Jewish history as a history of immigration: an overview of current historiography in the Scandinavian countries

Authors

• Christhard Hoffmann University of Bergen

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.66576

Keywords:

Judaism -- Historiography, Scandinavia, Emigration and immigration, Jews -- Sweden, Jews -- Denmark, Jews -- Norway

Abstract

This article provides a first critical overview of the historiography of Jewish immigration and integration in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. While the experience of immigration has been crucial for Scandinavian Jewry, scholarly interest in Jewish migration history only emerged during the 1980s in connection with the focus on migration and ethnicity in Swedish research and the adaptation of sociological concepts of migration in general historiography. By analysing key historio-graphical works, focusing on their approaches and main narratives, this article aims at a critical methodological self-reflection. It identifies two major approaches to Jewish immigration history in current Scandinavian historiography: the demographic and social history approach, focusing in particular on the role of Jewish immigrants in the labour market, their settlement and housing conditions and their social mobility; and the cultural history approach, reconstructing and preserving the vanished world of Yiddish immigrant culture.