The Turku synagogue no longer hosts regular Talmud study but Sabbath services continue.
Serlo climbed the stairs to the main sanctuary which is used for high holy day services and social gatherings, including klezmer concerts. The sanctuary has a rotating platform akin to a lazy Susan holding three Torah scrolls.
“What’s special with this is that one of them is actually written by the grandfather of our oldest member now in the community.”
Torah scrolls inside the Turku synagogue in Turku, Finland.Jon Kalish/The World
The Orthodox synagogue — one of two in Finland — is among a handful of synagogues across Europe that survived World War II.
Serlo pointed to a framed document on the walls of the sanctuary that lists the names of 22 Finnish Jewish soldiers who died during World War II.
Serlo calls Finland’s alliance with Nazi Germany during the war a “strange and complicated history.”
Finland saw it as the only way of preserving its independence from the Soviet Union. But not a single Finnish Jew was handed over to the Germans.
And their military service during the war cemented a deep respect in Finland for Finnish Jewry, said Karmela Belinki, a Finnish author and journalist who grew up in Turku.
The names of Finnish Jews killed in World War II are listed and framed.Jon Kalish/The World
“Jews here in Finland are not considered Jews in Finland, but they are considered Finnish Jews. And that’s quite a difference to most other European countries,” she said, adding, “I think that came about through the war because the Finnish Jews served in the Finnish army, even when Finland had the military pact with Germany.”
The Jewish community in Turku has shrunk from a high of 350 in the postwar years to about a hundred today. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Serlo said, many of the city’s Jews emigrated to Israel.
The last bar mitzvah at the synagogue took place two years ago, while the last wedding was about 30 years ago, Serlo said. Such simchas, or celebrations, have been few and far between in recent decades, which begs the question: Will the Jewish community in Turku survive?
Photos of Finnish athletes, including Elias Katz with a Jewish star on his track jersey.Jon Kalish/The World
Serlo said that when he was a teenager, his parents predicted that the community would die within a decade.
“This story has been going on for 50 years,” Serlo said. “And still, we are here.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-18 09:18:00
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