The history of the Jews in Estonia starts with individual reports of
Jews in what is now
Estonia from as early as the 14th century. However, the process of permanent Jewish settlement in Estonia began in the 19th century, especially after they were granted the official right to enter the region by a statute of
Russian Tsar
Alexander II in 1865. This allowed the so-called Jewish "Nicholas soldiers" (often former
cantonists) and their descendants, First Guild merchants,
artisans, and Jews with
higher education to settle in Estonia and other parts of the Russian Empire outside their
Pale of Settlement. The "Nicholas soldiers" and their descendants, and artisans were, basically, the ones who 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 subsequently destroyed by fire in
World War II.