Jewish Geography
and, before that, the headquar- ters of a political party, the centre includes a synagogue, seminar room, kosher shop, community kitchen, youth centre, library lounge, and security centre — amenities the community has never had access to in one place. There is also a mikvah, or ritual bath, that is heated geothermally, using the abundant underground volca- nic heat that provides much of the country’s power. (Like many Jewish institutions in Europe, for security purposes, it will open only to members of the community and to visitors who reach out in advance.) “Jews here were yearning for a synagogue, for a rabbi, for some sort of a community,” says Rabbi Avraham Feldman, who moved to Reykjavík with his wife, Mushky, in 2018, “and it has been amazing to fill that need.” Community members agree. “Iceland has a higly di- verse, dispersed, and dif- fused Jewish community; given that we’re an isolated is- land, we all kind of washed up here,” says Michael Klein, who has been living in Iceland since 2020. “The Feldmans managed to pull together the resources, the building, and the work to [create] a Jewish centre that can serve not only our small commu- nity but the far larger group of visitors from all over the Jewish world who come for our natural beauty and peaceful isolation.” Historically, Jewish life in Iceland has been sparse and intermittent. Jewish traders are known to have passed through as early as the 1600s. The orga- nized Jewish presence dates to
the late 1800s, and the first practising Jew believed to have settled permanently was Fritz Nathan, a businessman who, in 1917, built what was then, at five storeys, Iceland’s tallest building. For decades afterward, Jew- ish life in Iceland survived on the efforts of a handful of dedicated volunteers who coordinated in- formal gatherings, often meeting in rented spaces or in the base- ment of Hallgrímskirkja, the country’s most recognizable church. The US Navy base in the town of Keflavík, near the international airport, occasion- ally provided Jewish chaplains until it closed in 2006. But there was still no permanent institu- tion, no resident rabbi, and no dedicated building, a gap that led some to call Reykjavík the only European capital without a synagogue. That began to change in 2018, when the Feldmans relo- cated from the United States to Reykjavík to establish a Chabad- Lubavitch presence, becoming Iceland’s first permanently sta- tioned rabbinical presence in the country’s documented his- tory. The couple started small, hosting Shabbat dinners and
holiday services out of their living room. Estimates of the community’s size hover around 300 self-identified Jews, out of Iceland’s total population of about 400,000. Momentum built quickly. In 2020, the Jewish community celebrated its first native Torah scroll, commissioned by a donor in Switzerland and completed with the help of the Icelandic congregation. A year later, the Icelandic government recog- nized Judaism as an official religion, opening the door to Jewish weddings and allowing residents to direct part of their religious tax to the community. By 2024, the community had outgrown its rented rooms and church basements and pur- chased the building that became the new Jewish centre, rough- ly tying one in Fairbanks, Alas- ka, as the northernmost Chabad house on earth. The building sits in Reykjavik’s compact down- town, just blocks from the icon- ic Rainbow Street and Harpa Concert Hall. “It’s been clear for a long time that we need a home for our community,” said one Jew- ish resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because not all of his colleagues know he is Jewish. (Iceland’s relative- ly small number of Jews means that there is little record of antisemitism.) “It’s not like we’ve been hiding or aren’t a strong community; we celebrate holidays together, and there are Shabbat dinners,” he con- tinued. “But I think it’s important that we have this centre. Seeing it opened is very moving and important.” JTA
“Jews here were yearning for a synagogue, for a rabbi, for some sort of a community, and it has been amazing to fill that need.”
22 AUTUMN 2026
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