Bernhard Pollini

Koln

Köln

Cologne, Koeln

A city in North Rhine-Westphalia, the fourth largest city in Germany and the most populous city on Rhine river.

First Jewish presence: Roman Era under Emperor Constantine (reigned 306-337); peak Jewish population: 16,093 in 1925

The Destruction of the Second Temple and the Diaspora

When the Romans destroyed the Second Temple during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Jews were forced out of their holy city. Many traveled to other parts of the Roman Empire, some because they were sold into slavery, others in search of a place to settle and make a living in safety. The first to arrive in Germany, the country known as Ashkenaz in the Hebrew of the time, were merchants, who established themselves in towns founded by the Romans along the Rhine River. Cologne is one such town, and is mentioned in the earliest source documenting organized Jewish community life in the territories of today's Germany. The source is a decree issued by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 321 CE, stipulating that Jews were no longer exempt from sitting on the city council. A second decree by Constantine, issued ten years later, exempted officials within the Jewish community from some obligations of citizens of the lower social strata. From the 4th century until the Middle Ages, there is no evidence suggesting that Jews maintained a continuous presence in Cologne or indeed in anywhere in the German territories. 

The Middle Ages

Evidence of Jewish life in Germany re-emerges in the High Middle Ages (1000 to 1300 CE). As the Kingdom of the Franks expanded eastwards, Jewish traders from southern Europe established themselves on Germany’s trade routes and major rivers, particularly on the west bank of the Rhine, in cities such as Mainz, Speyer, Worms, and the trading hub of Cologne. A synagogue was built in Cologne in or around the year 1000 CE; by 1075, the town had a designated Jewish quarter. In 1090 Cologne’s Jewish community had approximately 1,000 members. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Jews of Cologne played a significant role in the development of Jewish-German culture. The city’s medieval Jewish community was the largest and one of the most influential in Ashkenaz. Nonetheless, the social and legal status of Jews was lower than that of Christians, and they were regarded as aliens. Because Jews brought economic value to the towns in which they settled, bishops and emperors were willing to grant them certain rights, and issued orders guaranteeing their protection. These early years of relative peace and prosperity did not last long. As was the case in Cologne, the history of Germany’s Jewish communities—from medieval times until Pogrom Night in 1938—was a cycle of rebuilding and growth, punctuated by expulsion, pogroms and destruction. The First Crusaders, full of religious zeal, carried out the earliest of the anti- Jewish pogroms in 1096. First they attacked the Jews of the Rhine Valley, where, in Cologne, Jews were massacred and the community’s synagogue was destroyed. Some Jewish communities resisted the attacks, while certain bishops and ordinary Christians, and the indeed the emperor himself, attempted to protect them, but the Crusaders’ onslaught was overpowering. Many Jews chose a martyr’s death, some through suicide, over forced conversion to Christianity. Cologne’s Jewish community was destroyed, although some of its members survived in hiding. Similar pogroms occurred repeatedly during the Middle Ages, prompting Jews to spread out from southern Germany to the north and east, reaching cities such as Berlin and Hamburg, among others, in search of safety. The First Crusade was a turning point in the history of the German Jews because it made physical attacks on them more or less acceptable, even justified, in the minds of the general public, particularly during periods of social, religious, or economic instability. Jews were expendable; the property of whichever German ruler offered them protection and, as such, their lives often depended on the whim of a single nobleman. Despite the fear and uncertainty this caused them, Jews returned to the cities after the massacres; life in the re-established Jewish community in Cologne continued uninterrupted for approximately 250 years. The economic and social situation of Germany’s Jews fluctuated in the 12th and 13th centuries. Having been forced out of trade and commerce by city guilds, many Jews made a living as money lenders and pawn brokers, because the Church forbade Christians to work in these occupations. Money lending was essential for economic development and funding warfare and, given their lack of professional options, a lifeline for many Jews. Ironically, the very thing that enabled Jews to survive this social discrimination also made them hated by Christian nobility and townspeople who struggled to pay their debts. Their discontent fueled the fires of Jew-haters who publicly accused Jews of accepting stolen goods and “sucking the lifeblood” of Christian debtors. Nevertheless, where Jews could be useful, they were granted certain rights and privileges. In Cologne they were given permission to bear arms, and in 1106 were entrusted with the defense of one of the city’s gates, the Porta Judaeorum (“The Gate of the Jews”). They were also allowed to own houses in the Jewish quarter (there were 30 Jewish property owners in 1135; 70 in 1340), and used a synagogue and cemetery established before the First Crusade. There was a separate synagogue for women, called the Frauenschule. Cologne’s Jewish community flourished from the mid-13th century until the beginning of the 14th, running a Talmud Torah school, a mikveh, a bakery and a hospital. The Jews were granted increasing legal autonomy over their internal affairs. The title of the leader of the Cologne community was the episcopus Judaeorum (the “Bishop of the Jews”) who served as head of a ruling council of up to 12 members. The rabbinical court had jurisdiction over the community’s internal legal matters; only the most serious cases went before the Christian archbishop. In 1331, Cologne’s rabbinical court was granted authority to rule on financial claims against Jews, meaning that Christian plaintiffs were sometimes obliged to appear before a Jewish court. One of the main functions of Jewish leaders was to regulate the spiritual life of their communities. Jewish scholars and ruling councils would draft and issue takkanot: regulations governing Jews’ behavior, not only regarding issues of religion but many different spheres of life, including business. Cologne’s Jews and Jews all over the country were decisively influenced by the takkanot of the religious leaders of the so-called “Shum” communities: Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The Shum communities were respected for their high standards of scholarship and strict adherence to Orthodox Jewish doctrine. Through their takkanot, they encouraged Jews to study the Torah, keep the Sabbath, and observe the laws of sexual purity. Their regulations also obliged Jews to pay tax and keep the law of the land. Cologne too was home to a number of noteworthy rabbis who promoted scholarship and Torah study in the 12th to the 14th centuries, such as Eliezer ben Yoel ha-Levi (1160- 1235), Asher ben Yehiel ha-Rosh (1250-1327), and Asher’s son, Yaakov ben Asher (1269-1343). The social and religious persecution of Jews never ceased. There was a Second Crusade in 1146; that campaign did not claim as many Jewish lives as did the first, for Jews acted on previous experience and sought shelter in the castles of the nobility. Despite the protection Jews received from local rulers, the Church enacted discriminatory measures against them in the early 13th century by ordering clergymen to restrict business transactions between Christians and Jews. Jews were also forced to wear a distinctive yellow badge (a discriminatory tactic the Nazis reintroduced in 1939 in occupied Poland, and in 1941 in Germany itself); to pay heavy taxes; and were forbidden to hold public office. In 1235 the first incident of blood libel (the accusation that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood in a religious ceremony) occurred in the town of Fulda. Such accusations, alongside those of well-poisoning and desecration of the host, were recycled during the 13th and 14th centuries, fueling pogroms and violence that claimed many Jewish lives: the Judenschlacht (“slaughter of the Jews”) in Frankfurt am Main in 1241 was in reaction to the Jewish community’s attempts to prevent one of its members converting to Christianity; in 1298, amid civil war in southwest Germany, 140 Jewish communities in the region were annihilated in the Rindfleisch massacres (named after the nobleman who led the mob); and in 1336/1337, the Armleder massacres destroyed a further 110 Jewish communities. Some Jews offered unsuccessful resistance during these pogroms; many chose death over conversion. The situation of Cologne’s Jews began to deteriorate in the first half of the 14th century. First the city’s goldsmiths began refusing to work with Jews, then walls were put up around the Jewish quarter. In the 1320s, large gates, kept locked at night, were installed in the gaps in the walls, increasing the separation of Jews and Christians. The pogroms reached Cologne in the mid-14th century: the town was one of 300 in which Jews were slaughtered during the Black Death persecutions of 1348/1349 – they had been accused of deliberately spreading the disease by poisoning wells. After the killings Jews were allowed back into towns and cities to perform the vital function of money lending. Jews returned to Cologne in 1372, but immediately faced more discriminatory laws, including restrictions on their clothing. From 1393 onwards, the city council was increasingly reluctant to renew the Jews’ protection orders. In 1424, as a pretext for not doing so, the authorities accused local Jews of fomenting poverty and crime, and ordered them to leave “for all eternity.” Jewish properties were confiscated and the synagogue was turned into a church. Some Jews expelled from Cologne formed a community in neighboring Deutz; others joined the community at Muelheim. For the next 400 years, even Jewish traders, doctors and court bankers coming to Cologne on business were often refused permission to stay overnight. The 15th-century experience of Cologne’s Jews was typical of that of Jews all over the country. They faced further oppression, an extremely heavy tax burden, expulsions, and anti-Jewish violence. Jews in smaller towns in the east (which was a route to Poland, where many Jews ended up) and in the south, where there were fewer towns and the economy was less developed, found it easier to make a living. Jews in the south branched out of money lending into different professions; they traded in wine, wool and flax, and became active in agriculture and commerce. Nevertheless, many Jews were extremely poor. From the time of the Reformation (16th century) until the late 18th century, the blood libels, threats, attacks, heavy taxes (sometimes imposed by two or even three authorities at once), and exclusion from the large cities continued. 


