Interestingly, the Finns do not call their own country Finland by its Germanic name, which roughly translates to “hunters of the north”. The native Finnish name is Suomi, a word coming from the Finno-Ugric language family meaning “land”. Originally, Suomi referred only to what is now southwestern Finland, and only later became the name of the entire country. Before Finland was annexed by Russia in 1809, it was part of the Swedish Empire. Until then, there were practically no Jews in the territory, as under Swedish rule, only the Lutheran Church was permitted. Immigrants wishing to settle in Swedish territory had to agree to convert. In this regard, even within the Russian Empire, nothing was to change for the then autonomous Grand Duchy for the time being, as the Swedish legal system was retained. It was only from the mid-19th century onward that Jews who had served in the Tsarist army were tolerated and could remain in the territory of New Finland, a situation formalized by laws in 1858 and 1869. Full civil rights were not granted to Jews until 1917.

In the 1918 Finnish Civil War, “White Finland” emerged victorious from the Bolshevik-oriented “Red Finland”. Germany’s defeat in World War I led to a loss of influence over Finland, ultimately resulting in Finland’s independence in 1918. During World War II (1941-44), Finland fought alongside the German Reich against the Soviet Union. Despite strong pressure from Germany, Finnish authorities did not enact anti-Jewish laws during this period. By 1945, as a consequence of World War II, Finland was forced to cede three non-contiguous eastern territories to the Soviet Union, representing approximately eleven percent of its then-current territory. These included the regions of Petsamo (Pechengsky), Salla, and Karelia, which encompassed the city of Vyburg, at the time Finland’s second-largest city.

In 1906, Finland was the first country in Europe to introduce active women’s suffrage at the national level (the third country worldwide after New Zealand and Australia), a right that also applied to the Jewish population. In the same year, the large synagogue on Malminkatu Street in Kamppi, a district of Helsinki, was opened after a construction period of only about fifteen months. From 1918 onward, Jews could obtain Finnish citizenship with full rights. Today, nearly 1,400 Jews live in Helsinki (total population: 1.3 million), and about 200 more in Turku (home to Finland’s second synagogue), which is now the country’s third-largest city after Tampere. Approximately 200 more Jews live in other locations. However, figures vary, and some sources cite only 900 Jews in Helsinki.

The aforementioned city of Vyborg (Viipuri) held a special status within Finland. This territory, known as Old Finland, was ceded by Sweden to Russia as early as 1710 and had a special status under Tsarist Russia, which allowed for a limited influx of Jews. A synagogue was completed in this town in 1910 (making it Finland’s third synagogue from 1918 onwards). However, it was completely destroyed by Russian bombing raids in December 1939 during the three-and-a-half-month-long Winter War between Finland and the USSR.

The official language of Finland is not only Finnish, which belongs to the Uralic language family. Swedish is recognized as a second official language and is spoken as a first language by roughly over five percent of the population (approximately 5.65 million people). The Åland Islands, with about 31,000 inhabitants in the southwest of the country, have a special status, achieved through the League of Nations in 1920, and have Swedish as the official language. Finland appears to be the only one of the five Nordic Council countries where Israeli folk dance plays a significant role. In the other four countries (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), no current dance groups are known to exclusively offer Israeli folk dances. These would, at best, be found only sporadically within international dance circles. Further research would be needed to explain the sociological reasons for this. Finland is the third largest of the Nordic countries by land area and only the fourth largest by population. With an area of 338,472 km² (130,685 mi²), Finland is roughly eighty percent the size of California or fifteen times the size of Israel. Finland’s capital, Helsinki, located in the far south of the country, lies more or less on the same latitude as Anchorage (Alaska).

Attentive readers of Rokdim-Nirkoda magazine may recall issue no. 67 (July 2005), in which Yaron Meishar reported on his seven-day experience in the city of Oulu under the title “Hopa Hopa Hopa Hopa Hey, Teaching Israeli Dance in Finland”. This one-week event was considered so important regionally that it was even reported in the April 6, 2005 issue of the local national magazine “Suomenmaa” under the headline “Sweat on the surface, but a smile on their faces”.

