Adolf Frankl

FRANKL

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. Frankl is a diminutive of the German Jewish name Frank. The Franks were a group of Germanic tribes living between the river Main and the North Sea, whom the Romans called Franci/Francos in the 3rd century CE. Franconia, first used in a Latin charter of 1053, Francia, France and Franken were names applied to a portion of the land occupied by the Franks which became one of the stem-duchies of medieval Germany. The present name of France in German, Frankreich, that is "empire of the Franks", has its origins in the establishment of the Frankish monarchy in Gaul by Clovis in the 5th century, and the eventual transformation of the Regnorum Francorum Occidentalium ("the western kingdom of the Franks"), as defined by the treaty of Verdun (843), into the heartland of the modern French state. Jews lived on the territory of France since the 4th century. Franco means "free/generous" in Spanish. In Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), it is the equivalent of the Arabic Franji/Ifranji, that is "Franks". Since the 12th century, these three terms were used in the east Mediterranean Muslim countries to designate all Europeans. In the 16th and subsequent centuries, the word Franco is found in Sephardi rabbinic literature as a name for European Ashkenazi Jews. In Eastern Europe, it first came to mean a Jew who was a Turkish subject, and then a Sephardi Ladino-speaking Jew. Family names associated with the Franks may also me associated with places such as Frankenberg and Frankenau in Hesse, Germany, Frankenburg in upper Austria, Frankenstein (Zabkowice) in Poland, and others. During the Inquisition in Spain, the members of a pre-15th century Spanish Franco family moved to Amsterdam, Venice, Tunis, Crete and London. The name is documented in Salonika (Greece) in 1492 and Bordeaux (France) in 1528. The Italian Franchi, as well as the German Frank and Frankel, are found in the 16th century. Franks, Franck, Franke, Frankenburger and Fraenkel are recorded in the 17th century, Franc and Franklin in the 18th, and Franchetti in the 19th century. Frankl is documented as a Jewish family name in Central and Eastern Europe in the 17th century.

Distinguished bearers of the name Frankl include the Bohemian-born poet and historian, Ludwig August Frankl (1810-1894), who was the leader of the Jewish community in Vienna (Austria); the Hungarian rabbi and banker, Adolf (Abraham) Frankl (1859-1936), who was a member of the upper house of the Hungarian parliament; and the 20th century Austrian psychiatrist, Victor E. Frankl, who was a survivor from the Auschwitz death camp, and the founder of theory of Logotherapy.

Plaque on the former home of painter Adolf Frankl, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2017

Located on 16 Venturska street in central Bratislava, this house was the home of the painter Adolf Frankl (1903-1983). He lived and worked in this house. He was arrested in Bratislava on September 28, 1944, and deported to Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He survived the Holocaust and after his liberation he depicted his experiences in paintings and drawings called 'Visions from the Inferno'.

Photo: Haim H. Ghiuzeli

The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot, courtesy of Haim H. Ghiuzeli

Brno

In German: Bruenn

A provincial capital in Moravia, Czech Republic.

Brno was granted the status of a city in 1243 and until 1640 served alternately with Olomouc as the capital of Moravia. Between 1640-1948 Brno was the sole capital. Brno was the second largest city in Czechoslovakia. It was a cultural, commercial and industrial center for textiles, automobiles, railroad-cars, munitions (Bren machine-guns) and clothing. In the city ancient churches from the 14th century and the remains of an old fort still exist. Brno was known for its educational institutions in the German and Czech languages. Until 1918 the city was under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian empire and since then until 1993 a part of the Czechoslovak Republic.

In 1254, Ottokar Przemysl II king of Moravia invited Jews to settle in Brno and granted them a letter of privileges.

In the middle of the 14th century, there were 1,000 Jews in a special quarter of the city which one could enter only through the "Jews gate". At the head of the Jewish autonomous community was the "Parnas" who represented the Jews before the city and provincial authorities. The community institutions were financed by the taxes of its members. The community also paid a "Jewish tax" to the local authorities.

