The Jewish Community of Heilbronn has a long history. An important settlement of Jews in Heilbronn already existed in the 11th century and probably already had a first synagogue at that time. The late medieval community had to endure outbreaks such as the Rintfleisch pogrom or the plague pogroms, but in the Imperial City of Heilbronn it was also under the protection of the German kings and emperors. Against the will of the emperor, the city of Heilbronn expelled its Jews in the late 15th century, and Jews could only officially settle in Heilbronn again after the city passed to Württemberg in 1828. The community grew strongly from the middle of the 19th century, especially due to the industrialization of the city, and reached its highest membership of almost 1,000 people around 1895. In 1877, it built the Heilbronn Synagogue and produced important personalities such as the honorary citizen of Heilbronn, Max Rosengart, and the President of the Israelite Supreme Council, Siegfried Gumbel. During the Nazi period, the community suffered its renewed decline: the synagogue was destroyed in 1938 during Kristallnacht, and around 240 people from the circle of the Heilbronn Jewish community were murdered as a result of the persecution of Jews.After the World War II, only a few Jews lived in Heilbronn until 1980, before an influx began, mainly from the former Soviet Union. Today the community has around 130 members. The Jewish Center Heilbronn is a branch of the IRGW.
The first Jews probably came around the year 1000 from Spain via the East Frankish Empire and Burgundy to southwestern Germany. Their early centers were Worms, Mainz and Speyer. It is assumed that from there the first Jews came to Heilbronn, probably following the intensification of trade around the former royal estate of Heilbronn and the formation of a market community. Around the year 1050, a Jewish settlement is mentioned in the Judengasse (today Lohtorstrasse). The first synagogue is said to have been located at the corner of Lohtorstrasse and Sülmerstrasse. In the cellar vault of the building at Lohtorstrasse 22, the memorial stone for Nathan the Overseer was found, a Hebrew inscription stone that sealed Nathan's grave and is one of the oldest Jewish documents in southwestern Germany outside of the Rhine communities.
In 1298, during the so-called Rintfleisch massacres, up to 5,000 Jews were murdered, mainly in Franconia, by marauding followers of the self-proclaimed King Rindfleisch. Since April 1298, an angry mob moved from place to place. In July 1298, Jews were murdered in places such as Mosbach, Möckmühl and Sindringen. The Heilbronn massacre on 19 October 1298 was the last in a long series.[1] The Nuremberg Memorial Book lists 143 Jews from Heilbronn as victims of the riots, and the Sontheim Memorial Book puts the number of victims at 200. The Nuremberg Memorial Book lists the victims as including the community leader Ascher and his wife Benvenuda, the rabbi Jochanan ben rabi Eljakim, the teacher Isaak, the punctator Abraham with his son, and the scholars Muschallam, Jehuda and Nathan. The Jewish citizens of Heilbronn at that time consisted of Sephardim who had first gone to France and were expelled there by Philip Augustus in 1181. Names like "Benjamin the Frenchman" or French names testify to the Sephardic descent of the French Jews in Heilbronn.
Soon after the Rindfleisch Pogrom, there must have been Jews in Heilbronn again, because in 1316 Ludwig the Bavarian pawned the tax obligation of the Jews of Heilbronn to the city of Heilbronn for a period of six years, until an amount of 4,000 hellers was reached. Thus, 666 hellers of Jewish tax would have been due per year, while the city had to pay the emperor a maximum of only 600 hellers per year.[2] [3]
From late February to mid-April 1349, during a plague epidemic in Europe, there were again riots against Jews, who were accused of poisoning wells. The Heilbronn Chronicle states that during this "plague pogrom", "many Jews were slain". In the spring of 1349, not only was there widespread "killing of Jews" in Heilbronn, but also many "Jewish burnings". This expression referred to the burning of Jews, especially Jewish women, at the "witch columns" at the second Jewish cemetery outside the city wall of Heilbronn. The victims of these riots are not known by name. Only one victim is attested, because on 14 April 1349, King Charles IV gave Elisabeth of Hirschhorn, the wife of Engelhard of Hirschhorn, the house "of the rich Jew Nathan of Heilbronn opposite the house of the Rottinger".[4]
The plague pogroms certainly did not wipe out the entire community, as Jews are documented in Heilbronn in 1359. The community had a new synagogue at the Kieselmarkt, which is documented in either 1357 or 1457 according to differing records.