To gain the most objective insight possible into the current Israeli dance scene, specifically more than twenty years later, the obvious first step was to contact the Israeli Embassy in Helsinki. Unsurprisingly, despite two inquiries, there was not even a reply. The Jewish community in Helsinki was somewhat more communicative. According to Linda Hasan, on behalf of the board of the Helsinki Jewish Community: “Folk dancing”, she responded, “specifically hora, is always a big part of parties, such as weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, but I have never come across an Israeli dance session, or a Finland-based group that specializes in Israeli folk dancing.” Thus, neither the Israeli Embassy nor the Jewish community in Helsinki is aware of any activities in the field of Israeli folk dance.

Nevertheless, the Jewish community of Finland, founded in 1906, is celebrating its 120th anniversary this year and “will arrange a lot of cultural events and celebrations throughout the year.” As a first and actually only contact, Linda Hasan mentioned, or rather recommended, a Finnish Jewish dancer named Irene Jelin, who is widely regarded as a researcher and well-known early pioneer of oriental (Middle Eastern or “itämainen”) dance in Finland. Irene started to dance ballet in 1966. Around 1970, she stayed for about a year in Israel, first as a volunteer in Kibbutz Netiv Halamed-Heh, later as an ulpanist (studying Hebrew) in Kibbutz Ein HaShofet. This was the only period in which Irene had direct contact with Israeli folk dance, in this case through the local weekly kibbutz sessions. As it seems, beyond that, she was never connected or involved in anything happening in the broader Finnish scene of IFD.

However, this does not mean that Irene was completely detached from Jewish dance influences. Quite the contrary: As she reported in a lecture at the 8th International Nordic Forum for Dance Research (NOFOD) Conference in Stockholm (January 12-15, 2006), she worked as a sports and dance teacher in the small town of Kuhmo (about six hundred kilometres north of Helsinki near the border with Russia, with a population of  7,500) during the 2004-05 school year, instructing her students in Klezmer dancing: Her students were taught how to dance circle dances and couple dances, wedding dances and folk dances. One insightful observation was how a conservatively religious community, exemplified by Kuhmo, which is situated amidst “large areas of deep forests and wild animals such as bears and wolves”, dealt with the seemingly more relaxed Jewish approach to religion: “The cultural distance between the happy but still religion-oriented atmosphere of the Klezmer music and dance experience in a Jewish wedding celebration, contrary to the old, traditional, pious Finnish way of celebrating weddings, is remarkable. Nevertheless, we were not too religious in the Klezmer dance classes in Kuhmo and all enjoyed the dancing despite one’s possible beliefs of right and wrong in the religious sense”.

Regardless, independent of Jewish or Israeli institutions, Israeli folk dance has largely established itself in church groups in Finland, which express their connection to God and the State of Israel through dancing, particularly through Hebrew texts and Israeli step combinations. A probably unique idea worldwide, at least in the field of Israeli folk dance at the national level, was realized on April 30, 2017:  twenty-seven individuals interested in Israeli folk dance, including individual dancers and representatives of dance groups, met under the chairmanship of Helka Mäkelä to coordinate dance classes and events nationwide. The goal was to avoid scheduling conflicts, especially for future events. Plans were also in place to hold an annual national dance weekend in either the north or south of the country, where old, already learned or known dances could be danced together, including the possibility of establishing a beginners group, if necessary. Since online discussions in the past have occasionally been characterized by an “inappropriate and unconstructive” tone, a general call was made for objectivity, friendliness, and respect in the comments on their common Facebook page. These rules were intended to “create as pleasant an atmosphere as possible throughout Finland and encourage new dancers”.

Generally, the conclusion for Finland is the following: Finland dances, no doubt! However, surprisingly or not, it is heavily intermingled with certain spiritual elements one can hardly find nowadays in Israel in connection with the dance scene there. That is, if we disregard dances to songs whose lyrics reflect a more nationalistic weltanschauung (worldview) – for example, songs released after or connected to October 7, 2023, which became quite popular in Israel in recent years, because of the language barrier they definitely play a lesser role outside of Israel. Since the dance sessions in Finland have hardly any Jewish or Israeli attendants, the final conclusion must be: Israeli folk dances would not exist in Finland without the (non-Jewish) Finns. Perhaps another observation is noteworthy: Most of the dance leaders or instructors mentioned in this article, and this is easily over two dozen, are women. The number of men is actually no more than five, thus twenty percent at most. The percentage difference is even greater when we look at the participating and active dancers in the individual groups.

