the widowed Amsterdam moved from the family. Following Salanter’s advice, to and opened a school focusing Amsterdam had been actively looking for on Musar teachings, and his charitable work a position until finally landing in Helsinki in Jerusalem was praised in a letter sent to (Etkes 1989: 167–8, 174). Amsterdam by Avraham Yitshak Kook, later Amsterdam remained in office in Hel­ the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine. sinki for six years, but continued to look Amsterdam passed away in 1916 in Jerusalem for better positions. In 1871, he was briefly (Edelmann 2010a). appointed as a rabbi in one of the cen- tres of the Musar movement, Novogrudok Avrohom Yitzchak Schain (1841/2 – after (Navahrudak) in the Grodno region, return- 1907), rabbi 1876–81 ing, however, to Helsinki a mere year later. At the time he also exchanged letters with Avrohom Yitzchak Schain (Schunman, later Yitshak Elhanan Spektor, the rabbi of Kovno, Shyne) was born in 1841 or in 1842 in Novo a Talmudic scholar and yet another friend Aleksandrovsk (Zarasai), in north-eastern of Salanter (Edelmann 2010a).14 During Lithuania. There is no information about his Amsterdam’s assignment in Helsinki, the rabbinical education: he was employed as a legal status of the Jews (the ‘Jewish ques- rabbi in Helsinki from 1876 to 1881. He had tion’) was intensely debated in the Finnish three children with his wife Sara (b. 1845), from 1872 onwards ( Jacobsson 1951: and the family lived on Laivurinkatu 23 in 152, 155). Throughout his years in Helsinki, southern Helsinki (Amity 2). According Amsterdam’s wife ran the bakery in Kovno, to Weinstein (1964), in 1879 he founded and he did not bring her or their children to Hevra Biqqur Holim, the first Jewish soci- Helsinki.15 ety in Helsinki for the care of the infirm congregants. In the early 1880s Schain left Helsinki and moved to the to work as the rabbi of the Jewish commu- 14 In many of his surviving letters, Amster- dam wrote about the life and ideas of nity in Gorbals (1885–1907) in , Salanter; for excerpts, see Etkes (1993). 15 Rivka did visit Helsinki in 1872. Later 16 Ha-Levanon ( Jerusalem, 1863–86) mainly Amsterdam tried to find business oppor­ published news about the Old but tun­ities for her in Helsinki but failed later on expressed sympathy to the early (Etkes 1989: 168). Russian Zionist movement Hovevei Zion.

14 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 Scotland. At this point his surname was second smikhah from Josef Raisin, the pre- anglicised as Shyne (Alderman 1992: 144). vious av--din of the (Homa 1953: In Gorbals, Schain became, in the true 18). Like Naftali Amsterdam, Homa was sense of , the ‘spiritual’ rabbi of the connected to the Litvak elite members of the community. As a Yiddish-speaker Schain was Musar movement: in 1880, Homa exchanged never officially nominated to the position of letters with Salanter, who affectionately chief rabbi. However, owing to his popular- addresses him as Reb Abtchik. His grandson ity among the older, Yiddish-speaking immi- describes him as a devoted Mitnagged, who grants he became an unofficial ‘chief rabbi’ followed the teachings of the , responsible for supervision: his con- sharing his negative view of Hasidism and gregants volunteered to collect money for penchant for secular sciences (ibid. 19, 22). his weekly salary. In 1898, Schain was one of Homa’s later years in Telšiai were marred the founders of the first Zionist organisation by a conflict between him and some of the in Glasgow. After the murderous in congregants, and in the early 1880s the com- Kishinev in 1903 he collected funds for the munity neglected to pay his wages. During victims. After his wife’s death in 1907, Schain one of Homa’s trips to Kovno, his oppon­ emigrated to Palestine (Collins 1990: 53, ents hired another rabbi in his stead.20 In 88–9, 117–19).17 the aftermath, Homa was forced to leave Telšiai and accepted an offer for a rabbinical Werner-Homa (1836–1912), position in Helsinki (Zalkin 2017: 222–3). rabbi 1881–91 Bernhard Homa (1953: 18) succinctly notes that ‘in Tels my grandfather received a call Most of the information about Abraham from Helsingfors to become Chief Rabbi21 (Aba) Werner-Homa18 is derived from of Finland’ and that he moved to Finland in one source: the history of the Machzike the early 1880s.22 Hadath community in , written by Homa’s grandson, Bernhard Homa, in 1953. Abraham Homa was born in 1836 in Telšiai, of the time, typically a synonym for a rabbi in north-eastern Lithuania, to the family of a larger district. of Ya’akov Hayyim and Faiga. In 1854, he 20 This rabbi was the former student of Israel Salanter, Gordon, who in 1883 married Sima Gittel Lipschitz (1837–1906), became the head of the Telšiai (Telz) Yeshi- and the couple eventually had eleven chil- vah; on the early years of this influential dren. Homa received his smikhah (rabbinical Yeshivah, see Stampfer (2012: 286–336). ordination) in 1857 in Žagarė and was first 21 According to Meliza Amity’s genealogical website, Homa arrived in Finland in 1881 employed as a rabbi in Vegeriai and in 1858 and was appointed as the ‘chief rabbi’ (of back in Telšiai. In 1865, he was appointed Helsinki?) in 1885. However, the position as the av-bet-din19 of Telšiai and received a of chief rabbi of Finland is used for the first time only in the 1930s when Simon Federbusch arrived in Finland. 17 See also ‘Rabbi Shyne: Scottish Jewish 22 There is some discrepancy in the chronol- Archives Centre’. ogy: according to Weinstein, Homa began 18 After arriving in the United Kingdom, his service as a rabbi in Helsinki in 1884, Homa changed his name to Werner, fol- and according to Amity, in 1885. The year lowing his son who had moved there earlier 1880/1 is derived from Homa’s grandson’s (Homa 1953: 17). memoirs, although this may refer only to 19 A judge of a rabbinical court; in the Russia his move to Helsinki.

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 15 Schmuel Noson Bukantz (1857–1938), rabbi 1892–1924

The last of the four rabbis during the Grand Duchy of Finland was Schmuel Noson Bukantz. Bukantz was born in 1857 to Leiser Bukanetz and Feige and grew up in Sheta (Šėta) and Kovno. According to Edelmann (2010b, 2009/10: 192), he received his rab- binical education in various Lithuanian yeshi- vot. In Kovno, Bukantz studied under Yitshak Elhanan Spektor and Israel Salanter, and in the famous of the Musar movement, Slobodka,23 he studied under the guidance of Avraham Schenker, one of the students of Israel Salanter, and with Yitshak Blazer, the close friend of Amsterdam (see also Schenker 1931). Thus Bukantz, like Amsterdam and Werner-Homa, was linked to the Lithuanian

