Estonian Jewish Museum

The history of Jews in Estonia starts with reports of the presence of individual Jews in what is now Estonia from as early as the 14th century.

Jews were settled in Estonia in the 19th century, especially following a statute of Russian Tsar Alexander II in 1865 allowed the so-called Jewish "Nicholas soldiers" and their descendants, First Guild merchants, artisans, and Jews with higher education to settle outside the Pale of Settlement. These settlers founded the first Jewish congregations in Estonia. The Tallinn congregation, the largest in Estonia, was founded in 1830. The Tartu congregation was established in 1866 when the first fifty families settled there. Synagogues were built, the largest of which were constructed in Tallinn in 1883 and Tartu in 1901. Both of these were destroyed by fire during World War II.