Josef Wiesen

Josef Wiesen (born February 25, 1865 in Ittebe , Austria-Hungary ; † November 15, 1942 in the Theresienstadt ghetto ) was a Jewish teacher and regional rabbi of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach .

Life

Stumbling block for Josef Wiesen at his last address at Am Schlossberg 10 in Eisenach

Josef Wiesen was born in Ittebe in February 1865 as the son of a teacher and writer. His childhood and youth were marked by frequent changes of school until he began training at the Jewish teachers' college in Kassel in 1882 . He then worked from 1885 to 1887 as a teacher and preacher in a Jewish community and as a cantor and prison chaplain in Hanover . In 1887 he began to study philosophy , Hebrew and education in Berlin . After studying in Strasbourg and Erlangen , he received his doctorate in 1892. In the same year Wiesen received the rabbi diploma of the first degree and became district rabbi in Bohemian Leipa . In 1898 he was first provisional rabbi of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, and in 1902 he was officially appointed. He lived first in Stadtlengsfeld and from 1911 in Eisenach . In 1918, Wiesen retired, but continued to work in the Eisenach Jewish community.

He made a name for himself in 1919/1920 through the successful dispute with Artur Dinter over his anti-Semitic book “The Sin Against the Blood”. He was arrested during the November pogroms in 1938 but released. In the following years he supported persecuted Jews and housed them. He also held services in his home.

On September 19, 1942, Wiesen was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto , where he was murdered on November 15 of the same year.

Wiesen was married twice and had four children. In memory of him and his family, three stumbling blocks were set into the sidewalk of his last known home in Eisenach, Schlossberg 10 .

swell

• Urania cultural and educational association Gotha eV (Ed.): Eisenacher personalities . A biographical lexicon. RhinoVerlag, Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-932081-45-5 , p. 144 .