Enlightenment to Emancipation (18th to the early 20th centuries)

The liberal values of the French Revolution, which brought more freedoms and rights for Jews, were introduced in Germany in 1794 when the German states on the west bank of the Rhine, including Westphalia where Cologne is located, became part of the French Republic. The Jews in that area were now French citizens. The restriction on Jewish settlement in Cologne was lifted officially in 1797; the first Jewish family to return arrived in 1798. As Napoleon conquered more German states, the situation of Jews all over the country improved. When he was defeated in 1814/1815, many of his liberal reforms were revoked; once again anti-Jewish feeling increased in Germany. Nevertheless, the reversal of official decrees guaranteeing Jewish rights were not enough to stop the growth of Cologne’s Jewish community (officially re-established in 1801): in the year of Napoleon’s defeat there were 211 Jews in the city, by 1840 there were 615, and by 1861 the Jewish population had reached 2,322, making Cologne’s the fifth largest Jewish community in Germany at that time. Under Napoleon, Jews had been allowed to engage freely in commerce. This, alongside Cologne’s trading hub status, attracted many Jews to the city and created a foundation for their increasing wealth and social success. Despite continuing anti- Semitism and even anti-Jewish violence (notably the murderous Hep Hep Riots of 1819, motivated by general discontent at the Jews’ social and economic accomplishments) Cologne’s Jews succeeded in business and became more prosperous. The Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) movement emerged at the end of the 18th century, inspired by the ideas of Moses Mendelssohn, a German Jewish philosopher who stressed the importance of secular education for Jews alongside their religious studies. Jews were becoming more educated, more politically involved and more capable of arguing for their full emancipation in German society. The Enlightenment, however, also played a divisive role in the Jewish community, as Jews who favored assimilation and viewed themselves primarily as Germans of Jewish faith clashed with those who thought Germany Jewry should continue to adhere to the separatist, Orthodox practices of its ancestors. This conflict led to the opening of new synagogues in Cologne as break away groups of Orthodox Jews, many of whom arrived from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 19th century, rejected proposals to reform the liturgy or install musical instruments in the synagogue. As Jewish emancipation progressed, large numbers of Jews completed their assimilation by converting to Christianity, particularly during the first decades of the 19th century when attitudes to Jews hardened following Napoleon’s defeat. As industrialization gathered pace, many Jews left their small towns and moved to the cities in search of work. By the end of the 19th century, most, but not all, the country’s Jews had become city dwellers (living in Breslau, Leipzig, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Cologne). Jewish communities in the cities were more likely to accept reforms; Jews who stayed in the villages tended to adhere to Orthodox tradition. Cologne’s 19th-century Jewish community produced some of the region’s most prominent Jews, who played an influential role in German society. Generations of the Oppenheim family were active in trade, transport, banking, politics, and the press. In 1810, Solomon Oppenheim’s bank was Cologne’s second largest; in 1822, he was elected to the Chamber of Commerce (the first Jew to hold public office in the city). His son, Abraham Oppenheim, sat on the city council in 1846. Under Abraham’s leadership, the bank played a prominent role in promoting the construction of the Rhineland’s railways. The Oppenheims were among those Jews who increasingly campaigned for their rights. In 1841, Abraham and his brother Simon petitioned King Frederick William IV to improve the Jews’ legal status. They and others like them celebrated when, following the 1848-1849 revolution in which many Jews took part, the “Basic Laws of the German People” were issued by the Frankfurt Parliament, stating that religious affiliation should not affect the civil and political rights of the individual. The Oppenheims’ story indicates the extent to which, in that new era of liberalism, Germany’s Jews became fully-contributing members, even leaders, of German society: they ran law firms, factories, banks, department stores, and all manner of small businesses; they worked as doctors, teachers, and university professors; they made advances in science, literature and the arts, and their standard of living increased accordingly. These Jews were loyal to their country; more than 100,000 served in the German army in World War I, 12,000 of whom were killed. Memorials to Jews who fell in the war were erected in synagogues all over Germany, and Jewish war veterans formed clubs and associations which held commemorative events every year. 


Synagogues and Jewish Institutions

The synagogue or prayer room was the center of the Jewish community, and every community with ten adult male members (the required number for public prayers) and the necessary financial means made it a priority to build or establish a suitable place of worship. In rural areas this was often a simple, renovated room. In larger towns and cities, particularly after the Emancipation, Jewish communities had the funds and the self-confidence to build large, magnificent synagogues that stood out against the skyline. Despite the wealth of Cologne’s Jewish community it was subordinate to the communities in Krefeld and Bonn, and therefore developed its own institutions relatively late. The city’s first modern-day Jewish prayer room (with 74 seats for men and 48 for women) opened in 1804 in the former Klarissenkloster monastery. The building had become dilapidated by 1853 and was closed permanently; the prayer room had been too small for the growing Jewish community for some time. In 1856, a Jewish banker, Abraham Oppenheimer, donated money to facilitate the construction of a synagogue. The foundation stone was laid (on Glockengasse) in 1857; the same year in which the community’s first rabbi, Dr. Israel Schwarz, was appointed. In 1861, Rabbi Schwarz inaugurated the new, large synagogue building. Seating was provided for 226 men in the main hall and for 140 women on the balcony; the ritual baths were located in the cellar. In 1867, a fire destroyed the synagogue’s interior, along with valuable items and the community’s memorial book; however, the structure of the synagogue remained intact and the community rebuilt it in its original form, adding a small room for weekday prayers. At the end of the 19th century, as Cologne’s Jewish population continued to grow, the community found itself once again with a synagogue that was too small. For this reason, and because Jews were moving to the newer parts of the city, the community decided to build a second synagogue on Roonstrasse. This very grand and impressive structure took several years to complete—in the interim period, a temporary synagogue for 700 worshipers was used—and eventually opened in 1899; by then approximately 10,000 Jews lived in Cologne. The Roonstrasse synagogue became the center of Cologne’s mainstream, Liberal Jewish community. The building provided 800 seats for men and 600 for women; a school for religious studies with eight teaching rooms and living quarters for the rabbi was located in its back yard. There was also a wedding hall used for weekday prayers. Even after the Roonstrasse synagogue opened, many of Cologne’s Jews continued to pray in the Glockenglasse synagogue. The clash of traditional Jewish practice with modernity created division between the Orthodox members of Cologne’s Jewish community and its liberal Jews, who were in favor of reform. In 1863, a dispute about the liturgy in the Glockengasse synagogue prompted some Orthodox members, mostly of Eastern European origin, to break away from the main community and hold their own prayer services in private homes. They founded a strictly Orthodox prayer association, the Adass Jeschurun (operating within the framework of the greater community) in 1867, and established their own synagogue in 1884. In 1904, when a decision was made to put a musical instrument, an organ, in the synagogue on Roonstrasse, more Orthodox Jews withdrew from the mainstream community and formed another prayer association called the Kehillass Jisroel. In 1906, when the organ was finally installed, the Adass Jeschurun association formally withdrew from the community, incorporated the members of Kehillass Jisroel and, in 1908, became an independent synagogue association and a center of Orthodoxy for the entire Rhineland region. Its synagogue was located on St. Apernstrasse and had seating for 160 men and 80 women, with a mikveh in the cellar. Plans were made in 1914 to build another Orthodox synagogue in the new part of the city, and a foundation stone was even laid, but the outbreak of World War I prevented any progress. Jewish schools and Jewish education for children and young people were of paramount importance in Jewish communities in Germany. Many synagogues started out as schools and became synagogues only later on. This is where the Yiddish word for synagogue, “Schul,” meaning “school,” comes from. In Cologne, the Adass Jeschurun association operated a private elementary school called “Moriah,” next to the St. Apernstrasse synagogue, as well as the “Jawne” secondary school – the only Jewish secondary school in the Rhineland. Cologne’s seminary for Jewish schoolteachers was also supervised by Adass Jeschurun. Another Jewish elementary school on Luetzowstrasse gained municipal status in 1870, and became the largest Jewish school of its kind in the whole country. Cemeteries were another essential requirement of Jewish communities. Typically, a community that was too small or too short of funds to establish its own would use the cemetery of a larger community in its vicinity. Although the Cologne community fell into neither of these categories, its members, from all the synagogues, used the Jewish cemetery in nearby Deutz until a burial ground was laid in Cologne in at the end of World War I. That new cemetery was opened on Venloer Strasse; it has been preserved and is the largest in the wider Cologne area, with approximately 5,000 graves, some of which contain reburied remains from a medieval cemetery discovered by chance in 1927. In big cities such as Cologne there were always a number of smaller prayer rooms, often established inside privately-owned buildings. These rooms were also used as meeting places for various Jewish associations and clubs. In most cases, relatively little information is available about them. The ones we know about in Cologne are: 
18-22 Caecilienstrasse – this prayer room was inaugurated in 1902 and belonged to the Jewish Rhineland Lodge association. It was renovated in 1935 and thereafter served as a community center open to all the Jews of Cologne. 
• 35-37 Luetzowstrasse – Cologne’s Israelite Children’s Home, founded in 1890, bought this property on Luetzowstrasse in 1900 and, after receiving a donation of money in 1919, was able to install a small synagogue there. The synagogue opened in 1920. 
• 26 Bayardsgasse – more than one prayer room was located in this building; all of them belonged to Orthodox, Eastern European groups. The Cologne branch of the Misrachi, the Orthodox wing of the Zionist movement, had their offices here too. There was a mikveh in the cellar. 
There were several other prayer rooms in Cologne, most of them used by Orthodox Eastern European Jews; only their addresses are known: 41 Agrippastrasse; 9 Arndstrasse (belonged to the Tiferes Jisroel association); 3 Bachemstrasse (belonged to the Machsike Hada s s a s soc i a t ion) ; 1 Am Kl e ine n Griechenmarkt (belonged to the Gedulas Mordechai association); 15 Poststrasse (belonged to the Kol Jaakow association); 9 Quirinstrasse (belonged to the Talmud Thora association, which also established a yeshiva in the building); 44 Rothgerberbach (belonged to the Adass Jisroel association). Lastly, there was a prayer room on Thieboldsgasse and one in the Abraham Frank orphanage on Aachener Strasse. 