A picture of the third spiritual rabbi in Helsinki, Orthodox elite. In 1877, Bukantz mar- Abraham Werner-Homa, taken in St Petersburg. ried Lea Vershovski (1854–1923), He served in Helsinki during the Grand Duchy and they had four children. He received his of Finland and represented Lithuanian (Litvak) Jewish tradition. Finnish Jewish Archives, smikhah in 1884. National Archives of Finland. Although there is no information on how Bukantz was recruited as a rabbi in Helsinki, Homa worked in Helsinki for the whole his term lasted for more than thirty years and decade, until in 1891 he emigrated to the witnessed essential changes in the status of United Kingdom to become the first rabbi of the Jewish community. The first statutes of the Lithuanian Orthodox Machzike Hadath the congregation in Helsinki were approved community in London. In Helsinki he was by the governor of the province in 1903, sorely missed: ‘the Community was most and the synagogue was built in Helsinki in reluctant to let him depart for England, and 1905–6. In 1906, several turning points in the even after he had left they tried to persuade community reflected its change from a trad­ him to return’ (Homa 1953: 18–19). When itional society into a modern Jewish com- he visited Helsinki in 1899, the congrega- munity. The community reacted with cultural tion presented him with a goblet and renewal to such new ideologies as : a Hebrew poem praising his qualities. From the members founded a reform heder,24 a London, Homa took part in early Zionist activities and attended the First Zionist 23 On the Slobodka Yeshiva, see Stampfer Congress in in 1898 (ibid. 22.) A few (2012: 255–85). years after Homa’s death in 1912 (Amity 24 These schools were part of a Modern 3), the next rabbi chosen to lead Machzike system fostered by the Hadath was the famous Rav Avraham Rus­sian proto-Zionist Hovevei Zion Yitshak Kook. move­ment. Compared to the traditional hadarim, the curriculum contained also

16 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 sports association Stjärnan (later Makkabi), such openly ‘Reform’ elements in the second and a Yiddish-language cultural club. The ceremony, the congregation continued to fol- changes were initiated by the young mem- low East European Orthodoxy; Edelmann bers of the congregation and challenged the (2010b) interprets this as due to Bukantz’s old rabbinical authority. Some of the young influence. Jews also took part in the third conference Edelmann (2010b) shares some pieces of of Russian Zionists, which convened in information about Bukantz’s term as a rabbi Helsinki in 1906, later prompting the found- from the archives of the congregation: a year ing of Finnish Zionist associations (Muir after the Jewish school of Helsinki had been 2004: 32; Torvinen 1989: 79). founded in 1893, Bukantz suggested that all The building of the synagogue in the early Jewish children attend the school, including 1900s sparked a debate between those who the children of the families that could not wanted to follow the style of the Reform con- afford tuition. The rabbi’s salary also created gregations in and in , and problems for the economically struggling those who held on to traditional Judaism. The congregation: extra money had to be collected debate became public in the Russian Jewish from the congregants or via loans.26 In 1915, journal Hamelitz in early 1901,25 and Bukantz Bukantz established a society for a daily study was among the signatories on the side of the of the (Hevra ): on the first leaf traditionalists. Indeed, some members of the of the society’s pinkas (records), Bukantz is congregation had a desire to appear mod- titled as ha-Rav ha-Gaon, ‘the Great Rabbi’ ern in the eyes of Finnish society: when the (Edelmann 2010b). synagogue was festively opened on 30 August After the death of his first wife Rachel, 1906, the Reform rabbi Gottlieb Klein from Bukantz married Ester Levit (b. 1890) in was among the invited speakers. 1923. He retired in 1924, and two years later There were, in fact, two separate opening cer- the couple emigrated to Jerusalem, where emonies: the bringing of the Torah scrolls in some of Bukantz’s children were already liv- the morning, where both Bukantz and Klein ing. Bukantz passed away in Jerusalem in spoke, and a second ceremony in the after- 1938 (Edelmann 2010b). noon, targeted at the general public, with Finnish Christian guests present, and only * * * * * Klein held a sermon in Swedish. What is more, the prayers were conducted in Swedish In a draft for his ‘Commemorative Chronicle’, instead of Hebrew, and organ music was Weinstein draws some interesting conclu- played (Muir 2006). Despite the presence of sions about the formation of Finnish Jewish Orthodoxy during the time of these four rab- 27 secu­lar subjects, all taught in Hebrew bis representing Lithuanian Orthodoxy: (Muir 2004: 92–3). 25 See Hamelitz (16.1.1901 and 23.1.1901). Hamelitz (1860–1903) was the major 26 According to Weinstein (1956), the money Hebrew of Russian Jewry. Ehud for the salaries was collected through Luz (1988: 7) describes its significance: ‘All karobke (tax on kosher meat), pushke (alms the various streams, and the bitter wars of box) and neyder (self-made pledge). words that involved Russian Jewry, found 27 Several draft versions exist of Weinstein’s expression in this publication, which played ‘Commemorative Chronicle’, and it appears a more important role in Jewish public life that he cut and revised some parts quite than any of its rivals.’ extensively.

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 17 With Bukanz going on pension in 1924 independence of Finland the community and him leaving the country two years later, wanted to employ ‘an Orthodox, academic­ a nearly sixty-year-long period of rabanim ally trained rabbi’. It was desired that the of the old generations came to a conclu- rabbi should ‘correspond to the higher cul- sion, a period during which the congrega- tural development of the community’. We tion became stabilised as an Orthodox may ask whether there was also some societal Jewish community, with institutions based pressure for the Jewish community to employ on the religious-ethical principles: ‘Torah, academically trained rabbis as was the case worship and social help’. among the Lutheran ministers in Finland, who routinely held degrees from Finnish A Yiddish version of the same text, found universities. among Weinstein’s drafts, in many ways Linguistically and culturally, Jews in Hel­ renders the same information in a different sinki were acculturating themselves to the tone altogether: Weinstein claims that with Finnish-Swedish middle class and some had Bukantz’s leaving ‘our golden chain of pious achieved high-school and university- rabbis was broken’.28 One gets the impression education (Ekholm 2013: 70; Muir 2009: that, according to Weinstein, until then the 538). In 1918, the community founded a community had had strong spiritual leaders, modern Hebrew and Swedish-language co- but this state of affairs changed radically after educational school (Kantor et al. 2018: 27), Bukantz left. The Jewish community, now in and the years to follow saw the establishment the independent state of Finland, had new of many new cultural and political associa- and different ideas about what they expected tions. Many were supporters of various frac- from the rabbinate. tions of Zionism, mostly moderate General Zionism (Torvinen 1989: 128; Muir 2004: The Academics: 32, 47–8). Very tight Orthodoxy simply did rabbis after the independence of Finland not fit the lifestyle of Jews in Helsinki any more. Revealing is the notion by the Latvian After the independence of Finland in 1917, author Herman Morat (1928), who vis- the status of the Finnish Jews changed dras- ited Helsinki at the end of the 1920s, that tically. Besides granting Jews the right to only half of the Jews in Helsinki were apply for Finnish citizenship, the Law for (Yiddish ‘religious’), the rest being halb-frum the Citizens of Mosaic Faith, passed on 12 (‘semi-religious’). January 1918, allowed Jews to establish con- Apparently the idea of having a modern gregations officially (Torvinen 1989: 107, Orthodox rabbi arose much earlier. Around 243). On 19 December the same year, the the mid-1890s the Jewish community sent Helsinki council accepted the statutes of Abraham Engel (1877–1928), who was con- the Jewish Community of Helsinki and the sidered as an illui, a Talmudic prodigy, to the congregation was added to the register of the Slobodka Yeshiva in Kovno, to follow in the religious communities in Finland (Weinstein footsteps of Werner-Homa and Bukantz 1956). According to Weinstein, after the (Kantor et al. 2018: 24). However, after a while, the community decided to send him to continue his rabbinical studies in . 28 In Weinstein’s own Latinisation: ‘hot sich Engel enrolled in the Berlin Rabbinical bai uns obgebrochn di goldene keit fun rabonim-zadikim’. Seminary, directed by Asriel Hildesheimer.

