The “Big Community”: Powering Jewish Life in Denmark

How do you entice young Jews to embrace Jewish life? Jeppe Sevel-Lilholt has one answer. An expert Jewish educator, and now vice-chair of the Jewish community of Denmark, Sevel-Lilholt has developed camps, seminars, and programs that inspire young Danish Jews to become leaders in their own right. In this reflection, he gives us a picture of what Danish Jewish life looks like, and how pan-regional camps and programs — and connections to international Jewish organizations like JDC — are powering its future. 

In the closing scene of the 1957 epic film “The Bridge on the River Kwai,”  the protagonist, Colonel Nicholson (played by Alec Guinness), when realizing the consequences of his actions, stares hopelessly into the horizon, uttering, “My G-d, what have I done?”

After deciding to write this reflection, I recalled that same sense of urgency and responsibility I felt when I became a leader in this community. I assume that many a Jewish lay leader has had that same feeling, realizing the importance and scope of the task they’ve undertaken.

I live in Denmark and I’m a board member of Det Jødiske Samfund i Danmark (the Danish Jewish Community), or the “Big Community,” as we like to call it. Denmark has a few different Jewish communities. The largest and oldest one is the Modern Orthodox community and its 100-year-old offshoot, Machsike Hadas, who are more observant and worship next to the Chabad House. We also have Shir Hatzafon, the Reform Jewish community. 

Jewish Denmark is diverse — and we all work together, catering to the more than 2,000 Jews across the country. All of our cultural and religious activities are made possible by this strong sense of cooperation.

Most of our members consider themselves Modern Orthodox out of tradition, but not practice. The first Jews in Denmark were Portuguese and arrived in the late 17th century, but later arrivals were Ashkenazim, and that remains the predominant tradition today.

I’ve been asked to define what makes us unique — that is difficult, but I think what makes the Nordic Jewish communities distinctive  is our cross-border collaboration. This sense of solidarity was quite strong in the olden days and it’s making a comeback. For many years, our pan-regional New Year’s party — hosted for Jewish youth — was the source of many marriages. 

I joined lay leadership in a minor role 12 years ago, wanting to focus on youth work and education. I’m a teacher and a principal, so this field is close to my area of expertise.

As Jewish communities, we have so much more in common than what separates us, so we can and must work together across borders. But serving as a board member in a smaller Jewish community can be a challenge, particularly when resources are tight. That’s why I was glad to join a group of lay leaders in London with LEATID — a JDC program for Jewish communal leaders — which tackled some of these urgent issues. Our cohort benefited from skills workshops, site visits, and meeting with other European community leaders gave me a network to draw strength from.  

The lessons and skills I learned through LEATID became particularly useful in addressing one of our core challenges: membership retention. Like many Jewish communities, Denmark’s has a dwindling membership, because the active youths have for many generations sought spouses abroad or moved to bigger communities in the United Kingdom, United States, or Israel. Our average age is over 65. 

For many years the strategy had been to try to get people between 25-35 to re-join the community, without great effect. The prospects for our future looked dire. Together with our rabbi and some other volunteers, we started focusing on membership retention instead of recruitment. “If the youth don’t leave, we don’t have to win them back” was and is our philosophy.

We joined up with Jewish  communities in Sweden and Norway and hosted our first camp eight years ago. That first summer, we had eight Danish youth with the participation of eight Danish kids, most of them my and my rabbi’s students. But more importantly, the madrichim (camp counselors) are teens from our communities.

Many times during the first camp, I quoted Col. Nicholson, because we had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. But we, and more importantly, the chanichim (campers) and children, survived and thrived, and we continued the year after.

A series of events followed the slipstream of this first camp: The community and our youth coordinator established an after-school leadership training program from which we recruit our madrichim. So we now have expertise to draw on. Much like Lord Mountbatten’s commandos in that 1957 film, they are a specialist group that not only do camps in the summer, but also volunteer at the Jewish school and other events.

This has facilitated a youth movement for 14-18 year olds, Jewish Youth Copenhagen (JUK), and the young adults have revitalized a movement for the 20-30 year old members and their friends. This is more than just a social club — in addition to parties and social events, they also organize workshops for holidays, religious study, and more.

Our camps have grown in numbers and size, with the multi-year support of JDC. Last year, we had three separate summer camps for three different age groups — as well as a winter camp — for three different age groups, totaling more than 100 participants.

Jewish Denmark is diverse — and we all work together, catering to more than 2,000 Jews across the country.

After six years, last year was the last camp I helped lead. Perhaps my proudest moment was when I handed the reins to my eldest daughter. She has attended all the Jewish camps throughout the years and is now the head counselor.

I feel proud that we as a community, with the aid of JDC, have established a tradition for summer camps and a system where there is a clear “career path” for children, from being at camp to becoming counselors, active members, and one day, Jewish leaders.

Now that I’ve moved on from leading the camps and been appointed deputy chair of the community and treasurer, I can only say, once again, “My G-d, what have I done?”

Whatever I end up doing, I know it will be done in collaboration with others, in partnership with the community I proudly call home. 

Jeppe Sevel-Lilholt has been vice-chair of the Jewish Community of Denmark since early 2023. Before this, he was a member of the board, in charge of youth and education. In this capacity the community’s summer camps were re-established, beginning with 13 children at the first camp in 2017, growing to more than 100 children at three camps today. Furthermore, under Sevel-Lilholt’s leadership, Denmark’s Jewish youth movement was revitalized in partnership with BBYO, and now has weekly meetings and activities. Sevel-Lilholt is happily married to Marina and is the proud father of Rebekka and Leah, as well as the happy owner of Athena, a great dane.

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