In the following, the most important names and groups are presented individually and in no particular order. Some names may appear more than once; this is partly because some dance instructors move from one city to another and then start a new group there, if one had not already existed. A few others teach nationwide and have thus left their mark in several locations. Not everyone who was contacted wanted to reply. Some responded with only a few short lines and basic information, others elaborated further, and still others, though only a few, wrote a short essay. At times, despite repeated requests, it was quite difficult to obtain photos of acceptable quality. And still, the deeper I got into that topic, it made me realize that there must be many more groups in Finland either just doing Israeli folk dances for the pure fun of it or using them for Christian worship purposes, which I have not covered simply because I was not aware of them in time. Finally, my gratitude and special thanks go to Elisa Heinonen, who provided considerable support in contacting the various groups, especially for additional information and photographs; without her, this list would probably have remained quite incomplete.

 

Wim van der Kooij  wim.vanderkooij@gmail.com

Wim van der Kooij (1946-) is widely considered the person who introduced Israeli dance to Finland. His name frequently comes up in connection with other dance groups, as will be seen below. However, Wim is actually not Finnish at all; he was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. At the age of 17, he met a group in his hometown that performed international folk dances accompanied by live accordion music – the beginning of a hobby that continues to this day. His first teacher was John Casteleijn, who later became the director of the performance group “Radostan”, in which Wim danced from 1971 to 1973. The group’s repertoire also included dances with Yemeni and Hasidic themes.

Wim’s first contact with Finland occurred in the summer of 1967 when he completed a four-week internship at a tree nursery. After studying horticulture and completing sixteen months of military service in the Netherlands, he returned to Finland in the autumn of 1973. Alongside his job at a landscape architecture firm, his interest in folk dance remained. Initially, he taught international folk dances (primarily Israeli, as well as Balkan, dances) two to four evenings a week at municipal cultural centres. To stay up-to-date, he travelled to the Netherlands, especially between Christmas and New Year’s, from 1974 to 1980, to attend folk dance courses and expand his dance repertoire. Among others, he met Yonatan Gabay (1933-2011), whom he still considers his greatest dance role model, and learned some of his dances, such as “Tzadik Katamar” (1965), “Mal’ach Mi’Sulam Ya’akov” (1972), and “Yedid Nefesh” (1971).

From August 5-9, 1979, the International Theatre Institute (ITI), the world’s largest performing arts organization (theatre, dance, and performance art), initiated by UNESCO and founded in 1948, held a conference entitled “Seminar on the Bible in Dance” (even the New York Times reported on it on page 20 of its October 14th, 1979 edition). One of the goals of this seminar was the translation of biblical motifs and narratives into dance. Wim participated as Finland’s representative. The majority of participants were teachers of jazz, modern dance, and ballet. Among other things, the conference also featured a performance by “Inbal”, a dance company founded in 1949 by choreographer Sara Levi-Tanai which originally drew on Yemenite Jewish cultural movement traditions.

In Helsinki, the Finnish-Israeli Society had been organizing a weekly Israeli dance evening for beginners and advanced dancers, which Wim led. To go along with the flood of new dances from Israel, he began inviting dance instructors from abroad. The first invitation went to Leo Waudman (Netherlands), an expert on Israeli and especially Bulgarian Dances. In 1986, Friedel Kloke-Eibl (1941-), a world-renowned specialist in Sacred Dance, came from Germany to Helsinki through his efforts. Wim’s courses had become so successful that the then Israeli ambassador to Helsinki, Asher Naim (1988-1990), took notice and even attended one of these classes with his wife. Incidentally, a subsidy from the embassy in 1991 enabled Wim to spend a week studying more dances in Israel. (As indicated in the introduction to this article, today, the Israeli embassy in Helsinki seems to be unaware of any of this.)

