Leopold Zunz

ZUNZ, ZONZ, ZUMSS

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

Zunz is associated with the German town of Zons/Zuns on the Rhine near Koeln (Cologne), where Jews had their first community in Germany in the early 4th century. Von Zons is documented as a Jewish family name in 15th century Germany. Zonz is mentioned in the early 18th century with Jakob Amsel Zonz, who visited the Leipzig fair in the years 1722 and 1723. A most distinguished bearer of the Jewish family name Zunz was the German scholar Leopold (Yom Tov Lippmann) Zunz (1794-1886), a founder of the Science of Judaism.

Moses Haim Lits Rosenbaum (1864-1943), rabbi, born in Pozsony (Pressburg), Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire (now Bratislava, Slovakia). He was ordained by Simhah Bunim Sofer and served as rabbi of two large communities, first in Szilagysomlyo (Simleul Silvaniei), Transylvania, (now in Romania) from 1888 to 1897, and then from 1898 until his death in Kisvarda (Kleinvardein), Hungary.

On the death of R. Kopel Reich in 1929, he was asked to represent Orthodox Jewry in the upper house of the Hungarian parliament but refused, preferring to devote himself to his large community. Rosenbaum was an excellent preacher in Yiddish, German, and Hungarian. He published Meshiv Devarim (2 parts, 1900-02), response on Orah Hayyim and Yoreh De'ah by his father Gershon, rabbi of Tallya, adding his own notes. He was also the author of Lehem Rav (1921), on the prayer book. The bulk of his writings, however, which fill 15 large volumes, remained in manuscript; among them is a diary, one chapter of which was published by Ben-Menahem in Aresheth, 1 (1958), that is of considerable interest.

Although an extremist in religious matters, Rosenbaum did not ignore the Haskalah literature, and sent a message of congratulation to Leopold Zunz, founder of Wissenschaft des Judentums (Judaic Studies), on his 90th birthday. One of his two sons, Samuel, who succeeded him in Kisvarda, perished in the Holocaust in 1944, and his grandson, Pinhas Rosenbaum, published his responsa Elleh Divrei Shemu'el in 1961.

Nachman Krochmal (1785-1840), philosopher and historian, born in Brody, Ukraine (then part of the Austrian Empire), to a wealthy merchant. He taught himself Latin, Arabic, French and German. After his marriage at age fourteen he moved to Zolkiew, home of his wife’s parents, where he spent most of his life. In 1826, on his wife’s death, he returned to Brody and lived from 1838 in his daughter’s home in Tarnopol. He earned his livelihood as a merchant but devoted himself to inquiry into the historical fate of the Jewish people. He attracted a group of students as well as outstanding figures of the Haskalah to Zolkiew but few of his writings were published in his lifetime. His most famous book Moreh Nevukhei ha-Zeman (“Guide of the Perplexed of the Time’) was edited by Leopold Zunz and appeared in 1851. In it he explains the course of Jewish history by the theory that each people has its own spirituality; Jewish spirituality can only be understood in religious terms. By taking as his subject the Jewish people and not merely Judaism, he enlarged the scope of Jewish philosophy.

Germany

Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Federal Republic of Germany
A country in western Europe, member of the European Union (EU)

21st Century

Estimated Jewish population in 2018: 115,000 out of 83,000,000 (0.14%). Main umbrella organization of the Jewish communities:

Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland - Central Council of Jews in Germany
Phone: 49 30 28 44 56 0
Fax +49 30 28 44 56 13
Email: info@zentralratderjuden.de
Website: www.zentralratderjuden.de

 

HISTORY

The Jews of Germany

810 | The First Ashkenazi Elephant

A decree by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 321 CE is the first mention of a tiny Jewish settlement in the city of Koln and other cities along the Rhine – Mainz, Worms and Speyer.
According to the decree, in these places, later to become known as “The lands of Ashkenaz”, Jews enjoyed certain civil rights, but were prohibited from spreading their faith and their share in government employment was limited.
Until the Crusades, which began in the late 11th century, Jews coexisted peacefully with the local population and were allowed to hold property and engage in all trades and occupations.
An historical anecdote tells of a Jew named Isaac, who was part of a diplomatic delegation on behalf of the Emperor Charlemagne to the Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Rashid. Historians believe that Isaac was added to the delegation due to the great influence of Jews in the Abbasid court. The Abbasid Caliph, for his part, sent the Charlemagne an unusual gift: an elephant named “Abu Abbas.”
Word of the huge monster, which would peacefully eat from the hand of its handler, spread far and wide. When the elephant walked the streets of Germany during festivals and celebrations, tens of thousands of peasants would throng to the city to witness the zoological wonder, the likes of which had never been seen in Frankish domains before.
According to the sources, the elephant died in the year 810 CE.


1096 | Monogamy, Rabeinu Gershom Style

One of the first yeshivas founded in the lands of Ashkenaz was located in the city of Mainz and was founded by the man known throughout the Jewish world and to posterity as “Rabeinu Gershom Ma'or Hagolah” (“Our Rabbi Gershom, Light of the Diaspora”).
Many students flocked to Rabeinu Gershom to learn Torah from a prodigy who composed commentary on the Talmud and instituted important religious rulings, among them the famous “Ban of Rabeinu Gershom,” which forbade Jewish men to marry more than one wife at once.
The end of the 11th century saw the advent of the Crusades, intended to liberate the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, where Jesus is believed by the Christian faithful to be buried, from the hands of the Muslims – an act of piety for which all participants were promised a place in heaven. Concurrent with this religious fervor there grew a call to kill the Jewish heretics. This was a violation of the centuries-old policy started by St. Augustine, who maintained that the Jews must not be killed because their existence as second-class subjects was living proof that God held them in disfavor.
The height of the anti-Jewish hate in this period was reached in the year 1096, when the Rhineland Massacres (known in Jewish history as Gezerot Tatnu, or 4856, after the Hebrew date for the year) took place. According to various estimates, thousands of Jews were murdered in these rampages, and many others were injured, robbed and raped.
Several dirges written in memory of the destroyed Jewish congregations, known as the “Shum” congregations (Shpira, Wormeysa and Magenza, or in German Speyer, Worms and Mainz) have survived to this day.
Despite the massacres and the worsened treatment of the Jews, the Jewish population of Germany flourished and grew to become one of the centers of Jewish spiritual endeavor in Europe and the cradle of the Yiddish language.