As early as 1378 there was a Jewish school in the city. In the first half of the 15th century Israel Bruneh officiated as rabbi.

During the period of the Hussite wars 1419-1436 the hatred against Jews increased causing the deaths of thousands of Jews and the destruction of many Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia, among them Brno.

On November 11, 1454, King Ladislav Posthumus expelled the Jews of the city and gave the Jewish homes to the townspeople.

For 400 years Jews were forbidden to live within the city walls. Only a few court Jews were allowed there. Jews who came to Brno could spend the night only in the suburb Kroena where a Jewish inn with a kosher kitchen had been established in 1660. The guests at the inn were forbidden to hold public prayer services, to go out at night or have any social contact with the local population. Only commercial relationships were permitted. In 1769 Jacov Dobrushka who leased the inn needed a special permit to pray in his home and keep a Torah scroll there. Jacob Frank, the founder of the Frankist movement and a relative of Dobrushka came to the city in 1773 and was active there until 1786.

At the beginning of the 18th century there were 52 Jews who lived in the city illegally. In 1722, the city authorities allowed the chief Parnas of the Jews of Moravia to live near the city gate.

The "family law" passed in 1726 by Emperor Karl VI which limited the number of Jews in Moravian cities and the head-taxes levied by queen Maria Theresa in 1744 were hard on the Jews of Moravia. An improvement in their condition came as a result of the "toleration edict" passed in 1782 by Emperor Joseph II, which allowed Jews to open schools, obtain higher education and work as artisans. The city municipal council appealed against the edict. The Jews of Brno attained these privileges only after some years. In 1797, 12 Jews lived in the city and 113 in the suburbs. In 1804 the number had increased to 199. In 1834 there were 135 Jews in the city. The total population was 17,262.

In 1848 the Jews attained equal civil rights. The community began to organize its institutions. In 1852 a burial society was founded, permission was granted to appoint a rabbi and consecrate a cemetery. The first rabbi of the renewed community was David Ashkenazi, who still worked ostensibly as "meat inspector". The synagogue was founded in 1853. The prayer-house was established in 1883 and enlarged afterwards. In 1906 a new synagogue was built.

In 1857 there were 2230 Jews among a population of 59,819.

In 1859 the community was officially recognized. In 1860 Heinrich Kafka was chosen president of the community. Dr. Baruch Placzek was rabbi and during the period 1884-1922 he also served as chief rabbi of the country. A cantor also served the community. In 1861 the constitution of the community was approved by the authorities and a Jewish school with German as the language of instruction was opened. 77 boys and 76 girls studied there. In 1880 a ritual bath and a Matzoth factory were Bnei Brith chapter, a fraternity "Societa" for social services, a group to support yeshiva scholars and the "Hort" organization whose members were business men and clerks were founded. In 1890 the number of Jews in the city rose to 7,087.

During World War I the community helped about 16,000 Jewish refugees who had come to the city from Galicia and Bukovina and also helped the Jewish soldiers stationed in the area.
Some of the refugees remained in the city after the war.

During the period of the Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938) a new community council was chosen, a Jewish elementary school with five classes and a Jewish reformed science high school with eight classes (the only one in western Czechoslovakia) were opened. At first the language of instruction was German, later on Czech. Jewish students, many from Eastern Europe where they could not get an academic education because of Numerus Clausus (a law limiting the percentage of Jewish students) came to study in the institutions for higher learning in Brno.

In 1922 there were 10,668 Jews in the city. The leaders of the community were Rabbi Dr. Ludwig Levi and Shmuel Beran the president. In 1931, the president of the community was the industrialist Julius Zwicker.

During the 13th century, the Jews who settled in Brno enjoyed trading rights equal to those of the Christians and could buy houses and land.

After the expulsion in 1454 every Jewish merchant who tried to trade in the city markets was punished. Only in the 16th century were Jews allowed to trade there after payment of double taxes and only twice a week, in spite of the revenue they brought to the city coffers.

During the Thirty Years War which broke out in 1618, the Jews were the purveyers for the Kaiser's army and helped the cities by granting them loans. The guilds and townspeople opposed granting the Jews additional privileges in return.