In the same year, that is 1979, Wim van der Kooij also began teaching abroad, not only in Viljandi, the sixth-largest city in Estonia, but also at several Waldorf schools in this country. Through Kloke-Eibl, numerous other courses were established in various German cities during the 1990s, such as Stuttgart, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Hamburg, the latter under the direction of Hans-Hermann Firus – and in St. Gallen (Switzerland) under the direction of Marion Becker, who is based in Liechtenstein. From 2003 onwards, Wim maintained contact with Austria (in the states of Styria and Carinthia, under the direction of folk dance teacher Eva Themessl) through numerous workshops. His international contacts were maintained for more than a few decades. Some of his former dance groups still come to Helsinki for return visits, for which Wim, of course, organizes dance programs.

Currently, Wim still teaches Israeli and international dances three times a week, traditionally in a circle with handholds. The “pioneer dances” remain his favorites. Of course, Wim understands that with the many turns in the modern dances of the Israeli folk dance repertoire, it is not always possible to maintain a continuous handhold. His classes are mainly attended by seniors, which Wim somewhat wistfully regrets; he would have liked to have a few younger participants, as he used to have in the beginning of his activities. On Tuesdays, however, they are a larger group of 20-25 dancers, mostly women. His favorite dances still include Rivka Sturman’s “Harmonica” (1945), Bentzi Tiram’s “U’vne Yerushalayim” (1975), Yonatan Gabay’s “Od Yishama” (1975), and Moshe Telem’s “Mas’at Nafshi” (2009). Looking back, Wim van der Kooij is overjoyed to have discovered such a hobby like folk dance almost sixty years ago. Above all, through the dances he has made until today very special and almost irreplaceable friendships both in Finland and abroad.

Viveca Unnérus (Ingå / Inkoo)  viveca.unnerus@fimnet.fi

Viveca Unnérus (1943-) lives in Ingå, roughly 60 kilometres west of Helsinki, in a predominantly Swedish-speaking community. She was born in Ekenäs, another 30 or so kilometres farther west, a town that is entirely Swedish-speaking. It is no surprise, then, that Viveca’s mother tongue is Swedish. As she told me, she had always been convinced that, in her opinion, teaching was one of the most difficult professions, given the immense responsibility it entailed, and she therefore admired many teachers. She herself could have never imagined being a teacher – and certainly not a dance instructor. As a doctor, then living in Helsinki, she worked long days and often nights, yet usually saw only a few people at a time. However, when the most stressful years were over, and her four children were already in school, she finally found the time to muster up some energy and look for a “relaxing hobby”. By chance, in the summer of 1982, she learned about a weekend course in Israeli folk dances, and indeed registered with a friend without having the slightest idea what to expect beyond general dancing. The result was “total enthusiasm” from the very first moment. One of her first dances, Viveca recalls, was “Miserlou”, literally “Egyptian Girl”, which, as is well known, belongs to the repertoire of international folk dances and was probably choreographed in 1945 by Brunhilde Dorsch (Duquesne University, Pittsburgh). This dance has no significance in the Israeli context, even though there is supposedly a version of this melody by Eli Ronen. In any case, this very dance is said to have given her a certain “aha!” moment.

For many years, she attended the dance evenings in Helsinki led by Wim van der Kooij, supplementing these with weekend workshops led by guest instructors, primarily from the Netherlands, but also from Israel, Bulgaria, and Romania. One of the instructors was Tom Bozigian (1938-) from California, widely known in international dance circles for his Armenian and Russian dances. In the late 1990’s, Yaakov Eden (1942-2025) came from New York to teach Israeli dances, among them, as Viveca recalls, “Debka Rafiach” (Moshe Presser, 1946). A Swedish-Norwegian couple also appeared once, teaching beautiful dances from Yugoslavia. Viveca loved the somewhat more challenging rhythms, which her body seemed to grasp immediately, even if her mind did not always go along with it. In our conversation, she lamented that Wim tended to neglect these more advanced dances, preferring to teach more familiar, safer dances with simpler steps. When Viveca was eventually asked if she perhaps would like to take over the position of one of the three directors of the Israeli dance group in Helsinki (the previous one had moved to Turku), she spontaneously and joyfully agreed. This opened up a completely new world of rich Jewish culture for her. Simultaneously, for about twenty years, she studied Hebrew with a retired religious studies teacher from the Jewish school in Helsinki; admittedly, less on grammar and more on culture and history.