18 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 This seminary, reflecting a positive atti- Scholem Treistman was also the first tude towards Western culture, had become rabbi in Helsinki with a Polish Hasidic the centre for training Orthodox rabbis in background. He was born in Żelechów, in Europe. The curriculum contained academic south-eastern Poland, in 1892, to a family of study of Judaism, and it was expected that Gur Hasidim. Treistman’s father, Eliezer Leib the students should continue their general Yehuda (d. 1920), had been the leading rabbi education at a university level. Hildesheimer of Łódź, first substituting and after 1912 believed that they had to directly confront replacing the famous rabbi Eliya Hayyim views opposed to tradition and to be con- Maizel (Kirshenboim 2007: 157). Edelmann vinced that Orthodoxy was in accord with (2006d) sheds further light on Treistman’s the highest standards of modern scholar- biography: in 1912, he married Chana (b. ship (Shapiro 1999: 76–8). However, Engel 1894), the daughter of a wealthy industrial, abandoned the plan to become a rabbi and Mordechai Münzberg, and studied for two continued his studies in a university, eventu- years in the yeshiva of Ostrowiec,29 supported ally earning a doctor’s degree in chemistry by his father-in-law. During the First World (Kantor et al. 2018: 30). War, Treistman stayed in Łódź, where his So strong was the desire to begin the new father was employed as the chief rabbi. In era with a clean slate that when Bukantz his youth, he had become acquainted with retired in 1924, the community leaders did the ‘Illui of ’, Hayyim Heller, and in not want him to remain in Finland. According 1923–6 he studied in Heller’s Bet to Weinstein’s drafts for his ‘Commemorative ha-Elyon in Berlin together with his brother Chronicle’, this was done ‘so that his remain- Simha (b. 1904). This highly exclusive school ing would not, God forbid, disturb the for rabbinical studies attracted Lithuanian work of the new rabbi’. Both Weinstein and and Polish yeshiva graduates, including the Torvinen discuss three Orthodox rabbis with famous Modern Orthodox philosopher J. B. an academic background who served the Soloveitchik in the late 1920s. There is no Jewish community between the world wars information about where Treistman received and during the immediate post-war years. his doctoral degree.30 These rabbis were Scholem Treistman, Simon After Bukantz’s retirement, the congre- Federbusch and Elieser Berlinger. gation had sent Abraham Engel to Berlin to examine three candidates for the rabbinate Scholem Treistman (1892–1963), in 1927 (Edelmann 2006d: 24). The chosen rabbi 1928–9 rabbi was Treistman, who came to Helsinki in 1928 with his family. His wife Chana Scholem Treistman’s nomination launched became a member of Hevra Biqqur Holim, the period of the ‘Orthodox, academically educated rabbis’ in Helsinki. Treistman was chosen precisely for having a doctoral degree 29 There are several towns called Ostrowiec in Poland. Most likely this Ostrowiec was and a rabbinic education in Germany, the located in the Radom district in eastern hub of Modern Orthodoxy. The congrega- Poland. tion was so thrilled to have Treistman as 30 According to Edelmann (2006d: 25), their new rabbi that they received him with Treistman had studied in universities in a Torah scroll as his ship docked in Helsinki Berlin and in ; the newspaper Kar- jala (23.11.1931), discussing Treistman’s (Weinstein 1956). case, adds the University of Würzburg.

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 19 and their children enrolled in the Jewish and two of his four children perished in the school (Amity 4). Treistman’s appointment Warsaw or in Treblinka (Fuchs 1961: in Helsinki lasted one year only: according to 134).34 Edelmann (2006d), the congregation began After repatriation from the Soviet Union, to doubt Treistman’s smikhah and raised sus- Treistman had a central role in rebuilding picions concerning his doctoral degree.31 religious life in Poland and became a member After an investigation, they claimed that his of the chief rabbinate (Fuchs 1961: 134). He diplomas were not sufficient for the posi- was the first director of the Religious Union tion.32 In 1929, Treistman was fired, accused of the Mosaic Faith in Poland, founded in of having misled the congregation with false 1949 and financed by the American Jewish information (Weinstein 1956). Joint Distribution Committee (Aleksiun Despite the unpleasant episode in Hel­ 2003: 840). In 1952, Treistman moved to sinki, Treistman began a successful career as Israel, publishing articles for the Yiddish- a rabbi in Poland, working at least in Warsaw language newspaper Letste nayes and writing (Fuchs 1961: 134).33 Already in his youth in poetry in Yiddish and in Hebrew. Treistman Łódź, Treistman had been a religious Zionist died in in 1963 (Fuchs 1972: 36). activist (Edelmann 2006d), and in the 1930s he became the co-founder of a society called Simon Federbusch (1892–1969), Yeshurun, politically close to right-wing rabbi 1931–40 Revi­­sionist Zionists. When the Second World War broke out he fled to Białystok. In Simon Federbusch was the next academic 1940, Treistman was arrested by the Soviets rabbi that the congregation in Helsinki re­­ and sent to a labour camp in the Arkhangelsk cruited. Federbusch was born in Narol, region, where he survived the war. His wife eastern Galicia, in 1892. At the time, Narol had its own Hasidic dynasty. Federbusch’s father Zwi was a scholar and a lawyer, and his mother Cherna an offspring of a pres- 31 Treistman had presented recommenda- tigious family of rabbis (Edelmann 2006b). tion letters from several rabbis. In the Federbusch received his first smikhah at the traditional East European Jewish con- age of 17 from the Hasidic rabbi of Berezhyn, text, receiving smikhah did not require attendance in a certain school but, rather, Sholom Mordechai Schwadron (1835–1911). gathering relevant amounts of informa- In Berezhyn, 180 kilometres east of Narol, tion from classic Jewish sources and being Schwadron headed the local yeshivah, Tushiya. examined by a (prestigious) rabbi who There is no information on where Federbusch would then give the smikhah. On this pro- cess, see Stampfer (2012: 41). resided during the First World War but it is 32 According to Edelmann (2006c), when evident there were major changes in his life: Treistman was employed in Helsinki, the in 1923, he obtained another smikhah from congregation felt that he was not keeping the Israelitisch-theologische Lehranstalt, a his end of the contract, for example by not Conservative rabbinical teachers’ seminar showing up at synagogue service. 33 Information about Treistman’s later founded in 1893 in Vienna. He also held a circumstances comes from the works of Chaim-Leib Fuchs (1897–1984), a Yiddish journalist and author who after the war 34 Treistman’s grandniece Dor Treistman wrote about East European , has submitted pages of testimony to Yad especially in Łódź. Vashem concerning the fate of the family.