In 1753 Franz Joseph Neuman was granted permission to establish a Hebrew printing press and in 1765 Jews leased tobacco farms and a textile factory. After 1860 when Jews of Moravia were allowed to purchase real estate the development of trade and industry was rapid. Jews were prominent industrialists. They were also active in medicine, architecture, engineering, banking and other fields. World War I affected the economic conditions of the Jews adversely but during the period of the Czechoslovak Republic the community prospered once again.

In Brno there were well-known Jewish artists, the poet Hieronymus Lorm, the writers Philip Langmen, Oscar Jelinik and Felix Langer, the singers Caroline Giperz and Leopold Demuth, the musicologist Paul Stephan, the violinist Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst and the composers Pavel Hass and Hans Shimring. Dr. Adolph Frankel of Brno was a theatre manager.

From the beginning of their settlement in the city, the Jews were faced by the enmity of the town's people. The church at times incited outbursts of violence, like the pogroms which followed the black plague in 1348. Even after the Jews were given equal rights with the gentiles there were manifestations of anti-Semitism. Only in the second half of the 19th century there was an improvement in the status of the Jews in Christian society.

At the end of the 19th century Zionist societies were organized ("Theodor Herzl" "Zion" "Emuna" (from which Poalei Zion developed afterwards) and "Zfira". The students society "Veritas" spread the Zionist ideology, helped found a students hostel, and organized a "Jewish Soldiers Council" fearing anti-Semitic activities as a result of the declaration of the Czechoslovak Republic. This group later founded the Jewish peoples council in Brno (the Moravian chapter of the National Jewish Council founded in Prague in 1918.) The Czechoslovak Republic in the period between the two world wars granted the Jews national cultural autonomy. The "Juedische Akademische Lese Und Rede Halle" was founded in Brno. Many Jewish students from the provincial towns and neighboring countries were active within this framework.

The Jews of Brno were also active in political affairs. Dr Adolph Stranski was a member of the Austrian parliament and during the period of the Republic was a member of the senate. His son, Yaroslav Stranski was minister of justice in the Czech government in exile in London during World War II and during the years 1945-48 was minister of education.

Dr. Ludwig Czech was vice-chairman of the German social-democratic party for 18 years and served in turn as minister of social welfare, minister of public works and minister of health. Johann Pollack was a member of the senate. Ziegfried Taub was a member of parliament. Dr. Czech and Johann Pollach were killed in the Terezin ghetto.

In the municipal council elections held in 1919 one representative of the Poalei Zion was elected and three of the Jewish national list.

In 1921 the headquarters of the federation of Zionist organizations was established in Brno. Dr. Alfred Engel and Dr. Adolf Greenfeld of Brno were on the central committee.

Branches of "Hitachdut", "Hamizrahi", "Revisionist Zionist", "Wizo" (from 1934) and "General Zionists" (from 1934) were active in the city. "Poalei Zion" opened a branch in 1921 and Siegfried Spitz of Brno was head of the youth department in all of Czechoslovakia.

The Zionist youth movements, "Hashomer Hazair", "Tchelet Lavan", "Maccabi Hazair" and "Bnei Akiva" competed in efforts to gain members. A Jewish sport club was active in Brno from 1907. From 1924, Brno was the regional centre of Maccabi and the centre of Bar-Kochba in Moravia and Silesia. In 1927 Dr. Karl Sonnenfeld of Brno was vice-president of world Maccabi. In 1931, five Jews from Brno were members of the central committee of the newly-founded Jewish party.

Among the Jewish weeklies in the city were the "Juedische Volksstimme (voice of the Jewish People) published by Max Hickl and "Juedische Sozialist" (the Jewish socialist) and "Der Neue Weg" (the new way) by Hugo Gold.

In 1938 there were 11,003 Jews in the city.


