Torsten Söderberg’s professorship in Jewish Thought at the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, established in 2024, is the first of its kind in Sweden. Jewish Thought is a field within Jewish studies that focuses on Jewish texts and their interpretations in relation to the history of ideas. The focus is on how Jewish life and culture have been shaped by these texts, but also on how Christian and Muslim theology have been influenced by the history of Jewish ideas. Through this donation, the faculty will finally have professorships in all three major Abrahamic religions. The professorship will be filled in 2025.

Over the years, the Torsten Söderberg Foundation has made possible several research projects on Swedish Jewish life and its significance for Sweden’s development. One such example is the early research by Carl Henrik Carlsson, an associate professor at Uppsala University, on *Citizenship and Discrimination: Eastern European Jews and Other Immigrants in Sweden, 1860–1920*. Later, the foundation also supported his work on the book The History of the Jews in Sweden. Per Hammarström’s research on Jewish social integration in several cities in Norrland from 1870 to 1940 has also received support from the foundation.

Currently, a research project led by Mia Kurtizén Löwengart at Uppsala University in collaboration with Maja Hultman at the Center for European Research, University of Gothenburg and the Center for Business History is underway on the important Swedish-Jewish contribution to Stockholm's transformation into a modern capital with a particular focus on the capital's public institutions, social networks and cultural identity.

“The Torsten Söderberg Foundation is pleased to have been able to help raise awareness and increase knowledge of, among other things, the Swedish-Jewish cultural heritage over the years,” says Chairwoman Maria Söderberg

The Torsten Söderberg Foundation has also supported projects related to the old Jewish cemetery in Gothenburg, the old synagogue in Marstrand, and the Jewish community in Linnéstaden in Gothenburg. The Center for Business History’s research project and biography of Peder Herzog—the bookbinder who became a builder—were also made possible with support from the Torsten Söderberg Foundation.

Image: Stora Nygatan in Gothenburg with the synagogue. Motif from Gothenburg and its surroundings presented in plates, Lithograph by Carl Gustaf Berger (1837-1860).