Before the Holocaust, Jews were a significant part of the Baltic population. Around 240,000 lived in Lithuania, including 100,000 in Vilnius (45% of the city's population). A large community also existed in Latvia. The Nordic countries, meanwhile, have much smaller communities, concentrated in Denmark and Sweden. Here is a list of some prominent North European Jews, arranged by country of origin.

Denmark

• Harald Bohr, mathematician and footballer (Jewish mother)
• Niels Bohr, physicist (Jewish mother)
• Victor Borge, entertainer
• Georg Brandes, author and critic, father of Danish naturalism
• Erik Erikson, psychologist (Danish parents)
• Heinrich Hirschsprung, industrialist, art patron (Den Hirschsprungske Samling)
• Arne Jacobsen, architect & designer
• Benjamin Roy Mottelson, physicist, Nobel Prize (1975)
• Ivan Osiier , seven-time Olympic fencer
• Lee Oskar , harmonica player, member of War
• Raquel Rastenni, jazz and popular singer
• Edgar Rubin , Gestalt psychologist
• Lars von Trier, film director (Jewish father: non-biological, he later discovered)

Estonia

• Louis I. Kahn, architect
• Eri Klas , conductor
• Yuri Lotman, semiotician

Finland

• Moses Pergament , composer
• Max Jakobson , diplomat
• Mauritz Stiller , director (Finnish-born)
• Ben Zyskowicz , conservative leader

Iceland

• Bobby Fischer, chess player (Jewish mother, does not identify; Icelandic citizen)
• Dorrit Moussaieff, jewellery designer & wife of Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson
• Fritz Nathan , co-founder of Nathan & Olsen

Latvia

• Elya Baskin , actor
• Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas
• Lipman Bers , mathematician & activist
• David Bezmozgis, author
• Sergei Eisenstein, director (Jewish father)
• Morris Halle, linguist
• Philippe Halsman, photographer
• Joseph Hirshhorn , financier & philanthropist
• Mariss Jansons, conductor (Jewish mother)
• Gil Kane, comic book illustrator
• Abraham Isaac Kook, rabbi
• Gidon Kremer, violinist
• Mischa Maisky , cellist
• Aron Nimzowitsch, chess player
• Mark Rothko, painter
• Mikhail Tal, world chess champion
• Max Weinreich, linguist

Lithuania

• Elijah ben Solomon, rabbi, the Gaon of Vilna
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, reviver of Hebrew
• Bernard Berenson, art critic
• Victor David Brenner , designer of the US penny
• Abraham Cahan, writer & activist
• Vyacheslav Ganelin , jazz pioneer
• Emma Goldman, anarchist
• Nahum Goldmann, world Jewish leader
• Chaim Grade , writer
• Zvi Griliches , economist
• Laurence Harvey, actor
• Jascha Heifetz, violinist
• Sidney Hillman, labor leader
• Al Jolson, entertainer
• Aaron Klug, chemist, Nobel Prize (1982)
• Emmanuel Levinas, philosopher
• Jacques Lipchitz, cubist sculptor
• Abraham Mapu, Hebrew novelist
• Harvey Milk, gay politician (Lithuanian parents)
• Hermann Minkowski, mathematician
• Oskar Minkowski , physiologist
• Meyer Schapiro, art historian
• Alexander Schneider , violinist & conductor
• Ben Shahn, artist
• Karl Shapiro, poet (Lithuanian parents)
• Sam , Lee & Jacob Shubert , theatre managers, producers (cf. Shubert Brothers)
• Joe Slovo, ANC activist
• Helen Suzman, anti-apartheid MP (Lithuanian parents)
• Uriel Weinreich, linguist
• Emanuelis Zingeris , politician
• William Zorach, painter, sculptor & writer
• Louis Zukofsky, poet (Lithuanian parents)

Norway

• Christian B. Anfinsen, chemist, Nobel Prize (1972) (Norwegian non-Jewish parents, convert)
• Jo Benkow, parliament speaker
• Bente Kahan , Yiddish singer and actress
• Robert Levin, pianist
• Mona Levin , actress,wrighter

Sweden

• Jean-Pierre Barda & Dominika Peczynski , members of Army of Lovers
• Gerhard Bonnier and family, founders of Bonnier media house
• Josef Frank , architect & designer
• Johan Harmenberg , Olympic epée champion
• Eli Heckscher, economist
• Erland Josephson, actor & writer
• Ernst Josephson , painter
• Georg Klein , pathologist
• Oskar Klein, physicist
• Leif Pagrotsky, Minister of Commerce
• Marcel Riesz, mathematician
• Nelly Sachs, German-born poet, Nobel Prize (1966)
• Leif Silbersky , defense lawyer & writer
• Art Spiegelman, comic strip artist
• Mauritz Stiller , director
• Peter Weiss, German-born dramatist & writer

See also

• List of Jews
• List of Danes
• List of Estonians
• List of Finns
• List of Icelanders
• List of Latvians
• List of Lithuanians
• List of Norwegians
• List of Swedes