Jewish community of Fulda
The Jewish Community of Fulda is the Jewish community of Fulda . Today it has around 450 members.
history
Fulda Jews in the Middle Ages and early modern times
Research assumes that people of the Jewish faith settled very early in the area of the Fulda monastery , especially since they had to pass Fulda on their way from Frankfurt am Main to Thuringia . The oldest evidence of a large number of Jews in Fulda is obtained from a bloody murder in 1235 that killed more than 30 Jews and led to an imperial trial. The act went unpunished. A similar incident is recorded from 1297. The Fulda abbot Heinrich V von Weilnau received from King Heinrich in 1310 the right to “collect taxes and duties from all Jews currently and in the future living in the cities and towns of the monastery”. Since that time, Jews with a protection letter were tolerated in Fulda, even if they did not have full civil rights, had to pay high taxes and were denied access to professional professions. The former Jewish cemetery , which was located on the corner of Rabanusstrasse and Sturmiusstrasse, also dates from this time .
In 1603, the rabbinate in Fulda was determined by the Taqqanah of a rabbinical convent in Frankfurt am Main, alongside Frankfurt, Worms , Friedberg and Günzburg, as one of the five central Jewish courts of justice for “all German areas” . There was also a famous Talmud school ( Yeshiva ) in Fulda .
Even after the turmoil of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War there was still a Jewish community , as a tombstone from 1665 that was still in the 20th century showed. At that time the Jews lived in a special district of Fulda.
In 1751 an ordinance on Jews was issued.
Jewish emancipation in the 19th century
As a result of the French Revolution , equality for Jews gradually gained acceptance in Fulda in the 19th century .
A synagogue was built in the Jewish quarter from 1858 to 1859 .
In 1890 the synagogue was expanded to include a still preserved mikvah , a ritual bath. The bathing facilities can still be seen in the basement of the building that was later used for catering purposes.
In 1898 a Jewish elementary school was set up in a new building at Von-Schildeck-Strasse 10 / Rangstrasse. The construction was planned by the architect and city builder Johann Fuhrmann . It is a two-story brick building with a half-hip roof . The base is made of sandstone. At the gable there is an open rafter with jigsaw work, which can be assigned to the Swiss style. In its shape it represents a large omega, the symbol for the beginning and the end. The teacher Jakob Spiro (until 1910), Iwan Möller until (1939), Abraham Raphael Sonn (from 1919) worked here. Sonn was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 and the school closed.
In 1900 a Jewish retirement home was built by the architect Karl Wegener .
In 1904 a new Jewish cemetery was built, which is also where burials take place today.
The number of parishioners before the First World War was over 1,000.
Destruction of the community during the Nazi era
At the beginning of 1933, a few days before the so-called seizure of power by the National Socialists, there were 1,119 people of the Jewish faith in Fulda, which at that time had around 28,000 inhabitants. Almost all of them had German citizenship, around half of them were born in Fulda, and many families had lived in the city for generations. The terrorization and systematic disenfranchisement of the Jewish population led to continuous emigration to other places, initially mainly within Germany, but since 1935 specifically to emigration. At the end of 1933 there were still 1,029 Fulda Jews counted, in 1934 there were 961, 1935: 925, 1936: 873, 1937: 780, 1938: 613, 1939: 310, 1940: 265, 1941: 115.
The emigration from Fulda was overshadowed by the influx of a total of around 600 Jews, most of whom came from the rural areas in the vicinity and apparently sought protection from the stalking of their neighbors in the villages in the anonymity of a larger city.
The USA was the preferred country of emigration . After that, from 1935 to 1941, 278 people signed off; 212 Jews from Fulda went to Palestine and 187 to England . They are likely to have found themselves just as safe as those who emigrated to Argentina , Brazil , Paraguay , Cuba and South Africa . The fate of the 92 people who moved to Holland and France is uncertain. Only 14 people were admitted to safe Switzerland in 1939 .
The first deportation took place in Fulda on October 28, 1938 . 47 Jews of Polish nationality were affected , including 16 children and young people under the age of 16 who were to be deported to Poland (“ Poland Action ”). The basis was an order issued by the Reichsführer of the SS on October 26, 1938 to expel all Jews of Polish nationality from the territory of the German Reich. After the victims had only been given a day to pack the bare essentials, they were taken by bus from Fulda to Kassel, to be forwarded from there to the Polish border. Since Poland, which was still independent at the time, refused to accept the expellees, they came back to Fulda. Their fate is well documented as extensive correspondence has been received from the authorities. It was not about the people, but about who had to pay for the deportation. It was finally agreed that the returnees would be charged for the transport costs of their eviction.
During the November pogroms in 1938 , the synagogue was set on fire by NSDAP members from Fulda and the Kassel area. The Fulda fire brigade only protected the surrounding houses, which, like the adjacent mikveh, are still preserved in the alley. The Jewish retirement home was closed in the same year. In 1939–40 the old Jewish cemetery was also destroyed, the tombstones removed and a park created.