The Holocaust Period
After the annexation of Austria to Germany (March 1938) many Jewish refugees arrived in Brno and were in need of help from the community. In September 1938 a year before the outbreak of World War II the Czechoslovak Republic was dissolved as a result of the Munich pact. At the end of 1938 more than 1,000 Jews emigrated to Eretz Israel, most of them illegally, only a few had valid certificates.

On March 15, 1939 the German army occupied the Czech lands (Bohemia and Moravia) and the country became a protectorate of the Third Reich. The main synagogue in Brno was wrecked that same day and the small synagogue bombed afterwards. A few days later the jails of the Gestapo were filled with Jewish prisoners who were then sent to the concentration camp Mauthausen.

On October 1, there were only 9.726 Jews in the city. At the end of 1939, the Germans forbade Jewish emigration. The fascist rule removed the Jews step by step from the cultural, social and economic life. At the beginning of October 1941 there were 11,102 Jews in the city. A short time later the systematic transfer of Czech Jews into ghettos and death camps began. On November 18, 1941 the first transport of 1,000 men, women and children was sent to Minsk in Belorussia. Many died there within two weeks because of shortages of water and medicines. The weak were taken outside the ghetto and shot to death or murdered in special gas-trucks. The bodies were thrown into a pit in the nearby forest. From this transport only eleven Jews survived.

Between December 2, 1941 and July 1, 1943 9,064 Jews in eleven transports arrived in Terezin. Some died there but most of them were killed in the death camps in Poland especially Auschwitz. Only 684 Jews survived. Jews married to gentiles were left in the city. They were deported in 1945 but most of them survived.

Many Jews from Brno served on the eastern front in the framework of the Czech units of the red army.

After the liberation of the city by the Red Army, and until April 30, 1945, 804 survivors returned to the city. They renewed the activities of the community, repaired the orthodox synagogue and opened an old- age home. Dr. Richard Feder was appointed rabbi. A chazan was also employed. The community provided services for the Jews of Kyjov, Olomouc and Ostrava. In 1969 rabbi Feder also served as chief rabbi of Moravia and Bohemia. In 1948 there were 1,398 Jews in the community. During the fifties a memorial was erected for the victims of the Holocaust. During that period the number of Jews in the city and its environs declined to 900.

As a result of the Russian invasion in 1698 most of the Jews left the city but returned afterwards. In 1969 there were 700 Jews there.

In 1973 about 500 Jews were registered in the community. The total population of the city was 330,000. The number of Jews in the city not registered in the community is not known.

By the early 2000s the number had dropoped to slightly less than 300. the community was responsible for the management of 10 synagogues and 45 cemeteries throughout Moravia, including restoration work.

Vienna

In German: Wien. Capital of Austria

Early History

Documentary evidence points to the first settlement of Jews in the 12th century. A charter of privileges was granted by Emperor Frederick II in 1238, giving the Jewish community extensive autonomy. At the close of the 13th and during the 14th centuries, the community of Vienna was recognized as the leading community of German Jewry. In the second half of the 13th century there were about 1,000 Jews in the community.
The influence of the "Sages of Vienna" spread far beyond the limits of the city itself and continued for many generations. Of primary importance were Isaac B. Moses "Or Zaru'a", his son Chayyim "Or Zaru'a", Avigdor B. Elijah Ha- Kohen, and Meir B. Baruch Ha- Levi. At the time of the Black Death persecutions of 1348-49, the community of Vienna was spared and even served as a refuge for Jews from other places.

Toward the end of the 14th century there was a growing anti-Jewish feeling among the burghers; in 1406, during the course of a fire that broke out in the synagogue, in which it was destroyed, the burghers seized the opportunity to attack Jewish homes. Many of the community's members died as martyrs in the persecutions of 1421, others were expelled, and the children forcibly converted. After the persecutions nevertheless some Jews remained there illegally. In 1512, there were 12 Jewish families in Vienna, and a small number of Jews continued to live there during the 16th century, often faced with threats of expulsion. During the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), Jews suffered as a result of the occupation of the city by Imperial soldiers. In 1624, Emperor Ferdinand II confined the Jews to a ghetto. Some Jews at this time engaged in international trade; others were petty traders. Among the prominent rabbis of the renewed community was Yom Tov Lipman Heller, and Shabbetai Sheftel Horowitz,
one of the many refugees from Poland who fled the Chmielnicki who led anti-Jewish massacres of 1648.

