Jews in Greenland

Greenland is a large, mostly arctic, and ice covered Island, in the Western Hemisphere, with a population of 56,789 people as of 2024. There is no permanent Jewish population on the island, but there have been Jews who have lived there temporarily, like Danish Jewish soldiers, American Jewish soldiers, Israeli navy members, and members of the Israeli Air Force.

History

There had never been a permanent Jewish community in Greenland, but Jewish fisherman have fished in its abundant waters. As Icelandic-born historian Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson writes in his book "Antisemitism in the North", "there were certainly Jews among the first Dutch whalers in the 16th and 17th centuries."

In the 1920s, Alfred Wegener, who famously discovered continental drift, came to Greenland with his friend and fellow meteorologist Fritz Loewe, who was Jewish. Loewe got frostbite while trying to reach the center of Greenland. Loewe's team had to amputate his toes with scissors.

Thule Air Base (now the Pituffik Space Base) in 2005

In 1941, the United States, built an airbase at Thule, in order to help Denmark defend Greenland, and their other colonial possessions, from increasing German aggression in Europe, prior to World War II. In the 1950s there was 50 American servicemen in the Thule airbase. Inside the airbase, Shabbat, services, Passover Seders, and prayers for the Jewish High Holidays were held. As a result, previously mentioned historian Vilhjálmsson writes about Thule, "having the northernmost minyan [prayer quorum] in the world."

In 1955, a German traveler, by the name of Alfred J. Fisher went to look for Jews in Greenland. To his surprise he found a nurse by the name of Rita Sheftelovich. Fischer wrote:

The friendly Danish doctor, Dr. Schmidt, took me round the various departments. Finally we reached the children's section, whose inmates were an amusing mixture of Mongolian types with slanting eyes and blond, fair-skinned babies revealing their partly Danish parentage. With some astonishment, I noticed the nurse, whose features showed neither Danish nor Greenlandic characteristics. Dr Schmidt introduced her: "Miss Rita Sheftelovich [Scheftelo-witz] from Copenhagen." Sheftelovich sounds no more Danish than François sounds Eng-lish. Moreover, Miss Sheftelovich regarded my wife and me with the same curiosity with which we looked at her.In the afternoon we met her again, since one inevitably meets ev-eryone at least two or three times a day in Egedesminde. Without any further ado, Rita now enquired in English whether by any chance we happened to be coreligionists."

Rita, whose family was Religious Zionists, moved from Russia to Denmark to escape antisemitism, and to Greenland for adventure, like other young Danes. Rita lived an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle there. She was able to eat kosher by avoiding meat, and eating the fish that was plentiful in the nearby water

Another person who Fischer met was Jørgen Chemnitz. He himself was not a Jew, but his grandfather was Jewish and came to Greenland. He got sick, so he could not return to Denmark, so he ended up staying and marrying a local

Modern times

Currently, the airbase is being used as a base for space exploration, and has been renamed to the Pituffik Space Base in 2023. There currently is one man named Paul Cohen who has been living in the city of Narsaq, who works as a translator. Despite his remoteness, he says tourists are always able to find him.