When her husband, Hans-Anders, retired in 2007, they moved to Ingå, a village of about 5,500 inhabitants, an hour’s drive west of Helsinki. Even today, they still travel to Helsinki every Monday to dance with their old group, although Viveca has long since given up teaching. These days, Joel Yliluioma and Riikka Ranta are particularly active in the group, bringing back and teaching all the new dances from the big weekends in Finland with guest instructors. This keeps Viveca up-to-date with the more recent dances, including pieces like “Lama” (Sharon Elkaslassy, 2023), “Adama Veshamayim” (Gadi Bitton, 2008), or “Libi” (most likely Yuval Tabashi’s circle dance from 2018).

No doubt, Viveca had previously focused on teaching and cultivating older dances from the pioneering days of Israeli folk dancing – dances that are now readily available to everyone on YouTube, even without direct instruction. All in all, she worked as a dance instructor in Helsinki for approximately twenty years. The last major camp she attended was in March 2025 with Marcelo Marianoff from Córdoba (Argentina), who, according to her, had visited Finland eleven times. In 2011 and 2015, she herself had invited Marcelo to lead workshops she organized. Their relationship developed so well that in November 2013, she and her husband travelled to Argentina for two weeks, allowing them to accept Marcelo’s invitation to his wedding.

In 2009, Viveca finally retired, which gave her the opportunity to start an Israeli dance group with her husband in a church community in Ingå. Since then, they have danced almost every Friday evening. Her husband remains the only male participant, except on evenings when they are joined by some members of the Helsinki group and when, for example, Joel Yliluoma would come along. The group is normally of eight to ten very enthusiastic and dedicated women, four of whom are still working and therefore under sixty. They continue to dance commonly at church services as well as other community events, such as birthdays and funerals. Viveca reports that it was particularly wonderful to dance with young people during their confirmation preparation (the Lutheran “Bar Mitzvah”), which even included the “chief” (i.e., the local pastor).

It should not be overlooked here to mention Viveca’s article under the title “Israeli folk dances in Helsinki”, published 2013 in the periodical Yedidut (friendship), no. 4/2013. In it, she recounts how it all began in Finland’s capital and eventually developed further; apparently, it all seems to have started with one of the “most enthusiastic dancers”: namely, Alpo Pajunen. And certainly the subheadline confirms the observation I made while researching for this article: “Israeli folk dances are a popular hobby among many Israeli friendship associations”. This article also mentions Haim Zemach, who, following an invitation from the Helsinki branch of The Federation of Finland-Israel Associations in the 1980s, was probably the first dance instructor from Israel to hold several workshops in Finland.

There are some more modern favorites in Viveca’s extended repertoire, as she mentioned in a phone call, which are included in Helsinki dance sessions, such as “Mashehu Tov” (Avi Levy, 2019). Her favorites in the Ingå session are “Mi Adir” (Lena and Oren Ashkenazi, 2023) and “Lu Yehi” (Gadi Bitton, 2004). Even at her advanced age, Viveca does so far not foresee the end of her dance career. As long as she is able to continue, she said pithily, she will keep on dancing.

Elisa Heinonen (Vaasa) elisa.heinonen@netikka.fi

Israeli dance began in Vaasa on the west coast of Finland, approximately 450 kilometres north-northwest of Helsinki, in the 1980s. Since the structure and organization have changed again and again over the past forty-five years, only a shorter update of the last five years or so can be given. In the summer of 2021, Yuval Tabashi came to Vaasa. About sixty dancers from different parts of Finland took part in that dance weekend. This ultimately resulted in the current group of dancers, which was led by Elisa Heinonen, Ann-Christin Mattbäck, who worked as a childminder, and Päivi Aho-Peart, a former Waldorf school and a retired eurythmy teacher. Since then, up to twenty participants have come to the weekly courses, as well as others who decided to take part for a shorter period of time. All three course instructors attach great importance to creating a safe space for all participants in which no one has to explain or reveal their origins or identity.