Community Life

Germany’s Jews put great emphasis on active participation in community life. Jewish communities, particularly in the large towns and cities, operated numerous clubs and associations. Some of these societies focused on youth activities, religious education, culture and the arts; others offered charity and took care of the sick. Almost every community had a chevra kadisha – a burial society that organized funerals and supported the bereaved. In Cologne, the late 1800s marked the beginning of the vibrant Jewish community life that flourished from the 1920s to the early 1930s. In 1888, the Rhineland Lodge (Rheinland Loge), which financed and managed numerous charitable and cultural organizations (including a mobile library), was founded; its purpose was to fight anti-Semitism, to strengthen Jewish identity and spiritual awareness, and to encourage good deeds and charity. The Lodge established Cologne’s first Jewish youth association in 1903. The following national Jewish organizations were also present in Cologne: the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith (Centralverein deutscher Staatsbuerger juedischen Glaubens), whose ideology was similar to that of the Rhineland Lodge; the B’nei B’rith (a community service organization); and, after World War I, the Reich Federation of Jewish Front Soldiers (Reichsbund juedischer Frontsoldaten). In 1925, Cologne recorded its highest Jewish population figure: 16,093. Membership of the Jewish community, however, which included Jews in affiliated communities outside the city’s boundaries, exceeded 20,000. Jews in nearby Ehrenfeld were affiliated with Cologne in 1913; those in Deutz and Muehlheim joined Cologne in 1927 and 1929, respectively. Jews of Eastern European origin (Ostjuden) were influential in Cologne and constituted approximately 25 percent of the city’s Jewish population in the 1920s. In 1921, they gained voting rights within the community, and their support for Zionism increased the influence of that movement in Cologne. Earlier, the World Zionist Organization had moved its headquarters to the city (in 1904), remaining there until 1911; furthermore, two Zionist leaders, David Wolffsohn (1865- 1914) and Max Isidor Bodenheimer (1865-1940) were residents of Cologne. Resurging anti-Semitism during the Weimar period, fueled by the libelous accusation that Jews on the home front and in government had betrayed the German army in World War I, further strengthened the popularity of Zionism. During these years, Jewish institutions in Cologne were attacked: the Roonstrasse synagogue in 1927 and the Adass Jeschurun synagogue in 1932, as were Jewish cemeteries in Cologne and its affiliated communities. Jews on their way to and from synagogue occasionally suffered taunts and abuse. Nevertheless, by 1933, the year of the Nazi takeover, Jewish community life in Cologne was thriving: 800 students were enrolled at Cologne’s Jewish elementary school and numerous organizations conducted all manner of charitable and cultural work. The Eastern European Jews ran associations of their own, including a women’s group. 


The Pre-War Nazi Period (1933-1938)
 
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933; he and his Nazi Party immediately implemented their policy of excluding Germany’s Jewish population from economic, social, cultural and political life. Jewish businesses were boycotted, Jews were excluded from the civil service, and were fired from their jobs as teachers, lawyers, university lecturers, doctors and artists. The Nazis’ nation-wide, anti-Jewish boycott took place on April 1, 1933. SA thugs and members of the Hitler Youth stood outside Jewish shops to intimidate potential customers and prevent them entering. Some were equipped with cameras, ready to photograph and publicly shame (and probably threaten) anyone who defied the boycott. Anti-Semitic graffiti was smeared on the windows and doors of Jewish businesses; posters were put up instructing shoppers not to buy there. Jews were treated badly; some physically abused. In Cologne, Jewish store-owners were marched through the streets; Jewish lawyers were forced onto garbage trucks and paraded around the city. Some Jews were badly beaten up. Shortly afterwards, the mass firings of Jews began. The Cologne city council broke off all its contracts with Jewish suppliers and businessmen; Jewish sports clubs and athletes were banned from sports fields and facilities. Life soon became unbearable for Cologne’s Jewish residents, who began leaving the city. By June 1933, Cologne’s Jewish population had decreased to 14,816. By August, several Jews had committed suicide. In response, the community leaders issued a statement calling on Jews not to give up hope. Nevertheless, Cologne’s Jewish children’s hospital had to be closed down that year. In the two years that followed, more Jewish businessmen were forced to sell or give up their livelihoods as a result of the intensifying persecution. The Nuremberg laws, which outlined the definition of a Jew, were officially passed into German law on September 15, 1935. Blood was now officially the defining feature of Jewishness; even those who had converted to Christianity were considered Jews, albeit in different degrees, as were people of mixed Christian and Jewish heritage. Under the new legislation, Jews’ citizenship of the German Reich was revoked. Intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews was banned; sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews were labeled Rassenschande, “racial defilement.” As non-Aryans with limited rights, Jews had little or no protection from anti-Semitic actions by the Nazi authorities or their non-Jewish neighbors. In Cologne that year, Jews were forbidden to use public swimming pools. By the fall, many Jewish families were in financial distress and depended on the community’s Jewish Winter Assistance Association during the cold months. The “aryanization” of Jewish property continued; a process whereby Jews were forced to sell their homes and businesses, often for significantly less than their true value, to non-Jews. In Cologne, the Oppenheim bank was aryanized in 1936. Jewish children were excluded from German schools, therefore attendance at Jewish schools increased. The Jewish elementary school and the high school in Cologne recorded their highest enrollment figures in 1935 (940 students) and in 1937 (423 students), respectively. By the winter of 1937, 2,500 Cologne Jews were dependent on aid in the form of clothing, food and heating fuel. In smaller towns and villages, the pressure of persecution shut down Jewish life completely. Many rural Jews moved to the cities hoping to escape into the anonymity of urban life; as a result, some rural synagogues and prayer rooms were closed and sold even before Pogrom Night. In cities such as Cologne, despite these privations, Jewish community life continued and Jews even planned for the future; albeit one outside Germany. Cologne’s Jewish schools intensified instruction in Hebrew and English, and initiated training programs in carpentry, needlework, child care, home economics, and agriculture, to prepare young Jews for emigration. Unsurprisingly, interest in Zionism and membership of Zionist youth movements increased significantly, and the Zionists gained a majority on Cologne’s Jewish community council for the first time in 1936. Cologne’s branch of the Jewish Cultural Association (Juedischer Kulturbund) helped keep spirits up by staging theater productions; the association had a membership of 5,000 in 1935 and was the second-largest branch after Berlin’s. Nevertheless, Jews in Cologne and throughout Germany were increasingly desperate for a way out. Jewish populations dwindled in the towns and cities too, as those who could escape the Nazi persecution did so, many of them leaving Germany altogether. International Jewish bodies cooperated with Jewish organizations in Germany to help Jews obtain visas and finance their emigration. Of the 503,000 Jews (by religion) in Germany in 1933, around 214,000 were still in the country in May 1939. 


Pogrom Night (Nov. 9, 1938) and its Aftermath (November 1938 onwards)
 
The Nazis tried to present the nation-wide pogrom that took place on the night of November 9-10, 1938, as a spontaneous outburst of public rage against the Jewish population, caused by the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a Paris-based German diplomat who was shot by a young Jew. The truth, however, is that that Pogrom Night consisted of a series of coordinated and possibly pre-planned attacks against Jewish communities all over Germany, Austria and in some parts of the Sudetenland, carried out by SA, SS and Hitler Youth members and, in some cases, ordinary civilians, while the authorities did nothing to intervene. On November 7, vom Rath was shot in Paris by 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan. The attack was presumably an act of revenge for the treatment Grynszpan’s family members had experienced at the hands of the Gestapo, which had attempted to forcibly deport them from Germany, along with around 12,000 other Polish Jews, to Poland. The Polish authorities had no intention of allowing these Jews back into their country, and closed their borders. As a result, Grynszpan’s family and their fellow Jews spent weeks stranded in no-man’s-land in dire conditions. Grynszpan, who was living in Paris, is known to have received letters from his family detailing their suffering. Vom Rath died two days after the shooting, on November 9. Finally, the Nazis had a pretext for their pogrom, and the attacks began. Armed with axes and clubs, rioters wrecked synagogues, Jewish homes and Jewish-owned businesses; many of the synagogues were burned. Rheinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) gave orders that the police were to intervene only to protect non-Jews and their property, hence the absurd scenes witnessed in many towns as fire engines arrived at the site of a synagogue on fire only for their crews to sit back and watch it burn. Heydrich’s orders also stated that Jewish men, preferably the younger ones, were to be rounded up and arrested, and that archives containing information about members of Jewish communities were to be confiscated from synagogues. Presumably this last measure was intended to facilitate the deportation of Jews at a later stage. In Cologne, the city’s major synagogues were ransacked and burned; Jews were assaulted and Jewish homes and businesses looted and vandalized. An eyewitness described how, after the Glockengasse synagogue had been vandalized, plundered and burned in the early hours of November 10, a member of the Jewish community salvaged some torn parchment from a Torah scroll. With tears in his eyes, the man read the text to a frightened group of Cologne’s Jewish men and women, it said: “The Lord is coming to redeem us; and tomorrow you will witness something glorious.” The Roonstrasse and St. Apernstrasse synagogues suffered similar fates. On Roonstrasse, the mob jeered as the Star of David was torn from the synagogue’s dome. The building was then set on fire. On St. Apernstrasse, Gestapo men confiscated the Adass Jeschurun synagogue’s Torah scrolls and moveable furniture; they also took the archives and cash box, destroyed the building’s interior using axes and clubs, tore down the Star of David, and threw benches out the windows. That synagogue was not set on fire because a school and a fuel depot were located nearby. Synagogues in Cologne’s affiliated Jewish communities of Deutz and Muehlheim were also attacked and destroyed. As in all the cities, some of Cologne’s Jewish prayer rooms survived Pogrom Night unscathed, perhaps because they were inside multi-purpose buildings and therefore did not attract the attention of the rioters. The prayer rooms on Caelienstrasse and Bayardstrasse were not damaged. The Luetzwostrasse prayer room, inside the Jewish children’s home, was pelted with stones. All over the city, Jewish homes and businesses were attacked and Jewish men arrested. In total, around 30,000 Jewish men were taken into custody and sent to concentration camps, only to be released several weeks later. Four hundred Jewish men from Cologne ended up in Dachau. All over Germany, Jewish communities were forced to pay the cost of clearing the rubble from their ruined synagogues. Sometimes materials were taken from the sites and used for construction purposes elsewhere. By the end of 1939, approximately 8,000 Jews were still living in Cologne. Pogrom Night had effectively brought Jewish life in the city to a standstill, although for a short time afterwards, prayers were still held in the Caelienstrasse prayer house. Old conflicts were put aside and the congregation of the Adass Jeschurun synagogue reunited with the mainstream community. The St. Apernstrasse teacher’s seminary was closed down, and all Jewish schoolchildren were now taught under one roof in the Moriah school building. In September 1941, the Jewish Cultural Association was banned. Thanks to the efforts of the head teacher of the Jawne high school, more than 100 Jewish children from Cologne immigrated to Britain. Pogrom Night and its aftermath confirmed to those Jews hoping to wait out the Nazis that escape was in fact their only option, but for many it was too late. Visas became increasingly difficult to come by, even though the international community was aware of the dangerous predicament of Germany’s Jews. An international conference aimed at helping them was held in Evian, France, in July 1940; although the attendees included Britain, France and the United States, the only participant willing to take in large numbers of Jewish refugees was the Dominican Republic. Nevertheless, wherever visas could be obtained, Germany’s Jews took them. Families and friends were scattered all over the world; they went to Britain, Australia, South Africa, the United States, Palestine, South America, and even Shanghai. Many Jews who fled to other European countries later occupied by Germany were eventually deported to the camps and killed along with those who had stayed behind. 