20 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 Rabbi Simon Federbusch, on the first row with a black hat and a cane, attending the meeting of the Scandinavian Jewish Youth Association (SJUF) in front of the Finnish Parliament in Helsinki in 1936. Federbusch represented rabbis with academic and Western education during the first decades of Finnish independence. Finnish Jewish Archives, National Archives of Finland. doctoral degree but there is no information (Torvinen 1989: 115–16). Soon Federbusch about which university it was from.35 After became a visible figure in Finnish society as his graduation in 1923, he moved to Lwów well as internationally, making public state- () and became an editor at several Zion­ist ments, for example, against the rise of anti- publications. In 1928, he married the daugh- semitism. He wrote a work dissecting the ter of a Viennese rabbi, Taube Toni Horo­ famous Russian hoax, The Protocols of the Elders witz (1906–2006) (Edelmann 2006c: 40; of Zion, and in the Finnish Parliament acted Edelmann 2009/10: 235; Sherman 1996: 64). against the plans to outlaw ritual slaughter. Federbusch arrived in Finland in 1931, In 1935, he took part in a European confer- and in 1933 he was appointed as the first chief ence of chief rabbis in London, which dealt rabbi of Finland.36 At the same time a new with the Nazi threat, and initiated joint con- organisation, the Central Council of Jewish ferences for Nordic rabbis: the first meeting Communities in Finland, was established to convened in in January 1937 cover all the Finnish Jewish congregations (Edelmann and Muir 2010). Since his youth, Federbusch had been active in several religious Zionist organisa- 35 He had studied in universities in Vienna, tions and would continue to be a devoted Kraków and Lwów (Fuchs 1968: 411). 36 This is apparently the first time the title is Zionist for the rest of his life. Already as a used. student in Vienna he founded a Zionist

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 21 youth group, and in 1922 he was elected to In , Federbusch became the the Polish Sejm as a representative of the head of a Bronx-based yeshivah named after Jewish national wing.37 Two years later he Israel Salanter, the founder of the Musar became the head of the religious Zionist movement, and took part in the activities of organisation Mizrachi of Galicia. In the several religious Zionist organisations. Feder­ 1930s, Federbusch represented the Finnish busch died in New York in 1969 and was bur- Jewish­­ community in the meetings of the ied in Jerusalem (Edelmann and Muir 2010). Zion­­ist World Congress (Edelmann and Muir 2010). An avid promoter of Modern Elieser Berlinger (1904–1985), Heb­rew, Federbusch became a founding rabbi 1946–51 member of Ha-qlub ha-ivri (‘Hebrew club’) as well as increasing the role of religion in Elieser Berlinger is clearly a case of his own the Jewish school in Helsinki (Kantor et al. in the series of Finnish rabbis: he was the only 2018: 47). As has been discussed above, dur- one born in Germany. Berlinger was born in ing the 1930s the Finnish Jewish commu- Illingen, Saarland, in 1904, and graduated nity was becoming increasingly secularised. from the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary in 1928, Federbusch continued a strongly Orthodox the same school where the Finnish Talmudic stance and was outspoken against assimila- prodigy Abraham Engel had studied in the tion. In 1937, he submitted a taqqanah (reli- 1890s. Berlinger worked as a rabbi first in gious ruling) forbidding husbands in mixed Schönlanke (Trzcianka), Posen (1923–32),38 marriages to rise to the podium to read the and in Malmö, Sweden (1932–46). During Torah or to take part in the celebration of bne the war, he took part in the rescue operation mitsvah (Torvinen 1989: 127). of Danish Jews in 1943, and after the war he At the end of the Winter War (1939– helped Jewish refugees in Malmö.39 40), Federbusch emigrated to the United From Malmö, Berlinger was invited States, and his departure left many of the to Helsinki to be the main speaker when congregants feeling abandoned. During the the Finnish president, Carl Gustaf Emil Continuation War (1941–4), when Finland Mannerheim, visited the Helsinki syna- was de facto allied with , gogue on 6 .40 In his speech, Finland’s indigenous Jewish population took Berlinger commemorated the fallen Jewish part in the country’s war efforts against the soldiers and expressed gratitude towards Soviet Union. After the deportation of eight Mannerheim (Weinstein 1956). Incidentally, Jewish refugees on 6 November 1942 to Nazi the event mirrored the opening ceremony of Germany, rumours about the precarious situ- the Helsinki synagogue in 1906 with some ation of Jews in Finland started to circulate in non-Orthodox elements: both occasions the American press. On 17 December 1943, included Finnish esteemed guests, an invited Federbusch sent a telegram to the Finnish speaker from Sweden and prayers in Swedish. Foreign Ministry urging them to rebut these rumours by publishing an article in the American press (Torvinen 1984: 220). 38 Bart Wallet, personal communication. 39 See ‘Eliezer Berlinger is dead’, in Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 6.11.1985. 40 At this point, Finland had signed the Mos- 37 He was a member of the Sejm between cow Armistice, and the Continuation War 1922–8 (Hadas 2007: 727–8). had ended.

22 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 After Federbusch’s departure the con- set up a tribunal with Rabbi Berlinger and gregation had been left without a rabbi for two lawyers, referred to in some documents the duration of the war. Weinstein (1956) as a bet din (rabbinic court), to investigate notes that during the times when the con- Szczęśliwy’s actions during the war. The goal gregation was left without a rabbi, Mordechai was to decide whether Szczęśliwy had com- Schwartzman (1875–1951), who came from mitted crimes against humanity. If deemed Šiuliai, Lithuania, was seen as its spiritual guilty, his application for membership of head: he worked as the mohel (circumciser), the congregation would be declined. The shohet (slaughterer) and kantor for forty- investigation dragged on until 1953 when five years (1901–46). Berlinger received an Szczęśliwy was accepted as a member (Muir invitation for the rabbinate during his visit 2016b: 239–46). in Helsinki, and in 1946, he was appointed Berlinger decided to leave Finland in as the chief rabbi. With a smikhah from a 195142 and moved to Amsterdam to work Modern Orthodox seminary in Berlin, he as a rabbi. Three years later he was appointed obviously met the requirements of the con- as the chief rabbi of , covering most gregation. During his time in Helsinki, Ber­ of the , excluding Amsterdam, linger in some cases approved children born and . Berlinger was to non-Jewish mothers as Jewish after tevilah, a moderate Orthodox and an activist in the immersion in the ritual bath, between the religious Zionist movement Mizrachi, and ages of four and seven (Czimbalmos 2018: he strove to value the customs specific to the 169). In 1950, Berlinger sent a question to Dutch Jewish community.43 Berlinger died in the former head of his alma mater, Berlin Utrecht in 1985. Rabbinical Seminary, Yehiel Yacob Weinberg (1884–1966), asking whether it was permit- * * * * * ted to continue the tradition of the Qiddush ritual (sanctification blessing recived over In the draft versions of his ‘Commemorative wine) in the Helsinki synagogue after the Chronicle’, Weinstein is open and critic­al pause caused by the war: Weinberg’s answer towards Treistman, Federbusch and Berlinger. was affirmative (Edelmann 2009/10: 58–9).41 Weinstein writes: After the war, trials against German per­petrators and their collaborators began. Unfortunately one cannot say that the In Finland, Berlinger was involved in one new era with ‘Orthodox, academically of the cases. Maks Szczęśliwy, a survivor of trained rabbis’ resulted in an elevation of the Shoah living in Finland, had been the the religious life in the community; quite head of the Food Supply Department in the the opposite. This is because none of them, Łódź Ghetto and a close associate of Chaim during the last thirty years since Bukanz Rumkowski, the infamous Jewish leader of left the community, acted as its spiritual the ghetto. The Central Council of Jewish leader, or seemed to live up to their calling. Communities in Finland decided in 1949 to 42 Weinstein (1956) claims that the relations 41 Berlinger was hesitant because the renewal between Berlinger and the congregation of the ritual may be understood as a bless- had become strained, without, however, ing recited unnecessarily. The correspon- supplying any details. dence is published in Weinberg’s classic 43 Bart Wallet, personal communication; see responsa collection, Seride esh. also van Bekkum and Brasz 2007: 108.

