History of the Jews in Latvia
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Languages | |
| Hebrew, Russian, Latvian, German, and Yiddish | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Belarusian Jews, Russian Jews, Lithuanian Jews, Estonian Jews, Polish Jews |
The History of the Jews in Latvia dates back to the first Jewish colony established in Piltene in 1571. Jews contributed to Latvia's development until the Northern War (1700–1721), which decimated Latvia's population. The Jewish community reestablished itself in the 18th century, mainly through an influx from Prussia, and came to play a principal role in the economic life of Latvia.
Under an independent Latvia, Jews formed political parties and participated as members of parliament. The Jewish community flourished. Jewish parents had the right to send their children to schools using Hebrew as the language of instruction, as part of a significant network of minority schools.
World War II ended the prominence of the Jewish Community. Under Stalin, Jews, who formed only 5% of the population, constituted 12% of the deportees. This paled in comparison to the Holocaust, which killed 90% of Latvia's Jewish population.
Today's Jewish community traces its roots to survivors of the Holocaust, Jews who fled to the USSR to escape the Nazi invasion and later returned, and mostly to Jews newly immigrated to Latvia from the Soviet Union. The Latvian Jewish community today is small but active.
The nucleus of Latvian Jewry was formed by the Jews of Livonia (Livland) and Courland, the two principalities on the coast of the Baltic Sea which were incorporated within the Russian Empire during the 18th century. Russia conquered Livonia, with the city of Riga, from Sweden in 1721. Courland, formerly an autonomous duchy under Polish suzerainty, was annexed into Russia as a province in 1795. Both these provinces were situated outside the Pale of Settlement, and so only those Jews who could prove that they had lived there legally before the provinces became part of Russia were authorized to reside in the region. Nevertheless, the Jewish population of the Baltic region gradually increased because, from time to time, additional Jews who enjoyed special "privileges", such as university graduates, those engaged in "useful" professions, etc., received authorization to settle there. In the middle of the 19th century, there were about 9,000 Jews in the province of Livonia.
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