Hatred of the Jews by the townsmen increased during the mid 17th century. The poorer Jews were expelled in 1669; the rest were exiled during the Hebrew month of Av (summer) of the year 1670, and their properties taken from them. The Great Synagogue was converted into a Catholic church. Some of the Jews took advantage of the offer to convert to Christianity so as not to be exiled.

By 1693, the financial losses to the city were sufficient to generate support for a proposal to readmit the Jews. Only the wealthy were authorized to reside in Vienna, as "tolerated subjects", in exchange for very high taxes. Prayer services were permitted to be held only in a private house.

The founders of the community and its leaders in those years, as well as during the 18th century, were prominent Court Jews, such as Samuel Oppenheimer, Samson Wertheimer, and Baron Diego Aguilar. As a result of their activities, Vienna became a center for Jewish diplomatic efforts on behalf of Jews throughout the Habsburg Empire as well as an important center for Jewish philanthropy. A Sephardi community in Vienna traces its origins to 1737, and grew as a result of commerce with the Balkans.

The Jews suffered under the restrictive legislation of Empress Maria Theresia (1740- 80). In 1781, her son, Joseph II, issued his "Toleranzpatent", which, though attacked in Jewish circles, paved the way in some respects for later Emancipation.

By 1793, there was a Hebrew printing press in Vienna that soon became the center for Hebrew printing in Central Europe. During this period, the first signs of assimilation in social and family life of the Jews of Vienna made their appearance. At the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Viennese salon culture was promoted by Jewish wealthy women, whose salons served as entertainment and meeting places for the rulers of Europe.

The Jewish Community and the Haskalah Movement

From the close of the 18th century, and especially during the first decades of the 19th century, Vienna became a center of the Haskalah movement.

Despite restrictions, the number of Jews in the city rapidly increased. At a later period the call for religious reform was heard in Vienna. Various maskilim, including Peter Peretz Ber and Naphtali Hertz Homberg, tried to convince the government to impose Haskalah recommendations and religious reform on the Jews. This aroused strong controversy among the Viennese Community.

Jewish Immigration

During the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, the Jewish population of Vienna increased as a result of immigration there by Jews from other regions of the Empire, particularly Hungary, Galicia, and Bukovina. The influence and scope of the community's activities increased particularly after the annexation of Galicia by Austria. By 1923, Vienna had become the third largest Jewish community in Europe. Many Jews entered the liberal professions.

Community Life

In 1826, a magnificent synagogue, in which the Hebrew language and the traditional text of the prayers were retained, was inaugurated. It was the first legal synagogue to be opened since 1671. Before the Holocaust, there were about 59 synagogues of various religious trends in Vienna. There was also a Jewish educational network. The rabbinical Seminary, founded in 1893, was a European center for research into Jewish literature and history. The most prominent scholars were M.Guedeman, A. Jellinek, Adolph Schwarz, Adolf Buechler, David Mueller, Victor Aptowitzer, Z.H. Chajes, and Samuel Krauss. There was also a "Hebrew Pedagogium" for the training of Hebrew teachers.

Vienna also became a Jewish sports center; the football team Hakoach and the Maccabi organization of Vienna were well known. Many Jews were actors, producers, musicians and writers, scientists, researchers and thinkers.

Some Prominent Viennese Jews: Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951), musician, composer; Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911), musician, composer; Franz Werfel (1890 - 1945), author; Stefan Zweig (1881 - 1942), author; Karl Kraus (1874 - 1936), satirist, poet; Otto Bauer (1881 - 1938), socialist leader; Alfred Adler (1870 - 1937), psychiatrist; Arthur Schnitzler (1862 - 1931), playwright, author; Isaac Noach Mannheimer (1793 - 1865), Reform preacher; Joseph Popper (1838 -1921), social philosopher, engineer; Max Adler (1873 - 1937), socialist theoretician; Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), psychiatrist, creator of Psychoanalysis; Adolf Fischhoff (1816 - 1893), politician.

