Bielefeld Jewish Community

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Bielefeld synagogue

The Jewish Community of Bielefeld is a religious community founded in Bielefeld in 1705 , whose beginnings can be found in the 14th century. Today, as the Jewish Community of Bielefeld, it is a member of the regional association of Jewish communities in Westphalia-Lippe . In addition, she has joined the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany .

history

The earliest documentary evidence of the settlement of Jews in Bielefeld comes from the middle of the 14th century. In a document dated April 23, 1345 it is mentioned that the Count von Ravensberg had pledged property and taxes to the Bielefeld canon Gottfried de Blomenberge, including the annual taxes of the Jews in Bielefeld.

During the plague pogroms in 1348-1350, the Jews were also expelled from Bielefeld. Bloody anti-Jewish massacres are said to have taken place in Lübbecke in 1350. On February 12, 1370, the Count of Ravensberg, Wilhelm von Jülich , allowed the Jews to return to their homeland. The Jews living in Bielefeld (Saulus Vinoes, Simon Jutta, Nennkun von Hamelen, Nennken un Rethberghe, Johanna von Hamme with families) were from now on under the direct protection of the sovereign, who ensured the safety of their stay or escort when leaving the city guaranteed. Documents in 1384, 1408 and 1430 also mention Jewish settlements in Bielefeld.

Since the middle of the 16th century, no Jewish residents are likely to have resided in Bielefeld, since Duke Wilhelm V von Jülich issued a residence ban for Jews in the whole country in 1554 (so-called "Jülich Police Ordinance"). Slow immigration started again at the end of the 16th century. The first evidence of a renewed immigration of Jews in Bielefeld can be found in the “Council negotiations of the city of Bielefeld” of July 11, 1586, according to which a Hertz family was allowed to stay in the city for a short time in exchange for 20 Thalers. They were allowed to accept other Jews for a fee.

After the law on the legal relations of Jews in Prussia came into force in 1847 , the Bielefeld synagogue community was formally constituted as a public corporation by the royal government of Minden in January 1855 . Through a donation, the community came into the possession of a building on Klosterplatz in Bielefeld's old town around 1800 (the former Wendtschen Hof ). Initially, services were held in the existing buildings until a synagogue was built in 1847 . After the rooms in the old synagogue at Klosterplatz 5 had become too small despite various renovations at the beginning of the 20th century, the congregation decided to build a new church.

A loan from the city of Bielefeld made it possible to purchase a plot of land on Turnerstrasse near Kesselbrink . On September 20, 1905, according to the plans of was Eduard Fürstenau built new synagogue inaugurated. The building, designed for 800 worshipers, was crowned by a 41 meter high dome with a gold-plated Star of David on top .

The memorial plaque for the synagogue on Turnerstrasse, which was destroyed in 1938

Like many other synagogues in Germany, the church was set on fire during the November pogroms in 1938 and the ruins were later completely removed. Today a plaque commemorates the old synagogue on Turnerstrasse. The anti - Semitic agitation in the local press grew stronger. On December 13, 1941, around 1000 Jews were deported from the Münster Gestapo headquarters to the Riga Ghetto , including around 420 from the Bielefeld Gestapo district and 88 Jews from Bielefeld itself. The deportations were referred to as "Dispatch", "Evacuation", "Osteinsatz", "Deportation" camouflaged. Further deportations followed to the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps and to unknown destinations, until there were no Jews left in Bielefeld either.

Immediately after the Second World War , the community re- established itself as the “Jewish Community of Bielefeld” . She found a new home in 1951 in a building on Stapenhorststrasse in the west of Bielefeld. The immigration of Jewish emigrants from the states of the former Soviet Union has led to a considerable growth in the community since the 1990s. As the previous prayer room turned out to be too small in the long term, plans were made for a new synagogue. For this purpose, the former Protestant Paul Gerhardt Church on Detmolder Strasse was rebuilt and inaugurated in 2008 as the Beit Tikwa synagogue (“House of Hope”).

