Farewell, Shtetl! – Lecture with historian Jon Reitan

In the period 1870–1914, about 2.5 million Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe. The majority sought refuge in North America, Palestine, South Africa and Western European countries. A small proportion of the migrants took the shortest route across the Baltic Sea, to Sweden and eventually to Trøndelag. In 1905, the Jewish religious community was established in Trondheim with 125 members, all with family backgrounds from Eastern Europe. This lecture will shed light on the world from which the so-called “Eastern Jews” came, and which they left towards the end of the 19th century: What characterized life in the Eastern Jewish “shtetl” (village)? Why did so many Jews emigrate, and what brought them to Trondheim?

About Jon Reitan:

Jon Reitan is a historian at NTNU, Department of Teacher Education. He previously worked at the Falstad Center. Reitan has researched World War II, the Holocaust and Norwegian migration history, and is the author of the book "The Jews from Trondheim" (2005).