The Torsten Söderberg Chair 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 of 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 has been influenced by Jewish intellectual history. Through this donation, the faculty will eventually have professorships in all three major Abrahamic religions. The professorship will be filled in 2025.

Over the years, several research projects on Swedish Jewish life and its importance for the development of Sweden have been made possible by the Torsten Söderberg Foundation. One such example is the early research of Carl Henrik Carlsson, Associate Professor at Uppsala University, on Citizenship and Discrimination - about Eastern Jews and other immigrants in Sweden 1860-1920. Later, the Foundation has also supported his work on the book The History of Jews in Sweden. Per Hammarström's research on Jewish social integration in some cities in Norrland 1870-1940 has also been supported by 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 that over the years it has been able to help draw attention to and increase knowledge of, among other things, the Swedish-Jewish cultural heritage, says chairman Maria Söderberg

The Torsten Söderberg Foundation has also supported projects related to the old Jewish cemetery in Gothenburg, the old synagogue on Marstrand and about the Jews in Linnéstaden in Gothenburg. The Center for Business History's research project and biography on Peder Herzog - the bookbinder who started building have also been supported by 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).