List of North European Jews

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Before the Holocaust, Jews were a significant part of the population in Lithuania where they numbered around 240,000, including approximately 100,000 in Vilnius, or about 45% of that city's pre-WWII population (Vilnius was also once known as the "Jerusalem of Lithuania"). A large Jewish community also existed in Latvia. In comparison, Estonia and the Nordic countries have had much smaller communities, concentrated mostly in Denmark and Sweden. The following is a list of some prominent North European Jews, arranged by country of origin:

Denmark

• Kim Bodnia, actor
• Harald Bohr, mathematician and footballer (Jewish mother)
• Niels Bohr, physicist, Nobel Prize (1922) (Jewish mother)
• Victor Borge, entertainer
• Edvard Brandes, politician, critic and author
• Georg Brandes, author and critic, father of Danish naturalism
• Bengt Burg, TV personality
• Marcus Choleva, Chief executive officer of KFI.
• Meïr Aron Goldschmidt, author and editor
• Heinrich Hirschsprung, industrialist, art patron (Den Hirschsprungske Samling)
• Arne Jacobsen, architect & designer (Jewish mother)
• Thomas Koppel, musician
• Arne Melchior, politician and former Transport Minister and Minister for Communication and Tourism.
• Michael Melchior, rabbi and Israeli politician
• Georg Metz, journalist
• Michael Meyerheim, TV personality
• Ben Roy Mottelson, physicist, Nobel Prize (1975)
• Ivan Osiier, seven-time Olympic fencer
• Lee Oskar, harmonica player, member of War
• Herbert Pundik, journalist
• Raquel Rastenni, jazz and popular singer
• Edgar Rubin, Gestalt psychologist

Estonia

• Gunnar Friedemann, chess player
• Louis I. Kahn, architect
• Eri Klas, conductor
• Yuri Lotman, semiotician

Finland

• Max Jakobson, diplomat [2]
• Gunnar K. A. Njalsson, CEO, administrative scientist (conservative), local politician (1998-2004) in city of Espoo^[1]
• Moses Pergament, composer [3]
• Roni Porokara, football player
• Marion Rung, pop singer
• Seela Sella, actress
• Mauritz Stiller, director
• Ruben Stiller, talk-show host
• Ben Zyskowicz, conservative leader

Iceland

• Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist
• Elías Davíðsson, composer & human rights activist
• Bobby Fischer, chess player (Jewish mother, but did not self-identify as a Jew; American expatriate, Icelandic citizen)
• Max Goldberg, international banker
• Dorrit Moussaieff, First Lady of Iceland

Latvia

• Elya Baskin, actor
• Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas
• Lipman Bers, mathematician & activist [4]
• David Bezmozgis, author
• Boris Brutskus
• Sergei Eisenstein, film director & theorist (Jewish father)
• Movsas Feigins, chess player
• Morris Halle, linguist
• Philippe Halsman, photographer
• Joseph Hirshhorn, financier & philanthropist
• Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish musicologist
• Hermann Jadlowker, musician (born at Riga)
• Mariss Jansons, conductor (Jewish mother)
• Gil Kane, comic book illustrator
• Alexander Koblencs, chess player
• Abraham Isaac Kook, rabbi
• Gidon Kremer, violinist Kremer's father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor [5].
• Nechama Leibowitz
• Yeshayahu Leibowitz
• Armands Leimanis, singer
• Hermanis Matisons, chess player
• Mischa Maisky, cellist
• Solomon Mikhoels, actor
• Aron Nimzowitsch, chess player
• Arkady Raikin*, performing artist
• Mark Rothko, painter
• Yosef Rosen, der Rogatchover Gaon
• Elizabeth Shammash, US singer (Latvian mother, Iraqi father)
• Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, rabbi
• Mikhail Tal, world chess champion
• Max Weinreich, linguist
• Mikhail Alexandrovich Famous cantor and singer(1914-2002)
• Oscar Strok Composer(1893-1975)

