Jewish community of Landau
The Jewish community in Landau in the Palatinate existed with interruptions from the Middle Ages until it was destroyed during the National Socialist era .
history
In 1273 a Jewish resident is mentioned for the first time (Michel von Landau). The Jewish families lived in the upper (and presumably also existing lower) Judengasse mentioned in 1329 . There was also a synagogue here . Such a document was not mentioned until 1435. The Jews from Landau were also affected by the persecution of the Jews at the time of the Black Death in the plague time of 1348/49. However, they were able to keep their belongings and were only evicted for a short time. Since 1354 Jews are again attested in the city. Around 1400 there were about eight, in the 15th century at least twelve Jewish families lived in the city. In the Middle Ages, Jewish families lived mainly from the money trade, and around 1500 also from the spice and medicine trade. In the second half of the 15th century, the Jews were temporarily expelled or left the city under unknown circumstances.
In 1517 ten Jewish families were again admitted to the city. Although they were repeatedly threatened with deportation, there was a Jewish settlement from then until it was destroyed during the Nazi era in the 20th century. After a prayer hall was already in place in the 16th century, a new synagogue was built in 1648. After it burned down, it was replaced by a new synagogue in 1691. In 1810 there were 237 Jewish residents in the city. The highest number of Jewish residents was reached in 1900 with 821 people (1933: 596 people), making the Jewish community the largest in the Palatinate at that time. On September 5, 1884, a large synagogue was inaugurated by the then district rabbi Elias Grünebaum . It had a floor area of 390 m² and a height of 16 m. The building plan came from building inspector Heinrich Staudinger. The construction management was carried out by builder Ecker ( Nussdorf ). During the November pogrom in 1938 , the synagogue was burned down by SA men . The Torah - role and the eternal light had been brought earlier by Landauer citizens to safety. Of the Jewish residents living in Landau in 1933, at least 158 died after the deportations .
Landau once owned one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities in the Palatinate. The Jewish wine merchants' villas in the area of the Ringstrasse still bear witness to the Jewish upper middle class in Landau . Landau lost its Jewish upper class almost overnight.
To this day Landau no longer has a Jewish community. A bronze memorial was erected in 1968 at the site of the former synagogue on the corner of Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse and Reiterstrasse. In the Frank-Loebschen house there is a memorial site with documentation on the history of the Landau Jews.
rabbi
- 1836–1893 Dr. Elias Grünebaum , bearer of the Bavarian Order of Merit of St. Michael II Class, (1886)
- 1893–1934 Dr. Berthold Einstein
- 1935–1938 Kurt Metzger
See also
literature
- Hermann Arnold, Jewish Life in the City of Landau and in the Southern Palatinate (1780–1933)
- Hans Heß: Die Landauer Judengemeinde, Landau, 2nd ed. 1983
- "Jews in Landau" Contributions to the History of a Minority, ed. from the Landau City Archives, 2004
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the history of the Jewish community in Landau from 1273 to 1938