Land rabbinate Hanover

The Hanover Land Rabbinate was introduced in 1687 in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg by edict by Duke Ernst August . The initiative came from the court banker Leffmann Behrens . The Hanover Land Rabbinate comprised the principalities of Calenberg , Göttingen and Grubenhagen (from 1737 also the Principality of Lüneburg and the Counties of Diepholz and Hoya ). The state land rabbinate granted the protection Jews the right to elect and employ a rabbi (see Rabbinate ).

Land rabbis

The land rabbi, at the same time head of the Jews and indirect statesman, had to supervise the synagogues and religious ceremonies and was also appointed as judge in disputes among the Jews. With this appointment, the government intervened in the internal affairs of the Jews.

The first land rabbi was Josef ben Meschullam Süßel Cohen († November 20, 1703) in Osterode until 1703 .

His successors, residing in the Calenberger Neustadt and thus also rabbis of the Hanover community, were initially

• 1704–1735 Josef Meyer Friedberg (* 1636, † February 17, 1735)
• 1737–1755 Isak Blessed Karo
• 1755–1758 Abraham Meyer Cohen
• 1761–1789 Levi Joshua
• 1789–1802 Isaschar Berisch (the son of Levi Josua).

During the Napoleonic occupation, the male Jews had the same civil rights as all men (see section “Constitutional reforms of the religious communities” in the article “Kingdom of Hanover” ).

Until 1830 the land rabbinate was provisionally administered by the scholar Rabbi Marcus Baer Adler; then his son Nathan Marcus Adler took over .

In 1831 the state “Instruction for the Land Rabbi of Hanover” was issued. The instruction obliged the respective land rabbi to supervise Jewish schools, synagogues and church services as well as communities and foundations in the Landdrosteien Hannover and Lüneburg .

From 1830–1845, the land rabbi Adler promoted the Jewish institutions in line with the modernization desired by the government. 1845–1882, Samuel Ephraim Meyer continued these reforms. 1883–1918 Selig Gronemann campaigned in particular for the preservation of Jewish religiosity. From 1924 to 1938, Samuel Freund was the last land rabbi.

The importance of the land rabbinate declined from the end of the 19th century. The background was the self-dissolution of smaller communities and the closure of Jewish schools. With the separation of state and religion through the imperial constitution of Weimar, the land rabbinate lost its para-state character, the supervision of the schools only related to religious content. Reform plans such as the abolition of state supervision or the continuation of small Jewish communities as a voluntary regional association were still discussed in 1932, but after the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, they were no longer implemented.

The first Jewish service in Hanover after the Nazi era was held on September 8, 1945. In addition to the Jewish Committee , a small Jewish community was founded in Hanover . An institution like the former land rabbinate - that is, state access to Judaism - had become unthinkable.

literature

• Samuel Freund: A quarter of a millennium Hanoverian land rabbinate 1687–1937 . Hanover 1937
• Selig Gronemann : Genealogical studies on the old Jewish families of Hanover . 1913
• Peter Schulze : Contributions to the history of the Jews in Hanover (= Hannoversche Studien , Vol. 6, Hanover, 1998), SS 47–118 (Land rabbinate and rabbi in Hanover 1687–1938 )
• Peter Schulze in: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 383.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stadtlexikon Hannover ..., p. 54.
2. ↑ Peter Schulze: Contributions to the history of the Jews in Hanover p. 53.
3. ^ In the city lexicon of Hanover ... only the year 1830 is mentioned
4. ^ Adolf Brüll :  Adler, Nathan Marcus . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 45, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1900, pp. 704 f.
5. ↑ Data from: Stadtlexikon Hannover ..., p. 383