Jewish community of Celle

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The Jewish community of Celle , in the town of the same name in Lower Saxony , is a traditional religious community that was re-established as a registered association in 1997. It has a liberal orientation and is a member of the state association of the Israelite cultural communities of Lower Saxony and the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany . The parishioners live very scattered and most of them are quite far from Celle.

history

Celle Jewish cemetery
Celle synagogue

The community was founded in the 17th and 18th centuries

Between 1676 and 1691, five Schutzjuden with their families and servants received the ducal permission to settle in the Altenceller Vorstadt (Blumlage and Im Kreis). In 1690 these families, which consisted of about 30 people, set up a first prayer room in a back building on the Blumlage. Just three years later it was destroyed by order of the castle bailiff because no official approval had been obtained. When the ducal approval was granted, a prayer room was re-established in Isaac Maintz's private house. The exact location of this house is not known.

In 1692, the Jewish community was assigned a cemetery area north of the Aller on today's street Am Berge , which became the Celle Jewish cemetery . There preserved tombstones document burials from 1705 to 1953.

In 1737 the Jews in the Principality of Lüneburg were given permission to build synagogues . In 1738 the “Judenschaft Celle” acquired the two properties in districts 23 and 24 and built the Celle synagogue around 1740 as a rear building . From the outside it is a simple half-timbered building, the interior of which was decorated in a representative style in the late Baroque style. The two front buildings were used as a Jewish school building (No. 24) and as apartments (No. 23 and No. 24) for various community employees. The offering box with the inscription “Aron, son of Rabbi Josua Feibelman, blessed his memory comes from the founding period. In Celle 1740 ”. This inscription is one of the few indications of the age of the synagogue. The construction of the synagogue required a high level of debt on the part of the Celle Jewish community. Only the will of the court factor Isaak Jakob Gans from 1797 ensured the long-term repayment of the loan. As early as 1765, Gans had given the Celle synagogue community a valuable foundation in memory of his father Jacob Gans: A pair of Rimonim (Torah crowns) and a Tass (Torah shield by Hinrich Brahmfeld ), today the Collection Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam.

It flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries

The late 19th century and the second half of the 18th century were the heyday of the Jewish community, which consisted of around 110 people. In 1883 the synagogue was extensively renovated with an expansion of the women's gallery along the west side of the synagogue room, lead glazing of the windows with colored panes and a revision of the interior painting. The renovation was inaugurated on the eve of the Jewish New Year celebrations in 1883, September 30th.

In 1910 the Jewish community had a new cemetery hall built according to a design by the architect Otto Haesler . It was demolished in 1974 because it was supposed to be in disrepair.

Decline and annihilation under National Socialism

After the First World War , the number of Jews in Celle steadily decreased. In 1933 there were only 70 people.

During the pogrom night from November 9th to 10th, 1938, the furnishings of the Celle synagogue were smashed with axes, the twelve Torah scrolls , the cult objects and the community library were thrown into the street. Destroying the building by fire was only omitted because the surrounding houses would have been affected. In January 1939, 35 and in October of the same year only 15 people of Jewish faith lived in Celle.

From 1942, the old Jewish schoolhouse in Im Kreis 24 served as the “Celler Judenhaus ”. The people were housed in a confined space under total surveillance until they were deported to the extermination camps. From here, for example, the couple Oscar and Nanny Salomon were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in July 1943 . Jews from other parts of the Lüneburg administrative district also had to spend the time before their deportation here. In the anteroom of the synagogue there are memorial plaques donated by emigrated members of the former Jewish community in Celle for their relatives who perished in the extermination camps.

The community was re-established in 1945 and 1997

After the end of the Second World War and the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , around 1000 Jewish displaced persons lived in the Celler Heidekaserne in May 1945 . The military government confiscated the buildings of the prewar Jewish community in Im Kreis 23/24 with the synagogue, house No. 25 and the Jewish cemetery Am Berge for the newly established Jewish community with its facilities and for various Jewish aid organizations. In 1945 a mikveh was built in the back yard of the synagogue , which was demolished in 1972/73 due to its dilapidation.

Many of the Displaced Persons of Jewish faith in Celle came from Eastern European countries, but a large number also came from the German Reich (40%). They waited here to emigrate to Palestine, the USA and other countries or to return to their homeland. The post-war rabbi , Moshe Olewski, emigrated to the United States in 1950. The small remaining community in Celle was affiliated with the state association of Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and then attended the service in the Hanover synagogue. The year the parish was dissolved is not known; it is mentioned for the last time in 1967.

Today the Celle synagogue is considered to be the oldest half-timbered synagogue in Lower Saxony, the main parts of which are still preserved. The present establishment of the synagogue, e.g. B. the wooden pedestal in front of the Torah shrine and the lectern for the Torah ( Bima ) come from the period after 1945. A comprehensive renovation took place in 1973/74 by the city of Celle, which had acquired the building in 1969. On June 20, 1974, the Celle Synagogue was consecrated by the Heidelberg Rabbi Nathan Peter Levinson and has been used by the Jewish Community of Celle since 1997.

After another renovation in 1996/97, the neighboring house at Im Kreis 23 was converted into a museum. Today it houses traveling exhibitions on various topics of Jewish history as well as documentation on Jewish life in Celle. The synagogue itself is used for church services and meetings of the new Jewish community in Celle and the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation .

Web links

Commons : Stolpersteine ​​in Celle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files