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 23 Weinstein was especially critical of Central Council of Jewish Communities in Federbusch, saying that during his time Finland, from the early 1950s on, abstained he was more ‘Dr Federbusch than Rabbi from joining organisations, accepting invi- Federbusch’. It is interesting why Weinstein, tations to international meetings and sign- who himself was not so religious and had ing communiqués that criticised the Soviet studied in a university, would be so critical Union for its treatment of Jews. This new towards these academic rabbis and so posi- post-war situation made the recruitment of tive about the old-school Orthodox rabbis. rabbis and people with expertise in Judaism Similar thinking was, however, widespread. in general even more challenging. It became According to Shapiro (1999: 35), ‘Nostalgic obvious that for foreign Jews, Finland, where yearning for the days of old when the author- there were several periods of fear that the ity of the rabbi was thought to have been Soviets might occupy the country, was not a unquestioned and held sacred by his flock desirable destination (Muir 2016a: 199). has always been the rabbinic response to Between 1956 and 1982 three rabbis communal usurpation of the rabbi’s power’. served in Helsinki: Mika Weiss, Shmuel Ultimately, for Weinstein, and possibly for Beeri and Mordechai Lanxner. Even though many others of his generation, the three aca- these rabbis came to Finland via various demic rabbis were not ‘a beginning for a new countries, there were several things they had golden chain of rabbis’ but the decline of the in common: they had studied in Europe, ‘golden age’ of the rabbinate. they had Hungarian background, and they were Shoah survivors. So far, very little has The Shoah survivors: been discovered about their background: rabbis during the Cold War Torvinen mentions them only in passing and Edelmann did not include them in his During the Second World War, the Finnish series of articles in Hakehila. We have gath- Jewish community lost contact with the for- ered information about these rabbis from one mer Jewish communities in the Baltic coun- autobiography and our contacts abroad, as tries and Poland, where the members of the well as encyclopedias. community originated from and where the rabbis and religious workers had previously Mika Weiss (1913–2001), rabbi 1957–61 been recruited from. Jewish communities and centres were in ruins, and the surviving rem- After Berlinger’s departure for Utrecht in nant was soon cut off from the West by the 1951, the congregation was left without Iron Curtain. Though among the Western a rabbi for six years.44 The next recruit had countries, in the post-war volatile political been ordained as a rabbi in in 1941, situation Finland fell into the Soviet zone of interest, which affected Finnish foreign policy throughout the Cold War. Torvinen 44 Difficulties in hiring rabbis were quite common in other European congrega- (1989: 178–86) shows how the Finnish tions, as well. For example, the congre- Jewish community tried to navigate between gation of Machzike ha-Dath in London the East and the West, in order not to upset where Homa served as a rabbi had similar the delicate relation Finland had with her problems: when Homa’s successor Rav eastern neighbour. In practice this meant Kook left office 1919, the next rabbi was hired only in 1932 (see Machzike ha-Dath that the Finnish Jewish communities and the community, ‘Rav and History’).

24 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 and held a doctorate from the Pázmány chief rabbi of Orosháza in one of its Neolog Péter Catholic University in Budapest. As a congregations (ibid. 10–11, 46–7). modern, academic rabbi, he met the previ- In 1943, despite being a rabbi, Weiss was ous requirements of the congregation for the taken to forced labour for a period of a month. position well. As a new turn of events, how- When Nazi Germany began to exterminate ever, Weiss also became the first rabbi with Hungarian Jews in spring 1944, Weiss was openly liberal leanings, and his smikhah was imprisoned, taken to and marched from a Neolog seminary in Budapest. through various labour camps, including Weiss described the main phases of his Maut­hausen. After the war, he returned to life in his autobiography (2005).45 Mika Hun­gary and became the chief rabbi of the (Miksa) Weiss (originally Weiszman) was Debrecen Neolog congregation. Almost born in 1913 in Kiskunfélegyháza, 135 kilo- everyone in his original congregation in metres south-east of Budapest. Weiss came Oro­sháza had been murdered in Auschwitz from a strictly Orthodox home: his father (Weiss 2005: 81, 103). Ferenc Weiszman had studied in The post-war years were hard for the under an Orthodox rabbi, and his mother, surviving Hungarian Jews, struggling with Teréz Hollander, came from a family of rab- the immense loss after the Shoah. Weiss bis. Weiss had four siblings; half of the family describes several antisemitic incidents and perished in the Shoah (Weiss 2005: 13–14). seizure of Jewish property in Debrecen by the From a young age Weiss was attracted to Communist regime. After the 1956 revolu- liberal versions of Judaism despite his fam- tion, Weiss with his wife Marika (née Brüll, ily’s Orthodox background. While Weiss’s b. 1924) and a newborn baby began to look upbringing was strictly Orthodox, he notes for rabbinic positions outside the country. He that he always yearned to be a ‘modern, received a reply from Kurt Wilhelm (1900– flexible, conservative46 Rabbi’ (Weiss 2005: 65), the chief rabbi of the liberal Jewish con- 10–11). For his rabbinical education he gregation in Stockholm, and learned about a enrolled in the National Jewish Theological position in Helsinki. He was invited for an Seminary, a Neolog rabbinical seminary interview in June 1957 and soon received the in Budapest, established in 1877. Even official offer for the rabbinate. Weiss moved before graduating, Weiss accepted a posi- to Finland with his family, and in 1959, he tion as an assistant rabbi in the small town was appointed as the chief rabbi of Finland. of Orosháza. As rabbis were exempted from In his autobiography, Weiss repeatedly the harsh labour camps forced by the state states that he is not Orthodox (for example, on Hungarian Jewish men, he had obtained Weiss 2005: 128). Why did he choose to a false smikhah from a ‘diploma mill’. In 1941, come to Helsinki to work for an Orthodox Weiss finally received his rabbinical ordin­ congregation, and why did the board in ation, and was officially appointed as the Helsinki hire a Neolog rabbi from and later nominate him as the chief rabbi of Finland? These questions puzzled Weiss 45 The book is based on a Hungarian version Amíg erőmből telik published in Debrecen in himself, who notes (ibid. 152) that the 1995. board made a conscious choice by choosing 46 Weiss’s term ‘conservative’ refers to Neolog a non-Orthodox rabbi. During his inter- Judaism, a movement formed in Hungary view in Helsinki, Weiss succinctly notes the in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced by German . Litvak features of Finnish Orthodoxy: ‘They

