From Yidishe khasene to civil marriage: The history of intermarriages in the Jewish Community of Helsinki

The aim of this article is to present marriage patterns in the Jewish Community of Helsinki in the period 1919–80 in light of textual records partly preserved in public archives, but partly also in the community itself. The latter corpus of data has not been used previously as source material for ethnographic research. While introducing the legislation of civil marriages in Finland, the goal of this study is to reflect on the patterns of intermarriage in the congregation in the 1900s and to present some preliminary findings pertaining to their impact on congregational policies.