Senior Councilor of the Israelites of Baden
The Upper Council of the Israelites of Baden was created by the grand ducal Jewish edict of January 13, 1809 as a regional association of Jewish residents and re-established after 1945. The Grand Duke Karl Friedrich von Baden recognized the Jews of his country as a religious community and put them on an equal footing with the Christian denominations in religious matters, but not in terms of civil rights . In this, the edict followed the French model, to which Baden was particularly connected through its membership in the Rhine Confederation and the adoption of the Civil Code .
Councilor according to the edict of January 13, 1809
composition
Based on the organization of the Christian churches, the Israelite Religious Community of Baden is hierarchically structured into local synagogues , provincial synagogues and senior councilors . All local and provincial synagogues are subordinate to the Jewish upper council. This consists of a chief ruler , who can but does not have to be a rabbi , of two regional rabbis , one of whom must always be from the province where the councilor has its seat. Furthermore, there are two salaried senior councilors and three senior councilors, each of whom must be a provincial elder, and the senior council clerk. The first appointment of all members of the upper council is made by the sovereign, the Grand Duke of Baden.
tasks
- Allocation of the local synagogues to the respective provincial synagogues
- Review of the debt level of the individual Jewish communities
- Determination of the annual contribution payments of the individual communities
- Orders to improve religious education
- Examination criteria for the religion teachers to be employed
- Creation of a curriculum for future religious education teachers
- Suggestion for a future formula of the oath
- Improvement of " church discipline "
- Provision of reports for the sovereign and the government agencies
Committee
The committee consists of the headmaster, the land rabbi who lives at the official seat, the two permanent councilors and the chief clerk. The tasks of the committee are:
- Preparation of the meetings of the entire upper council
- Execution of the decisions of the Upper Council that have become valid through the sovereign consent
- Control that the church constitution is observed
- Control that the Jewish communities comply with civil laws
- Check that the local rabbi before the completion of the circumcision of a bourgeois, the funeral or wedding ceremony certification can submit
- The ecclesiastical approval of the marital separations recognized by the secular authority
- The communication to the sovereign about ongoing plans
The Upper Council can neither introduce new nor abolish the old without prior state approval.
history
The Grand Duke appointed the court factor Elkan Reutlinger in Karlsruhe as the first headmaster . In a solemn act, a commissioner handed over his appointment to the Baden government on May 30, 1809 in the Karlsruhe synagogue in front of the community.
The grand-ducal ordinance of May 4, 1812 put a ministerial commissioner before the upper council and its committee, who had to be present at all deliberations and to whom all resolutions had to be submitted for inspection and co-signature. As the first Government Commissioner at the High Council in 1812 was Councilor of Mützig appointed. The government commissioner was abolished with the introduction of the Baden Republic in 1919.
From 1814 until his death in 1852, Naphtali Epstein worked as a senior clerk at the senior council and worked tirelessly for the emancipation of the Jews in Baden.
In 1894 an Israelite Synod was created which had the right to determine the taxation of the Israelite religious community, the budget and the tax rate. At the same time she should make suggestions about the liturgy . The senior council had to approve the resolutions for them to take effect. The Israelite Synod elected a synodal committee which, together with the upper council committee, managed the affairs of the religious community. Both together decided on the establishment or dissolution of communities.
Regulation sheet
From 1884 the Upper Council published the Ordinance Gazette of the Grand Ducal Upper Council of the Israelites in Baden , which was called the Ordinance Gazette of the Baden Upper Council of Israelites from 1918 to 1922 and was then renamed the Ordinance Gazette of the Upper Council of Israelites in Baden . On March 19, 1937, the publication was discontinued. Before 1884, the decisions of the Upper Council appeared in the official gazettes of the ministries and district governments. The regulation sheet was always published by Malsch & Vogel in Karlsruhe.
New statutes from 1923
After the Weimar constitution and the Baden state constitution, many parts of the old statutes could no longer be applied. Now the upper council was on an equal footing with the Christian regional churches and the Jewish religious community was autonomous . Significant changes to the new statutes were women's suffrage for the synod, and in the first election after the amendment to the statutes, one woman and 34 men were elected as members of the synod. The largest Jewish communities in Baden now received more representatives in the synod: Mannheim (8), Karlsruhe (4), Freiburg (2) and Konstanz (2). The Synod directly elected the Upper Council for six years and its composition had to represent the religious tendencies in the Synod: Liberals made up the majority, Conservatives and Orthodox divided the rest. The Upper Council was able to dissolve small communities that were no longer viable, especially in rural areas. Furthermore, as had been the case since the 19th century, the members of the upper council were respected merchants, lawyers or professors.
time of the nationalsocialism
In March 1938 the National Socialist rulers withdrew their rights as a public corporation from the Upper Council and the Jewish communities . In addition, the Upper Council of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany was subordinated to the "Baden-Palatinate District Office". Having been in the Wagner-Bürckel action on 22 October 1940, the most Baden Jews to Gurs internment camp deported were a Jewish community life was no longer present. Archives, ritual objects and valuables were confiscated.
Reconstruction after 1945
Up until 1953 there were two senior councilors, a national association in the American and one in the French occupation zone . Not only these two councilors, but also the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO) tried to obtain the restitution of confiscated or sold municipal assets . In 1955 there were 454 members in all of Baden in the regional association of the resurrected municipalities of Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden and Freiburg. The number of community members rose to 5000 by 2008 and further communities were founded in Konstanz, Pforzheim, Emmendingen, Lörrach and Rottweil.
See also
literature
- Berthold Rosenthal : Home history of the Baden Jews from their historical appearance to the present. Bühl 1927 (Reprint: Magstadt bei Stuttgart 1981), ISBN 3-7644-0092-7 , p. 342.
- Jews in Baden 1809–1984. 175 years senior council of the Israelites of Baden. Karlsruhe 1984. [not evaluated].
- Uri R. Kaufmann : The Upper Council of the Israelites Baden. In: Jewish life in Baden 1809 to 2009. 200 years of the Upper Council of the Israelites of Baden. Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-0827-8 , pp. 145–157.
- Compilation of older laws, ordinances and general regulations that are still in force and which refer to the Israelite religious community in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Karlsruhe 1885.
- Main register for the ordinance sheet of the Grand Ducal Superior Council of Israelites from 1884 to 1908. Karlsruhe 1909.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Observations on the edict of 1809 on the equality of the Jews of Baden - LEO-BW. In: www.leo-bw.de. Retrieved May 28, 2016 .