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 25 practiced their Judaism very strangely’ (ibid. in hospitals and prisons until his retirement 138). For the Jews of Helsinki, Weiss also in the 1990s (Weiss 2005: 193ff.). appeared ‘strange’. At the synagogue, one of the congregants jokingly cast doubts on the Shmuel Beeri (1905–?), rabbi 1961–3 ‘Jewishness’ of the future rabbi in Yiddish: ‘Rabbi, you don’t know what gefilte fishis? You After Mika Weiss’s departure, Shmuel don’t speak Yiddish? Tell me, are you really a () Beeri with a smikhah from a Central Jew?’ (Weiss 2055: 136).47 European Orthodox yeshivah represented a Against the backdrop of Finland’s own return towards Orthodoxy. Like Weiss, Beeri volatile political situation it is intriguing was a Hungarian Jew; he was, however, the that Weiss chose to come to Finland. On the first rabbi to arrive in Helsinki from Israel. other hand, his autobiography shows that the Beeri was born in 1905 in Sziget (Sighetu family lacked other options. The ambiguity Marmației) in Máramaros (Maramureş), of Weiss’s situation is observable between then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the lines: although he repeatedly commends and after 1920, of . Not much infor- Finland as a ‘free country’, he also refers to mation is available about Beeri’s background: a constant feeling of ‘uncomfortableness’ his father’s name was Josef Beeri (Stein),49 (Weiss 2005: 137–8, 151). During his 1961 and he was married twice; with Meriam trip to the United States, his wife sent him a Weisberg he had one daughter.50 Beeri tele­gram from Stockholm warning him not received his smikhah from the prestigious to return, as the ‘Russians have threatened Pressburg Yeshivah,51 established in 1803 by Finland’, and claiming that most Jews had the rabbi and scholar Sofer (Hatam already fled the country48 (ibid. 183). Weiss Sofer). Pressburg () was one of the never returned to Helsinki and applied for a most influential yeshivot, educating gener­ green card. The congregation in Helsinki was ations of Hungarian Jewish rabbis and culti- reluctant to see the family leave, and Weiss vating Hungarian Orthodoxy.52 (ibid. 189–91) later regretted leaving without Before the Second World War, almost a proper goodbye and sent a letter explaining 30 per cent of the population in Sziget were his decisions. Jewish. In 1940, Máramaros was annexed In the United States, Weiss was first hired back to Hungary with serious implica- as a rabbi in Flemington, New Jersey, and later tions for local Jews: as many of them had in the Conservative Temple B’nai Hayim in Sherman Oaks, California. Settling in the United States, he also worked as a chaplain 49 According to a Dutch genealogy site, the father’s last name was Stein; see ‘Family page’ at DutchJewry.org website. 47 At the time the congregation was also 50 See Amity 5 and ‘Family page’ at Dutch- becoming increasingly secular: an Israeli Jewry.org website. The famous Israeli- Hebrew teacher at the Jewish school in American Malovany (b. Helsinki, Yaakov Frank (1956), claims that 1941, Tel Aviv), is the son of Beeri’s sister, hardly anyone kept the . Freyda (née Stein) (see ‘Joseph Malovany’). 48 Marika Weiss probably referred to the 51 Bart Wallet, personal communication. so-called Note Crisis in October 1961, a 52 Traditionally, there were three types of political crisis worsening Soviet–Finnish Orthodox yeshivot in Europe: Hasidic, relations. It is not known whether any Jews Lithuanian and Hungarian (Stampfer left Finland because of the crisis. 2012: 10).

26 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 Rabbi Shmuel Beeri in the middle of the picture with Cantor Abraham Schwartzman on the left. Beeri, born in Sziget in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1905, was a survivor of the Shoah and arrived in Finland in 1961 after working as a teacher and a rabbi in Israel. Finnish Jewish Archives, National Archives of Finland.

Galician roots, many were deported as ‘for- of Israel. He also co-authored a book on eign’ to Poland and consequently murdered, with the first leader of the and young Jewish men were imprisoned in Ethiopian Jewish community, Yona Bogale, Hun­garian labour camps (Gross and Cohen in Amharic.55 Beeri stayed in until 1983). There is no information how Beeri 1956 (Bard 2002: 11). survived the Nazi mass murders that began In the early 1960s, Beeri was invited from in spring 1944.53 After the war he emigrated Israel to Helsinki to work as a rabbi. This was to Israel, where he worked as the head of a the beginning of recruitment of rabbis with an yeshiah­ in Safed and as a high-school teacher Israeli background and later on, with Israeli in Ramat Gan.54 rabbinical education (Torvinen 1989: 187). In In 1953, Beeri travelled to Asmara (now 1961, Beeri was appointed as the chief rabbi the capital of Eritrea) to found a school for of Finland. The most public event during his the local Jewish community as part of the assignment was his memorial speech after the initiative of the president, Yizhak Ben-Zvi, death of President Ben-Zvi in the synagogue to connect Ethiopian Jewry to the State with President Urho Kekkonen present in April 1963 (Torvinen 1989). After serving only two years, Beeri, mirroring the path of 53 We lack any details about his whereabouts Berlinger, left Helsinki to be appointed as the during the Shoah, although, according to some sources, he suffered a great deal during the Shoah and afterwards (see, for example, Ha-Tsofeh, 6.8.1958). 55 Hage yisrael: rosh ha-shanah, yom ha-kippu- 54 Bart Wallet, personal communication. rim, sukkot (Asmara, 1954).

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 27 chief rabbi of The Hague in 1963. There is no Nazi-occupied Galicia in the north, where information about the year of his death but thousands of Hungarian Jews were murdered he probably returned to Israel after retiring in 1941. There is no information whether in 1970.56 Lanxner’s family was under a threat of expul- sion or whether Lanxner was taken to forced Mordechai Lanxner (1914–83), labour.59 deputy rabbi 1968–73, rabbi 1973–82 In 1944, many of Lanxner’s family mem- bers were murdered in Auschwitz. Lanxner Like Weiss and Beeri, Lanxner was a Hun­ supplied the names of the Lanxner-Veis fam- garian survivor of the Shoah who lost many ily in the Ruszkova memory book (Moskovitz members of his family during the war. Like 1969/70: 108) and in the Yad Vashem Beeri, he was from Máramaros and came to Central Database of Shoah Victims. In 1950, Finland via Israel. As opposed to the other Lanxner emigrated to Israel and worked as two Hungarian rabbis, however, Lanxner was a licensed shohet (Hakehila 3/1983). Lanxner educated in Hasidic yeshivot in Hungary and was married to Hazenfratz (b. 1914), Romania, and in his obituary he is designated and they had three children (Amity 6). as ‘an old-school ’ (Hakehila 3/1983). After Beeri had left in 1963, the con- Mordechai Shimon (Marku Schimon) gregation in Helsinki was actively trying to Lanx­ner (Veis) was born in 1914 in Ruszkova find a more permanent rabbi: both Weiss (Ruscova), 50 kilometers south-east of Sziget. and Beeri had stayed in Finland for only two Most of the Jewish population in Ruszkova years. In 1967, Lanxner moved from Israel were Vishnitz Hasidim. The town boasted a to Finland to become the shohet of the com- large yeshivah founded in the late 1920s by munity (Hakehila 3/1983). Lanxner did not Abraham Shlomo Katz. The yeshivah followed speak Finnish or Swedish and held his ser- the style of Hungarian yeshivot in its teaching in Yiddish (Muir 2009: 540), and while schedule but with strong Hasidic influences. he was respectfully referred to as kantor rav, In the memorial book of the Shoah victims of in the late 1960s the congregation contin- Ruszkova, Lanxner – as the rabbi of Helsinki ued to search for a rabbi.60 Finally in 1973, – is counted among the pupils of the school Lanxner was nominated for the full position. (Moskovitz 1969/70: 10–15, 20–1). Lanxner During Lanxner’s term, synagogue ser- continued his studies in the Kishinev Hasidic vices suffered from a lack of participants, yeshivah, and in 1938, received his smikhah at causing difficulties in establishing the age of 24 (Hakehila 3/1983).57 (ten men required for Jewish public wor- In 1940, Máramaros was annexed to ship). Many congregants called for a more Hun­gary. As mentioned above in Beeri’s case, equal status for women during the synagogue even before the Nazi deportations to Ausch­ witz began in 1944, Jews in Máramaros were expelled en masse as ‘foreigners’58 to the to Ruszkova from western Galicia in the nineteenth century (Moskovitz 1969/70: 10–11). 59 The same questions could be asked of 56 Bart Wallet, personal communication. Beeri, who was born in Sziget and whose 57 Kishinev (Chișinău, the present capital of circumstances during the Shoah are not Moldova) had a Hasidic yeshivah in oper­ known to us. ation since 1860 (Moskovich 2010). 60 Mercédesz Czimbalmos, personal commu- 58 Most of the Jews of the town had migrated nication.