Together with the dance instructors, the group warmly welcomes everyone to take part in the dance lessons or just come along for a trial lesson. Although the Vaasa dance group is relatively small, it consists of additional members from different countries, thus creating a lively atmosphere throughout. Finnish, Swedish and English are used in this multilingual group. Occasionally, there may also be other languages that the dance leaders speak, such as German, not to forget body language and hand gestures. And infrequently even dancers from China or Africa have shown up. Mainly, beginner and slightly advanced dances are danced. Steps and figures that turn out to be difficult for the group are repeated as often as necessary. The group’s repertoire consists of around 120 dances. Teaching and dance videos from the Rokdim website are sometimes forwarded in its WhatsApp group. During the lesson, the names of the dances to be taught are often translated into Finnish; sometimes even the entire lyrics of a song. With the group’s specifically humanistic approach, the participants particularly enjoy the music and the diversity of the different styles. “We feel companionship and togetherness in the swirls of the dance,” explains Elisa. With such an unbeatable approach, everyone is already looking forward to the following dance class on Wednesday evenings!

Elisa (1964-) was born in the small town of Ilmajoki, about sixty kilometres southeast of Vaasa, which has a population of about 12,000 and belongs to Etelä-Pohjanmaa (Södra Österbotten), one of the nineteen regions of Finland. She began dancing in Helsinki around 1985. While studying church diaconal work, followed by social work, one day someone came to the students’ church service informing the students about the possibility to attend dance lectures. Just “dance”, because in this announcement, there was no mention of international or Israeli folk dance. And like so many others, Elisa was thrilled from the first moment by these new sounds, which were previously completely unknown to her. Surprisingly, Elisa found it easy to follow these first dance steps, having never actually danced before. Back then, there used to be dozens of young dancers. They often started with the Yugoslavian “Djacko Kolo” and the Romanian “Alunelul”. In another group, they learned Israeli performance dances. Elisa was involved in incorporating Israeli dance tunes into their prayer service mass for around two years, once a month with a performance group accompanying the services with dances like “Le’or Chiyuchech” (Shalom Hermon, 1955), “Erev Ba” (Yoav Ashriel, 1960) and “Yevarechecha” (Giora Kadmon, 1980).

Alpo Pajunen was her first dance teacher. It was he, Elisa said, who taught her not only to dance, but also to count the steps and other structural methods. In short, he gave her the basics. At some stage, Wim van der Kooij opened his own class in Helsinki. His approach to teaching dances was certainly very different. He usually just danced, not necessarily teaching by announcing every single step in dances like “Ki Eshmera” (Yankele Levy, 1973) or “Yesh Et La’Amal” (Ya’akov Kimchi, 1951). It was just another method, and by the end of the day, by no means less effective.
While Elisa’s friends, who initially had joined her, soon dropped out, she stayed until 1992, usually dancing three times a week. Before she moved to Vaasa, the largest city close to the area where she originally came from, Jouni Pajunen provided her tapes with a couple of hundred dances. Then she got married, had a son and a daughter (Heta) and just the regular family life. Occasionally, Elisa started a number of times to teach Israeli folk dances in Vaasa. This went on for several years, until Yaron Meishar came to Finland around 2007 for a second time, and her second “big dancing period” began. Since then, she could not stop dancing until today, which included visiting over the years several dance camps all over Europe, such as Machol Europa, Machol Hungaria, or two Israelisches Tanzhaus weekends in Munich in 2019 (Michael Barzelai) and 2025 (Yuval Tabashi).