The Deportations from Germany (1941-1944) 

The “Final Solution”—the euphemism by which Hitler and his colleagues referred to their program for the annihilation of Germany’s Jews—was implemented in 1941. That September, a decree was passed ordering all Jews to wear the yellow star badge (the Judenstern) visibly on their clothing. Jews who went out in public without the badge risked being arrested, abused, sent to a concentration camp, or put on the next transport to the East. The mass deportations—called “evacuations” or “emigrations” by the Nazis—of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps, began in mid-October. By that time Germany was at war; therefore, in large cities, many Jews who worked in armaments factories were exempted from deportation for as long as their work was useful to the state; this could be for a matter of months or even years. So-called “mixed-race” or “mischling” Jews and Jews who were married to Christians also received exemptions; at least for a while. Jews were ordered out of their homes and forced to move in together in so-called “Judenhaeuser” or “Jews’ houses.” Their own properties were confiscated by the state or taken over by members of the SA or Gestapo, or even by their “Aryan” civilian neighbors. In Cologne, during May and June of 1941, the Gestapo moved the remaining Jews into communal dwellings from which they were rounded up easily when the deportations began (just before the first transport left on October 21, 1941, headed for the Lodz ghetto in occupied Poland, there were 6,277 Jews living in the city). These deportees, the first to be taken from Cologne’s Deutz-Tief railway station, had to assemble at the city’s fairgrounds before their departure. All over Germany, the authorities used public areas and (in large cities) even synagogues as assembly points for Jews awaiting deportation. They would be ordered to arrive a few days or even weeks before the departure date with a suitcase of clothes and personal items for the journey. They would then sleep and live in the assembly area until the train left. Some were permitted to leave the assembly area to go to work during the day, but had to return immediately upon day’s end. They were often instructed to bring certain items of property, such as furs, typewriters and mattresses, to the assembly point, which the authorities would then confiscate. Jews who still had the means to pay were charged an “emigration tax” before departure. Items they were forced to leave on the railway platforms were sometimes sold at public auction, with the state claiming the proceeds; however, to avoid raising suspicions, the Nazi authorities allowed deportees take their clothes and personal belongings even on transports bound directly for extermination camps. As one transport left after another, the rate of suicide among Jews increased sharply. In Cologne, at the end of 1941, all the Jews still in the city were interned in a camp in the suburb of Muengersdorf, apart from those working in the armaments industry and the patients of the Jewish hospital. In July 1942, the children and most teachers from the Jewish school were deported to the Minsk ghetto. Administration workers from the Jewish community were the last to be deported, because the Nazi authorities used them to help organize the rounding up of Jews before departure. These administration workers and, sometimes, their direct family members, were exempted from deportation for as long as there was work they could usefully do. Eventually, when there were barely any Jews left to round up, the administration workers were also sent to the East. On May 19, 1943, Germany was officially declared “Judenrein” (“cleansed of Jews”). Some Jews were, however, left behind (as was the case in Cologne): those married to Christians, their children, and the very few who managed to remain in hiding. In Cologne, many of the Jews in mixed marriages were eventually deported in September and October 1944. Up to 50 Jews survived in hiding in the city. The last transport of Jews from Cologne left on October 1, 1944, headed for the Theresienstadt ghetto in today’s Czech Republic. Between October 1941 and October 1944, approximately 11,000 Jewish people were sent to the ghettos or extermination camps from Cologne; transports from the city reached Lodz, Riga, Theresienstadt, Minsk, the Lublin district of Poland, and Auschwitz. Needless to say, most of those Jews did not return; they were worked and starved to death in the camps, or murdered in the gas chambers. Up to 180,000 Jews are thought to have been killed by the Nazis while still in Germany, or to have died as a consequence of the persecution they suffered. 

Fate of the Synagogues During and After World War II
 
The destruction of Germany’s Jewish communities left behind empty, partly destroyed, or completely burned out synagogue buildings. Municipal councils often confiscated and sold these buildings, pocketing the money from the sale. During the war, some former synagogues were used to accommodate troops or prisoners, or even as bases for the Nazi Party and its affiliated organizations. After the war, they were converted into all manner of public and private facilities, including car parks, cinemas, private residences and gas stations. In Cologne, for example, the municipality took possession of the Glockenglasse synagogue building in 1943 and converted it into an opera house. Many former synagogue sites were left for decades without any form of recognition or commemoration, but as Germany slowly began to deal with its Nazi past, a readiness to remember and acknowledge the Pogrom Night of 1938 grew. Remembrance ceremonies are now held annually on the anniversary of the pogrom, and commemorative plaques and monuments have been erected in honor of Germany’s former Jewish communities and their synagogues. In Cologne, several memorial plaques have been unveiled: one on the building at the corner where Glockengasse meets Offenbachplatz, one near the site of the former St. Apernstrasse synagogue, and another at the old Jewish school building on Luetzowstrasse, now a vocational training college. A monument has been built in Cologne’s Jewish cemetery, where remnants of the Torah scrolls and ritual items that survived Pogrom Night are buried. In 2006, the municipality decided to build a museum of Jewish culture on the Rathausplatz. The museum contains a glass window through which visitors can view a medieval mikveh, 15 meters underground, rediscovered in the 1950s. The Roonstrasse synagogue was reopened in 1959, having been restored with the financial support of the German government. It contains a memorial hall, with a plaque paying tribute to all the Shoah’s victims, and specifically to the 11,000 Jews deported, most to their deaths, from Cologne. 


The Renewal of Germany’s Jewish Communities 

An estimated total of 8,000 Jews left the camps alive after the war. Many of these displaced persons re-established small, temporary communities and synagogues in Germany, which dissolved after a few years as their members moved on to rebuild their lives in Israel, the United States and elsewhere. In Cologne, a community, consisting mainly of Orthodox, Eastern European Jews, was founded in 1945. In 1949, this community inaugurated a small synagogue on Ottostrassel. Some, although not many, of these Jews remained in Germany. After the reopening of the Roonstrasse synagogue in 1959, the community established a youth center, a kindergarten, a retirement home and a library. From 600 persons in 1946, Cologne’s Jewish community had grown to 1,500 persons by 1981. Germany’s Jewish population received a boost in the 1990s as Soviet Jews arrived following the collapse of the Soviet Union; as a result, the Jewish community of Cologne is now, once again, one of Germany’s largest; numbering 6,000 in 2006.

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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.

Hamburg

A major port city and state in Germany. Since 1937 it has included the towns of Altona and Wandsbeck.

In 2004 there were approximately 3,000 Jews living in Hamburg. There was one synagogue, the Hohe Weide Synagogue, one kindergarten, the Ronald Lauder Jewish Kindergarten, and kosher food was sold by one man, Shlomo Almagor, a native of Israel.

HISTORY

Jews have lived in Hamburg since the end of the 16th century, when wealthy Marranos from Spain and Portugal arrived in the city via the Netherlands. They unsuccessfully attempted to observe Jewish customs and rituals; when they were discovered, some of the Christian residents of the city demanded their expulsion. However, the city council opposed the measure, pointing out the community's economic contributions. German Jews began to be admitted to Wandsbeck by 1600, and in 1611 some of them settled in Altona, both of which were under Danish rule. By 1627 German Jews began to settle in Hamburg itself, although on festivals they continued to travel to Altona in order to worship, since in 1641 the Danish king had permitted the official establishment of a congregation and the building of a synagogue there. The rabbi of the Altona congregation was also responsible for mediating any disputes that arose within the congregation.

The Jews of Hamburg worked as financiers, and some helped found the Bank of Hamburg in 1619. Other Jewish residents of the city worked as shipbuilders, importers (particularly of sugar, coffee, and tobacco from the Spanish and Portuguese colonies), weavers, and goldsmiths. Their taxes were high; in 1612 the Jews of Hamburg paid an annual tax of 1,000 marks, a sum which had doubled by 1617.

