For more than 30 years, Samuel Brandhändler was one of the world’s northernmost rabbis. Along with his family, he shaped the Jewish community of Trondheim and left a legacy that remains to this day. The rabbi’s youngest son, David, is 102 years old. He has given vivid accounts of his family’s life in Trondheim:
David Brandhändler in his home in Chicago, 2016.
Photo: Stephen M. Levin.
“It is the year 1896. My father, a young rabbi of 24 with a long flowing fiery red beard, alights from the train in Trondheim, Norway, to begin an adventure in pioneering, organizing and leading a new Jewish community of about ten families.”
Trondheim 1906.
David’s father, Samuel Brandhändler, was from Brest (Brisk in Yiddish), a Polish town in the Russian Empire, a city of more than 30,000 Jewish inhabitants. The Jewish population mainly lived off agriculture as well as local and international trade.
Brest. Photo from Yefim Basin’s collection.
Brest had a long tradition of Jewish religious studies. The city’s first yeshiva was founded in the 1500s, and Brest’s rabbis were among the most esteemed scholars in the rabbinical world. When Samuel received his rabbinical ordination, he was offered a job as a rabbi in Trondheim. In practice, he also became the community’s teacher, cantor, kosher butcher and mohel (performer of ritual circumcision).
In the yeshivas, men studied Talmud, the so-called oral law.
The year after Samuel’s arrival, his wife Deborah, born in Rajgrod in Polish lands, joined him in Trondheim. There, they had nine children over the course of 15 years. The youngest, David, was born in 1913.
Samuel and Deborah Brandhändler and their nine children, 1914.
Trondheim Jewish Museum.
In the early 1900s, Trondheim experienced significant economic development and a steep population growth. The city’s Jewish population was small, and numbered about 150 people in the early 1900s. Yet it was important to the Jewish community to maintain their Jewish practices and identity. Brandhändler led the congregation through three decades. During this time, the Jewish community grew. A Jewish graveyard was established, and the congregation went from modest prayer rooms to their own synagogue in a large and beautiful rebuilt train station in 1923.
a) The synagogue in St. Jørgensveita 7.
Photo: Naomi Bayer.
b) The interior of the modest synagogue in St. Jørgensveita 7.
Photo: Trondheim Jewish Museum.
c) The synagogue in Arkitekt Christies Street, which is still in use today.
Photo: Trondheim Jewish Museum.
Soon, Jews started settling in less urban areas, as well as further north in the country. Brandhändler thus became the rabbi of Jews from Ålesund in the south to Tromsø in the north. Following Jewish religious commandments this far north could present certain challenges, for example related to the midnight sun! Brandhändler’s pragmatic solution was to standardise the hour of the beginning and end of Shabbat for Jews living in northern parts of Norway – a practice that still stands.
Pesach meal in Lofoten. Jews settled as far north as Hammerfest, and many Jewish peddlers travelled across Northern Norway to sell their goods.
Photo: Trondheim Jewish Museum.
Another challenge was the political resistance against Jewish ritual slaughter during the first three decades of the 1900s. In 1927, shächting was prohibited by law, which made it difficult for Norwegian Jews to follow kosher laws. This was one of the reasons why the rabbi’s family decided to cross the Atlantic to a new homeland.
Newspaper clippings from Aftenposten, 1926.
The eldest children, Filip and Sara Lea, migrated to the United States in 1919. Motel migrated in 1921 and Elias and Jacob in 1925. Finally, in 1926, the rabbi and his wife moved with their four youngest children to Chicago, a growing metropolis with a blossoming Jewish community.
a) SS Stavangerfjord.
b) Letter from the Jewish community in Kristiansund on the occasion of rabbi Brandhändler’s departure, thanking him for his work for the congregation.
Trondheim Jewish Museum.
The nine Brandhändler children stayed in the US and built their lives there. David has visited his childhood home on several occasions, first in 1966. “I remembered the walks with my father on Shabbas afternoon and re-experienced times from my childhood,” he says.
In 2005, the Trondheim Jewish community celebrated their 100th anniversary. David, his wife Goldie, their children and grandchildren crossed the Atlantic, this time in the opposite direction, to partake in the celebration of the congregation his family had helped create.
Scroll down to see a video of David during the celebration.
David Brandhändler speaks and sings the blessing shehechianu at the event celebrating the Trondheim Jewish community’s 100-year anniversary.
Film: DMT Trondheim.
POLISH CONTACT
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
6 Mordechaja Anielewicza St.
00-157 Warsaw
Poland
polin@polin.pl
www.polin.pl
NORWEGIAN CONTACT
Oslo Jewish Museum
Calmeyersgate 15 B
NO-0183 Oslo
Norway
post@jodiskmuseumoslo.no
www.jodiskmuseumoslo.no
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