From October 15, 1941, all remaining Jews were publicly marked with the Jewish star.
In three deportation trains, on December 8, 1941, May 31, 1942 and September 5, 1942, 243 Jewish men, women and children were deported to the Salaspils extermination camps near Riga , Lublin and Theresienstadt , and later to Auschwitz and murdered there.
Remembrance and a new beginning after 1945
In 1960 a building was erected on part of the site of the old Jewish cemetery to serve as a customs office. A memorial room was set up in the basement of the building with a plaque with the following inscription: This room is dedicated to the memory of the souls of all saints, pious and great in Israel, all men and women of the venerable community of Fulda, who are resting here found up to the violent dissolution of the cemetery at the time of the reign of terror .
Another memorial plaque was placed on the corner of the remaining park. From 1975 to 1988, the local group of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime commemorated the extermination of the Jewish community in Fulda on November 9th. Later, the memorial service took place on the square of the burned down synagogue. Today the park is called Jerusalem Square . It was given the name at the time when the then mayor Hamberger intensified and expanded contact with the Jewish community in Fulda.
In 1987 the building at Von-Schildeck-Straße 13, after being used as a municipal “auxiliary school”, was returned to the Jewish community for use by the Lord Mayor Hamberger. Today it houses the Jewish cultural center. The synagogue is located on the first floor. The building also houses a museum, library and community rooms.
In 2010 the congregation had 444 members. She is looked after by the Kassel rabbi . The orientation is conservative-orthodox . Religious instruction is offered for all school classes.
Well-known rabbis
- Meir ben Baruch ha-Levi (died 1404), called Maharam Segal or Maharam Sal (MaHaRaM מהר״ם is an acronym of מורנו הרב רבי מאיר Morenu ha-Raw Rabbi Meir - our teacher who is the scholar, Rabbi Meir ; SegaL סג״ל Acronym of סגן לויה Segan Levija - head of the Levitic community ); First half of the 14th century in Fulda, later in Frankfurt, Nuremberg and from 1392 in Vienna
- David ben Isaac; 1565 to 1588 in Fulda
- Ruben ben Salomon; until 1598 in Fulda
- Isaak ben Elieser Lippmann Mise'a (Isaak von Fulda) (around 1529 / 30–1601 / 02); around 1594 to 1601/02 in Fulda
- Naphtali (heart; Hirz) ben David (or: benElieser?) Bacharach; 1598 to 1609 in Fulda
- Elia ben Mosche Loanz (1555 or around 1564–1636), called Baal-Shem; 1604 to 1609 in Fulda, later in Worms
- Aaron Samuel ben Moshe Schalom Kremenec (died 1616); 1615 to 1616 in Fulda
- Pinchas Hurwitz (Hurvir) (died 1653); around 1620 in Fulda, later in Prague
- Meir ben Jakob ha-Kohen Schiff (around 1605–1644), called MaHaRaM; from 1622 in Fulda
- Elieser Meschulam Sussmann ben Isaak Brilin (around 1594-around 1660), around 1653 in Fulda
- Meir Stern (before 1661–1680)
- Moses Fulda; Expelled with the community in 1671
- Jacob ben Mardochai; expelled from Fulda, later in Schwerin
- Pinchas Isaak ben Naftali ha-Kohen (died 1724), 1709 to 1722 in Fulda, later in Kremsier
- Moses ben Naftali (Nathan) Heilbronn (died 1777); 1762 to 1776 in Fulda
- Joseph Joel (died after 1787), called Wiesbaden; from 1777 in Fulda, father of the theologian and reform pedagogue Joseph Johlson (1777-1851)
- Salomon ben Jehuda (Loeb) Wormser († 1806)
- Isaak (Seckel) Wormser (1769-1839); 1806 to 1839 in Fulda
- Dr. Jakob Rosenberg (1806–1868); 1843 to 1852 in Fulda, later in Groningen
- Dr. Samuel David Enoch (1814–1876); 1855 to 1876 in Fulda
- Dr. Michael Cahn (ha-Kohen) (1847-1918 or 1920); 1877 to 1918 in Fulda
- Baruch Kunstadt (1884–1967); 1907 to 1939 rabbinate assessor in Fulda, then in Jerusalem, there co-founder of the Kol Torah Talmud College
- Dr. Leo Cahn (1889-1959); 1919 to 1939 in Fulda
Parish council
- Roman Melamed, Bella Gusman, Alina Sardlishvili
literature
- Paul Horn: On the history of the Jews in Fulda. P. Horn, Tel Aviv 1969.
- Paul Horn, Naftali Sonn: The History of the Jews in Fulda. A Memorial Book. Jerusalem 1971.
- Michael Imhof (ed.): Jews in Germany and 1000 years of Judaism in Fulda. Imhof, Petersberg, ISBN 978-3-86568-673-2 .
- Naftali Sonn, Otto Berge: Fateful paths of the Jews in Fulda and the surrounding area. City archive, Fulda 1984.