In 1361, Emperor Charles IV urged Heilbronn to accept all Jews who requested to live there and to grant them protection. Through this, the emperor received the Jews' taxes in the form of the "Judenregal" and the poll tax. The Judenregal was a kind of purchasable right to protect Jews. This protection tax could range from 25 to 50 guilders. The poll tax, on the other hand, consisted of a percentage share of assets and income. It was due upon the crowning of the emperor, which is why it was also called the coronation tax. In the years after this order from the emperor, Jews are increasingly mentioned in records in Heilbronn. The Jewish citizens of this time were "great merchants"[5] and Heilbronn was a transshipment point for furs, slaves, wine, grain, salt, etc. In 1371, Charles IV granted Heilbronn the imperial city constitution, which is considered a parity constitution because it granted equal power in the city council to the Heilbronn patricians and the resident merchants.
The debt books of the 14th century, which listed the property taxes that citizens had to pay, attest to the wealth of some citizens. Around 1387, among 1,350 taxpayers, there were 15 Jews. 0.5% of assets had to be paid. The 15 listed Jews paid a total of 279 guilders, which was about 10 percent of the total tax sum. In the debt book of 1399, six Jews also paid 8 guilders for the Jewish cemetery.
King Sigismund's letter of protection for the Jews of Heilbronn dated 15 October 1414 states that as creditors they were entitled to have their claims fulfilled.[6] In addition, they were granted the right to protection of property and physical integrity, as well as freedom of movement and religion. The place of jurisdiction in secular or religious matters was the court in Heilbronn or the rabbi in Heilbronn, respectively. Finally, payments to the royal chamber in Heilbronn were regulated there.[7]
The letter of protection initially brought an upswing for the Jewish community, which in 1415 received a place for a new cemetery from the Heilbronn council outside the Brückentor gate. In 1422, after a payment of 400 Rhenish guilders, King Sigismund granted the Jews of Heilbronn the same rights as the Jews of Nuremberg. However, beginning around 1420, the indebtedness of Heilbronn citizens to Jews led to tensions. Hostility towards Jews was fueled not least by the Church, which tirelessly pointed out in sermons and during confession that dealings with Jews were sinful.
In 1437, the Jews of Heilbronn were expelled from the city. Konrad von Weinsberg, the Imperial Hereditary Chamberlain, feared a diminution of the Empire's revenues – and thus also his own income – due to the expulsion of Jews from various imperial cities. The city of Heilbronn wrote several responses to his complaints, emphasizing that both in sermons and in confession, people were "punished and warned how greatly one sinned against God and one's neighbor by keeping Jews and knowingly allowing them to practice usury."[8]
Albert II of the House of Habsburg, Sigismund's son-in-law, was elected his successor in March 1438. Konrad von Weinsberg summoned the council of Heilbronn and the Jewish citizenry before the new king and his chancellor Kaspar Schlick at the Imperial Diet in Nuremberg on 27 July 1438. He sentenced the city of Heilbronn to "allow the Jewish citizenry to remain as before" due to the "devastation of the royal chamber" (due to tax losses), and threatened a claim for damages. On 8 October 1439, the Jews of the city were allowed to return and paid 200 guilders to Konrad von Weinsberg.[9] The homage that Heilbronn then paid to Albert II is the first preserved verbatim in the city's contract book.[10] Nevertheless, in this period, only a few names of Jews in Heilbronn are mentioned. It appears the imperial instructions regarding the toleration of Jews were increasingly disregarded and ultimately ignored completely. The emperor was far away, and to secure political stability, Heilbronn had entered into an alliance with the nearby Electoral Palatinate in 1417, whose influence soon became noticeable.
