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Before the Holocaust, Jews were a significant part of the Baltic population. Around 240,000 lived in Lithuania, including 100,000 in Vilnius (45% of the city's population). A large community also existed in Latvia. The Nordic countries, meanwhile, had much smaller communities, concentrated in Denmark and Sweden. Here is a list of some prominent North European Jews, arranged by country of origin.
Denmark
- Harald Bohr, mathematician (Jewish mother)
- Niels Bohr, physicist (Jewish mother)
- Victor Borge, entertainer
- Georg Brandes, author and critic, father of Danish naturalism
- Georg Cantor, mathematician (Danish Jewish father, non-Jewish mother)
- Erik Erikson, psychologist (Danish parents)
- Arne Jacobsen, architect & designer
- Benjamin Roy Mottelson, physicist, Nobel Prize (1975)
- Ivan Osiier, seven-time Olympic fencer
- Lee Oskar, harmonica player, member of War
- Edgar Rubin, Gestalt psychologist
- Lars von Trier, film director (Jewish father: non-biological, he later discovered)
Estonia
Finland
- Moses Pergament, composer
- Max Jakobson, diplomat
- Mauritz Stiller, director (Finnish-born)
- Ben Zyskowicz, conservative leader
Iceland
Latvia
- Elya Baskin, actor
- Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas
- Lipman Bers, mathematician & activist
- David Bezmozgis, author
- Sergei Eisenstein, director (Jewish father)
- Morris Halle, linguist
- Philippe Halsman, photographer
- Mariss Jansons, conductor (Jewish mother)
- Gil Kane, comic book illustrator
- Abraham Isaac Kook, rabbi
- Gidon Kremer, violinist
- Mischa Maisky, cellist
- Aron Nimzowitsch, chess player
- Mark Rothko, painter
- Mikhail Tal, world chess champion
- Max Weinreich, linguist
Lithuania
- Elijah ben Solomon, rabbi, the Gaon of Vilna
- Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, reviver of Hebrew
- Bernard Berenson, art critic
- Victor David Brenner, designer of the US penny
- Abraham Cahan, writer & activist
- Vyacheslav Ganelin, jazz pioneer
- Emma Goldman, anarchist
- Chaim Grade, writer
- Zvi Griliches, economist
- Laurence Harvey, actor
- Jascha Heifetz, violinist
- Sidney Hillman, labor leader
- Al Jolson, entertainer
- Aaron Klug, chemist, Nobel Prize (1982)
- Emmanuel Levinas, philosopher
- Jacques Lipchitz, cubist sculptor
- Abraham Mapu, Hebrew novelist
- Harvey Milk, gay politician (Lithuanian parents)
- Hermann Minkowski, mathematician
- Oskar Minkowski, physiologist
- Meyer Schapiro, art historian
- Alexander Schneider, violinist & conductor
- Ben Shahn, artist
- Karl Shapiro, poet (Lithuanian parents)
- Joe Slovo, ANC activist
- Helen Suzman, anti-apartheid MP (Lithuanian parents)
- Uriel Weinreich, linguist
- William Zorach, painter, sculptor & writer
- Louis Zukofsky, poet (Lithuanian parents)
Norway
- Christian Anfinsen, chemist, Nobel Prize (1972) (Norwegian parents, convert)
- Jo Benkow, parliament speaker
- Bente Kahan, Yiddish singer and actress
- Robert Levin, pianist
Sweden
- Jean-Pierre Barda & Dominika Peczynski, members of Army of Lovers
- Gerhard Bonnier and family, founders of Bonnier media house
- Josef Frank, architect & designer
- Johan Harmenberg, Olympic epée champion
- Eli Heckscher, economist
- Erland Josephson, actor & writer
- Ernst Josephson, painter
- Georg Klein, pathologist
- Oskar Klein, physicist
- Leif Pagrotsky, Minister of Commerce
- Nelly Sachs, German-born poet, Nobel Prize (1966)
- Leif Silbersky, defense lawyer & writer
- Art Spiegelman, comic strip artist
- Mauritz Stiller, director
- Peter Weiss, German-born dramatist & writer
See also
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