 

Merja Meir (Oulu / Taivalkoski) merja.meir@hotmail.com

Merja Meir began to dance Israeli folk dance in the early 1980’s. In 1997, she started to teach and formed in her hometown Oulu, about six hundred kilometres north of Helsinki, a group she called “Kinneret” (Sea of Galilee). Seven or eight years later, she decided to invite dance instructors from Israel. Her first dance teacher was Yaron Meishar, with whom she became acquainted through the internet. Every summer since then until 2025 (the Corona period excepted), she organized annual dance weekends, sometimes even twice a year, as in the years 2006, 2007, and 2015, with choreographers or dance instructors coming from Israel, such as Gidi Eiko z”l, Boaz Cohen, Oren Ashkenazi, Rafi Ziv, Hila Mukdasi, and Shlomo Maman. Merja insisted on inviting only “indigenous Israelis” (serving in the IDF and/or just having an Israeli citizenship was not enough), so Marcelo Marianoff from Argentina was clearly an exception. In 2008, she came to Munich to attend the Israelisches Tanzhaus’ 29th seminar with Kobi Michaeli.

From 2005 on, Merja introduced most of the dances that local dance instructors taught all over Finland in their weekend workshops. She had “founded dozens of small dance circles from Helsinki to Lapland and west to east, all over the country”. She used to learn new dances in Israel, which she frequently visited, whereas nowadays, YouTube is certainly another, albeit secondary source. She lived in Israel for many years and speaks Hebrew. The Oulu dance circle visited Israel in 2007 and 2010 as part of a dance study trip. While she had up to four dance sessions per week with various groups in her busiest times, at the moment, she has no dance group at all because of simply “being short on time”. The performance group “Kinneret”, however, still exists under the leadership of Merja and still performs for various events with full energy. According to her words, her group is “like a fine wine – with age it is just getting better and better”.

Tytöt (Young Dancers)

Hilla Karaksela hilla.karaksela@gmail.com

Pirita Nieminen kahvikissa23@gmail.com

Nelli Vapaakoski nvapaakoski@gmail.com

In Finland, alongside the established and therefore older dance enthusiasts, several young dancers deserve a brief introduction:

Among them is Hilla Karaksela (1997-), who has dedicated herself with great commitment for several years not only to dancing but also, in particular, to teaching Israeli folk dances. Hilla began dancing Israeli dances at the age of ten when her mother, Hanne Karaksela, simply took her along to her first Israeli dance classes. Hanne had recently met colleagues at a Hebrew singing camp who, in addition to singing, also danced. And Hanne – being the woman of action she is – quickly took such a liking to dancing that she soon founded her own dance group. For Hilla, Israeli folk dancing was by far not her first dancing experience. She often went along with her mother doing lots of different things, so it was only natural for her to also try Israeli dances. Anything dance-related was actually of interest to her. After all, by the age of four she had already started with jazz and contemporary dance. So, based on this previous dance experience, albeit in very different areas, she found the new experience “in a way different, but highly interesting” and quite soon also got involved in teaching.

A few years later, Hilla and Hanne moved to Kangasala (population 35,000, located about 160 kilometres north of Helsinki and 25 kilometres east of Tampere), where Hilla, then 14, began teaching Israeli folk dance regularly to children between the ages of six and fourteen. There she met Liisa (1997-) and Iida (1999-), who were about the same age. The three hit it off immediately, and from then on also met outside of their weekly dance classes to do other things together.

Meanwhile, around 2007, Heta Heinonen (1999-) began dancing Israeli folk dance in western Finland (Vaasa) at the age of eight, together with her mother, Elisa. Rokdim-Nirkoda #107 (p. 14) reported on Heta in detail in 2021. Elisa regularly took her daughter to dance camps in Finland and abroad. So it was no wonder that over the years, Hilla and Heta had met at various dance camps and were therefore curious about each other. On the other hand, for quite some time, both felt too shy even to greet each other. That changed in 2015 when Liisa and Iida participated in Machol Finland 2015 (with Marcelo Marianoff) for the first time. Hilla, Liisa, and Iida eventually welcomed Heta into their group. They stayed in touch even after the camp. A year later, they travelled together to Machol Hungaria for the first time and subsequently attended other dance camps in Finland and abroad. Even though their studies were scattered across Finland over the years, they continued to meet up regularly – not only for dancing but also for other activities that kept them connected. To this day, they are best friends.