Lithuania

• Semyon Alapin, chess player
• Mark Antokolsky, sculptor to Czar Alexander II of Russia
• Moshe Arens, former Minister of Defence and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel
• Aaron Barak, President of the Supreme Court of Israel
• Isidore Barron
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, reviver of Hebrew
• Bernard Berenson, art critic
• Victor David Brenner, designer of the US penny
• Eli Broad, American philanthropist and investor; founder of KB Home
• Sir Montague Burton, British retailer ^[2]
• Abraham Cahan, writer & activist
• Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler
• Simeon Dimanstein, Soviet Commissar of Nationalities
• Nosson Tzvi Finkel, famous rosh yeshiva of the Slabodka yeshiva
• Vyacheslav Ganelin, jazz pioneer
• Morris Ginsberg, sociologist (Jewish Year Book 1975 p213)
• Louis Ginzberg
• Itamar Golan , pianist
• Leah Goldberg, poet
• Emma Goldman, anarchist
• Nahum Goldmann, world Jewish leader
• Chaim Grade, writer
• Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich
• Zvi Griliches, economist
• Shira Gorshman, Zionist pioneer, writer
• Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg, rabbi
• Aron Gurwitsch, philosopher
• Laurence Harvey, actor
• Jascha Heifetz (1901 - 1987) violinist, widely regarded as the greatest violinist of the 20th Century^[3]
• Sidney Hillman, labor leader
• Leo Jogiches
• Al Jolson, entertainer
• Jakob Jocz
• Berek Joselewicz
• Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan, clothes manufacturer ^[4]
• Yisrael Meir Kagan, rabbi
• Mordechai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism
• Shlomo Kleit
• Aaron Klug, chemist, Nobel Prize (1982)
• Lazare Kopelmanas, international law scholar
• Abba Kovner
• Abraham Dob Bär Lebensohn, Hebrew writer
  • Micah Joseph Lebensohn, Hebrew writer
• Phoebus Levene
• Emmanuel Levinas, philosopher
• Morris Lichtenstein, rabbi, founder of the Jewish Science
• Jacques Lipchitz, cubist sculptor
• Evan Litvak, elementary school graduate (Lithuanian ancestry lost in Holocaust)
• Jay Lovestone
• Alexander Ziskind Maimon
• Abraham Mapu, Hebrew novelist
• Osip Mandelstam, poet librettist
• Isser Zalman Meltzer
• Harvey Milk, USA gay politician
• Hermann Minkowski, mathematician
• Oskar Minkowski, physiologist
• Mitchell Parish (1900 – 1993) Lithuanian-born American lyricist^[5]
• Abram Rabinovich, chess player
• Chanan Reitblat, student
• Eduardas Rozentalis, chess player
• Meyer Schapiro, art historian
• Alexander Schneider, violinist & conductor
• Ben Shahn, artist
• Andrew W. Schally medicine Nobel Prize (1977)
• Lasar Segall
• Karl Shapiro, poet (Lithuanian parents)
• Yacov Shmuskevich Commander of Soviet Air Force
• Sam, Lee & Jacob Shubert, theatre managers, producers (cf. Shubert Brothers)
• Joe Slovo, ANC activist
• Elijah ben Solomon, rabbi, The Gaon of Vilna
• Helen Suzman, anti-apartheid MP (Lithuanian parents)
• Arkadijus Vinokuras, writer, journalist, publicist, actor
• Isakas Vistaneckis, chess player
• Louis Washkansky
• Uriel Weinreich, linguist
• David Wolfsohn Second President of World Zionist Organization
• Bluma Zeigarnik
• Emanuelis Zingeris, politician
• William Zorach, painter, sculptor & writer
• Louis Zukofsky, poet (Lithuanian parents)
• Jacob Koslowsky, painter

See also Litvak/Littauer, Lithuanian Jews,Kovno kollel

Norway

• Christian B. Anfinsen, chemist, Nobel Prize (1972) (Norwegian parents, convert)
• Jo Benkow, parliament speaker
• Leo Eitinger (b. in Slovakia), professor of Psychiatry at University of Oslo and Holocaust survivor, known mainly for his work on late-onset psychological trauma amongst Holocaust survivors
• Bente Kahan, Yiddish singer and actress
• Robert Levin, pianist
• Mona Levin, actress, writer
• Oskar Mendelsohn, historian, known for his 2-volume history of Norwegian Jews
• Eva Scheer, author known especially for her descriptions of the Lithuanian-Jewish shtetl environment
• Berthold Grünfeld, specialist in psychiatry, and professor in social medicine until 1993

Sweden

• Olof Aschberg, businessman
• Robert Aschberg, journalist
• Lovisa Augusti, opera singer
• Jean-Pierre Barda, musician
• Mathilda Berwald, née Cohn, musician
• Sharon Bezaly, flute soloist
• Cordelia Edvardson, journalist
• Jerzy Einhorn, pathologist & politician
• Dror Feiler, artist & musician
• Herbert Felix, entrepreneur
• Josef Frank, architect & designer
• Lars Gustafsson, writer & scholar
• Johan Harmenberg, épée fencer
• Eli Heckscher, economist
• Erland Josephson, actor & writer
• Ernst Josephson, painter
• Ragnar Josephson, writer & art historian
• Ernst Klein, publicist & politician
• Georg Klein, pathologist & writer
• Oskar Klein, physicist
• Oscar Levertin, poet & literary historian
• Jerzy Sarnecki, journalist
• Rudolf Meidner, economist
• Hanna Pauli, painter
• Dominika Peczynski, musician
• Marcel Riesz, mathematician^[6]
• Nelly Sachs, poet, Nobel Prize (1966)^[7]
• Harry Schein, writer & culture personality
• Sara Sommerfeld, actress
• Alexandra Rapaport, actress
• Mauritz Stiller, director^[8]
• Marcus Storch, industrialist^[9]
• Peter Weiss, dramatist & writer
• Isaac Grünewald, artist
• Göran Rosenberg, journalist

See also

• List of Jews
• List of Danes
• List of Estonians
• List of Finns
• List of Icelanders
• List of Latvians
• List of Lithuanians
• List of Norwegians
• List of Swedes
• History of the Jews in Scotland

Footnotes

See also the page on Joe Slovo.