Don’t know where Estonia is? That’s okay, take a gander at the above pictures. Yes, I did place Swedish fish in the Baltic Sea. Now that I’ve obviously made you feel better, let’s move on.
[GEOG 101] Tallinn (the capital) is a 2 hour ferry ride to Helsinki, Finland; a 7 hour train ride to St. Petersburg, Russia; or a 4 hour train ride to Riga, Latvia.
[ECON 101] Estonia is known as the following: The Baltic Tiger, Silicon Valley of Europe, Hong Kong of The Baltic’s. Pick whichever nickname sings to you.
Ahh, but what’s in a name? Estonia has one of the fastest internet download speeds in the world, it’s the only Euro member with a budget surplus and is ranked 13th in the quality of its education. Did I mention it’s the home of Skype software and NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence? The little former soviet country that could. And it did. And it is.
Sounds first world, aren’t you supposed to be in an informal settlement or something? The future lecturer in me wants to tell you that not all development work comes in a package of squatter camp, unsanitary water, and complete malnourishment. Definition redefined here: Estonia was ‘judenfrei’ in January of 1942. Virtually free of Jews. What was once one of the most ethnically/religiously tolerant countries in Eastern Europe, Estonia became bare of minorities in a matter of two years once the USSR occupied in 1940. Less than a dozen Jews are known to have survived the war in Estonia.
Today the Jewish population stands at roughly 1,900. One synagogue in Tallinn (the capital, also where I am living) serves the entire Estonian, Jewish community. After being nearly extinguished during the Holocaust and soviet eras, dynamic Jewish communities have finally reemerged — in spite of the global recession in 2008.
If you’ve had any experience living publicly as a minority, whether physically, spiritually, or emotionally, surely you can sympathize. Not only may you be able to sympathize, but you may also be able to acknowledge and respect the entity of time. 70 years have passed since WW2, but to many it’s yesterday, to many it’s forever. The effects – be it subtle phrases a survivor whispers often, stories so captivating they leave you breathless, or sepia-toned pictures that transcend time – the effects trickle down to our younger generations. They hit each individual uniquely; perhaps fueling them with distress, fear, or anger; perhaps a deep desire to erase the past and move forward; perhaps getting stuck in history and becoming unforgiving of the future. It’s a lot. A lot for our youth to handle.
Though today, as Jewish communities from around the world continue to “intertwine” into one “interconnected, Jewish world”, our eyes are on the Future. As someone who feels so fortunate to have had a superior formal and informal Jewish education growing up, I cannot wait to explore the revitalization of Jewish life in Estonia and the Baltic States. The Baltic Silicon Tiger has got to have some great things goin’ on!
:: jenstonia :: 