The original Jewish community of Hamburg continued to maintain ties to their countries of origin. The kingdoms of Sweden, Poland, and Portugal appointed Jews as their ambassadors to Hamburg. Those who had come to Hamburg from Spain and Portugal continued to speak the languages of their native lands for two centuries. There were about 15 books printed in Hamburg in Portuguese and Spanish from 1618 to 1756, which was a major development in Jewish printing in the city; from 1586 Hebrew books, especially the Bible, had been published in Hamburg by Christian printers, often with the help of Jewish employees.

As early as 1611 Hamburg had enough of a Jewish community for three Sephardic synagogues, whose congregations jointly owned burial grounds in nearby Altona. In 1652 the three congregations combined under the name of Beth Israel.

The philosopher Uriel da Costa, who wrote the controversial book, "An Examination of the Traditions of the Pharisees," fled to Hamburg from Amsterdam in 1616 after his excommunication for blasphemy. The community, however, did not accept him (the fact that he did not understand German was an additional difficulty). The local physician Samuel da Silva wrote a pamphlet attacking him and his excommunication was announced publicly in the Hamburg synagogue. Da Costa returned to Amsterdam after one year.

Many Jews, fleeing from persecution in Ukraine and Poland, in 1648 arrived in Hamburg in 1648, and were helped by the local Jews. However, these refugees soon left for Amsterdam since tensions with the Christian community were rising, culminating in the expulsion of the Ashkenazi community in 1649. Most of those who were expelled left for Altona and Wandsbeck; only a few remained in Hamburg, residing in the homes of the Spanish-Portuguese Jews in order to obtain legal status in the city.

The expulsion proved to be temporary; after a few years, many of those who had been driven out returned to Hamburg. In 1656 a number of refugees from Vilna also arrived, adding to the Jewish presence in the city. The three Ashkenazi congregations, Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck, united in 1671 to form the AHW Congregation; the community's rabbinical headquarters were in Altona. One of the most famous rabbis of the merged congregation was Jonathan Eybeschuetz, who was appointed to the post in 1750. His equally famous adversary, Jacob Emden, lived in Altona. The congregation ceased to exist in 1811 when the French authorities imposed a single consistorial organization on the city; at that point, the Ashkenazim and Sephardim united to form one congregation. The Altona community retained its own rabbinate, which was also recognized by the Jews of Wandsbeck until 1864.

Sabbateanism swept the community in 1666; the community's governing body even announced that the community buildings were for sale, in anticipation of the imminent arrival of the Messiah. Rabbi Jacob B. Aaron Sasportas was one of the few who was not swept up into the enthusiasm and he became a fierce opponent of the Sabbateans.

In 1697 the city unexpectedly raised the annual tax levied against the Jews to 6,000 marks. Consequently, the majority of the wealthy Jews of Hamburg moved to Altona and Amsterdam.

The Reform movement, which began in Berlin, eventually reached Hamburg. A Reform temple was dedicated in 1811, and in 1819 a new prayerbook was published that better suited the needs of the new congregation. The Reform community of Hamburg, however, faced extreme opposition from the other rabbis in the community. The rabbinate in Hamburg published the opinions of noted Jewish scholars that sought to discredit the temple, and they prohibited the use of its prayerbook. During Rabbi Isaac Bernays' term leading the community (1821-1849), controversy flared again when the Reform congregation built a new synagogue building and published a more radically abridged and revised version of the prayerbook, "Siddur HaTefillah," in 1844. Rabbi Bernays, for his part, was a proponent of Modern Orthodoxy, and sought to endow the traditional service with greater beauty; he also modernized the curriculum of the local Talmud Torah and regularly gave sermons in German. Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger, a fierce opponent of Reform Judaism, founded an anti-Reform journal around the same time.

Other German Jews of note who lived in Hamburg included Glueckel of Hameln, the merchant and philanthropist Salomon Heine (the uncle of Heinrich Heine), Moses Mendelssohn (as well as Rabbi Raphael Kohen who was fiercely opposed to Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch into German), the poets Naphtali Herz Wessely and Shalom B. Jacob HaCohen, the author of Dorot HaRishonim Isaac Halevy, the art historian Aby Warburg, the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, the psychologist William Stern, the shipping magnate Albert Ballin, and the financiers Max Warburg and Karl Melchior. The municipal library and the library of the University of Hamburg contained a large number of Hebrew manuscripts. Nearly 400 Hebrew books were printed in Hamburg between the 17th and 19th centuries; during the 19th century, Jewish printers mostly issued prayer books, the Pentatuch, books on mysticism, and popular literature.

The Jewish congregation of Hamburg became the fourth largest community in Germany. In 1866 there were 12,550 Jews in Hamburg; by 1933 that number had risen to 19,900 (1.7% of the total population), including more than 2,000 who lived in Altona. The last rabbi of the community before World War II was Joseph Carlebach (the father of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and Professor Miriam Gillis-Carlebach) who was deported in 1942 and killed by the Nazis.

Between 1933 and 1937, after the Nazi party came to power in Germany, more than 5,000 Jews from Hamburg emigrated to other countries; another 1,000 Polish citizens were expelled on October 28, 1938. Shortly thereafter, on the night of November 9, 1938, there was a pogrom that came to be known as Kristallnacht. Most synagogues were looted and vandalized. This led to another surge of Jews leaving Germany. A deportation took place in 1941, when 3,148 Jews were deported to Riga, Lodz, and Minsk. 1,848 Jews were deported to Auschwitz and Theresienstadt in 1942. Between 1941 and 1945 there were 17 transports of Jews from Hamburg to Lodz, Minsk, Riga, Auschwitz, and Theresienstadt. By 1943 there were 1,800 Jews left in Hamburg, most of whom were married to non-Jews; the official liquidation came in June of that year.

Approximately 7,800 Jews from Hamburg were killed during the Nazi era, including 153 who were mentally ill and executed, and 308 who committed suicide. During this period the community was led by Max Plaut and Leo Lippmann (who committed suicide in 1943). A concentration camp, Neuengamme, was located near the city; a total of 106,000 inmates passed through its gates, more than half of whom were killed.

On May 3, 1945 Hamburg was liberated by British troops, who offered aid to the few hundred Jewish survivors. On September 18, a Jewish community was organized and managed to reopen the cemetery, old age home, mikvah, and hospital. By March 18, 1947 the community numbered 1,268, its numbers fluctuating due to emigration, immigration, and a high mortality rate.

In 1960 a hospital with 190 beds was opened, and a large modern synagogue was consecrated. Herbert Weichmann was elected Buergermeister in 1965 and the Institute for Jewish History was founded in 1966, which worked to promote Jewish-Christian understanding. During the sixties a number of Jews arrived from Iran, sent by the shah in order to import Persian carpets.

In January 1970 there were 1,532 Jews in Hamburg, two-thirds of whom were above 40 years old. Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union began arriving in the 1990s.

Lvov

Quick Facts:
• Lviv in Ukranian, Lwow in Polish, Lemberg in Yiddish and German
• Lvov is a district town located in what is now known as Western Ukraine and which was, until World War Two, was known as Eastern Galicea, Poland.

EARLY HISTORY
It is generally believed that the first Jews arrived in Lvov in 1340 after the conquest of Cazimir III, the King of Poland. The Jews of Lvov played an important role in trade between the east and the west and Lvov became an important transit center.

During the second half of the 16th century, the commercial agents of Don Joseph Nasi were active in Lvov. Nonetheless, the number of Jews who engaged in international trade and large companies was very limited; the majority of Jews in Lvov worked as shopkeepers, peddlers, and craftsmen. There were two separate synagogues, ritual baths (mikva'ot) and charitable institutions. The two communities shared the cemetery, which was also used to bury Karaites.

Lvov's community leaders represented the entire region at the Councils of the Four Lands.

During the Chmielnicki Massacres of 1648-1649, and the successive wars of the second half of the 17th and early 18th centuries, the Jews of Lvov, particularly those who lived outside of the city, suffered great losses to life and property. The efforts of the townspeople to restrict the Jews geographically and economically were in vain since the nobility generally supported the Jews. At this time, the Jews also opened shops in the center of town. When Sabbateanism began to spread in Russia, David Halevi (d. 1667), the Av Beit Din ("Court Chief") of the congregation outside the walls, sent his son and stepson supporters. After Shabbetai Tzvi's apostasy, his adherents in Lvov were excommunicated (1772). In 1754, Leib Krisse (Kriss), the second-in-command to the false messiah Jacob Frank, came to Lvov in order to spread Frankism. Frank himself arrived in Lvov in December, 1755, but he was forced out. A disputation with the Frankists was held in 1759; Rabbi Chayyim Kohen Rapoport, the Av Beit Din of the town and region, spoke on behalf of the Jews.

During the 18th century, the Lvov community declined in stature and its authority was reduced. The limits of the provincial council's authority were also restricted after the annexation of Podolia to Turkey in 1772. Conflicts within the community over the distribution of taxes, the election of rabbis, and other affairs resulted in the secular authorities intervening more than they had in the past.

From the beginning of the 19th century, only the wealthy and educated merchants who had Germanized were authorized to live outside of the Jewish quarter. In 1848, the Jews were allowed to participate in municipal council elections. In spite of the religious equality granted by the Austrian Empire in 1849, the municipality continued to evict the Jews from commercial trade, and the Christian artisans' guilds came into conflict with Jewish artisans.

Chassidism became popular in Lvov at the end of the 18th century. 1792 and 1798 saw open clashes between Chasidim and their opponents (Misnagdim) . As the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) reached Lvov, an anonymous cherem (excommunication) was proclaimed in 1816 against a group of maskilim. In 1844 a Reform Temple was dedicated, led by Rabbi Abraham Kohn of Hohenems. The Orthodox community was violently opposed to him; in 1847 Rabbi Kohn and his family were poisoned, and Rabbi Kohn subsequently died. This crime is widely believed to have been carried out by Orthodox fanatics.

