This 100-year-old synagogue tells a unique story about Jews in Finland 

Harry Serlo, 68, has been coming to the Turku synagogue in Turku, Finland, for as long as he can remember. 

Serlo, the chairman of the city’s Jewish community, helps administer the synagogue and is a liaison to the larger community, hosting regular tours of the historic building.  

The synagogue opened its doors in 1912, six years before Jews were granted citizenship in the country, which was then still part of the Russian empire. 

“The city of Turku donated to a population that didn’t have the citizen rights — a place for their own — and I don’t know how it was possible,” Serlo said. 

Today, the two-story, yellow-brick building with a small dome on its roof, reflecting Byzantine and Art Nouveau architectural styles, is a testimony to a unique story of Jews in Finland.

Serlo showed photos of past rabbis and a cabinet of athletic trophies won by Finnish Jews from Turku, including long-distance runner Elias Katz, one of the Flying Finns who won gold medals at the 1924 Olympics. 

Another cabinet displays more prized possessions — worn religious books.

“These are quite unique because here you can see very old Talmud books. They are from the late 1800s. And these were the books mainly used for studies here for years.”

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.”

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.

“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?

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.”