28 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 service, and the rising rate of intermarriages and Lanxner was an ‘old-school’ Hasid. Their caused debates (Torvinen 1989: 212–13, appointments reflect how difficult it was for 216.) During the and 1980s, more than the Helsinki congregation to find a com- one hundred persons joined the congregation mon line in its recruitment policy. After the after converting (Harviainen 1989: 164–5). Shoah, old connections in Europe had been According to Lanxner’s obituary in Hakehila severed, and in the case of Beeri and Lanxner, (3/1983), he ‘showed great flexibility and the congregation now turned towards Israel adaptability towards changed conditions in a in its search for rabbis. way that fortified the continuity of the con- gregation, without breaking halakhah’; nev- Conclusions ertheless, some of his decisions – probably on conversions – were apparently criticised out- We have shown that through its rabbis the side Finland. After retiring in 1982, Lanxner small Helsinki Jewish congregation, osten- moved back to Israel, where he died in 1983 sibly on the periphery of the wider Jewish (Hakehila 3/1983). world, was closely connected to the Jewish centres in Eastern and as * * * * * well as the . Beginning from its early days, the community became involved in All three rabbis of our last period were the major internal developments of European Hungarian Shoah survivors. In the 1990s, Jewry. Weiss was interviewed about his experiences All of the ten rabbis recruited to Helsinki during the Shoah and was able to describe between 1862 and 1982, except for one, them in retrospect in his autobiography. were Orthodox. The first rabbis, who dur- Beeri and Lanxner, however, emerge from our ing the Grand Duchy of Finland rooted sources as more enigmatic cases. There is not the Minhag Polin, the traditional Ashkenazi much information available about what hap- synagogue service, in Helsinki, represented pened to these two survivors from Máramaros East European and Lithuanian Orthodoxy. during the war or in the immediate years After Finnish independence in 1917, the following it. Before the 1980s, silence sur- community sought academically trained rab- rounding the trauma of the genocide was not bis that represented Modern Orthodoxy: uncommon among the survivors, and in the this was in congruence with the social and Finnish sources of the late 1950s up to the cultural development of the community. early 1980s, the wartime experiences of these Whereas Jac Weinstein, Taimi Torvinen and three rabbis are never discussed. The silence Moshe Edelmann have offered fairly exten- over the Shoah is palpable, for example, in sive descriptions of the rabbinate during the the fact that in Lanxner’s 1983 Finnish obit- Russian rule and the first decades after 1917, uary in Hakehila his survivor background is the third period of the rabbis in our period­ not mentioned. isation has so far remained less well known. Each of the three rabbis represented On the basis of various existing accounts a different type of a spiritual leader for we have demonstrated that after the Second the Helsinki congregation. Weiss with his World War the community struggled to keep Neolog background seemed to herald a turn a consistent line: among the three rabbis, all towards liberal Judaism, while Beeri had a of whom were Hungarian-born Shoah survi- trad­itional Hungarian Orthodox education, vors, one was a liberal Neolog rabbi, one was

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 29 modern Orthodox, and one had traditional contributory factor here may be that for Hasidic background. small communities Orthodoxy functions as a Almost all the rabbis of Helsinki were common denominator, while a Reform con- active in religious Zionist movements. Among gregation would exclude Orthodox Jews.62 the ‘spiritual rabbis’, Aba Homa attended sev- As we have shown, the first debates about eral Zionist conferences and was indirectly the denomination took place as long ago as connected to Rav Kook, the emblematic fig- 1901, when a group of congregants wanted urehead for . Later in life, to adopt , as was the case, for Amsterdam, Schain and Bukantz migrated instance, in the capital of the neighbouring to Jerusalem. After the 1906 Zionist confer- Sweden that the Helsinki community held ence in Helsinki, the Finnish Jewish commu- in high regard. Similar debates about chang- nity was becoming more aware of the various ing the denomination have appeared on the political streams of Zionism. All three ‘aca- pages of the community’s journal Hakehila at demic’ rabbis were Modern Orthodox and the beginning of the twenty-first century, as active in religious Zionist parties promoting congregants have discussed the discrepancy Jewish nationalism, or were even founding between the official Orthodoxy of the con- members of Zionist societies both in Finland gregation and the daily religiosity, lifestyle and abroad. Of our last series of rabbis, Beeri and views of its members. and Lanxner had migrated to Israel after the As we have demonstrated, the rabbis and war, and both returned there after retirement. their backgrounds in many ways reflect the Whenever possible, we have paid atten- community and the changes that have taken tion to the families and wives of rabbis. place among the Jews of Helsinki. However, Naftali Amsterdam’s wife Rivka, for ex­ample, more research is needed to understand how was for a long period the sole person in the rabbis influenced the religious customs charge of the family’s bakery while her hus- and the ‘lived religion’ of the congregants. band worked as a rabbi. This reflects an eco- The Jewish Community of Helsinki is unique nomical pattern typical for East European with its Cantonist history and roots in East Jewish families with yeshivah graduates as European Litvak traditions. Perhaps it is this son-in-laws. However, often our sources are legacy and identity that has upheld, despite completely silent about domestic issues: more everything, a continuous string – a ‘golden research is needed on the women’s role in a chain’– of Orthodox rabbis.  world apparently dominated by men, especi­ ally in the Nordic context during the period we have studied. Despite secularisation, acculturation, vot. Since 1982 Ove Schwartz (1982–7), mixed marriages and several discussions about Lazar Kleinman (–1992), Michael Aloni changing the denomination of the congre­ (1995–6), Moshe Edelmann (1999–2012) gation to become more liberal, the commu- and Simon Livson (2012–) have served in Helsinki. Besides the rabbi of the Jewish nity has upheld Orthodoxy and employed 61 Community of Helsinki there is currently Orthodox rabbis to this day. A possible also a Hasidic rabbi, Rabbi Benjamin Wolff (2003–) of Lubavitch Finland. 62 We can see a similar situation in the 61 The Jewish Community of Helsinki has Jewish Community, where the synagogue is continued to employ Orthodox rabbis, Orthodox while most of the members are most of who have studied in Israeli yeshi- not (Stene 2012: 149).