1196 | A State within a State

Over the years, a community structure took shape in the Jewish population centers in Germany that would come to characterize Jewish communities throughout Europe. The community served as the legislative, executive and judicial authorities, and the synagogue served its members as a cultural, social and religious center.
In the second half of the 12th century, despite the crusades, the small Jewish community in Germany flourished. This was the period in which the Ashkenaz Hasidim formed, and made a crucial impact on the spiritual-religious world of Jews for generations to come, laying down rules regarding penitence, prayer, religious laws and mystical conduct.
The Ashkenaz Hasidim movement (not to be confused with what is now known as Hasidism) was led by Rabbi Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg, known in Judaism as “Rabbi Yehudah Hasid”, author of “Sefer Hasidim” and one of the first kabbalists. Hasid was a scion of the glorious lineage of the Kalonymus family, which came to the lands of Ashkenaz in the year 917, and whose members – scholars, poets, rabbis and kabbalists – made a deep and lasting impression on the world of Jewish thought.
Another religious circle was that of the Tosafists (“Ba'alei Tosafot” in Hebrew) who enriched the volumes of the Talmud with their innovations. The Tosafists, who viewed themselves as continuing the Talmudic tradition of the Amoraim of Babylon, founded batei midrash and traveled from yeshiva to yeshiva to impart their innovations. In 1209 some 300 scholars left these batei midrash, made aliyah to the Land of Israel and settled in Acre and in Jerusalem. Researchers believe that this migration of these scholars was a reaction to the crusades.
The aliyah of the Tosafists took place concurrent with blood libels against the Jews, who were accused of using the blood of Christian children and with desecrating the Eucharist at churches.
In 1298, armed with a Eucharist “desecrated” by Jews, a German nobleman named Rindfleisch embarked on a rampage of mass extermination against the Jews. According to various estimates, these pogroms took the lives of some 20,000 Jews and destroyed 146 communities.

1348 | The Black Death

In 1348 the Black Death plague began, which would wipe out an estimated one third of the population of Europe, including entire Jewish communities. The people of the time believed the plague to come from the water, and from there to declaring the Jews “well poisoners” was but a short distance.
These accusations led to the destruction of 300 Jewish communities in Germany. Many Jews were burned at the stake and many of the survivors fled to the Kingdom of Poland, establishing what was to become the great Jewish community of Poland.
In the 15th and 16th centuries the Jews remaining in the German lands suffered from the cruelty and superstition of the masses, fell victim to the avarice of princes and were forced to deal with ever-increasing intolerance by the Church. Most of the Jews of Germany at this time made their living as textile merchants, pawn brokers, money exchangers, street vendors and itinerant workers. They were allowed to reside only in the big cities, where they were pushed into crowded, poverty-stricken quarters. Many of them wandered the roads all week long, carrying their wares from village to village, only to be met with contempt and degradation from the locals.
This image of the “Wandering Jew” was later expressed in German poetry: “Miserable Jew, doomed to wander, a famished vendor through town and vale, his bones rattle, his teeth chatter, forever crying: Knick-knacks for sale!”

1529 | Josel The Lobbyist

In the 16th century Europe was showing signs of enlightenment. Renaissance culture, humanist ideas, the Reformation movement and more were the clearest signs. Two major German figures who represented these trends were philosopher Johann Reuchlin and theologian monk Martin Luther. The two were in agreement regarding the just cause of the religious reformation in Christianity, but regarding the Jews they took opposite views.
Reuchlin, who specialized in the study of Hebrew, was fond of Jewish culture. Proof of this can be found in the public debate he held with Johannes Pfefferkorn, a Catholic theologian who had converted from Judaism and called to destroy all copies of the Talmud. Reuchlin also gained fame when he published a defense of the Jews titled “Augenspiegel” (“Visible Evidence”) which called for equality and argued that all human beings shared a common source.
Martin Luther, in contrast, published a treatise in 1543 titled “On the Jews and Their Lies”, in which he proposed to burn down synagogues and expel the Jews from Germany. Four hundred years later the Nazis republished the tract and added it to their canon, alongside Hitler's “Mein Kampf” and “The Jew Suess” by Goebbels.
In 1529 a Jew named Josel of Rossheim was appointed to the lengthy title of “Custodian of the Jews in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”. Josel was among the first to fill the role of “shtadlan” - a new figure in the Jewish landscape, serving as a lobbyist of sorts for the Jews in the halls of power. Among Josel's achievements was the procurement of a charter of protection stating that any soldier harming a Jew would be executed, as well as saving 200 Jews who were sentenced to burn at the stake.

1669 | First We Take Vienna, Then We Take Berlin

By the end of the 18th century the German lands consisted of over 100 independent political units under absolute rulers small and large: kings, dukes, counts, bishops and more. Theoretically, they were all subject to the “Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation” who sat in Vienna, but in practice these were autonomous states with borders, laws and currencies of their own. Prussia, which included the city of Berlin, which would eventually become its own capital and that of all Germany, was one of the largest such duchies, and by the second half of the 18th century it became the fifth most powerful country in Europe.
Until 1699 Jews were prohibited from living in or near Berlin, but following the Thirty Year War and the deficits it created in the duchy's budget, things changed. In order to jump-start the Prussian economy, Duke Frederick I (soon to crown himself King) decided to welcome the fifty richest of the Viennese Jews expelled by Austria. These Jews were declared “Protected Jews” (“Schutzjuden”) and signed a contract promising to pay the King 2,000 tallers (approximately $90,000 in today's currency), to establish certain industries and to refrain from building synagogues.
When the Jewish population grew, the King called it “a plague of locusts” and decreed that only 120 families, the “richest and finest”, would be allowed to remain in the city. The rest were cast out. King Frederick's hatred did not extend to “useful” Jews such as Levin Gomperz, who obtained credit from the banks for his excessive expenses, or Jeremiah Hirz, the royal goldsmith. Unlike other Jews, those two were exempt, for instance, of the abhorrent requirement to pay a tax each time they passed through Rosenthaler Gate, one of the Berlin's famous portals.

