Before the Holocaust, Jews were a significant part of the population in Lithuania where they numbered around 240,000, including approximately 100,000 in Vilnius, or about 45% of that city's pre-World War II population (Vilnius was also once known as the "Jerusalem of Lithuania"). A large Jewish community also existed in Latvia. In comparison, Estonia and the Nordic countries have had much smaller communities, concentrated mostly in Denmark and Sweden. The following is a list of prominent North European Jews, arranged by country of origin:
Victor Bendix, composer, conductor and pianist
Susanne Bier
Kim Bodnia, actor
Harald Bohr, mathematician and footballer (Jewish mother)
Niels Bohr, physicist, Nobel Prize (1922) (Jewish mother)
Victor Borge, entertainer
Edvard Brandes, politician, critic and author, minister of finance from 1909 to 1910
da:Henry Grünbaum, minister of finance 1965 to 1968
Ernst Brandes, economist and editor
Georg Brandes, author and critic, father of Danish naturalism
Marcus Choleva, Chief executive officer of KFI
Meïr Aron Goldschmidt, author and editor
Heinrich Hirschsprung, industrialist, art patron (Den Hirschsprungske Samling)
Arne Jacobsen, architect and designer (Jewish mother)
Arne Melchior, politician and former Transport Minister and Minister for Communication and Tourism
Marcus Melchior, chief rabbi of Denmark, father of Arne Melchior
Michael Melchior, rabbi and Israeli politician
Ivan Osiier, seven-time Olympic fencer
Lee Oskar, harmonica player, member of War
Herbert Pundik, journalist
Raquel Rastenni, jazz and popular singer
Edgar Rubin, Gestalt psychologist
Dan Zahavi, philosopher
Nikolaj Znaider, violinist, conductor
Avi Benjamin (born 1959), composer
Ben Berlin (1896–1944), jazz musician
Maria Dangell (born 1974), singer and pianist
Aaron Feinstein, chess player
Moses Wolf Goldberg (1905–1964), chemist
Heinrich Gutkin (1879–1941), businessman and politician
Idel Jakobson (1904–1997), NKVD investigator
Louis Kahn (1901–1974), architect
Eri Klas (born 1939), conductor
Mihhail Lotman (born 1952), philologist and politician
Yuri Lotman (1922–1993), semiotician
Zara Mints (1927–1990), literary scientist
Vladimir Padwa (1900–1981), pianist and composer
Benno Schotz (1891–1984), sculptor
Samuel H. Shapiro (1907–1987), politician
Emmanuel Steinschneider (1886–1970), physician
Leonid Stolovich (1929–2013), philosopher
Finland
Mathilda Berwald, singer
Max Dimont, historian and author
Ida Ekman, soprano singer
Abba Gindin, Finnish born Israeli football player
Kim Hirschovits, ice hockey player
Ruben Jaari, businessman
Max Jakobson, diplomat
Wolf Karni, football referee
Daniel Katz, writer
Elias Katz, athlete
Roni Porokara, football player
Boris Rotenberg, football player
Marion Rung, pop singer
Elis Sella, actor
Seela Sella, actress
Mauritz Stiller, director
Ruben Stiller, talk show host
Uniikki, rapper
Sam Vanni, painter
Poju Zabludowicz, business magnate
Ben Zyskowicz, conservative leader
Iceland
Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist
Bobby Fischer, (deceased) chess player (Jewish mother, but did not self-identify as a Jew; American expatriate, Icelandic)
Dorrit Moussaieff, First Lady of Iceland
Sruli Recht, award-winning Designer
Elya Baskin, actor
Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas
Lipman Bers, mathematician and activist
David Bezmozgis, author
Boris Brutskus
Movsas Feigins, chess player
Morris Halle, linguist
Philippe Halsman, photographer
Joseph Hirshhorn, financier and philanthropist
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish musicologist
Hermann Jadlowker, musician (born at Riga)
Mariss Jansons, conductor (Jewish mother)
Gil Kane, comic book illustrator
Alexander Koblencs, chess player
Abraham Isaac Kook, rabbi
Gidon Kremer, violinist; his father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor
Nechama Leibowitz
Yeshayahu Leibowitz
Hermanis Matisons, chess player
Mischa Maisky, cellist
Solomon Mikhoels, actor
Aron Nimzowitsch, chess player
Arkady Raikin, performing artist
Yosef Rosen, der Rogatchover Gaon
Mark Rothko, painter
Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, rabbi
Mikhail Tal, world chess champion
Max Weinreich, linguist
Semyon Alapin, chess player
Mark Antokolsky, sculptor to Czar Alexander II of Russia
Moshe Arens, former Minister of Defence and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel
Aaron Barak, President of the Supreme Court of Israel
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, reviver of Hebrew
Bernard Berenson, art critic
Izis Bidermanas, photographer
Victor David Brenner, designer of the US penny
Eli Broad, American philanthropist and investor; founder of KB Home
Sir Montague Burton, British retailer
Abraham Cahan, writer and activist
Leonard Cohen, musician, poet
David Cronenberg, film director
Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, rabbi, Talmudic scholar
Simeon Dimanstein, Soviet Commissar of Nationalities
Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter, artist, writer
Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Orthodox Judaism leader
Vyacheslav Ganelin, jazz musician