30 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 Rabbis in Helsinki 1867–1982

Name Rabbi in Born in Rabbinical Denomin­ Academic Destin­ Helsinki education* ation** studies ation after Finland Naftali Amsterdam 1867–75 1832, Salantai, Rabbinical stud­ Lithuanian No Lithuania, Lithuania, ies in Vilna and Orthodox Palestine Kovno Avrohom Schain 1876–81 1841/2, Novo Not known Lithuanian No Scotland, Aleksandrovsk Orthodox Palestine (Zarasai), Lithu­ ania, Russian Empire Abraham Werner- 1881–91 1836, Telšiai, Rabbinical stud­ Lithuanian No UK Homa Lithuania, Russian ies in Žagarė Orthodox Empire and Telšiai, Lithuania Shmuel Noson 1892– 1857, Šėta, Slobodka Lithuanian No Palestine Bukantz 1924 Lithu­ania, Russian Yeshivah, Kovno Orthodox Empire

Scholem Treistman 1928–9 1892, Żelechów, Ostrowiec Hasidic / In Berlin and Poland, Poland, Russian Yeshivah / Bet Modern in Vienna Israel Empire Midrash Orthodox (apparently ha-Elyon, Berlin without a degree) Simon Federbusch 1931–40 1892, Narol, Berezhyn Hasidic / PhD but no USA Galicia, Austria- Yeshivah / Conserva- information Hungary Israelitisch- tive where from theologische Lehr­anstalt, Vienna Elieser Berlinger 1946–51 1904, Illingen, Berlin Rabbini- Modern Not known The Nether- Germany cal Seminary Orthodox lands Mika Weiss 1957–61 1913, Kiskunféle- National Jewish Neolog PhD from USA gyháza, Austria- Theological (Hungari- Pázmány Hungary Semin­ary, an liberal Péter Cath­ Budapest and mod­ olic Universi- ernist) ty, Budapest Shmuel Beeri 1961–3 1905, Sziget, Pressburg Hungarian Not known The Nether- Austria-Hungary Yeshivah, Orthodox lands, Israel Bratislava

Mordechai Lanx- 1968–82 1914, Ruszkova, Ruszkova Yeshi- Hasidic No Israel ner Austria-Hungary vah / Kishinev Yeshivah

* In the case of the earliest, ‘spiritual’ rabbis we often lack information about where they had attended a yeshivah. ** By ‘denomination’ we refer to the rabbinic education the rabbis had received in yeshivot or at rabbinical seminaries.­

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 31 Dr Simo Muir is currently Gen­ealogy, genealogical database, (accessed ment of Hebrew and Jew­ish Studies, University 31.3.2019) Col­lege London, and he Amity 3. ‘Rabbi Abraham Aba Werner’, Meliza’s is part of the ‘Bound­ar­ Genealogy, genealogical database, (accessed University. He received 31.3.2019) his PhD in Yiddish lin­ guistics at the Univer­sity Amity 4. ‘Rabbi Scholem Treistman’, Meliza’s of Helsinki in 2004, and has published widely Genealogy, genealogical database, (accessed History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). His latest 31.3.2019) articles include ‘The plan to rescue Finnish Amity 5. ‘Rabbi Shmuel Beeri’, Meliza’s Jews in 1944’ (Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Genealogy, genealogical database,

32 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 ———2006d. ‘Tohtori vastaan “rabbi”. Tapaus The Marmaros Book: In Memory of 160 Jewish Treistman 1927–1932’, Hakehila, 5, pp. 24–6 Communities (Tel Aviv, Beit Marmaros), ———2009/10. Tsfunot ha-tsafon: she’elot (accessed aratsot ha-sqandinaviot, artsot ha-tsafon. Heleq 31.3.2019) alef ( Jerusalem) Hadas, Gershon, 2007. ‘Simon Federbusch’, ———2010a. ‘Amsterdam, Naftali (1832– Encyclopaedia Judaica, 7, ed. Michael Beren­ 1916)’, Kansallisbiografia-verkkojulkaisu, baum and Fred Skolnik (Detroit, MacMillan Studia Bibliographica, 4 (Helsinki, SKS, Reference), pp. 727–8 1997–), (accessed Memoriam’, Hakehila, 3 31.3.2019) Halén, Harry, 2004. ‘Historian lehtiä. Rabbin ———2010b. ‘Bukantz, Schmuel (1857– asema Suomessa 1858–1868’, Hakehila, 2, pp. 1938)’, Kansallisbiografia-verkkojulkaisu, 27–9 Studia Bibliographica, 4 (Helsinki, SKS, Harviainen, Tapani, 1989. ‘Suomi’, Juutalaisten 1997–), (accessed Harviainen (Helsinki, Gaudeamus), pp. 31.3.2019) 153–65 Edelmann, Moshe, and Simo Muir, 2010. ———1998. ‘Juutalaiset Suomessa’, Juutalainen ‘Feder­busch, Simon (1892–1969)’ , kulttuuri, ed. Tapani Harviainen and Karl- Kansallisbiografia-verkkojulkaisu­ , Studia Johan Illman (Helsinki, Otava), pp. 291–304 Bibliographica, 4 (Helsinki, SKS, Homa, Bernhard, 1953. A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry: 1997–), (accessed Vallentine) 31.3.2019) Jacobsson, Santeri, 1951. Taistelu ihmisoikeuksista. Ekholm, Laura, 2013. ‘Boundaries of an Urban Yhteiskunnallis-historiallinen tutkimus Ruotsin Minority: The Helsinki Jewish Community ja Suomen juutalaiskysymyksen vaiheista from the End of Imperial Russia until the ( Jyväskylä, Gummerus) 1970s’, PhD dissertation, University of ‘Joseph Malovany’ [in Hebrew], , Helsinki the nineteenth century’, The Jewish Family: (accessed 31.3.2019) Metaphor and Memory, ed. Kraemer Kantor, Dan, Laura Ekholm, Simo Muir, Riitta (Oxford University Press), pp. 153–78 Nurmi, and Weintraub (eds.), 2018. ———1993. Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Kyläkoulu keskellä kaupunkia. Helsingin Mussar Movement. Seeking the Torah of Truth Juutalainen Yhteiskoulu 100 vuotta (Helsinki, (Philadelphia, JPS) Helsingin Juutalainen Yhteiskoulu) ‘Family page’, DutchJewry.org, (accessed 31.3.2019) (accessed 31.3.2019) Finland le-yisrael’, Ha-Tsofeh, 14.12.1956 Kirshenboim, Shimson Leib, 2007. ‘Lodz, social Fuchs, Chaim-Leib, 1961. ‘Treystman, Sholem’, life and culture’, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 13, Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literature, 4 ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (New York, Alveltlekher yidisher kultur- (Detroit, MacMillan Reference), pp. 156–8 kongres), p. 134 Lipetz, Dov, Natan Goren, et al., 1967. ‘Naftali ———1968. ‘Federbush, Shimen’, Leksikon fun Amsterdam’, Yahadut Lita, 3, ed. Refa’el der nayer yidisher literature, 7 (New York, Hasman (Tel Aviv, Am ha-sefer), p. 29 Alveltlekher yidisher kultur-kongres), pp. Lowenstein, Steven, 1997. ‘The shifting boundary 410–11 between eastern and western Jewry’, Jewish ———1972. Lodzsh shel mayle: dos yidishe gaystike Social Studies, New Series, 4(1), pp. 60–78, un derhoybene Lodzsh (Tel Aviv, Peretz) Gross, S. Y., and Y. Yosef Cohen (eds.), 1983. Luz, Ehud, 1988. Parallels Meet: Religion and

Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1 33 Nationalism in the Early Zionist Movement image/?inum=TGSE00741> (accessed (1882–1904) (Philadelphia, New York, 31.3.2019) Jerusalem, JPS) Schenker, Shmuel, 1931. ‘Lema’an ha-’emet lo Machzike ha-Dath community, ‘Rav and ehshe’, Do’ar ha-yom, 23.10.1931 History’, (accessed 31.3.2019) and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works Meyer, Michael A., 2010. ‘Reform, religious’, by Rabbi Jehiel Weinberg 1884–1966 YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, (London, The Littman Library of Jewish (accessed 31.3.2019) Sherman, Moshe, D. 1996. Orthodox Judaism Mirsky, Yehudah, 2010. ‘Musar movement’, in America: A Biographical Dictionary and YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Sourcebook (Westport, Greenwood Press) Europe,

34 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 30, No. 1