 Thule Air Base (now the Pituffik Space Base) in 2005 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Nuuk,Narsaq,Qaanaaq | |
| Languages | |
| English,Danish,Greenlandic,German,Hebrew | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Danish Jews,American Jews,German Jews |
Greenland is a large, mostlyarctic, andice-covered Island, in theWestern Hemisphere, with a population of 56,789 people as of 2024.[1] There is only oneJew on the island, though there have also been Jews who have lived there temporarily, likeDanish Jewish soldiers,American Jewish soldiers,Israeli Navy members, and members of theIsraeli Air Force.[2]
Before 2001, there had never been a permanent Jewish community inGreenland, though Jewishfishermen were known to frequent the island's waters.
Icelandic-born historian Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson writes in his bookAntisemitism in the North that "there were certainly Jews among the first Dutch whalers in the 16th and 17th centuries."[3][4]
In the 1920s,Alfred Wegener, who famously discoveredcontinental drift, came to Greenland with his friend and fellow meteorologistFritz Loewe, who was Jewish. Loewe gotfrostbite while trying to reach the center of Greenland. Loewe's team had toamputate his toes with scissors.[5][2]
After theGerman occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940,Henrik Kauffmann, Danish Ambassador to the United States, made an agreement "In the name of the king" with theUnited States, authorizing the United States to defend theDanish colonies on Greenland from German aggression.[6] In 1941, the United States, built anair base atThule.[7] During World War II, Jewish servicemen in the country received visits from military chaplains, with support from theNational Jewish Welfare Board. In the fall of 1942, Rabbi Julius Amos Leibert, an Army Chaplain educated atReform seminaryHUC-JIR, conducted High Holiday services in Greenland,Labrador, andIceland.[8][9] Rabbi Harold Gordon served the North AtlanticAir Transport Command and visited Greenland as part of his circuit.[10][11] Other U.S. chaplains serving Greenland during World War II included Rabbis Jeshaia Schnitzer, Albert A. Goldman, and Israel Miller.[12]
In the 1950s, there were more than 50 Jewish servicemen stationed in theThule Air Base at one time. Inside the air base,Shabbat services,Passover Seders, and prayers for theJewish High Holidays were held. As a result, Vilhjálmsson writes, Thule has had "the northernmostminyan in the world."[3]
Vilhjálmsson's vivid picture of Jewish life at Thule in the 1950s is drawn in part from the memoirs of Alfred J. Fischer, a German-born journalist who traveled to the country with his wife in 1955.[13] Fischer also wrote in a manuscript of a trip toAasiaat, where he metnurse Rita Scheftelowitz, whose family hadsought refuge from Denmark in Sweden during the war,[14] moved from Denmark to Greenland for adventure. Scheftelowitz lived anOrthodox Jewish life there. She was able to eatkosher by avoiding meat, and eating the fish that was plentiful in the nearby water.[2]
Currently, the airbase is being used as a base forspace exploration, and has been renamed to thePituffik Space Base in 2023.[7] The sole Jewish resident of Greenland, Paul Cohen, has been living in the city ofNarsaq since 2001, and works as a translator. Despite his remoteness, he says that Jewish tourists are always able to find him.[3]
Cohen and his wife, Monika, also run property rental business in Narsaq, consisting of two summer cottages that can sleep a total of eight people. They do most of the renovations and repairs themselves.[3]