1734 | The Jewish Socrates

In the fall of 1743 a 14 year-old boy passed through the gates of the city of Berlin. He was small for his age, and suffered from a slightly hunched back and a speech impediment. It was said that “even the cruelest of hearts would soften at the sight of him”, and yet he was blessed with handsome features and his eyes revealed depth, wisdom and brilliance. The records of the Rosenthaler Gate, through which he entered, document the passage of “six oxen, seven swine and one Jew”. When the guard at the gate asked the boy what he was selling, the youngster replied with a stammer but surprising confidence: “W...W...Wisdom”.
Even the most imaginative of writers couldn't imagine that the stammering hunchback, Moses Mendelssohn, would one day become such a central figure in the annals of the Enlightenment movement in general, and of Judaism in particular.
Less than two decades after entering Berlin, and being self-taught, the boy became one of the most important philosophers in Germany, one so important that a 1986 tour guide states that “The history of literature in Berlin begins on that autumn day in 1743, when a 14 year-old yeshiva student named Moses Mendelssohn entered through the gate reserved for livestock and Jews only.”
Mendelssohn, who became known as “The Jewish Socrates”, was an admired example for all German Jews. His “Golden Path” ideology, the mixture he created in his thought between religion and rationality, and the religious lifestyle he adhered to despite the attempts of Christian clerics to talk him into converting in return for tempting favors – all these turned him into the guiding light of the Jews of Germany.
But Mendelssohn – the man who more than anyone symbolized the trend Jewish integration in Germany – recognized the hypocrisy of the German elite. Despite his reputation as an intellectual giant, he never received an academic position and was forced to make his living as a simple factory worker. “My life is so beset on all sides by tolerance,” he wrote sarcastically to one of his friends, “that for the sake of my children I must imprison myself all day in a silk factory.”

1780 | Signs of Enlightenment

By the end of the 18th century it seemed that the Jews of Germany were integrating admirably into German society. Austrian Emperor Joseph II gave them the “Edict of Tolerance” and in 1781 a senior Prussian official, Christian von Dohm, called for the political and civic emancipation of all German Jews, which set off a widespread public debate.
Two years later, in 1783, Berlin's main theater staged the play Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, one of Germany's leading playwrights of the time. Lessing's protagonist was an enlightened, wise, tolerant Jew who believed in universal brotherhood – a complete opposite to the greedy, corrupt, nefarious Jewish character which was a staple of European culture at the time.
Jewish reaction to these expressions of enlightenment were mixed. Many responded with enthusiasm and euphoria, expressed among other in the book “Divrei Shalom Ve'emet” by German-Jewish poet Naftali Hirz Wessely. Others expressed concern that the same old toxic hatred was hiding behind the smokescreen of tolerance, and that the true aim of the “tolerance” was to wipe out the Jews' religious identity.

1790 | The Literary Salons

Among the most fascinating expressions of the pluralistic spirit that characterized the upper class of Berlin at the end of the 18th century were the literary salons held by Henrietta Herz and Rachel Levi. Anyone holding themselves to be erudite wished to be invited to these salons, where intellectuals and artists, writers and musicians, entrepreneurs and thinkers – Jews and Gentiles alike.
Since in those days no university had yet been established in Berlin, and the court life of Prussian King Frederick II was boring and limited, the literary salons offered an outlet for young people who hungered for intellectual nourishment. They spoke of art, literature and poetry, enjoyed drinks and hors d'oeuvres, and exchanged forbidden kisses in secluded rooms.
Berlin of those days was home to many rich Jewish families (as mentioned above, the poor ones were expelled from the city), and the fact that Jews took such an interest in art, and Jewish women no less, was exceptional. The daring of these women was doubled, as they were both Jews and women. For the Jewish guests the salons were “a small slice of utopia”, as Jewish writer Deborah Hertz. French writer Madame de-Stael said upon visiting Berlin that Henrietta and Rachel's salons were the only places in all of Germany where aristocrats and Jews could meet freely.
The war between Prussia and France ended the phenomenon of the literary salons. “Everything sank in 1806,” wrote Rachel Levi, the most fascinating of the salon hostesses, “went down like a ship carrying the finest gifts, the choicest of life's pleasures.”

1806 | Romance In The Air

While famous German philosopher Frederick Hegel watched from his home balcony as the conqueror Napoleon entered the city of Jena and felt that he was witnessing “the end of history”, a Jewish boy of nine named Heinrich Heine looked at his father proudly wearing his blue-and-red uniform in his new position as a patrolman securing the streets of Dusseldorf. Unlike Hegel, this boy, destined to become one of the most important poets in Germany, felt that he was witnessing the beginning of a new history.
The Franco-Prussian war, which ended with the Prussians defeated, heralded a new age for the Jews. In the territories annexed to France, among them Dusseldorf, Jews were accorded full political rights, and for the first time in the history of Germany Jews like Heine's father were allowed to serve in public capacities. Even in the territories left to Prussia, whose size shrunk by half, reforms took place. The liberal Prussians who came to power abolished the medieval guilds, banned corporal punishment and gave the Jews – albeit only the rich ones – a municipal status, if not a country-wide political one.
But unlike in the United States and France, where liberation was the product of a popular revolution, in Germany the ideas of equality and enlightenment were handed down from above, by the regime. In those days, the Romantic movement spread in Germany, replacing the universal ideals of the Enlightenment with that of nationalism, and called for a sacred bond between people, church, and state.
One of the principles of the Romantic movement was to define nations in organic terms and the German nation as an ideal, homogenous and most importantly Jews-free specimen thereof. A new kind of Jew-hatred began to appear, one that combined religious sentiment and racial arguments with a disdain for the rationality of the Enlightenment, which was identified with the “Jewish mind”. The main proponent of this view was German philosopher Johann Fichte, who said that “We should cut off their (the Jews') heads in one night and replace them with others, in which there is not a single Jewish idea.”

1819 | Hep Hep Hep

In 1819 riots broke out in the city of Wurzburg, as a result of the rise of the nationalist Romantic movement, the cancellation of Napoleon's emancipation edicts and the increased anti-Semitism of the German aristocracy. The rioters broke into Jewish homes and shops, looted them and laid them to waste while shouting the “Hep Hep Hep” cry (a Latin acronym for “Hierosolyma est perdita”, or “Jerusalem is lost”) which, unfounded tradition has it, served to recruit fighters for the crusades in the Middle Ages. Another theory is that the cry was a traditional one for shepherds in German.
Three years earlier Germany suffered a severe economic crisis, which also led to these riots. The fact that 90% of German Jews were desperately poor mattered not one bit to the marauders, who stayed away from the areas in which wealthy Jews lived (mostly in Prussia).
The Jews reacted to the riots with restraint. Those of the upper-middle class, most of whom lived in Berlin and were not exposed to the riots, felt little shared fate with their brethren. The rate of conversion in these communities grew and many, among them the poet Heinrich Heine, hoped that if they shed their home-given language and dress, the historical hatred towards them would vanish. But many discovered that nothing had changed even when they “crawled to the cross”, as Heine put it.
A few weeks after the riots three extraordinary young Jews – Edward Gans, Leopold Zunz, and Moses Moser – met in Berlin and decided to found a “culture and science association”, in order to bring the Jews closer to German society and thus to crumble the walls of hatred. The founders of the association applied the principles of modern research to the study of Judaism, hoping that if European society became acquainted with Judaism and its contribution to world culture, antisemitism would cease to exist. Carried on the waves of optimism he shared with his friends, Gans applied for a position at the University of Berlin. He was rejected out of hand.

