Jews

Jews first settled in the Swedish kingdom in the 18th century, during the tolerant reign of King Gustav III. They were allowed to reside in a few cities in Swedish parts of the kingdom, such as Marstrand, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Norrköping and Karlskrona, but not in the Finnish part. The ancestors of the Jews of Finland came to Finnish cities, which were then under Russian rule, at the end of the 18th century. The first Jew said to have settled on Finnish soil was Jacob Weikam (later Veikkanen), in 1782, in the town of Hamina, by then already under Russian rule. During the period of Finnish autonomy (1809-1917) more Russian Jews established themselves in Finland as tradesmen and craftsmen or retired officers from the Tsarist army. It was only after 1917, when Finland became independent, that Jews were granted full rights as Finnish citizens. The number of Jews who are members of Finland’s two Jewish congregations, and are resident in Finland today (1999), is 1,350. 300 Finnish Jews lives abroad. Among them are 200 Russian Jews who have recently immigrated from the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The present Jewish Co-Educational School was founded in 1918. The first Jews who moved to Finland during the 19th century spoke Yiddish and Russian. Upon settling in Finland they chose Swedish as their first language. Until 1930 all of them registered Swedish as their first language. Until 1932 the language of instruction at the Jewish School was Swedish, but in that year Swedish was replaced by Finnish. Generally speaking, Finland’s Jews are fluently bilingual in Finnish and Swedish. (Virtual Finland, 2001, electronic).