Cultural Zionism in Sweden: Daniel Brick's Judisk krönika

Authors

• Stephen Fruitman Umeå

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.69431

Keywords:

Jews -- Sweden, Zionism, Jewish newspapers, Press, Jewish, Periodicals

Abstract

The present study examines the content of the Swedish-Jewish Zionist periodical Judisk Krönika during its earliest years of publication, 1932 to 1950, under the editorship of its founder, Daniel Brick. The focus will be on how the magazine in its brightest and most ambitious years, acted as a conduit through which the ideas of cultural Zionism flowed into Sweden.  Through essays, reports, editorial comments, book reviews and debates, the circle of intellectuals grouped around Brick clamored for a revivification of what they considered to be the moribund cultural life of Swedish Jewry, the result (in their eyes) of decades of Reform dominance in communal life. Not wishing to make themselves any less “Swedish”, the cultural Zionists nevertheless insisted that Jews in Sweden and other Nordic countries needed to adopt an international perspective, integrating the proposed idea for a Jewish national home in Palestine into their lives as a source of cultural pride and spiritual renewal.