In 2016, Elisa Heinonen was asked by dancers from Seinäjoki (about eighty kilometres southeast of Vaasa) to start a dance group and teach Israeli dance. After Heta simply had joined in a few times, she soon took over leading the group herself. This meant two hours of travelling once a week (both ways), a time she joyfully invested in teaching the lovely and caring dancers of Seinäjoki. With the onset of the pandemic, however, Heta withdrew from dancing for family reasons.

When Hanne began ordering DVDs from Rokdim, she used this material to study many dances together with her daughter. So Hilla’s first dances were the real classics like “Nigun Atik” (Rivka Sturman, 1956), “Od Lo Ahavti Dai” (Yankele Levy, 1977), and “Hora Nirkoda” (Yoav Ashriel, 1958) and certainly a few others. Hilla especially loved the dresses some of the women wore in those earlier video clips while teaching. Nowadays, she follows a lot of choreographers she knows from social media and thus tends to see many new dances just from the videos she comes across. Every now and then, she also checks the latest videos on the Rokdim website. As a result, she actually knows the music for quite a few dances before the steps. In her opinion, this provides great support when learning a completely new dance! To widen her repertoire, she usually prefers to teach dances she did not know very well before or not at all. So after having done her diligent “homework”, she feels more secure teaching a certain new dance to others. Of course, she also includes dances she has learned at a recent camp or workshop, even though she “normally is a bit pickier with those dances” since the dances taught at camps are normally the instructor’s choice. Along with learning the steps to dances, she usually also checks the lyrics and artists of each song to be able to tell her class as much as possible about the dance. Sometimes the lyrics might even be a deciding factor for choosing or not choosing a dance.

Hilla only recently started to study Hebrew, and certainly it is fun to find words that have been familiar to her through the lyrics of the dances. It was no surprise that soon after she started teaching, she also began to enjoy participating in various dance camps. At Machol Finland 2018, she was engaged as one of the dance instructors. In 2023, she and Iida travelled with a Europe-wide Interrail ticket from Machol Hungaria to a workshop in Prague, creating unforgettable memories during this three-week trip. Repeating this experience in the future should not be just a dream. Needless to add, the stories of their travel and dance experiences at home began to encourage other young dancers from Tampere to travel abroad to dance, just as Hilla and Iida had done before.

Pirita Nieminen discovered Israeli dance in early 2014. A few years later, she was asked to join the teaching team in Tampere. Since then, she has participated in numerous camps in Finland and abroad. Her first dance camp was Machol Finland in 2015. Afterwards, she participated in various dance camps throughout Europe. She simply enjoys seeing new places and meeting new people – especially those who share her love of Israeli dances.

Nelli Vapaakoski (2005-) joined the group in 2021 at the age of 16. She had been asked and eventually encouraged to join the group in Tampere for some time. Finally, she decided to do so and was thrilled from the very beginning. Like so many others before her, she quickly became captivated by the songs and dances and soon progressed from the beginner to the advanced group, where she particularly enjoyed the social atmosphere. Through dance, she has made many new friends, not to mention the wonderful memories of travelling to the various dance camps. She especially appreciates that, in her opinion, there is something for everyone in Israeli folk dance, and the shared experiences are “almost indescribable and simply fantastic”.

Vilja Hynninen attended an Israeli folk dance class for the first time in the summer of 2021 at Yuval Tabashi’s workshop in Helsinki. It did not take too long for her to fall in love with the rhythm of the music and the joy of dancing together in a group. Initially, she mainly danced at camps and workshops, but gradually she also found time to show up at the weekly dance evenings. Her first camp abroad was Machol Aviv 2025, and she fondly remembers filling the breaks with acrobatics. The biggest surprise for her was that far more people than expected wanted to join in right away.

 

Pirita, Nelli, Hilla, Iida, and Vilja (and to a certain extent also Heta) belong to the new generation of young dancers from Finland who have found joy in simply practicing Israeli folk dance, travelling extensively because of it, and, in particular, connecting with people all over the world.