Scandinavia and the Baltics - Part 5

Friday morning saw us once again at shul with close to 20 attendees, where we met the Rabbi of the community, Rabbi Amram Maccabi. He has been the rabbi for a number of years of both Adat Jeschurun where we have been davening and Adat Jisrael and previously had been the Rav in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was now completing his tenure in Stockholm and returning to Israel with his family. He told us that he would see us that evening, but would be davening on Shabbat morning at Adat Jisrael, the sister Orthodox shul on the other side of town. 

Adat Jeshurun has quite an interesting history. There was a shul founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1780. It was one of the oldest Shuls in Hamburg’s inner city. 

On November 10, 1938, on the night known as Kristallnacht, virtually all the Shuls in Germany were burnt and destroyed. This little shul survived Kristallnacht as it was located in a downtown apartment block and the Nazis did not want to cause harm to non Jews. 

The Chief Rabbi of Hamburg at the time was Rabbi Dr. Joseph Carlebach (pictured below, an Uncle of the famous Shlomo Carlebach). He took it as an omen that the shul had survived and fearful of what was lying ahead for the Jews of Germany, wanted to secure its existence. So he contacted an old friend, Hans Lehmann, who had recently moved to Stockholm and asked him if he would be willing to take the furniture (the pews, the Aron Kodesh, the bimah etc) and the siddurim, talitot, and tefillin, and transfer it to a shul in Stockholm. Lehmann agreed and Carlebach secured an export license, identifying the interior of the shul as “old junk”. Everything was dismantled, boxed and sent to the port for the voyage to Stockholm. 

When the shipment arrived in Stockholm, it was a frightening sight. Everything was destroyed with swastikas all over the boxes. Lehmann, accepted the delivery, personally hired craftsmen to rebuild and repair everything and created a new home for the former shul in Hamburg, the new shul called Adat Jeschurun in Stockholm. 

The shul was consecrated in 1940. As Shuls were being destroyed all over Europe, in Stockholm a new shul was created. 

Unfortunately Rabbi Carlebach did not survive the war; he was murdered by the Nazis outside Riga in March 1942.

Over the years, the shul had to move numerous times and each time the furniture from Hamburg moved with the shul. Sadly, in 2013, the building housing the shul and the school was demolished and a new building was built for the school with no permanent home for the shul. So the shul till today is housed in temporary premises in the new school building but all the furniture that had survived had to be put into storage. 

In speaking to a number of members of the shul, there is a clear determination to rise again and create a permanent home for the shul at some time in the near future so that the furnishings that the Nazis failed to destroy continue to live and serve the Jews of Stockholm.  

We also discussed with some members the status of the Jewish School. It has about 350 students, but because all schools in Sweden must be public, the funding of the school could be in jeopardy if it refused to accept non Jews and also if there is too much of an emphasis on the Jewish religion. So as a result, there is only one hour of Jewish prayer a week in the school and it is optional, meaning that the student would have to opt in. Very few of the students wear kippot in the school building. 

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped by the bakery to buy breads for Shabbat, and we experimented with a couple of artisan breads, that we later discovered had fruits and nuts inside...kind of a Shabbat surprise for us when we cut into them.

Our schedule in the morning was a Segway tour of the city and so we walked the 15 minutes to the meeting point. 

Stockholm is an amazing place because of its walkability. It is relatively flat, and nearly all the tourist points of interest are within walking distance. There are bike lanes everywhere and many people are using bikes or scooters as their mode of transportation. 

We met our Segway leader, a young nursing student originally from Albania. Besides the four of us, there was another couple, who hailed from Woodstock Ontario. They were on a cruise. It seems like everyone we met during our stay in Stockholm was on a cruise. The amount of cruise traffic involving Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallin and Copenhagen must keep the tourist trade alive in the Baltic region. 

We went through a brief training session and then off we went on our Segways exploring the city. Every few blocks we would pull over to the side and our leader would share something about Swedish society and history or point out an interesting tourist site. She was very good and very professional. The ride was quite easy as well because of the designated bike/scooter/Segway lanes in the city. 

One of the very interesting places that she showed us was the source for the term Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological condition which causes hostages to develop a positive alliance with their captors during captivity. 

This term was first used by the media in 1973 when four hostages were taken during a bank robbery at the Kreditbanken (pictured below) in Stockholm. The hostages defended their captors after being released and would not agree to testify in court against them.

A very famous example of this syndrome was the Patty Hearst case with the Symbionese Liberation Army one year later in 1974. 

Another interesting stop was at a statue outside the National Theatre. If you put your hand on the bronze statue, it is warm. 

It is a statue of Margareta Krook, a famous Swedish actress.

During her life, Krook was approached with numerous proposals for statues to be built in her honor, but declined them all, stating that statues are cold and uninviting. However, after her death, the theater wanted a statue but they did not want to go against her wishes. The theater found a loophole that technically allowed for a statue and was in line with Margareta’s wishes: a heated statue. 

Especially during Stockholm’s cold winters, the statue provides warmth to everyone who passes by.

One of the other interesting spots to which we rode was the Stockholm City Hall, where the Nobel Prize Ceremony is held. 

The Segway tour was great. Unfortunately, on our way back to the office, Irving fell while trying to get off the Segway and badly bruised his leg. That caused Irving and Ruchama to cut short their touring for the day and to remain at home for the rest of the day and evening. 

Fran and I continued with the plans for the rest of the day which was to tour Stockholm’s longest Art Gallery. There are 100 subway stations in Stockholm and when they built the stations, they decided to make them interesting. Most of them have an artistic theme and using an online guide, we purchased two subway tickets and spent the next 90 minutes traveling the subway system and taking photos of this most unique subway system. Many of the stations have been left with rough hewn rock and some of them are extremely colourful. It is well worth your while if you visit Stockholm to take this self guided tour.  

We got home a few hours before Shabbat and we prepared our meals for Shabbat. But before going to shul that evening, we had one more interesting stop.

One of the most beautiful sights in Stockholm is the Great Synagogue, which is a conservative Synagogue. We had noticed that the shul would be open for Friday night services at 6:30 PM while Adat Jeschurun would have Kabbalat Shabbat at 7:30 PM. So we decided to go first and have a look at the Great Synagogue and then drop off our camera and passports at home before candle lighting and before proceeding to shul.

It was well worth the visit. Truly one of the most beautiful sanctuaries that we have ever seen. 

I went to Adat Jeschurun myself and was honoured with leading Kabbalat Shabbat. There were about 15 men and one woman there. We were told that for Shabbat morning, there would be a much larger crowd because of a kiddush honouring one of the members who was turning 90 years old. 

I returned home to the apartment and we had a very wonderful Shabbat meal, followed by a wonderful long Shabbat sleep.

More to come

Fran and David