The Zionist Movement

Though in the social life and the administration of the community, there was mostly strong opposition to Jewish National action, Vienna was also a center of the national awakening. Peretz Smolenskin published Ha-Shachar between 1868 and 1885 in Vienna, while Nathan Birnbaum founded the first Jewish Nationalist Student Association, Kadimah, there in 1882, and preached "Pre-Herzl Zionism" from 1884. The leading newspaper, Neue Freie Presse, to which Theodor Herzl contributed, was owned in part by Jews.
It was due to Herzl that Vienna was at first the center of Zionist activities. He published the Zionist Movement's Organ, Die Welt, and established the headquarters of the Zionist Executive there.

The Zionist Movement in Vienna gained in strength after World War I. In 1919, the Zionist Robert Stricker was elected to the Austrian Parliament. The Zionists did not obtain a majority in the community until the elections of 1932.

The Holocaust Period

Nazi Germany occupied Vienna in March 1938. In less than one year the Nazis introduced all the discriminatory laws, backed by ruthless terror and by mass arrests (usually of economic leaders and Intellectuals, who were detained in special camps or sent to Dachau). These measures were accompanied by unspeakable atrocities. Vienna's Chief Rabbi, Dr. Israel Taglicht, who was more than 75 years old, was among those who were forced to clean with their bare hands the pavements of main streets. During Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), 42 synagogues were destroyed, hundreds of flats were plundered by the S.A. and the Hitler Youth.

The first transports of deported Jews were sent to the notorious Nisko concentration camp, in the Lublin District (October 1939). The last mass transport left in September 1942; it included many prominent people and Jewish dignitaries, who were sent to Theresienstadt, from where later they were mostly deported to Auschwitz. In November 1942, the Jewish community of Vienna was officially dissolved. About 800 Viennese Jews survived by remaining underground.

Last 50 Years

In the last 50 years, Vienna has become the main transient stopping-place and the first refuge for hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees and emigrants from Eastern Europe after World War II.

The only synagogue to survive the Shoah is the Stadttempel (built 1826), where the community offices and the Chief Rabbinate are located. A number of synagogues and prayer rooms catering to various chassidic groups and other congregations are functioning on a regular basis in Vienna. One kosher supermarket, as well as a kosher butcher shop and bakery serve the community

The only Jewish school run by the community is the Zwi Perez Chajes School, which reopened in 1980 after a hiatus of 50 years, and includes a kindergarden, elementary and high school. About 400 additional pupils receive Jewish religious instruction in general schools and two additional Talmud Torah schools. The ultra-orthodox stream of the community, which has been growing significantly since the 1980's, maintain their separate school system.
Though the Zionists constitute a minority, there are intensive and diversified Zionist activities. A number of journals and papers are published by the community, such as Die Gemeinde, the official organ of the Community, and the Illustrierte Neue Welt. The Austrian Jewish Students Union publishes the Noodnik.

The Documentation Center, established and directed by Simon Wiesenthal and supported by the community, developed into the important Institute for the documentation of the Holocaust and the tracing of Nazi Criminals.

In 1993, the Jewish Museum in Vienna opened its doors and became a central cultural institution of the community, offering a varied program of cultural and educational activities and attracting a large public of Jewish and non-Jewish visitors. The museum chronicles the rich history of Viennese Jewry and the outstanding roles Jews played in the development of the city. The Jewish Welcome Service aids Jewish visitors including newcomers who plan to remain in the city for longer periods.

Jewish Population in Vienna:

1846 - 3,379

1923 - 201,513

1945/46 - 4,000

1950 - 12,450

2000 - 9,000

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.

Bratislava

German: Pressburg, Hungarian: Pozsony

Capital of Slovakia. Part of Hungary until 1918

Bratislava was the chartered capital of the kings of Hungary. It was one of the most ancient and important Jewish centers in the Danube region. The first Jews probably arrived with the Roman legions, but the first documented evidence of their presence in the city dates from the 13th century. In 1291 the community was granted a charter by King Andrew the III and a synagogue is first mentioned in 1335.

