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PROVINCIAL JEWS
by Merete Christensen
The community in Randers had its high point at the middle of the nineteenth century, although it never had more than 200 members. These members, however, have been immortalised, both in a modest corpus of historical literature and through far deeper accounts in memoirs and fiction. The poet Henrik Pontoppidan (1857-1943), who was raised in Randers, is especially noteworthy.
He writes in his memoirs (Undervejs til mig selv - En route to myself, 1943) about the period after the synagogue was closed down: But in the empty prayer house, the "Eternal lamp" burned, now as before, day and night in front of the cabinet with the holy Torah scrolls. The few remaining families took turns letting themselves in every Friday to refill the lamp with oil, perhaps the oldest symbol of eternal prayer.
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