1848 | The Spring Of Nations

“I should have been either healthy or dead,” said the poet Heinrich Heine, semi-paralyzed and bed-ridden in exile in Paris, when he received the news of the revolution in Germany. And indeed, although the “Spring of Nations” revolution has been called a parody of the French Revolution, Heine was excited by the possibility that Germany would lose the confinements of nationalism and royalty and adopt the values of freedom and equality.
Despite its failure, the revolution was a turning point in the lives of Germany's Jews. The fact that many Jewish liberals took an active part in it heralded a deep change in the mind. For the first time in the history of Germany the traditional Jewish passivity began to give way to active political involvement. After several decades in which the Jewish elite almost disappeared in the first wave of conversions, a new generation rose: A generation of Jewish leaders proud of their Jewishness.
The revolutionary Ludwig Bamberger, Orientalist Moritz Steinschneider, the charismatic physician Johann Jacoby and writer Berthold Auerbach were but a few of the Jews who were determined to make the ideals of the revolution a reality. This was the first time, writes historian Amos Eilon, that the representatives of the Jews were so scathing, firm, and aware of their rights.
Another person who stood our during this time of tumult was the scion of a long line of rabbis – the revolutionary Karl Marx. A few weeks after publishing his “Communist Manifesto” Marx quickly joined his revolutionary friends in Cologne and Dusseldorf, and spread his ideas from there. Marx had no sympathy for Judaism. He saw emancipation, for instance, not as the liberation of Jews in Germany, but “the liberation of humanity from the Jews”. His aversion to religion and his famous quote that religion is the opium of the masses would turn out to be ironic as he founded a new world religion, Communism, whose results were written in blood. The irony is doubled when one learns that this famous quote was not penned by Marx but by his Jewish comrade Moses Hess (who later reconciled with his Jewish identity and was an early herald of Zionism).

1870 | Indeed?

In the mid-19th century, some 1,000 small Jewish communities flourished in the towns and villages of Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Hessen, Westphalia, and the Rhine Valley. Most Jews were observant, spoke Yiddish in a western dialect and worked mostly in the cattle and horse trade.
The Franco-Prussian War, which broke out in 1870 and ended in a crushing Prussian victory, gave the Jews an excellent opportunity to display their loyalty. Between 7,000 and 12,000 Jewish fighters took part in the battles. “It was,” wrote author Theodore Fontane, “as if they had vowed to themselves to put an end to the old notion of their aversion to and incompetence at war.”
Jews were also active in high places. The Jew Ludwig Bamberger, a veteran of the 1848 Revolution, followed the advances of the Prussian forces into Paris from his exile in that city. Upon the occupation of the city, he joined the personal staff of the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck and served him as a senior adviser, dues to his experience as a revolutionary.
At the German headquarters in Paris he met another Jew, Gerson Bleichroder, who was Bismarck's all-powerful banker. Bleichroder, who seemed cast in the mold of the “Court Jew”, was in charge of the secret funds with which Bismarck bribed the kings and dukes of the principalities of southern Germany, in order to persuade them to unite all the independent countries in Germany under a single rule – a mission eventually crowned with success.
In 1871 the Emancipation Law was passed and applied to all of Germany. As equal citizens the Jews began to reap success in all walks of life. Over 60% of them belonged to the settled middle-class. They achieved remarkable prominence in the worlds of publishing and journalism, and more and more young Jews, the sons of shopkeepers, innkeepers, cattle traders and street vendors enrolled in the universities.
The Jews began to slowly assimilate into the general population and adopt the German identity. Organs were introduced into the synagogues, and traditional prayer was abandoned. Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen declared that serving Germany was as holy a deed as serving God, whereas the successful Jewish-German author Berthold Auerbach, who was styled “The German Dickens”, stated that the process of integration had been successfully completed.
But had it, indeed?

1880 | The New Antisemitism

On November 22nd, 1880 writer Berthold Auerbach sat in the visitors' gallery of the Prussian parliament. The delegates discussed a proposal to revoke the civil rights of the Jews. Auerbach returned to his home morose and depressed, opened his notebook and wrote: “I have lived and toiled in vain.”
Like many other Jewish activists, Auerbach too devoted his life to the cause of Jewish integration in Germany. A few years before that parliamentary debate he had even declared that upon the granting of Jewish emancipation, their integration into German society had been completed. Now he was broken and despondent.
The 1873 German stock exchange crash is viewed by many historians as the watershed moment. The rage and frustration of the masses found a new target: “The nouveau-riche” (which is to say, the Jew) who exploited the naiveté of the honest Christian and profiteered off his hard-earned money. To the old anti-Semitism a new fear was added. If in the past the Jews were accused of being beggars, immoral and of low hygiene, now they were described as devious and endlessly powerful. Major Jewish figures, among them railroad magnate Henry Strasburg and banker Gerson Bleichroder were depicted as having corrupted the German economy and the main culprits in the suffering of the Germans.
In the German climate, where strong ties to the feudal system still lingered, the Jews – bearing the flags of liberalism, democracy and the free market – were considered to be responsible not only for the crisis, but for the founding of capitalism itself, which was equated with materialism, exploitation and degeneracy. Prominent German figures, such as Protestant chaplain Adolph Stoecker and historian Heinrich von Treitschke, gave the new anti-Semitism the veneer of the Church and Academia. Bismarck and his noble friends, who had themselves become rich at the public's expense, gave it the imprimatur of aristocracy.

1900 | Progress, Secularism and Religion

The 25 years preceding the outbreak of WW1 were described by Jewish-German writer Stephan Zweig as “the golden age of security”. The “years of anxiety”, as the 1880s later came to be known, had passed. The expressions of anti-Jewish discrimination were marginal, and the wave of anti-Semitism that characterized the previous decade had died down. Future Zionist Richard Lichtheim went so far as to state that prior to 1914 he had never felt anti-Semitism. Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin noted that he had grown up “completely certain of himself and his resilience”; the feeling imbued by his grandmother's villa, which stood in a well-to-do suburb of Berlin, he described as “unforgettable sensations of an almost eternal bourgeoisie security”.
Against a backdrop of economic prosperity, technological progress and stable law and order, the number of Jewish entrepreneurs rose steadily, and they founded some of the new industries in Germany. Among the most famous ones must note banker Max Warburg, coal magnate Edward Arnhold, cotton magnate Jason Frank and “The Bismarck of the German electric industry”, Emil Rathenau, whose son, Walter, would one day serve as Foreign Minister in the Weimar regime.
At the same time, Jews were becoming increasingly detached from their traditions, which were replaced by modern patterns – whether the “Experiential Judaism” advocated by philosopher Martin Buber, or the Reform Judaism model founded in the mid-19th century. Jewish linguist Victor Klemperer told how right after his father was awarded the position of “deputy preacher” at the new Reform congregation in Berlin, his mother entered a non-kosher butcher's shop and bought “mixed sausages, a bit of each”. When they returned home the mother said, beaming: “This is what others eat. Now we can eat it too.”
Many Jews stopped circumcising their children or holding bar-mitzva ceremonies. More and more Jews became secular, and others chose to convert to improve their social standing. In 1918, for example, some 21% of the Jewish men in Germany converted to Christianity.

1914 | WW1 – More Catholic Than The Pope

The significant integration of the Jews in German life manifested in many ways, from admiration of German music and theater to joining in the patriotic wave that washed over Germany upon the outbreak of WW1 in 1914. Many of the Jews abandoned their cosmopolitan views and their traditional support of the socialist parties who stood for the brotherhood of nations, and exchanged them for a sentimental festival of nationalism.
Among the most zealous advocates for war, the Jewish intellectuals were most prominent. Hermann Cohen, the author of “Religion of Reason from the Sources of Judaism”, believed that the most sublime ideals would be realized as a result of this war. Stefan Zweig, an avowed pacifist who claimed that he would never touch a gun, not even at an entertainment booth at a country fair, waxed enthusiastic of “having the privilege of being alive at such a wonderful moment”. Felix Klemperer, a renowned brain surgeon, was surprised at his own excitement over “the splendor of war”, and Martin Buber extolled war, claiming it was a liberating cultural experience. These are but a few of the Jewish intellectuals who were swept away by German nationalist patriotism.
The only one who saw through the stupidity of war was Jewish industrialist Walter Rathenau. When he heard of the outbreak of WW1, “a terrible paleness spread over his face”. But despite his opposition to the war Rathenau enlisted in the patriotic effort and took the management of the national emergency economy upon himself.
Later on various historians would note that if not for Rathenau and the skilled officials working under him, Germany would have collapsed within a few months. 12,000 Jews fell in battle during the war, and over 7,000 were decorated for bravery – far beyond their share of the population.

1933 | The Weimar Illusion

The success of the 1918 revolution, which overthrew the corrupt monarchical regime in Germany, disproved Lenin's claim that German revolutionaries would never conquer a train station without first buying tickets.
Weimar, the city of Goethe, Nietzsche and Schiller, was chosen as the home of the new German republic, and the patriotic war slogans were replaced with fiery speeches calling for the establishment of a constitution based on the principles of human rights.
In the new republic the Jews finally won full equality not only in theory, but in practice as well. In a single moment the dam was broken, and a tidal wave of Jewish intellectuals flooded the fields of learning. The philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Ernst Cassirer, Max Reinhardt's theater and more are but a fraction of the immense Jewish contribution to European culture in those years.
But under the surface there were seething currents, drenched in anti-Semitic filth. The skyrocketing inflation, increased unemployment and the German pride, trampled underfoot by the Versailles peace agreements that ended WW1 were just as powerful, if not more so, than the illusion of Weimar enlightenment.
The last straw was the severe economic crisis that broke out in 1929, which caused many of the middle-class to join extreme right-wing parties. The Jews were accused of “stabbing the nation in the back” and one fine day they found themselves assigned to one of two groups – the “capitalist swine” or the “Bolshevik swine”.
In time historians would come to believe that the seeds of disaster from which the Nazi Party bloomed were planted back in the failed revolution of 1848. The culture of militarism, the racism, the defeat in WW1 and the dire economic crisis watered and fertilized it up to January 30th, 1933, when Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

1939 | Twilight of Civilization

In 1933 the Nazi Party came to power and antisemitism took center stage. Hate had a sovereign, and he was determined and monstrous. The anti-Semitic snowball gathered more and more supporters and believers. Books written by Jews were burned at the university square in Berlin. In 1935 the racist Nuremberg Laws were passed and in 1938 the Night of Broken Glass, or Krystallnacht, took place – an organized pogrom against the Jews. The Holocaust was at the doorstep.
The old technology of the pogrom was updated to state of the art means of murder: The extermination camps. The town square calls to massacre the Jews were replaced by respectable committees whose members drafted official documents with a glass of fine wine at dessert. The old myths were replaced by sophisticated propaganda that equated Jews with insects, rodents, and other pests.
Many Jews believed that this was but another wave of anti-Semitism, soon to pass, but many others realized that this time it was something different, methodical, organized and massive, and began to pack in order to emigrate (see table of data on Jewish emigration from Germany between 1933-1939).
On May 19th, 1943, Germany was declared to be “Judenrein” (German for “Clean of Jews"). Most of those who survived were Jews with Gentile spouses and a handful of Jews who survived underground with the help of those Gentiles whose courage and moral rectitude earned them the title of “Righteous Among the Nations”.
The rise of the Nazis in Germany and the Holocaust of Europe's Jews spelled an end for one of the most fascinating and creative communities in the history of the Jewish People. From a persecuted tribe of shopkeepers, cattle traders and itinerant vendors the Jews became a flourishing community of writers, entrepreneurs, poets, musicians, scientists, publishers and political activists, who were in many regards the leaders of modern Europe. WW2 put an end to all that.

Emigration of Jews from Germany in the years 1933-1939

Destination No. of Immigrants
United States 63,000
Palestine 55,000
Great Britain 40,000
France 30,000
Argentina 25,000
Brazil 13,000
South Africa 5,500
Italy 5,000
Other countries in Europe 25,000
Other countries in South America 20,000
Far East countries 15,000
Other 8,000
Total 304,500


Early 21st Century

At the end of WW2 only a few dozen thousand Jews remained in Germany, some of them displaced Jews from other places and some German Jews who survived the war. Many insisted that their stay in the “cursed country” was but temporary, but in the early 1950's calls were heard for reconciliation with German society. The Jewish communities, headed by that of Berlin, were rebuilt, and in 1967 the number of registered members of the community stood at some 26,000 people.
Upon the disintegration of the Soviet Union the German government opened its gates to the Jews, and some 104,000 immigrated into it, mostly from Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. As of the early 21st century, Germany is home to the third-largest Jewish community in Europe, with some 115,000 live there, of these some 10,000 are Israelis. The Jewish community of Germany consists of approximately 90 renewed Jewish congregations. Berlin is the largest, followed by Frankfurt and Munich.

Detmold

A city and capital of the Lippe district in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

First Jewish presence: 1500; peak Jewish population: 240 in 1895; Jewish population in 1933: 156

The Jewish community of Detmold, which by the early 18th century was the center of Jewish life in the Lippe district, established the following communal institutions: a cemetery in or around 1652 (enlarged in 1726); a rented prayer hall in 1712; a synagogue on present-day 8a Exterstrasse in 1742; a school for children from poor families (first mentioned in 1799); an elementary school in 1808; a new cemetery in the Spitzenkamptwete in 1883; and, finally, a new synagogue—154 seats for men, 88 for women—in 1907 (on 3, Lortzingerstrasse). As the rabbi for Lippe and Paderborn resided in Warburg, an assistant rabbi was appointed in Detmold in 1702; rabbis for the Lippe region served in Detmold for a short period after 1776 and between 1861 and 1874. The elementary school closed in 1913, after which the community employed a teacher of religion who also served as chazzan and shochet. In 1933, ten schoolchildren received religious instruction. Several Jewish associations and branches of nation-wide organizations were active in the community.

In Detmold, the anti-Jewish boycott, the dismissal of Jewish teachers and other discriminatory practices were implemented early on. Jews were beaten and humiliated, and the cemetery was desecrated in 1935. On Pogrom Night (Nov. 9, 1938), the synagogue was burned to the ground, Jewish homes and businesses were wrecked and plundered and the community shamash was assaulted; Jewish men and women were arrested, and 12 or 13 men were sent to Buchenwald, where one died. By 1939, the remaining 66 Jews had been moved to six designated houses. One of these homes accommodated a prayer hall, an old-age home and a school, the last of which was reopened that year and served 14 pupils. Jews were deported from Detmold beginning in December 1941. At least 152 Detmold Jews perished in the Shoah. Detmold’s new Jewish community, founded in 1946, merged with Buchenwald in 1970. Memorials were erected on the street on which the synagogue once stood, and near the old synagogue in 1963 and 1988, respectively. Destroyed in 1950, the old cemetery site now accommodates a parking lot.

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This entry was originally published on Beit Ashkenaz - Destroyed German Synagogues and Communities website and contributed to the Database of the Museum of the Jewish People courtesy of Beit Ashkenaz.

Prague

Capital of the Czech Republic. Formerly the capital of Czechoslovakia.

It has the oldest Jewish community in Bohemia and one of the oldest communities in Europe, for some time the largest and most revered. Jews may have arrived in Prague in late roman times, but the first document mentioning them is a report by Ibrahim Ibn Ya'qub from about 970. The first definite evidence for the existence of a Jewish community in Prague dates to 1091. Jews arrived in Prague from both the east and west around the same time. It is probably for this reason that two Jewish districts came into being there right at the beginning.

The relatively favorable conditions in which the Jews at first lived in Prague were disrupted at the time of the first crusade in 1096. The crusaders murdered many of the Jews in Prague, looted Jewish property, and forced many to accept baptism. During the siege of Prague castle in 1142, the oldest synagogue in Prague and the Jewish quarter below the castle were burned down and the Jews moved to the right bank of the river Moldau (vltava), which was to become the future Jewish quarter, and founded the "Altschul" ("old synagogue") there.

The importance of Jewish culture in Prague is evidenced by the works of the halakhists there in the 11th to 13th centuries. The most celebrated was Isaac B. Moses of Vienna (d. C. 1250) author of "Or Zaru'a". Since the Czech language was spoken by the Jews of Prague in the early middle ages, the halakhic writings of that period also contain annotations in Czech. From the 13th to 16th centuries the Jews of Prague increasingly spoke German. At the time of persecutions which began at the end of the 11th century, the Jews of Prague, together with all the other Jews of Europe, lost their status as free people. From the 13th century on, the Jews of Bohemia were considered servants of the royal chamber (servi camerae regis). Their residence in Prague was subject to the most humiliating conditions (the wearing of special dress, segregation in the ghetto, etc.). The only occupation that Jews were allowed to adopt was moneylending, since this was forbidden to Christians and considered dishonest. Socially the Jews were in an inferior position.

The community suffered from persecutions accompanied by bloodshed in the 13th and 14th centuries, particularly in 1298 and 1338. Charles IV (1346- 1378) protected the Jews, but after his death the worst attack occurred in 1389, when nearly all the Jews of Prague fell victims. The rabbi of Prague and noted kabbalist Avigdor Kara, who witnessed and survived the outbreak, described it in a selichah. Under Wenceslaus IV the Jews of Prague suffered heavy material losses following an order by the king in 1411 canceling all debts owed to Jews.

At the beginning of the 15th century the Jews of Prague found themselves at the center of the Hussite wars (1419- 1436). The Jews of Prague also suffered from mob violence (1422) in this period. The unstable conditions in Prague compelled many Jews to emigrate.

Following the legalization, at the end of the 15th century, of moneylending by non-Jews in Prague, the Jews of Prague lost the economic significance which they had held in the medieval city, and had to look for other occupations in commerce and crafts. The position of the Jews began to improve at the beginning of the 16th century, mainly owing to the assistance of the king and the nobility. The Jews found greater opportunities in trading commodities and monetary transactions with the nobility. As a consequence, their economic position improved. In 1522 there were about 600 Jews in Prague, but by 1541 they numbered about 1,200. At the same time the Jewish quarters were extended. At the end of the 15th century the Jews of Prague founded new communities.

Under pressure of the citizens, king Ferdinand I was compelled in 1541 to approve the expulsion of the Jews. The Jews had to leave Prague by 1543, but were allowed to return in 1545. In 1557 Ferdinand I once again, this time upon his own initiative, ordered the expulsion of the Jews from Prague. They had to leave the city by 1559. Only after the retirement of Ferdinand I from the government of Bohemia were the Jews allowed to return to Prague in 1562.

The favorable position of the Jewish community of Prague during the reign of Rudolf II is reflected also in the flourishing Jewish culture. Among illustrious rabbis who taught in Prague at that time were Judah Loew B. Bezalel (the "maharal"); Ephraim Solomon B. Aaron of Luntschitz; Isaiah B. Abraham ha-levi Horowitz, who taught in Prague from 1614 to 1621; and Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, who became chief rabbi in 1627 but was forced to leave in 1631. The chronicler and astronomer David Gans also lived there in this period. At the beginning of the 17th century about 6,000 Jews were living in Prague.

In 1648 the Jews of Prague distinguished themselves in the defense of the city against the invading swedes. In recognition of their acts of heroism the Emperor presented them with a special flag which is still preserved in the Altneuschul. Its design with a Swedish cap in the center of the Shield of David became the official emblem of the Prague Jewish community.

After the thirty years' war, government policy was influenced by the church counter-reformation, and measures were taken to limit the Jews' means of earning a livelihood. A number of anti-Semitic resolutions and decrees were promulgated. Only the eldest son of every family was allowed to marry and found a family, the others having to remain single or leave Bohemia.

In 1680, more than 3,000 Jews in Prague died of the plague. Shortly afterward, in 1689, the Jewish quarter burned down, and over 300 Jewish houses and 11 synagogues were destroyed. The authorities initiated and partially implemented a project to transfer all the surviving Jews to the village of Lieben (Liben) north of Prague. Great excitement was aroused in 1694 by the murder trial of the father of Simon Abeles, a 12-year-old boy, who, it was alleged, had desired to be baptized and had been killed by his father. Simon was buried in the Tyn (Thein) church, the greatest and most celebrated cathedral of the old town of Prague. Concurrently with the religious incitement against the Jews an economic struggle was waged against them.

The anti-Jewish official policy reached its climax after the accession to the throne of Maria Theresa (1740-1780), who in 1744 issued an order expelling the Jews from Bohemia and Moravia. Jews were banished but were subsequently allowed to return after they promised to pay high taxes. In the baroque period noted rabbis were Simon Spira; Elias Spira; David Oppenheim; and Ezekiel Landau, chief rabbi and rosh yeshivah (1755-93(.

The position of the Jews greatly improved under Joseph II (1780-1790), who issued the Toleranzpatent of 1782. The new policy in regard to the Jews aimed at gradual abolition of the limitations imposed upon them, so that they could become more useful to the state in a modernized economic system. At the same time, the new regulations were part of the systematic policy of germanization pursued by Joseph II. Jews were compelled to adopt family names and to establish schools for secular studies; they became subject to military service, and were required to cease using Hebrew and Yiddish in business transactions. Wealthy and enterprising Jews made good use of the advantages of Joseph's reforms. Jews who founded manufacturing enterprises were allowed to settle outside the Jewish quarter of Prague.

Subsequently the limitations imposed upon Jews were gradually removed. In 1841 the prohibition on Jews owning land was rescinded. In 1846 the Jewish tax was abolished. In 1848 Jews were granted equal rights, and by 1867 the process of legal emancipation had been completed. In 1852 the ghetto of Prague was abolished. Because of the unhygienic conditions in the former Jewish quarter the Prague municipality decided in 1896 to pull down the old quarter, with the exception of important historical sites. Thus the Altneuschul, the Pinkas and Klaus, Meisel and Hoch synagogues, and some other places of historical and artistic interest remained intact.

In 1848 the community of Prague, numbering over 10,000, was still one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe (Vienna then numbered only 4,000 Jews). In the following period of the emancipation and the post- emancipation era the Prague community increased considerably in numbers, but did not keep pace with the rapidly expanding new Jewish metropolitan centers in western, central, and Eastern Europe.

After emancipation had been achieved in 1867, emigration from Prague abroad ceased as a mass phenomenon; movement to Vienna, Germany, and Western Europe continued. Jews were now represented in industry, especially the textile, clothing, leather, shoe, and food industries, in wholesale and retail trade, and in increasing numbers in the professions and as white-collar employees. Some Jewish bankers, industrialists and merchants achieved considerable wealth. The majority of Jews in Prague belonged to the middle class, but there also remained a substantial number of poor Jews.

Emancipation brought in its wake a quiet process of secularization and assimilation. In the first decades of the 19th century Prague Jewry, which then still led its traditionalist orthodox way of life, had been disturbed by the activities of the followers of Jacob Frank. The situation changed in the second half of the century. The chief rabbinate was still occupied by outstanding scholars, like Solomon Judah Rapoport, the leader of the Haskalah movement; Markus Hirsch (1880-1889) helped to weaken the religious influence in the community. Many synagogues introduced modernized services, a shortened liturgy, the organ and mixed choir, but did not necessarily embrace the principles of the reform movement.

Jews availed themselves eagerly of the opportunities to give their children a higher secular education. Jews formed a considerable part of the German minority in Prague, and the majority adhered to liberal movements. David Kuh founded the "German liberal party of Bohemia and represented it in the Bohemian diet (1862-1873). Despite strong Germanizing factors, many Jews adhered to the Czech language, and in the last two decades of the 19th century a Czech assimilationist movement developed which gained support from the continuing influx of Jews from the rural areas. Through the influence of German nationalists from the Sudeten districts anti-Semitism developed within the German population and opposed Jewish assimilation. At the end of the 19th century Zionism struck roots among the Jews of Bohemia, especially in Prague.

Growing secularization and assimilation led to an increase of mixed marriages and abandonment of Judaism. At the time of the Czechoslovak republic, established in 1918, many more people registered their dissociation of affiliation to the Jewish faith without adopting another. The proportion of mixed marriages in Bohemia was one of the highest in Europe. The seven communities of Prague were federated in the union of Jewish religious communities of greater Prague and cooperated on many issues. They established joint institutions; among these the most important was the institute for social welfare, established in 1935. The "Afike Jehuda society for the Advancement of Jewish Studies" was founded in 1869. There were also the Jewish museum and "The Jewish historical society of Czechoslovakia". A five-grade elementary school was established with Czech as the language of instruction. The many philanthropic institutions and associations included the Jewish care for the sick, the center for social welfare, the aid committee for refugees, the aid committee for Jews from Carpatho- Russia, orphanages, hostels for apprentices, old-age homes, a home for abandoned children, free-meal associations, associations for children's vacation centers, and funds to aid students. Zionist organizations were also well represented. There were three B'nai B'rith lodges, women's organizations, youth movements, student clubs, sports organizations, and a community center. Four Jewish weeklies were published in Prague (three Zionist; one Czech- assimilationist), and several monthlies and quarterlies. Most Jewish organizations in Czechoslovakia had their headquarters in Prague.

Jews first became politically active, and some of them prominent, within the German orbit. David Kuh and the president of the Jewish community, Arnold Rosenbacher, were among the leaders of the German Liberal party in the 19th century. Bruno Kafka and Ludwig Spiegel represented its successor in the Czechoslovak republic, the German Democratic Party, in the chamber of deputies and the senate respectively. Emil Strauss represented that party in the 1930s on the Prague Municipal Council and in the Bohemian diet. From the end of the 19th century an increasing number of Jews joined Czech parties, especially T. G. Masaryk's realists and the social democratic party. Among the latter Alfred Meissner, Lev Winter, and Robert Klein rose to prominence, the first two as ministers of justice and social welfare respectively.

Zionists, though a minority, soon became the most active element among the Jews of Prague. "Barissia" - Jewish Academic Corporation, was founded in Prague in 1903, it was one of the leading academic organizations for the advancement of Zionism in Bohemia. Before World War I the students' organization "Bar Kochba", under the leadership of Samuel Hugo Bergman, became one of the centers of cultural Zionism. The Prague Zionist Arthur Mahler was elected to the Austrian parliament in 1907, though as representative of an electoral district in Galicia. Under the leadership of Ludvik Singer the "Jewish National Council" was formed in 1918. Singer was elected in 1929 to the Czechoslovak parliament, and was succeeded after his death in 1931 by Angelo Goldstein. Singer, Goldstein, Frantisek Friedmann, and Jacob Reiss represented the Zionists on the Prague municipal council also. Some important Zionist conferences took place in Prague, among them the founding conference of hitachadut in 1920, and the
18th Zionist congress in 1933.

The group of Prague German-Jewish authors which emerged in the 1880s, known as the "Prague Circle" ('der Prager Kreis'), achieved international recognition and included Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Franz Werfel, Oskar Baum, Ludwig Winder, Leo Perutz, Egon Erwin Kisch, Otto Klepetar, and Willy Haas.

During the Holocaust period, the measures e.g., deprivation of property rights, prohibition against religious, cultural, or any other form of public activity, expulsion from the professions and from schools, a ban on the use of public transportation and the telephone, affected Prague Jews much more than those still living in the provinces. Jewish organizations provided social welfare and clandestinely continued the education of the youth and the training in languages and new vocations in preparation for emigration. The Palestine office in Prague, directed by Jacob Edelstein, enabled about 19,000 Jews to emigrate legally or otherwise until the end of 1939.

In March 1940, the Prague zentralstelle extended the area of its jurisdiction to include all of Bohemia and Moravia. In an attempt to obviate the deportation of the Jews to "the east", Jewish leaders, headed by Jacob Edelstein, proposed to the zentralstelle the establishment of a self- administered concentrated Jewish communal body; the Nazis eventually exploited this proposal in the establishment of a ghetto at Theresienstadt (Terezin). The Prague Jewish community was forced to provide the Nazis with lists of candidates for deportation and to ensure that they showed up at the assembly point and boarded deportation trains. In the period from October 6, 1941, to March 16, 1945, 46,067 Jews were deported from Prague to "the east" or to Theresienstadt. Two leading officials of the Jewish community, H. Bonn and Emil Kafka were dispatched to Mauthausen concentration camp and put to death after trying to slow down the pace of the deportations. The Nazis set up a treuhandstelle ("trustee Office") over evacuated Jewish apartments, furnishings, and possessions. This office sold these goods and forwarded the proceeds to the German winterhilfe ("winter aid"). The treuhandstelle ran as many as 54 warehouses, including 11 synagogues (as a result, none of the synagogues was destroyed). The zentralstelle brought Jewish religious articles from 153 Jewish communities to Prague on a proposal by Jewish scholars. This collection, including 5,400 religious objects, 24,500 prayer books, and 6,070 items of historical value the Nazis intended to utilize for a "central museum of the defunct Jewish race". Jewish historians engaged in the creation of the museum were deported to extermination camps just before the end of the war. Thus the Jewish museum had acquired at the end of the war one of the richest collections of Judaica in the world.


Prague had a Jewish population of 10,338 in 1946, of whom 1,396 Jews had not been deported (mostly of mixed Jewish and Christian parentage); 227 Jews had gone underground; 4,986 returned from prisons, concentration camps, or Theresienstadt; 883 returned from Czechoslovak army units abroad; 613 were Czechoslovak Jewish emigres who returned; and 2,233 were Jews from Ruthenia (Carpatho-Ukraine), which had been ceded to the U.S.S.R. who decided to move to Czechoslovakia. The communist takeover of 1948 put an end to any attempt to revive the Jewish community and marked the beginning of a period of stagnation. By 1950 about half of the Jewish population had gone to Israel or immigrated to other countries. The Slansky trials and the officially promoted anti-Semitism had a destructive effect upon Jewish life. Nazi racism of the previous era was replaced by political and social discrimination. Most of the Jews of Prague were branded as "class enemies of the working people". During this
Period (1951-1964) there was no possibility of Jewish emigration from the country. The assets belonging to the Jewish community had to be relinquished to the state. The charitable organizations were disbanded, and the budget of the community, provided by the state, was drastically reduced. The general anti-religious policy of the regime resulted in the cessation, for all practical purposes, of such Jewish religious activities as bar-mitzvah religious instruction and wedding ceremonies. In 1964 only two cantors and two ritual slaughterers were left. The liberalization of the regime during 1965-1968 held out new hope for a renewal of Jewish life in Prague.

At the end of March 1967 the president of "The World Jewish Congress", Nahum Goldmann, was able to visit Prague and give a lecture in the Jewish town hall. Among the Jewish youth many tended to identify with Judaism. Following the soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 there was an attempt to put an end to this trend, however the Jewish youth, organized since 1965, carried on with their Jewish cultural activities until 1972. In the late 6os the Jewish population of Prague numbered about 2,000.

On the walls of the Pinkas synagogue, which is part of the central Jewish museum in Prague, are engraved the names of 77,297 Jews from Bohemia and Moravia who were murdered by the Nazis in 1939-1945.

In 1997 some 6,000 Jews were living in the Czech Republic, most of them in Prague. The majority of the Jews of Prague were indeed elderly, but the Jewish community's strengthened in 1990's by many Jews, mainly American, who had come to work in the republic, settled in Prague, and joined the community.

In April 2000 the central square of Prague was named Franz Kafka square. This was done thanks to the unflinching efforts and after years of straggle with the authorities, of Professor Eduard Goldstucker, a Jew born in Prague, the initiator of the idea.