Sara Ginaite (born 1924), former resistance fighter, now Canadian academic
Romain Gary, novelist, the Prix Goncourt (twice)
Morris Ginsberg, sociologist
Louis Ginzberg, scholar of the Talmud
Philip Glass, music composer
Leah Goldberg, poet
Emma Goldman, political activist
Nahum Goldmann, world Jewish leader
Chaim Grade, writer
Iosif Grigulevich, secret agent, historian
Zvi Griliches, economist
Shira Gorshman, Zionist pioneer, writer
Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg, rabbi
Bernard Lown, scientist, Nobel prize winner
Aron Gurwitsch, philosopher
Laurence Harvey, actor
Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987), widely regarded as the greatest violinist of the 20th century
Sidney Hillman, political activist
Jay M. Ipson, founder of the Virginia Holocaust Museum
Leo Jogiches, revolutionary
Al Jolson, singer, comedian, and actor
Berek Joselewicz, colonel of the Polish Army
Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan, clothes manufacturer
Yisrael Meir Kagan, rabbi
Daniel Kahneman, psychologist, Nobel Prize (2002) (Lithuanian parents)
Mordechai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism
Shlomo Kleit, political activist
Aaron Klug, chemist, Nobel Prize (1982)
Gurwin Kopel (1923–1990), artist
Lazare Kopelmanas, international law scholar
Abba Kovner, poet, writer
Abraham Dob Bär Lebensohn, writer
Micah Joseph Lebensohn, writer
Phoebus Levene, biochemist
Emmanuel Levinas, philosopher
Isaac Levitan, artist
Bernard Lewis, historian
Morris Lichtenstein, rabbi, founder of the Jewish Science
Jacques Lipchitz, cubist sculptor
Jay Lovestone, politician
Alexander Ziskind Maimon, author and scholar of the Talmud
Osip Mandelstam, poet librettist
Abraham Mapu, novelist
Isser Zalman Meltzer, rabbi
Harvey Milk, gay politician in the US
Hermann Minkowski, mathematician
Oskar Minkowski, physiologist
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
Mitchell Parish (1900–1993), Lithuanian-born American lyricist
Abram Rabinovich, chess player
Willy Ronis, artist
Eduardas Rozentalis, chess player
Andrew W. Schally, medicine, Nobel Prize (1977)
Meyer Schapiro, art historian
Alexander Schneider, violinist and conductor
Lasar Segall, painter, engraver and sculptor
Ben Shahn, artist
Esther Shalev-Gerz, artist
Karl Shapiro, poet (Lithuanian parents)
Sam, Lee and Jacob Shubert, theatre managers, producers (cf. Shubert Brothers)
Joe Slovo, ANC activist
Elijah ben Solomon, rabbi, The Gaon of Vilna
Maximilian Steinberg, composer
Helen Suzman, anti-apartheid MP (Lithuanian parents)
Isakas Vistaneckis, chess player
Louis Washkansky, recipient of the world's first human heart transplant
Uriel Weinreich, linguist
David Wolfsohn, second President of World Zionist Organization
Bluma Zeigarnik, psychologist and psychiatrist
Emanuelis Zingeris, politician
William Zorach, painter, sculptor and writer
Louis Zukofsky, poet (Lithuanian parents)
Benjamin Zuskin, Actor
Yisroel Salanter, Rabbi, Famed Talmudist
Bjørn Benkow, journalist, known for fraud
Jo Benkow, President of the Parliament of Norway
Carl Paul Caspari, professor in theology (Lutheranism)
Leo Eitinger (born in Slovakia), professor of psychiatry at University of Oslo and Holocaust survivor, known mainly for his work on late-onset psychological trauma amongst Holocaust survivors
Victor Goldschmidt, professor in mineralogy
Salo Grenning, pen name Pedro, editorial cartoonists in Verdens Gang
Berthold Grünfeld, specialist in psychiatry, and professor in social medicine until 1993
Imre Hercz, physician and public debater
Bente Kahan, Yiddish singer and actress
Hermann Kahan, Holocaust survivor, activist
Morten Levin, professor of organization and work science
Robert Levin, pianist
Oskar Mendelsohn, historian, known for his two-volume history of Norwegian Jews
Moritz Rabinowitz, merchant, active in public debate against antisemitism and Nazism before World War II
Olof Aschberg, businessman
Robert Aschberg, journalist
Amalia Assur, first female dentist in Sweden
Lovisa Augusti, opera singer
Jean-Pierre Barda, musician
Mathilda Berwald, née Cohn, musician
Sharon Bezaly, flute soloist
Jerzy Einhorn, pathologist and politician
Herbert Felix, entrepreneur
Josef Frank, architect and designer
Isaac Grünewald, artist
Lars Gustafsson, writer and scholar
Johan Harmenberg, épée fencer
Eli Heckscher, economist
Erland Josephson, actor and writer
Ernst Josephson, painter
Ragnar Josephson, writer and art historian
Joel Kinnaman, actor
George Klein, pathologist and writer
Oskar Klein, physicist
Oscar Levertin, poet and literary historian
Jacob Marcus, businessman, pioneer in the history of Sweden's Jewish population
Rudolf Meidner, economist
Hanna Pauli, painter
Dominika Peczynski, musician
Alexandra Rapaport, actress
Marcel Riesz, mathematician
Göran Rosenberg, journalist
Bo Rothstein, political scientist
Nelly Sachs, poet, Nobel Prize (1966)
Jerzy Sarnecki, criminologist
Harry Schein, writer and culture personality
Leif Silbersky, lawyer and author
Sara Sommerfeld, actress
Mauritz Stiller, director
Marcus Storch, industrialist
Peter Weiss, dramatist and writer
List of North European Jews Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA