Jewish community of Kassel

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The Jewish Community of Kassel is the Jewish community of Kassel . Today it has around 880 members (as of 2013).

The synagogue in Kassel built by Albrecht Rosengarten in 1839
(steel engraving by GM Kurz)

history

The Jewish community in the Middle Ages and early modern times

A Jewish community already existed in Kassel in the Middle Ages . In 1262 a "Judengasse" was named, which suggests a Jewish settlement at least in the first half of the 13th century. In 1293, a Jewess Rechelin (Rachel) is named as the previous owner and resident of a house.

During the persecution of the Jews during the plague of 1348/49, the Jewish community was destroyed. In 1360 Jud Joseph von Kassel is mentioned in Frankfurt, probably a survivor of the persecution. Since 1368 Jews were again mentioned in Kassel, in 1398 there was a Jewish community with a synagogue ( Jewish school ). The "Judengasse", also mentioned several times in the 15th century, was on the edge of the old town between Fuldaufer and Ahnaberg Monastery. Jews later lived in the alley "Behind the Judenbrunnen".

After the Reformation , the situation of the Jews in Kassel deteriorated, so that many emigrated, namely to Frankfurt am Main and Warburg . In 1605 only two Jewish families lived in Kassel.

During the Thirty Years' War the number of families rose again, as families from the rural communities apparently sought and found shelter in the well-fortified city. In 1620 ten families were counted, in 1623 there were twelve. In 1622 the first "Jewish State Parliament" of the Jews of Hesse-Kassel took place in Kassel.

Goldschmidt was given privileges and the other families were expelled in 1635

After the war, only lived Court Jew (court banker) Benedict Goldschmidt was the only Jew with his family in the city, as him in 1635 after years of disputes with the orthodox Rabbi Isaac from Bettenhausen by its strong influence in the Landgrave Moritz of Hesse had succeeded the expulsion all other Jews still living in Kassel and at the same time to obtain the sole right of settlement in Kassel for his own family for the following years. In 1656 the seat of the regional rabbinate was moved to Witzenhausen .

Not until around 1710 did other Jews gradually immigrate to the city again. In 1726 twelve families were already living in the city again. Because of the lack of family names among Jewish families at the time, it is difficult to research the origin of the people who immigrated to Kassel in the following decades. During these years, the pressure on Jews to use the German language increased, which is why the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel issued an order in 1739 that Jews were no longer allowed to use Yiddish or Hebrew in their business correspondence. In 1744 there were 18 families who lived together mainly in the eastern part of the old town. A settlement in Oberneustadt, the noble Huguenot settlement , was prohibited in 1738.

In the second half of the 18th century, the legal situation of the city's Jewish residents gradually improved. After 1767, Jewish families were allowed to settle anywhere in the city. The few richer court Jews (some court factors such as Feidel David and Moses Büding , court bankers, court jewelers) were now also allowed to buy houses, while others could at least rent houses and trade in open shops. In 1772 the seat of the district rabbinate (provincial rabbinate) was moved from Witzenhausen to Kassel. The number of Jewish residents rose to around 50 families by 1800.

Emancipation by decree of Jérôme Napoléon 1808

In December 1807, King Jérome Bonaparte (1784–1860), Napoleon's brother, as King of Westphalia, was enthusiastically celebrated as a liberator by the Jewish population of Kassel. By decree on January 27, 1808, they were granted freedom and equality throughout the kingdom and had to adopt family names: “(No. 30) Royal Decree of January 27, 1808, which abandons the taxes imposed on the Jews. We Hieronymus Napoleon, by the grace of God, and through the Constitution King of Westphalia, French prince [...], according to the 10th and 15th articles of the Constitution of November 15, 1807, [...] have decreed and decreed as follows : Art. 1. Our subjects who belong to the Mosaic religion are to enjoy the same rights and freedoms in our states as our other subjects. Art. 2. Those Jews who travel through our kingdom or stay in it without being our subjects should be entitled to the same rights and freedoms as are granted to every other foreigner. "

The legal improvement of the Jews led to a strong growth of the community: the number of families doubled from 1800 to 1812 to about 100 families.

Even after the return of Elector Wilhelm von Hessen-Kassel (1743–1821) in November 1813, many reforms were retained, but it was not until 1833 that the full emancipation of the Jews was achieved.

On August 8, 1839, the new synagogue built by the Kassel architect Albrecht Rosengarten was inaugurated, and the Goldschmidt, Büding and Gans families in particular donated considerable sums of money to its construction. At that time there were only five Christian, but 15 Jewish bankers in Kassel - including four from the Goldschmidt family and three named Büding .

In the 19th century, the number of Jewish residents continued to increase due to the strong influx from the rural communities: in 1835 there were 1870 members of the community, around 1875 around 3,000 who had welfare. Among others there were: the Israelitische Krankenpflegeverein eV (founded 1773), the Society of Humanity (founded 1802), the Israelitische Frauenverein (founded 1811), the Association for Israelite Poor Care (founded 1878), the vacation colony of the Sinai Lodge UOBB (founded 1888 ), the Israelite brotherhood Chewras Gemiluth Chasodim (founded in 1874), the Bikkur Holim club (founded in 1925), the Reich association of Jewish front-line soldiers , the Zionist association u. a. m. There were numerous foundations. The Israelite old people's home, the Israelite orphanage and the day care center of the Israelite women's association provided institutions and facilities until the 1930s. The Kassel Jews were also members of general clubs such as gymnastics clubs, carnival societies, etc.

With regard to the occupational structure, most families initially lived from trading in goods of all kinds until the beginning of the 19th century. In the first half of the 19th century, after legal emancipation, many young Jewish people learned a trade. By 1840 there were 15 Jewish bankers in Kassel (only five non-Jewish). The first two Jewish engineers appeared in the middle of the 19th century. Soon there were Jewish doctors, lawyers, teachers, but also Jewish hoteliers and restaurant owners. Numerous industrial companies were built by Jewish entrepreneurs. The list of commercial and industrial establishments belonging to Jewish businessmen is long. Of importance was z. B. the Gotthelft family, who ran a printing company from 1841 and published the daily newspaper “Gewerbliches Tageblatt und Anzeiger” from December 1853 (it was only under Prussian sovereignty from 1873 that they could take on the name “ Casseler Tageblatt ”). This widely-read sheet appeared daily in two editions from 1900 with a print run of 21,000 copies. National Socialist boycott propaganda led to a decline in advertising and readership, and the last issue appeared on September 30, 1932.

In the First World War 62 Jewish men died from Kassel.

Several important rabbis were active in the city well into the 20th century (including Philipp Roman, Lazarus Adler, Isaak Prager, Max Doctor, Gotthilf Walter and from 1936-39 Robert Raphael Geis). The Jewish children partly attended the local general schools, partly the public Israelite elementary school (1933 at this school: 176 children).

Destruction of the community under National Socialism after 1933

In 1933, 2,301 Jewish residents were counted in Kassel. The first violent actions against Jews took place in 1933: on March 24, 1933, the lawyer Max Plaut was so brutally mistreated by the Nazis in Kassel that he died ten days later of internal injuries. The Nazi newspaper “Hessische Volkswacht” called for a boycott of Jewish shops as early as 1930. After a speech by Julius Streicher in the town hall in Kassel on December 11, 1936, the shops of Jewish owners were stormed. By 1938, most of the Jewish businesses had been forced to close or had been " Aryanized ". The synagogue was devastated during the November pogrom in 1938 and demolished a little later (see below), and numerous Jewish shops were demolished. Over 250 Jewish men were arrested and taken to Buchenwald concentration camp , where they were held for several weeks. In the following years the Jews still living in Kassel were completely deprived of their rights. In 1940 there were still 1,300 Jews living in the city. After the deportation of 1,000 Kassel Jews to the Riga Ghetto in December 1941 and further deportations up to the beginning of 1945, Kassel was largely made “ Jew-free ”. In the memorial book “Names and Fates of the Jews of Kassel 1933–1945” the names of 1007 murdered Jewish residents are listed.

New beginning 1945

Membership development of the Jewish community from 1989–2000

After 1945 around 300 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust , around 80% of them refugees from the East ( displaced persons ), founded a new Jewish community. A large number of them emigrated to Israel or America in 1948/50 , but a congregation remained that in 1965 had 88 members, including twelve children. Since the 1990s, the congregation has experienced strong growth from the former Soviet Union and in 2006 again had around 1,300 members. Due to the migration of young people to larger cities and an aging population, the number of parishioners fell to 725 in 2018.

Known parishioners

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Law Bulletin of the Kingdom of Westphalia. First part, Cassel 1808, pp. 254-259
  2. ↑ Kogon, Eugen: Der SS-Staat. P. 243.
  3. ↑ And they should make a sanctuary for me ... , Jewish community Kassel, self-published
  4. ↑ Jewish Community Kassel In: Zentralratderjuden.de , accessed on March 14, 2020.

literature

  • Shulamit Volkov : The Jews in Germany 1780–1918. In: Encyclopedia of German History . Volume 16, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, 1994.
  • Paul Arnsberg : The Jewish communities in Hesse. Two volumes, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1971.
  • Rudolf Hallo : From the history of the Kassel community. In: Jewish weekly newspaper for Cassel, Hessen and Waldeck. Kassel 1930.
  • Rudolf Hallo: History of the Jewish community of Kassel, taking into account the entire Jewish population of Hessen-Kassel. Kassel 1931.

Web links