Jewish Community of Bern

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Bern synagogue with attached parish hall

The Jewish Community of Bern (JGB) is organized as a public-law association recognized religious community of Jews of Bern and the surrounding area. It was founded by Jews from Alsace under the name Corporation der Israeliten in Bern in 1848 , was re-established in 1867 as the Cultusverein der Israeliten in Bern and was called Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bern since 1908 . Since the tasks of the congregation soon went far beyond the cult celebration , the expression "cult" was used in 1973. In 1982 "Israelite", which is often confused with "Israeli", was replaced by "Jewish".

The Jewish community of Bern - like that of Biel / Bienne - has been recognized under public law in the canton of Bern since 1996 and has around 340 members. It is organized as a so-called unified community and, according to its model, is "open and tolerant of all Jewish-religious orientations". The Jewish Community of Bern is a member of the Swiss Association of Israelites (SIG) .

Jewish cemetery in Bern

The center of the community is the Bernese synagogue at Kapellenstrasse 2 , which was inaugurated in 1906 and expanded in 1971 to include a community center. The community has its own cemetery, the Bern Jewish Cemetery , which was inaugurated in 1871 on Papiermühlestrasse.

Jews in Bern

There was already a Jewish community in Bern in the Middle Ages . After various pogroms , however, the Jews were completely expelled from Bern by 1427. The legend of the ritual murder of the boy Rudolf von Bern , who died in 1294 and was venerated as a martyr in the Bern Minster, played an important role . The theory, which goes back to Karl Howald , that the fountain figure of the Kindlifresserbrunnens should represent a Jew because of its pointed hat reminiscent of a Jew hat, is most likely wrong.

Anna Tumarkin

The first woman to receive her habilitation at the University of Bern was the Russian-Jewish philosopher Anna Tumarkin (1875–1951) in 1898 . In 1906 she became an honorary professor and in 1908 an extraordinary professor , making her the first woman professor in Europe who had the right to examine doctoral and post- doctoral candidates and to sit in the Senate . In 1911 she received Swiss citizenship .

In a judicial process (the so-called " Bern Trial ") that took place in Bern between 1933 and 1935, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were declared to be trash and the publisher was sentenced to a fine. The judgment of May 1935, but in November 1937 technical legal grounds, the Bernese court conceded . As an expert , Carl Albert Loosli was involved in the process at that time , who had already defeated anti-Semitism in 1927 in the book Die schlimmen Juden! had fought.

The Loeb department store is closely linked to the more recent history of Bern . It goes back to a fashion store at Spitalgasse 32, which was opened on September 9, 1881 by the four brothers David, Julius, Louis and Eduard Loeb from southern Germany and opened in 1899 by David Loeb (1843-1915) together with his wife Fanny (1854 –1937) was moved to the current building at Spitalgasse 47/49. The so-called Loebegge at the entrance to the department store is the most popular meeting point in the city of Bern.

literature

  • Anne-Marie Biland: Department stores in the city of Bern . bauforschungonline.ch, June 21, 2011
  • Emil Dreifuss: Jews in Bern. A walk through the centuries. Bern 1983
  • Eugen Messinger: A look back at the history of the Jews in the city of Bern since 1191. Bern 1948
  • René Bloch u. Jacques Picard (ed.): How about clouds. Jewish worlds of life and thought in the city and region of Bern 1200-2000. Zurich (Chronos) 2014 (with contributions by 25 authors)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member communities. In: swissjews.ch. Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (SIG) , p. 1 , accessed on July 10, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Gaby Knoch-Mund: SIG factsheet Bern. In: swissjews.ch. Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (SIG) , 9 September 2012, p. 1 , accessed on 10 July 2017 .
  3. ^ Roland Gerber (city archivist): Jews. In: bern.ch. Retrieved February 15, 2020 .