Metadata: The Archives of the Jewish Congregation of Turku
Collection
- Country:
- Finland
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of Finland (Turku)
- Holding institution (official language):
- Kansallisarkisto
- Postal address:
- Anikaistenkatu 11, PL 383, 20101 Turku, Finland
- Phone number:
- +358 29 533 7260
- Web address:
- https://arkisto.fi/
- Reference number:
- Turun juutalainen seurakunta I-III
- Title:
- The Archives of the Jewish Congregation of Turku
- Title (official language):
- Turun juutalaisen seurakunnan arkisto
- Creator/accumulator:
- The Jewish Congregation of Turku
- Date(s):
- 1908/2001
- Language:
- Swedish
- Finnish
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- I-VI: 7.87 m
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Graphic material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
- The collection, located at the National Archives in Turku, holds the records of the Jewish Community of Turku (the Mosaic Faith Community of Turku) from 1908–2001. The archives of the congregation are divided into six sections (I–VI), three of which are in this collection. The first section (files I A–I C) contains the membership register archives of the congregation: parish registers and lists of members (1916–1970), membership notifications and certificates (1918–1944) as well as divorce records and marriage notifications, naturalization decisions, migration records, birth notifications, death certificates, criminal records notifications, vaccination certificates, and other notifications given to the Population Register. The second section (files II A–H) contains the administrative archives of the congregation: entry records of issued certificates from 1921–1970, and community meeting minutes from the years 1955–1956. The rest of the minutes remain archived at the Turku congregation archives. It also contains facsimiles of letters and circulars: letters sent to the Council of State, the Finnish Police, military authorities and the city of Turku, embassies, the Jewish community of Helsinki and Viipuri, non-Jewish communities, and the community members (1918–1944), as well as letters sent to private persons and associations (1945–1947), circulars (1969–1973), annual reports of the community (1934–1942, 1945–1946) and annual reports of various associations (1937–1942), letters of attorney (1918–1944) and announcement for applicants of student financial aid (1945). There are also various documents received by the congregation (1909/1918–1944): letters from authorities, the Council of State, the Finnish Defense Forces, the Finnish Police, extracts from minutes of the magistrate and other authorities, City Council notification concerning the cemetery, and letters from the Jewish Community of Helsinki and Viipuri, letters received from Jewish associations in Helsinki, letters written by community members, various membership applications, and letters concerning Zionism (1918–1944) and the adoption of children (1936). There is also correspondence with the American Joint Distribution (1918–1990), the Central Council of Jewish Communities in Finland (1918–1989), the Central Statistics Office (1918–1946), and other miscellaneous correspondence with various recipients, for example, with Scandinavian Jewish associations (1918–1944) and the World Jewish Congress (1947). There are also miscellaneous records from 1914–2001, for example, insurance policies, telephone rental agreements, donations, an obituary of Jewish soldiers fallen in the Winter War 1941, and documents on renovation of the synagogue building in 1980–1984. In addition, the collection contains records on the deportation of the former Jewish soldier’s son Leiba Saks (1919). The third section (files III A–III B) contains accounting records (1910–1971) and tax records (1918–1960) of the congregation.
- Archival history:
- The material was deposited in the National Archives by the Jewish congregation of Turku in 2008. It was organized in the National Archives of Turku in January-February 2008.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The first Jews in Turku were soldiers of the Czar’s army who circa 1858 were permitted to stay in the Grand Duchy of Finland and sell second-hand goods and clothes for a living. The exact time of the founding of the Jewish community in Turku is unknown: the first mention of a prayer house is from 1866, when local Jews convened to pray in the medieval Turku Castle. From the 1880s onwards, the community rented rooms for prayer on Läntinen Pitkäkatu in the city centre. In 1902, the city donated the vacant lot to the community, and the Turku synagogue was built in 1912. Officially the congregation was registered in 1919, a year after Jews had received civil rights in Finland. The Turku congregation founded several Jewish associations for sports, religious life, and charity, a Hebrew school for children and a burial society. In the 1920s and 1930s, the community had its own rabbi and Hebrew and religious teachers for children. Currently the congregation has less than 100 members: the synagogue is still active but many Jews have either moved to Helsinki or immigrated to Israel or Sweden.
- Subject terms:
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
- Cemeteries
- Citizenship
- Correspondence
- Crime
- Financial records
- Jewish community
- Jewish soldiers
- Legal matters
- Marriage and divorce
- Migration
- Military
- Synagogues
- Vital records
- Vital records--Birth records
- Vital records--Death records
- Vital records--Marriage records
- Zionism
- Yerusha Network member:
- National Archives of Finland