The assimilationist intelligentsia circles within Lvov identified with German culture and in 1868 they founded Shomer Israel, with its ideological organ Israelit. This movement was opposed by the Doresh Shalom Society, which was founded in 1878, only to be disbanded shortly thereafter to be replaced by Agudat Achim in 1883. Agudat Achim called for Jews to assimilate into Polish culture, and published the journal Ojczyzna (Fatherland).

Lvov was also the home of Hertz Homberg. As a result of his educational activities, seven schools were founded, four for boys and three for girls, in addition to a teacher's seminary, which was headed by Aaron Friedenthal. During the Austrian period the two congregations in Lvov merged and became a single community, which was led by moderate assimilationists starting in the 1830s. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, assimilationist ideology declined, while National Zionism began to become influential. The first Zionist societies, Mikra Kodesh and Zion were formed in 1883 and 1888, respectively, and they became the centerpiece of the All-Galician Zionist Organization.

With the outbreak of World War I, thousands of refugees arrived in Lvov from regions that bordered Russia. When the Austrians returned in June 1915, Jewish life normalized, organized assistance was offered to the refugees, and public institutions were reopened. In November 1918 in the midst of fighting between the Poles and the Ukranians over control of Eastern Galicia, pogroms broke out in Lvov; 70 Jews were killed, and many more were wounded. Throughout the struggles between the Poles and Ukranians, each side accused the Jews of supporting the enemy side. The rise of anti-Semitism and the difficult economic situation were reflected in every sphere of Jewish life.

During the period of Polish independence, 1918-1939, Lvov was the third largest Jewish community in Poland, and one of its most important centers. In 1939, there were 100,000 Jews living in Lvov.

THE HOLOCAUST

In September 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, Poland was partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union. Lvov became part of Soviet Ukraine. After the Germans attacked the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941, the Germans captured the city at the beginning of July 1941. At that point, Lvov had a population of approximately 150,000, including thousands of refugees fleeing the Nazi occupation in Western Poland.

The local Ukranian population welcomed the German troops, while Stephen Bandera's units joined with the invading forces and played a major role in stirring up hatred of the Jews and their murder. During July, a mob attacked the Jews for three days. Thousands of Jews were jailed, where they were tortured and murdered, and several hundred Jewish public figures and youth were killed. On July 15th the Jews were ordered to wear the yellow star; days later, between July 25th and 27th, over 2,000 Jews were shot in "Aktion Petliura." In August, a fine of 20,000,000 rubles (approximately $600,000,000 in today's US dollars) was imposed on the Jewish community. Jewish property was confiscated and looted, and synagogues and Jewish cemeteries were desecrated and destroyed. A Judenrat was appointed and led by Joseph Parnes; Parnes was killed shortly thereafter after refusing to supply the Nazis with men for forced labor. Two of his three successors met the same fate.

Labor camps were set up in the city itself and the surrounding areas, where many Jews were either killed immediately or died as a result of the inhuman conditions in the camps. In November, 1941, the Jews of Lvov were concentrated in a ghetto and subjected to starvation. In March 1942, approximately 15,000 Jews were deported from Lvov to the death camp Belzec. The major deportation of the Jews, however, took place August 10-23 of the same year, when 40,000 Jews were sent to their deaths. Subsequent deportations in November 1942 and January 1943 resulted in the murder of another 15,000 Jews, some in Belzec, and others in the Janowska road camp.

During the last deportation of June 1943, which resulted in the deaths of most of the surviving Jews, the Jews of Lvov offered armed resistance. When the Nazis encountered gunfire and hand grenades, they poured gasoline on the Jewish houses and lit them on fire. The 7,000 Jews who survived the massacre were sent to the Janowska road camp. At that point, Lvov and the surrounding area were made Judenrein (clear of Jews).

Because of the particularly set of circumstances that citizens of Lvov faced, including a hostile population of Ukrainians, the lack of forests that could provide shelter, and the absence of a local partisan movement, there was little organized Jewish resistance, though a few sporadic and isolated attempts were made. For example, during the liquidation of the ghetto and the Jadowska road camp, a group of prisoners who were charged with the disposal and cremation of corpses attacked and killed several of the German guards. A few dozen Jews escaped, but most were ultimately caught and killed. Some Jews fled to remote forests, though in most cases they were handed over to the Nazis once they were discovered by the local Ukrainian peasants.

When Soviet forces entered and occupied Ukraine in July 1945, a Jewish committee was established in order to aid survivors. Of the 3,400 Jewish survivors who registered with the community by the end of 1945, only 820 had been in the Lvov Ghetto. Most of the survivors left Ukraine and settled in Israel.

A monument to the memory of Jewish victims of the Nazis, with inscriptions in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian, was erected shortly after the end of World War II.

In a census taken in 1959, 29,701 Jews were registered in the Lvov province, 5,011 of whom declared that Yiddish was their mother tongue. Two years prior, in 1957, several Jewish students were arrested for "Zionist activities." Organized matza-baking was prohibited in 1959; that same year mohels (those who perform ritual circumcisions) were pressured to sign a declaration promising to abandon circumcision. In 1962, several hundred Jews were arrested for "economic crimes;" that same year the synagogue was closed on the pretext that it served as a meeting place for speculators and other criminals.

Moscow

Москва / Moskva

Capital of Russia since 1918. The political, economic, and commercial center of Russia.

Jews were forbidden to reside in Moscow until the end of the 18th century, although many Jewish merchants from Poland and Lithuania visited the town on business. A few Jews had arrived during the Russian-Polish war of the 17th century as prisoners. Among them were some who converted to Christianity and remained in the city. Peter Shafizov, one of the most important advisors to Czar Peter the Great was of Jewish origin.

The First Partition of Poland in 1772 brought a number of Jews to Moscow, particularly from Shklov, which was then an important commercial center in Belarus. In 1790, Moscow merchants requested that the presence and commercial activities of Jews in the city be prohibited; a royal decree forbidding Jewish merchants from settling in the inner districts of Russia was subsequently issued in 1791. However, they were still allowed to reside in Moscow temporarily in order to trade and Jewish merchants continued to play an important role in the trade between Moscow and the Southern and Western regions of Russia, as well as in the export of Moscow's goods. As a result, Russian industrialists in Moscow tended to support granting rights to the Jews of the city.

In 1828, certain classes of Jewish merchants were authorized to remain in Moscow on business for a period of one month only (in 1832 all classes of Jewish merchants were allowed to stay in the city for up to half a year), and could stay only in one inn, Glebovskoye Podvoriye. The inn was a charitable trust which had been handed over to the Moscow Town Council so that its income could be used for the maintenance of a municipal eye clinic. Because it was the only place that Jewish merchants could stay while they were in Moscow, they were forced to pay exorbitant prices to stay at the inn. With the ascension of Czar Alexander II in 1855, restrictions were eased; Jewish merchants of the first guild, university graduates, army veterans, and certain medical professionals were permitted to live anywhere in the city.

The first Jews to settle permanently in Moscow, who became the founders of the community, were cantonists (Jews who had been conscripted to the military as children) who had finished their military service, some of whom had married Jewish women from the Pale of Settlement. In 1858 there were 340 Jewish men and 104 Jewish women in the entire District of Moscow. From 1865 to 1889 Rabbi Chaim Berlin served as the chief rabbi of Moscow, and in 1869 the community invited Shlomo Minor, one of the outstanding students of the Vilna rabbinical seminary, to serve as the Kazyonny Ravvin (Government Appointed Rabbi).

In 1871, the Jewish population of Moscow was estimated at around 8,000. This number grew to about 12,000 in 1882 and 35,000 (over 3% of the total population) in 1890, just before the expulsion.

The governor of Moscow, Prince Paul Dmitriyevich Dolgorukov, was known for his liberal attitude towards the Jews and (after receiving bribes and gifts) the local administration was willing to overlook their occasionally illegal presence in the city (for example, in the cases of those who falsely claimed to be merchants and artisans). While anti-Jewish persecutions and decrees were gaining momentum throughout Russia after the ascension of Czar Alexander III, the attempts to expel the Jews from Moscow were delayed. This peace proved to be temporary when Prince Dolgorukov was removed from office, and Grand Prince Sergei Alexandrovich was appointed in his stead. One of his explicitly-stated goals in taking office was "to save Moscow from the Jews." Shortly thereafter, on March 28, 1891 (Passover Eve, 5651), Jews began to be expelled from the city.

The expulsion from Moscow came as a deep shock to Russian Jewry. Within a short period of time, approximately 20,000 Jews were expelled from Moscow. The poor were sent to the Pale of Settlement on criminal transports and generous rewards were offered for the capture of any Jews hiding in the city. A considerable number of those expelled arrived in Warsaw and Lodz, and began to rebuild their businesses. At the height of the expulsion period, the authorities closed down the new Choral Synagogue, which had just been built in 1891, as well as 9 of the 14 prayer houses. It was not until 1906 that permission was granted for the Choral Synagogue to be reopened.

In 1897 there were 8,095 Jews living in Moscow (0.8% of the total population. Additionally, there were 216 Karaites living in the city). In 1902 there were 9,339 Jews living in the city, with half of them declaring Yiddish as their mother tongue; the overwhelming majority of others declared it to be Russian. In 1893 Ya'akov (Iakov) Mazeh was elected as the rabbi of Moscow, and remained its spiritual leader until his death in 1923.