The Jews of Bratislava mainly engaged in moneylending, but there were also merchants, artisans, vineyard owners, and vintners. The Jews were expelled from Hungary in 1360, but returned in 1367. In 1371 the municipality introduced the Judenbuch, which regulated financial dealings between Jews and Christians.

Money matters between Jews and Christians, however, could unexpectedly take complicated turns. King Sigismund granted Christians an exemption for the year 1392 from paying interest on loans borrowed from Jews. Later, in 1441 and 1450, all outstanding debts owed to Jews were cancelled, and in 1475 Jews were forbidden from accepting real estate as security. Ladislas II prevented Jews from attempting to leave Bratislava in 1506 by confiscating the property of those who had already left. This proved to be somewhat ironic since the Jews were eventually expelled from Bratislava, and Hungary as a whole, in 1526. Instead, the Jews began settling in the surrounding areas of Shlossberg and Zuckermandel. A Jewish community was not reestablished in Bratislava until the end of the seventeenth century when Samuel Oppenheimer resettled the city. He was followed by other Jews, some of whom were born locally and others who came from Vienna, which had expelled its Jews in 1670, Bohemia and Moravia, as well as a small number from Poland. A synagogue was built in 1695 where the first known rabbi to work there was Yom Tov Lipmann. In 1699 the court Jew Simon Michael, who had settled in Bratislava in 1693, was appointed as head of the community. He built a beit midrash and bought land to build a cemetery.

During the 18th and 19th centuries the Jews of Bratislava were leaders in both the business and religious worlds. In business they were among the leaders of the textile trade, while the religious leader Rabbi Moses Sofer (better known as the Hatam Sofer) turned Bratislava into a center of Jewish life. The Hatam Sofer became a leader of Orthodoxy, and is perhaps best known for his (ironically radical) statement that "He-hadash asur min haTorah," "Innovation is forbidden according to the Torah." His status as a rabbi, teacher, scholar, rosh yeshiva, and halakhist was unparalleled. Upon his death his son, Avraham Shmuel Binyamin (otherwise known as the Ketav Sofer) and then his grandson Simcha Bumen, and his great-grandson Akiva succeeded him in turn. Other outstanding rabbis that served in the city before the Hatam Sofer were Moshe Harif of Lemberg, Akiva Eger (the elder), Yitzhak Landau of Kukla, Meir Barbi of Halberstadt, and Meshulam Igra of Tymenitsa. Each was an outstanding Talmudic scholar, and Landau and Barbi established large and prestigious yeshivas.

In spite of the Hatam Sofer's uncompromising Orthodoxy, the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) made important inroads, particularly among the wealthy merchants and intellectuals in the city. In 1820 those who were in favor of the Haskalah succeeded in establishing an elementary school that combined religious and secular studies. Shortly thereafter the community's Orthodox majority also built a Talmud Torah that combined religious and secular studies, under the supervision of the city's chief rabbi.

The community was also split during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. While those who were in favor of reform, led by Adolf Neustadt, enthusiastically supported the revolution, joining the National Guard and advocating for Jewish emancipation, the Orthodox leadership distanced themselves from these actions. Anti-Jewish riots subsequently broke out during the revolution around Easter; the Jews of Bratislava suffered the worst violence. While no Bratislavan Jews were killed, there were many who were severely beaten, and there was enormous damage done to property. The Jewish Quarter was placed under military protection, and Jews who lived elsewhere had to move within it. The violence prompted calls to emigrate to the US.

The Revolution of 1848 would not be the last time that the Jews of Bratislava were the victims of pogroms and anti-Jewish violence. 1850 saw more anti-Jewish riots around the holiday of Easter. Further outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence followed the Tiszaeszlar blood libel in 1882 and 1883, as well as after other blood libels in 1887 and 1889.

