STEINBACH Origin of surname

Iosif Leon Steinbach (1918-1999), politician, born in Bucharest, Romania. He joined the Romanian Communist Party in 1934, when the Communist movement was illegal in Romania. After 1945 he was in charge of financial activities of the party committee, then in 1948 he was named manager of the S. Filderman leather and footwear company in Bacau, established in 1884 by Samuel Filderman, now nationalized and renamed Partizanul (“Partisan”). From 1951 to 1981 Steinbach was director of the state owned consortium of garment companies in Bucharest. A member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party from 1969 to 1984, he served as deputy minister at the Ministry of Industry. He died in Israel.

STEINBACH 

A former village, now a neighborhood of Schwaebisch Hall in Baden Wuerttemberg, Germany.

First Jewish presence: 1621; peak Jewish population: 135 in 1843; Jewish population in 1933: unknown

Jews may have lived in Steinbach as early as the 15th century, but the first record of their presence there is dated 1621. Initially, the Jews of Schwaebisch Hall were members of the Steinbach community. By 1702, local Jews were conducting services in a prayer room. The community’s synagogue, opened in 1809 at 29 Neustetter Strasse, was also attended by the Jews of Schwaebisch Hall, as was the elementary school (which functioned from 1829 until 1869). In 1894, after a prayer hall was opened in Schwaebisch Hall, the two communities decided to alternate services between their respective houses of worship. The cemetery at Steinbacher Strasse was consecrated in 1809. Only two Jews lived in Steinbach in 1924. Years later, on Pogrom Night (Nov. 9, 1938), the synagogue was burned to the ground. The outer walls, however, withstood the blaze, and the site was sold to the municipality in 1939. In 1941, Steinbach’s only remaining Jew, a woman, was deported to Riga. At least seven Steinbach Jews perished in the Shoah. The cemetery, desecrated in 1938, was later destroyed. The municipality sold the former synagogue in 1940, after which a residential house was built on the site. A commemorative plaque was unveiled there, and a memorial was also built at the cemetery. The latter was desecrated in 1992.

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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.

Steinbach am Donnersberg

A village in the Donnersberg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

First Jewish presence: unknown; peak Jewish population: 112 in 1828 (18% of the total population); Jewish population in 1933: unknown

The following Jewish population figures are available for Steinbach: 11 in 1780, 112 in 1828 (peak population) and seven in 1940. The community’s Jewish school, opened in the late 1820s, was presided over by a teacher who also performed the duties of chazzan and shochet. Steinbach Jews established several other communal institutions: a cemetery in 1780 (located in the middle of town); a synagogue in 1806 (built on the second floor of a half-timbered house on Kirchgasse); and, finally, a mikveh. By the turn of the century, only six Jews lived in Steinbach. The town’s few remaining Jews were persecuted during the Nazi period, and Jewish-owned businesses were boycotted. On November 10, 1938, SA men ransacked the synagogue, threw out the ritual objects and burned them down, broke into and plundered Jewish homes, destroyed the cemetery and took Jewish men into “protective custody.” The synagogue building—POWs were housed there during the war—was torn down in the 1950s.

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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.

Steinbach am Glan

A village in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

First Jewish presence: 18th century; peak Jewish population: 217 in 1848; Jewish population in 1933: 35

A Jew lived in Glan-Muenchweiler (whose Jewish community was later affiliated with Steinbach am Glan) in 1638, but it was only in the early 18th century that a Jewish presence was recorded in Steinbach itself. The town’s 18th-century Jewish community consecrated a synagogue (at 78 Hauptstrasse) in 1725 and a cemetery in 1726, the latter of which was enlarged in 1891. Steinbach was home to a Jewish school from 1838 to 1916. In 1933, 35 Jews lived in Steinbach. The community, however, numbered 79 members, as the Jews of Bruecken and Glan-Muenchweile were affiliated with Steinbach. Ten Jewish schoolchildren received religious instruction that year. On Pogrom Night (Nov. 9, 1938), rioters destroyed the synagogue’s interior and ransacked two Jewish homes; Jewish men were sent to Dachau Nazi concedntration camp. Later, in July 1939, the municipality bought the synagogue building for a paltry 500 Reichsmarks, from which it deducted 300 Reichsmarks for the demolition costs. Only one Jewish family (of four members) remained in Steinbach after the pogrom; they were deported to the concentration camp in Gurs, France, and to Auschwitz on October 22, 1940, and in 1942, respectively. At least one Steinbach Jew perished in the Shoah. In 1941, the municipality sold the synagogue site to a private buyer, after which residential and business quarters were built there. A memorial was unveiled in the town center in 1988; 10 years later, in 1998, a Jewish section was opened in the local museum. The cemetery was desecrated in 1979, 1986 and 1993.

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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.