Increasing numbers of Jewish students arrived in Moscow during the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century in order to pursue higher education. In 1886 there were about 298 Jewish students in the city, and in 1911 there were about 700. Additionally, after the outbreak of World War I, streams of Jewish refugees began arriving from the German-occupied regions. They took part in the development of war industries, and some amassed large fortunes. In a short period of time, Moscow became a center of Jewish life and culture. Hebrew printing presses were set up and a large Lithuanian yeshivah was founded in the town of Bogorodsk, near Moscow. The Hebrew theater Habimah performed its first play in 1917 (its masterpiece, Sh. Ansky's "Ha-Dibuk," would premiere in January 1922). Authorization was given for the publication of a Hebrew weekly, "Ha-Am." The founding conference of the Organization for Hebrew Education and Culture, Tarbut, was held in Moscow in the spring of 1917. While these cultural activities continued through the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the new regime rapidly shut down most of the institutions of Hebrew culture in Moscow. The Habimah Theater was more fortunate; it continued to exist and was protected several prominent members of the Russian artistic and literary world, who defended it as a first-class artistic institution.

The headquarters of the Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist Party, were located in Moscow, where they published their central newspaper, "Der Emes," from 1920 until 1938, as well as many other Yiddish newspapers and books. The Jewish state theater (known in Russia by its Russian initials, GOSET), directed by Solomon Mikhoels, was also located in Moscow. For a number of years, small circles of organized Zionists continued to exist in the city, which was the central location of the legal He-Chalutz as well as of Po'alei Zion. The Yiddish Theater moved from Petrograd to Moscow in 1920, and in 1925 it was reorganized as the Moscow State Yiddish Theater. In 1926 the Second Moscow University opened a department to prepare future teachers to teach at Jewish schools.

This cultural blossoming came to a halt during the 1930s. The last Jewish school was closed in 1936, while most Yiddish language educational and cultural institutions were closed in 1937 and 1938. The mass arrests from 1936=1938 also claimed a large number of Jews from Moscow, many of whom were party elites.

When Moscow became the capital of the Soviet Union in 1918, its Jewish population began rapidly increasing. In 1920 there were 28,000 Jews in the city, which had become severely depopulated as a result of the civil war. By 1923 that number had increased to 86,000, and by 1926 to 131,000 (6.5% of the total population). In 1940 the Jewish population was estimated at 400,000. In the census of 1959, 239,246 Jews (4.7% of the total population) were registered in the municipal area of Moscow; these numbers are thought to be a gross underestimate, and some opinions evaluate Moscow's Jewish population during that time as being as high as 500,000.


During World War II, from 1943, Moscow was the headquarters of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which gathered together major well-known Soviet Jewish figures in order to assist the Soviet Union in its war effort against Nazi Germany and to mobilize world Jewish opinion and aid for this cause. It published a newspaper, "Eynikayt." The Anti-Fascist Committee attempted to continue its activities after the war, but was brutally suppressed in the years following the war. In 1950 the state security apparatus invented the Stalin Automobile Plant of Moscow (ZIS) Affair, accusing 48 people (42 of whom were Jews) of organizing a Jewish national sabotage group at the plant, led by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. All ten people who were executed were Jews. Indeed, Moscow's Jews were particularly affected by Stalin's anti-Semitic campaigns after the war. Many of Moscow's Jews were fired from their jobs, arrested, and even executed after being falsely accused of various plots against Stalin and the state.

When Golda Meir, the first diplomatic representative of the State of Israel, arrived in Moscow on September 1948, a spontaneous mass demonstration of Jews in her honor took place on the High Holidays near and around the Moscow Choral Synagogue, angering Soviet officials. Later, the Israel delegation to the Youth Festival, held in Moscow in 1957, was the first opportunity that Jewish youth from Israel and the USSR had to form personal connections.

By 1970, there were three functioning synagogues in Moscow, the most historically significant of which was the Moscow Choral Synagogue (one of the three would be closed down by the authorities in 1972). In the 1950s and 1960s, The Moscow Choral Synagogue was allowed to issue a Jewish calendar and to send it to other synagogues in the USSR. In 1956 the synagogue's rabbi, Rabbi Solomon Schliefer ,was granted permission to print a prayer book from older prayer books. He named it "Siddur Ha-Shalom" ("The Prayer Book of Peace") and deleted all references to wars and victories (for example, the prayers said on Chanukkah and Purim). He is said to have printed 3,000 copies, but it was rarely seen in other synagogues in the Soviet Union. In 1957, Rabbi Schliefer was given permission by the authorities to open a yeshiva on the premesis of The Great Synagogue. He called it "Kol Ya'akov" ("The Voice of Jacob") and for several years a small number of young and middle-aged Jewish men, mostly from Georgia, were trained there. Nearly all the men learning there trained to be shochatim (ritual slaughterers), and the number of ordained rabbis did not exceed 1 or 2. By 1963 37 students had passed through the yeshiva; 25 of them had been trained as shochatim. In 1965 there was only 1 student studying there. Beginning in 1961, a barrier was erected in the Moscow Choral Synagogue to separate foreign visitors, including Israeli diplomats, from the local congregation and the synagogue's officers were responsible for strictly enforcing the segregation. In 1962, matzah-baking and distribution was restricted in Moscow, as well as in most other areas of the Soviet Union.


Yiddish folklore concerts took place relatively frequently in the city and drew large crowds. A semi-professional theater troupe was established, led by the actor Benjamin Schwartzer, and mainly performed Sholom Aleichem plays in provincial cities. In 1961 the Yiddish journal "Sovietish Heymland," edited by an officially appointed editor, the poet Aaron Vergelis, began to appear as an "organ of the Soviet Writers' Union."The Moscow Jewish Tramatic Ensemble was created in 1962 (which would be renamed the Shalom Jewish Dramatic Theater Studio).

The Six Day War and the subsequent rupture of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Israel put an end to cultural contacts between the two countries. But many of Moscow's Jews, particularly the younger generation, began demonstrating their feelings of Jewish nationalism more openly. Simchat Torah at the Moscow Choral Synagogue became a time for thousands of Jews to come together and sing Yiddish and Hebrew songs. These Jews began studying Hebrew in small, secret groups and publishing samizdat (underground publications). Jews organized groups to study Judaism and Jewish history, and held Jewish song contests. They also demonstrated and signed petitions against the refusal to grant them exit permits to Israel. A number of these activists ("refuseniks") were arrested for their activities, including Ida Nudel, Yosef Begun, and Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky.

St. Petersburg

Санкт-Петербург; also known as Petrograd 1914-1924, and Leningrad 1924-1991

Capital of Russia until 1918. An industrial city and major port on the Baltic Sea.

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

The Jewish community of St. Petersburg is the second-largest in Russia. Mass emigration reduced the Jewish population from 107,000 in 1989 to about 40,000 in 2002. A 2010 census revealed that these numbers did not change considerably and that the number of Jewish residents in St. Petersburg has remained at around 40,000 people. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union the Jews of St. Petersburg were in many ways disconnected from Jewish culture. However, since the end of communism in Russia, St. Petersburg has emerged as a vibrant Jewish community. While a significant segment of the community remains uncomfortable with, and not entirely open about, its Jewishness, an increasing number of the city's Jews identify as Jewish and have begun observing Jewish traditions and rituals.

Jews began arriving in St. Petersburg during the second half of the 19th century, primarily from the "Pale of Residence", which was made up of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, and Lithuania. This time was marked by intense Russification, which included a high rate of mixed marriages and conversions to Christianity. Most of the Jews of St. Petersburg have lived in the city for generations, though there are many who have arrived more recently from other locations within Russia and the region, including the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Georgia. Since the restriction on emigration was lifted in 1989, as many as 230,000 Jews left for Israel.

Two umbrella organizations serve both the community of St. Petersburg and Russian Jewry more generally: the Federation of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Russia, and The Russian-Jewish Congress. With the support of foreign Jewish philanthropy, several Jewish welfare programs, as well as a full range of religious and educational institutions, have been developed in St. Petersburg. Russia's network of Jewish educational institutions includes four Jewish universities, which are mainly located in St. Petersburg and Moscow. A number of smaller religious and social organizations have been established by young Jews in their twenties and thirties. Events such as the Jewish festival take place annually in the community. St. Petersburg has also been host to annual events and conferences organized by Limmud FSU, an organization which specializes in meeting the cultural needs of the Jewish communities of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Since 2011 these conferences have attracted hundreds of Jews from St. Petersburg, providing a safe environment for Jewish youth to learn more about their Jewish heritage. Jewish newspapers and Russian-language media have emerged in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other cities with smaller organized Jewish communities.

The vast majority of Russian Jewry, including the community of St. Petersburg, is secular and defines their Jewishness in cultural rather than religious terms. Of the religiously observant Jews in St. Petersburg, most are Orthodox. In an effort to support the resurgence in religious observance, many rabbis from outside Russia have been brought to St. Petersburg. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement has been very active in the community since the end of the 20th century, and the Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism have also been introduced.

The central hub of Jewish life in St. Petersburg is the Yesod Jewish Community Center (JCC). Opened in 2005, the facility houses six of the community's major Jewish organizations, including the Hesed Avraam Charity Center, Adain Lo Family Center, Hillel Student Center, the Granatik Children Center, ORT, and the Library & Eitan Jewish Education Center. Additionally, the JCC offers many cultural and educational programs. It holds lectures, sponsors events, and includes its own Sunday school.

The most notable synagogue in St. Petersburg is the Grand Choral Synagogue. Constructed in the Moorish Revival-Byzantine style between 1880 and 1888, and consecrated in 1893, the Grand Choral is the second-largest synagogue in Europe. Prior to its construction, a synagogue large enough to serve the entire Jewish community in Russia's then-capital did not exist. However, the synagogue could only be built after obtaining a building permit from Tsar Alexander II in 1869.

Located in the Russian Museum of Ethnography is an exhibit dedicated to Russian Jewry. The exhibit "History and Culture of the Jewish people of the Territory of Russia" is considered by many in the community to be the first step toward the development of a completely separate Jewish museum. As one of the city's important cultural institutions, the museum attracts visitors from all over Russia, including Jews from neighboring countries.