Community chairmen

  • 1879–1907: Moritz Katzenstein
  • 1933–1939: Willy Katzenstein (emigration to England)
  • 1939–1942: Hugo Speyer (deportation)
  • 1945–1957: Max Hirschfeld
  • around 1962: Robert Eichengrün
  • thereafter: Artur Sachs, died on June 24, 1997
  • afterwards: Alfred Spier
  • from 2001 to 2010: Irith Michelsohn, Paul Yuval Adam
  • from 2010 to 2013: Paul Yuval Adam, Elena Kolmakova
  • from 2013 to 2017: Irith Michelsohn, Stefan Probst, from 2015 Elena Zotova
  • since 2017: Irith Michelsohn, Ewgenij Kirschner

rabbi

Burial places

Since 1665 there was a Jewish cemetery on the streets Lutterstrasse / Bolbrinkersweg, but it had become too small by the end of the 19th century. As a replacement, the Jewish cemetery on Kahler Berg was created in the immediate vicinity of the Johannisfriedhof . The old cemetery fell victim to road construction in 1953.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jewish communities in Westphalia
  2. ↑ Historical overview by Monika Minninger, Only a small minority? On the history of the Jews in Bielefeld . In: Andreas Beaugrand (ed.), Bielefeld city book. Tradition and progress in the East Westphalian metropolis , Bielefeld 1996, pp. 138–145 ISBN 3-88918-093-0
  3. ↑ Historical overview in Monika Minninger, Bernd J. Wagner: Jewish life in Bielefeld. Between exclusion, persecution and acceptance . In: Andreas Beaugrand (ed.), Stadtbuch Bielefeld 1214 - 2014 , BVA Bielefeld 2013, pp. 500–509 ISBN 978-3870736101
  4. ^ Monika Minninger: Bielefeld / Kai-Uwe von Hollen: Bielefeld-Schildesche In: Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Westphalia and Lippe . The localities and territories in today's administrative district Detmold. Edited by Karl Hengst in collaboration with Ursula Olschewski, editors Anna-Therese Grabkowsky, Franz-Josef Jakobi and Rita Schlautmann-Overmeyer in cooperation with Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier (= publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia, New Series 10). Ardey, Münster 2013. ISBN 978-3-87023-283-2 . Pp. 258-277
  5. ^ Herbert Adolf Maas: On the history of the Jewish community in Bielefeld in the Brandenburg-Prussian period up to emancipation. In: 65th Annual Report of the Historical Association for the County of Ravensberg, 1966/1967, pp. 79–94. Retrieved June 22, 2019 .
  6. ^ Official Journal of the Royal Prussian Government in Minden, year 1855, p. 24. Accessed on May 20, 2019 .
  7. ^ History of the Jews in Bielefeld before the National Socialist seizure of power (1933)   Accessed on www.juedische-gemeinde-bielefeld.de on August 3, 2018.
  8. ↑ Jochen Rath: November 9, 1938, The Pogrom Night in Bielefeld. In: Historical "RückKlick". Bielefeld City Archives , 2008, accessed on February 27, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Jupp Asdonk, Dagmar Buchwald, Lutz Havemann, Uwe Horst, Bernd J. Wagner: It was our neighbors! Deportations in Ostwestfalen-Lippe 1941–1945. Bielefeld Contributions to Urban and Regional History Volume 24. Bielefeld 2012 (1st edition) Bielefeld 2014 (2nd edition), pp. 77–85
  10. ↑ Dagmar Gieseke: September 16, 1951, The Jewish community inaugurates its prayer room. In: Historical "RückKlick". Bielefeld City Archives , 2011, accessed on February 27, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Wiese, Heidi: Places for the dead and for the living. The Bielefeld cemeteries as cultural and natural history parks. In: Beaugrand, Andreas: Stadtbuch Bielefeld 1214 - 2014. Bielefelder Verlag. Bielefeld 2013, p. 417

Web links

Coordinates: 52 ° 0 ′ 31.5 ″  N , 8 ° 32 ′ 35.4 ″  E