With the arrival of Hanukkah and the 17th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Estonian Jewish Museum this December, Eesti Elu / Estonian Life newspaper is re-publishing pieces from the archives of the museum and connected organizations. Follow along as we learn a bit more about Estonia's Jewish community and its history.
This text excerpt from “Estonian Synagogues”, written before 2001, was used with permission from the Estonian Jewish Museum. The lecture manuscript is from the archive of the Estonian Architecture Museum.
During WWII, the most architecturally remarkable synagogues in Tallinn (Reval) and in Tartu (Dorpat) had been destroyed. However the story of their birth is educational, as a symbol of self-realization for the small local Jewish community.
The Jewish community in Estonia is relatively young. The residential prohibition on the territories of the former provinces Estland and Livland has prevented the formation of local Jewish communities since the Medieval times. Only in the middle of the 19th century did Jewish communities begin to develop in Estonia; mostly former soldiers [of the Imperial Russian Army] and cantonists [young Jewish boys who were drafted into military service]. Remember, Tallinn was one of the most important gathering centres for cantonists in the middle of the 19th century. Many young recruits were forcibly Christianised, although some of them remained faithful to their forefathers’ belief and after the cantonist rank was abolished by Alexander II in 1856, many of them continued to live in Tallinn. They had their own cemetery on Magasini Street, founded in 1844. Later, other members of the community were also buried there.