Another significant Jewish landmark is the Holocaust memorial, located in Tsarskoye Selo. The monument stands just 500 meters from Catherin's palace where the Jewish ghetto was located during the Second World War.

One of the oldest points of Jewish interest in the city is St. Petersburg's Jewish cemetery. Founded in 1875, the cemetery serves as the burial place for several historical figures such as the sculptor Mark Antokolsky, the 19th century scientist and Jewish community leader David Ginsburg, and Abraham Lubanov, who served as the head rabbi of the St. Petersburg Synagogue during World War II.

HISTORY

There is evidence that there were some Marranos who settled in St. Petersburg soon after it was in 1703 by Peter the Great. "The Portuguese Jew," Jan DaCosta (who was actually a converso), was one of the jesters at the royal court during the first half of the 18th century. The city's first police chief was also a converso from the Netherlands. Otherwise, Jews were not allowed to live in the city. Additionally, Czarina Elizabeth issued intolerant decrees against the Jews, and the few Jews who were living in St. Petersburg were forced to leave. Catherine II (Catherine the Great), on the other hand, was interested in attracting Jewish contractors, industrialists, and physicians to the city, and therefore issued instructions to the authorities to overlook the presence of the "useful" Jews living there with their families and assistants and had the protection of court officials. It was Catherine II who, after the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, created the Pale of Settlement, territories in which the Jews of the Russian Empire were permitted to settle permanently (unless they had special permission to settle elsewhere).

With the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, St. Petersburg became a center for the millions of Jews who were incorporated into the Russian Empire. The city quickly became a destination for upper class Jews, both the "useful" Jews—the army veterans, artisans, and wealthy merchants who had official permission to live outside of the Pale—as well as the Jews who settled in St. Petersburg illegally. The leader of Chabad Chasidism, Shneur Zalman of Lyady, was imprisoned in St. Petersburg from 1798 until 1800/1801.

The situation of the Jews worsened with the accession of Czar Nicholas I. In 1827 he issued the Statute on Conscription Duty, which imposed a draft on the Jews of Russia and cancelled the earlier provision that allowed Jews to pay a monetary random instead of submitting to the draft. The draftees would have to serve 25 years, and would fall on Jewish boys and men between the ages of 12 and 25 (as opposed to the general population, in which men 18 to 35 were eligible for the draft). The idea was to modernize and Russify the Jewish population, and became a communal crisis, particularly for the more traditional Jewish communities.

The situation shifted again with the reign of Alexander II. "Useful" Jews, such as army veterans, university graduates, artisans, and upper-class merchants were once again allowed to legally settle in St. Petersburg. By the end of Alexander II's reign in 1881 there were 17,253 Jews in St. Petersburg, making up approximately 2% of the population. Upper class Jews, including the barons of the Guenzburg family became the de facto leaders and representatives before the Central Government.

Several figures held the position of Kazyonnyy Ravin (Government-Appointed Rabbi) in St. Petersburg, including the German-born Abraham Neiman, Avram Drabkin, and Moshe Eisenstadt. Other rabbis who were not officially appointed, yet who led the Jews of the community, were Yitshak Blaser, Yekutiel Zalman Landau, and David Tevel Katzenellenbogen. After 24 years of dealing with bureaucracy and construction, the magnificent Grand Choral Synagogue was completed and consecrated in 1893. It was built in the Moorish style, and contained 1,200 seats. In spite of this triumph, it is important to note that with the opening of the Grand Choral Synagogue, all of the other existing sanctuaries needed to be closed, and their congregants were compelled to pray only in the Grand Choral Synagogue.

The Yiddish, Russian, and Hebrew Jewish presses were centered in St. Petersburg from the 1870s until the revolution in 1905. The newspapers HaMelitz (1871-1873, 1878-1904), HaYom (1886-1888). Dos Yudishes Folksblat (1881-1890) and the first Russian daily newspaper in Yiddish, Der Fraynd (1903-1908), were all published out of St. Petersburg. The city was also the center of Russian-Jewish journalism and literature. One of the most outstanding publications was the Russian-Jewish encyclopedia, Yevreyskaya Entsiklopediya, which was published in 1908.

In spite of censorship, exclusions, and unremitting police persecutions, the community continued to grow, numbering 35,000 (1.8% of the city's population) in 1914.

Many national Jewish organizations located their headquarters in St. Petersburg. The oldest of these organizations was The Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia, which was founded in 1863. Others included ORT, the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA), the Chovevei Sefat Ever (renamed "Tarbut" after the 1917 Revolution), the Historical-Ethnographic Society, and the Society for Jewish Folk Music. Additionally, a number of institutions in the city housed various objects of Jewish interest. The city's Asian Museum housed a valuable Hebrew department. The Imperial Public Library contained one of the world's oldest and most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts. Under the initiative of Baron David Guenzburg, courses in Oriental Studies were opened in St. Petersburg in 1907. The concentration of public and cultural institutions in the city attracted Jewish authors and intellectuals, including A.A Harkavy, Judah Leib Katzenelson, Simon Dubnow, and father and son Michael and Eugene M. Kulisher.

World War I saw the Jewish population of Petrograd swell to more than 50,000 because of Jews fleeing from the battlefields within the Pale of Settlement, or Jews being expelled by the Russian army who accused them of collaborating with the Germans and Austrians. The influx of Jewish refugees was overwhelming to the city's Jewish residents, though they nonetheless attempted to accommodate them through organizations such as the Jewish Society for the Relief of War Victims.

After the February Revolution of 1917, all residence restrictions affecting the Jews of Petrograd were abolished. As a result, the city became a center for the activities of the diverse parties and factions within Russian Jewry. In June 1917, the Seventh Conference of the Zionist Organization of Russia was held in the city, and plans were also made to convene an All-Russian Jewish Congress in Petrograd. These improvements in Jewish life and national status were, however, short-lived. With the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, all Jewish political parties (along with any other non-Bolshevik parties) were forced underground. The center of government moved from Petrograd to Moscow, leaving the city's Jews far from the nation's political center. The transfer of the capital from Petrograd to Moscow in 1918, as well as the shortages and famine that affected the city during the Russian Civil War, severely shook the Jewish community, and many Jews returned to the provincial towns. It was during this difficult period that Joseph Trumpeldor created a Jewish battalion for the purposes of Jewish self-defense. Additionally, he founded the youth organization He-Halutz, to prepare Jewish youth for emigration to Palestine.

By 1920 there were 25,453 Jews (3.5% of the total population) living in Petrograd. With the consolidation of the Soviet regime, the number of Jews rapidly increased, to 52,373 in 1923 (4.9% of the total population), and 84,505 in 1926 (5.2% of the population).

A small group of Russian-Jewish intellectuals attempted to continue their literary and scientific work under the new regime. They worked to sustain their former cultural societies, and continued to publish scientific and literary periodicals. By the end of the 1920s, when these projects were shut down by the Soviet regime, many of these intellectuals left Russia, including Simon Dubnow and Saul M. Ginzburg. Nearly a decade later, by the end of the 1930s, the remaining Communist Jewish organizations had also been suppressed, as had public expressions of Jewish identity.

On the eve of the Nazi invasion, the number of Jews in Leningrad was estimated at about 200,000 people. During World War II, the Jews shared in the suffering and starvation during the German siege of the city. The author, literary critic, and historian Lidiya Yakovlevna Ginzburg was among the survivors of the siege of Leningrad.

In the census of 1959, 162,344 Jews were registered as living in Leningrad, but the real number was probably closer to 200,000. 13,728 of these respondents declared Yiddish as their mother tongue. The city's only synagogue was the Grand Choral Synagogue, which was still standing in spite of having been bombed by the Nazis in 1941 and 1943. During the 1950s Gedalia Pecherski was the chairman of the synagogue's board. Pecherski was not only devoted to the religious needs of the congregation, he also sent petitions to the Soviet government and the municipal authorities asking to be allowed to organize courses in subjects such as Hebrew and Jewish history. These petitions were always summarily rejected. Pecherski was arrested in 1961 and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment, ostensibly for having "maintained contact with a foreign embassy [i.e Israel]." The rabbi of the synagogue, RabbiAbram Lubanov, who had been imprisoned in a forced labor camp during the Stalin era, was the dwindling congregation's spiritual leader.

In 1962-1964, as in other parts of the USSR, matzah-baking in the Leningrad synagogue was discontinued by the authorities. In 1962, on the eve of Simchat Torah, 25 Jewish youths were arrested while dancing in the street near the synagogue. In 1963 the authorities prohibited the use of the Jewish cemetery, which was ultimately closed in 1969.

In spite of the assimilation and population decline among Leningrad's Jews, they nonetheless took on an important role in the refusenik movement and the Jewish national revival that began to stir in the Soviet Union. After the Six Day War in 1967, Jewish youth more openly displayed their identification with Israel, in spite of the official Soviet anti-Israel campaign. Many began studying Hebrew in private underground groups, others protested publicly against the government's refusal to grant them exit permits for Israel. These protests were publicized abroad, and helped galvanize Jewish communities worldwide to help their Soviet brethren. Many of these activities led to the arrest and imprisonment of these young activists. Another group of young Jews, mostly from Riga, together with 2 non-Jews, were tried in Leningrad in December 1970 for allegedly planning to hijack a Soviet plane in order to land abroad and ultimately reach Israel. Two were sentenced to death, and the other to prison terms of 4-15 years. These sentences led to worldwide protests. On appeal in March, 1971, the Supreme Court of the Russian Republic commuted the death sentences to 15 years of hard labor, and some of the other sentences were reduced.

With the collapse of communism, St. Petersburg saw a Jewish communal revival. Chabad is particularly active in the city, and events such as Limmud FSU help St. Petersburg's Jews reconnect with their Jewish roots.