Metadata: Jewish Community of Malmö: Community administration
Collection
- Country:
- Sweden
- Holding institution:
- Malmö City Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Malmö stadsarkiv
- Postal address:
- Bergsgatan 20, 205 80 Malmö
- Phone number:
- 040-10 53 00
- Web address:
- https://www.malmo.se/stadsarkivet
- Email:
- stadsarkiv@malmo.se
- Reference number:
- SE/MSA/00705(The Jewish community of Malmö): K I, K II, KIII, K VI; J II,J III, JIV, JV; L-series
- Title:
- Jewish Community of Malmö: Community administration
- Title (official language):
- Mosaiska/Judiska församlingen i Malmö: Församlingens verksamhet
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish community of Malmö
- Date(s):
- 1873/1979
- Language:
- Swedish
- German
- Extent:
- 204 volumes (archival boxes and bound books)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
This collection consists of the documents created by the administration and day to day activities of the Jewish Community of Malmö. It includes minutes of its governing and executive bodies and the Chevra Kadisha, founded in 1900, as well as correspondence, other documents and financial accounts. The financially and judicially responsible body of the community is the council (församlingsstämman or församlingsfullmäktige in Swedish). The council elects the representatives of the board and different committees, decides about the community’s finances and principal issues. The minutes of the council’s meetings from 1873 to 1979 are preserved in the series K I (7 volumes). In these volumes the minutes of the taxation committee (taxerings- och prövningsnämnden) from the years 1898-1979 are also included as well as minutes of a special committee that was formed for the building of the Malmö synagogue, which was inaugurated in 1903. They also include (in vol. K I: 2) statutes for the community’s administration, its poor relief, Chevra Kadisha, religious education and (in K I: 3) the burials grounds. These documents show that since, at least, 1891, the community has been providing poor relief and in 1919 a special poor relief council (fattigvårdsnämnd) with particular statues was created within the community. In 1875 the community for the first time employed a teacher and has since that time conducted religious education in its school. The community has also been responsible for Jewish education in other parts of Southern Sweden. The burial grounds were established in 1872.
The minutes of the community’s executive board are collected in a separate archival series, K II (4 volumes), while its minutes from the years 1901-1918 are included in the council’s series (K I). There is also a series for the Chevra Kadisha (KIII: 1) from the years 1916-1930. In a separate archival series (Protokollsbilagor 1934-1944, K VI) appended documents in the form of correspondence, audit reports and other financial statements, petitions, memos, roll calls etc. are preserved. There is also a volume (K VI:2) with minutes from meetings with other Jewish communities and organisations between the years 1945 and 1964 which includes the administration of the care and relief to Holocaust refugees and survivors (see also the separate collection on the community’s refugee aid). One of these organisation is the Rabbinical council (Rabbinrådet) which in 1945 was given the assignment to oversee a number of boarding schools for Holocaust survivor children.
The collection also contains a large number of letters and other documents sent to or from (drafts, transcripts and copies) the Jewish community of Malmö. For example, there are eight volumes (in series J II) of alphabetically organised correspondence regarding tax issues and 82 volumes of general correspondence (series J V).
The financial statements (series L) include books that document the community’s incomes and expenses, account ledgers and registers, cash books, listed depths, audit reports, annual reports and documents regarding the salaries of the community staff. In the L V-series invoices and receipts from the years 1873-1949 are preserved; these also include documentation of expenditures for refugee relief to Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe and post war relief as well as for payments made for reparations made on the synagogue and other buildings owned by the community.
- Archival history:
- The records were deposited at the Malmö City Archives in 1915, 1923, 1926, 1970, 1984, 1988 and 2016.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- This collection is part of the archive of the Jewish Community of Malmö (Judiska/Mosaiska församlingen i Malmö). The community was founded in 1871 as a result of increased Jewish immigration to the city following the liberalisation of Sweden’s industrial legislation. At this time there were around 250 Jews in the Malmö area. Before the creation of the official community the Jews in the area had belonged to the Jewish community of Gothenburg but they also had close ties to the Jewish community in the nearby Danish capital, Copenhagen. The community’s official administration first came into effect in 1873. Thus, the records in the collection are from that year and later. From 1879 the community had the obligation to keep population records of all its congregants. This obligation was abolished through a law in 1911. However, the community continued to keep records for practical reasons.
- Access points: locations:
- Malmö
- Access, restrictions:
- Access is restricted to researchers with written permission from the Jewish community of Malmö. For contact details, see: https://www.jfm.se/the-jewish-community-of-malmo/
- Finding aids:
- A detailed index of the archival records is available in the NAD database at the [Swedish] National Archives website. The Swedish historian Carl Henrik Carlsson has also written an excellent archival guide to Jewish sources in Swedish archives which also deals with the archive: Carl Henrik Carlsson, Källor till judarnas historia i Sverige. Skrifter utgivna av Riksarkivet 44 (Stockholm: Riksarkivet 2021).
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum in Stockholm