Tensions continued to grow between the Orthodox and the maskilim within the community. After 1869 the Orthodox, Neologist, and Status Quo Ante factions in Bratislava formed separate congregations. The Orthodox provincial office (Landseskanzlei) later became notorious for its opposition to Zionism. The Neolog and Status Quo Ante congregations united in 1928 as the Jeshurun Federation.

Jewish institutions in Bratislava included religious schools, charitable organizations, and a Jewish hospital. The Hungarian Zionist organization was founded in Bratislava in 1902, and the World Mizrachi Organization was founded in 1904; the latter sparked protests from over 100 rabbis. The first Hungarian Zionist Congress was held in Bratislava in March 1903 and the city became the Hungarian center for the Zionist Organization in Hungary.

With the establishment of Czechoslovakia, Bratislava also became the center of Agudas Yisroel in Czechoslovakia, in addition to remaining a Zionist center. Several Jewish newspapers and a Hebrew weekly, "HaYehudi," were printed in the city. There were also over 300 Hebrew and Yiddish books printed in the city between 1831 and 1930. The Orthodox Jewish Communities of Slovakia was established in the city, enabling the Orthodox community to cut ties with Hungary.

The German army occupied Czechoslovakia in March, 1938 and soon established an independent Slovak state. Even before the declaration of the independent state, there were attacks on the synagogue and yeshiva on November 11, 1938. Nearly 1,000 Jewish students were expelled from the university and anti-Jewish terror, restrictive measures, and pogroms increased. With the establishment of the Slovak state, Jews continued to suffer from discrimination. Akiva Shreiber and a number of his yeshiva students succeeded in leaving Bratislava for Palestine at the end of 1939.

Nonetheless, the Jewish population of Bratislava peaked in 1940 at 18,000 people (13% of the total population of the city). This was in spite of the fact that Jewish organizations, with the exception of religious communal activities, were prohibited from organizing activities. Additionally, Jews were evicted from various neighborhoods, Jewish students were expelled from public schools, and Jewish properties were confiscated. By the fall of 1941 about half of the city's population had been forcibly sent from the city to the provinces; by the summer of 1942 two-thirds of the Jews of Bratislava were sent to concentration or extermination camps. Gisi Fleischmann of WIZO and Mikhael Dov Ber Weissmandel began organizing an underground resistance movement. They contacted international Jewish organizations, in the hopes that they could save the Jews who remained in the city and the surrounding area. August 1944 saw a Slovak uprising, and the country was subsequently occupied by the Germans. At that point, the remaining Jews in Bratislava were deported.

In the end, approximately 13,000 Jews from Bratislava were killed during the Holocaust. After the war, the city was an important transit point for the thousands of displaced Jews who were making their way to other countries and began to rebuild. The Orthodox and Neolog communities united and maintained two cemetaries, a mikvah, a slaughterhouse, a soup kitchen, a matzah bakery, a Jewish hospital, an old age home, and a Jewish orphanage. Zionist activity resumed; HaShomer HaTzair and Bnei Akiva led activities for orphans preparing to emigrate to Mandate Palestine. Maccabi HaTzair and Beitar were also active. Though there was an attempt to reopen the Pressburg Yeshiva, it ultimately failed.

After the communist takeover, thousands more Jews left the city, most of whom went to Israel. According to an agreement made with Israel, 4,000 Jews were permitted to leave and enter Israel at the end of the 1940s while 2,000 remained in Bratislava. In 1969 there were 1,500 Jews in the city.

The 1990s saw the opening of a number of memorials and places of Jewish interest. A Jewish cultural heritage museum was opened in the old Jewish Quarter. A memorial plaque was added to the Orthodox cemetery in memory of the 13,000 Jewish victims of Bratislava who were killed during the Holocaust. Additionally, in 1997 a monument commemorating the Slovakian Jewish victims of the Nazis was erected on the site where the Pressburg Yeshiva once stood. Jewish organizations and municipal authorities worked together to renovate and reopen the grave of the Hatam Sofer, among other rabbis, to the public.

In the year 2000 there were 800 Jews living in Bratislava.