History of The Jews in Sweden - Permission To Settle

Permission To Settle

Through court patronage Jewish merchants were occasionally appointed royal purveyors; and during the warlike reign of Charles XII (a.k.a. Karl XII) the king usually had one or more wealthy Jews with him in the field, to take care of the paymaster's department of his army.

Through their influence permission was obtained (1718) for Jews to settle in the kingdom without the necessity of abjuring their religion.

Charles XII had spent five years in Bender, Bessarabia, at the time a part of the Ottoman Empire, with his army and incurred tremendous debts with Jewish and Muslim merchants who supplied the army with equipment and provisions. On his return a large number of Muslim and Jewish creditors arrived in Sweden, and the Swedish law was altered so as to allow these immigrants to hold Jewish and Muslim services and to circumcise their sons.

After the death of Charles XII in 1718, the Swedish government was financially embarrassed for a long time, and the royal household was often relieved from pecuniary difficulties by the Jewish merchants of Stockholm, who, as a reward for their accommodations, insisted on the granting of additional privileges to themselves and their coreligionists. As a consequence the concession of 1718 was renewed, and supplemented by royal edicts of 1727, 1746, and 1748, but the permission had reference only to settlement in the smaller cities and rural communities. One of the most prominent Jews in Sweden at this time was the convert Lovisa Augusti, who became one of the most popular singers on the Swedish stage in Stockholm.

In 1782 an ordinance was issued by which the Jews were permitted, on certain conditions, to settle anywhere in the kingdom, and to practise freely the tenets of their religion. It was, however, specified that Jews were ineligible for government positions and for election to the legislative assembly; they were, moreover, forbidden to establish schools for the propagation of their creed, and to combine with their religious services such ceremonies as might possibly cause disquietude in the minds of the general population.