In early 1469, Elector Friedrich of the Palatinate expelled the Jews of the Electoral Palatinate and immediately informed the Imperial City of Heilbronn. Shortly thereafter, the city council renewed its decision to ban Jews from Heilbronn. By 1471, Jews were only allowed limited temporary residence in the city. Imperial Chamberlain Philipp von Weinsberg, who had inherited the office from his father Konrad and relied on the revenues from Jewish taxes, protested to Emperor Friedrich III, who ordered the city to grant Jews their freedoms in 1471.[11] However, the imperial command was ignored, prompting Friedrich to again order the city in 1473 and 1474 to readmit the Jews.[12] In 1476, the city council nevertheless decided to implement and renew the annual ban on Jews. The emperor, however, remained inactive. It was not until 1487 that he again demanded the temporary admission of two Jews into the city, but also decreed in a market privilege that Jews in Heilbronn were not to engage in usury.[13] In 1490, the emperor confirmed the purchase of the synagogue at Kieselmarkt and the Jewish cemetery by the city for 250 guilders,[14] although Jews from Regensburg and Nuremberg had offered more money for them. Chamber Prosecutor Heinrich Martin justified the decision in favor of the city of Heilbronn by citing the "disfavor" towards Jews. Although Jews from Neckarwestheim and Talheim pleaded not to alienate Jewish institutions, citing their centuries-long tax payments, the city quickly repurposed the properties at Kieselmarkt for other uses. The Jewish school was sold as a residential house, and the Jewish cemetery was built over. In 1495, Emperor Maximilian issued an order to the city to readmit the expelled Jews,[15] but this too went unheeded. Instead, the city passed increasingly restrictive resolutions against the few Jews who remained in Heilbronn. Formerly resident Jews of Heilbronn settled in surrounding areas such as Neckarwestheim, Talheim, and Neckarsulm, and subsequently sought readmission to the city, which was denied to them for the time being.[16]
Despite the expulsion, it appears that individual Jews remained in the city, albeit facing increasing harassment. In 1524, a plea for protection from the Franciscans of Heilbronn still mentions Jews in the city. Nobles from the surrounding area, including Frauenberg (Talheim) and Liebenstein (Kaltenwesten), sent petitions to the city requesting access to the Heilbronn weekly markets for their protected Jews. However, the city maintained its expulsion, which it regularly renewed and confirmed. In 1527, during one such confirmation, the decision was made to completely abstain from Jews. An exception was made for two Jewish doctors from Wimpfen and Löwenstein, who were allowed continued access to their patients in Heilbronn.
In 1529, the city council prohibited citizens, under threat of losing their citizenship, from trading with Jews. In 1530, Emperor Charles V commanded free trade for Jews, prompting a group from Neckarsulm to apply for readmission to Heilbronn, but the city council persisted with its sanctions against Jews. In 1540, the Heilbronn council sought information from surrounding communities regarding the indebtedness of Heilbronn citizens to Jews residing in other territories. It was found that many Heilbronn citizens maintained financial dealings with Jews primarily in Württemberg, mostly involving monetary transactions. The city took legal action against these transactions and in 1543 obtained a judgment from Emperor Ferdinand stating that all loans extended by Jews were forfeited and should revert to the city treasury. This decree was posted in 270 copies within a 215-mile radius in all locations with significant Jewish communities.[17]
Jews were prohibited from engaging in trade in goods, and only financial transactions were allowed. Furthermore, Jews were not permitted to settle in the city, and Jewish merchants could only enter the city upon payment of a protection fee of 7 pfennigs and accompanied by a town guard. In 1620, the "Jew tax" was raised to 12 pfennigs.
During the last years of the Thirty Years' War, from 1645 onward, among the refugees streaming into Heilbronn, there were once again some Jews who were tolerated until the Peace of Westphalia.
With the Jewish regulations of 1667, limited trade in goods with Jewish merchants was allowed under strict conditions. Due to many of these merchants traveling to the Frankfurt Fair, the regulations were gradually relaxed over time to ease logistical issues with the fair goods. At the same time, the city also created regulations to keep foreign Jews away from the city. For instance, in 1712, foreign Jews were required to lend an exorbitant sum of 4,000 guilders as a bond upon entering the city or else avoid its territory. In 1725, the city accepted some converted Jews into Christianity but soon expelled one of them after he committed theft.
In 1770, with three markets already established in Heilbronn, Jews were exempted from body and bridge tolls to invigorate the markets with more traders. However, the prohibition on Jewish settlement persisted even after the city's incorporation into Württemberg in 1802.
In Württemberg, since the time of Count Eberhard I, Duke of Württemberg in the late 15th century, there had been a prohibition on settlement and trade for Jews. However, due to the political upheavals at the beginning of the 19th century, many territories formerly belonging to imperial knights or ecclesiastical authorities had fallen to Württemberg. These territories had been homes to Jews expelled from Heilbronn and other cities over centuries. While around 1800 there were only a few hundred Jews in Württemberg, their number increased to approximately 7,000 with the addition of these territories, where the newly settled Jews generally possessed more ancestral rights than the old Württemberg Jews. The Württemberg government was under pressure to standardize the rights of all Jews in Württemberg. Since neighboring France had granted full emancipation to Jews as early as 1791, Württemberg also decided on legal equality with other citizens, for which preparatory regulations were made between 1806 and 1827.[18]
With the "Law Concerning the Public Conditions of Israelite Believers" of the Royal Württemberg Government in 1828, baptized and unbaptized Jewish citizens were largely equated with Christian citizens in many areas. Formerly "protected Jews" became citizens of Württemberg, subject to all civil laws and required to fulfill "all duties and contributions of other subjects" (Article 1), with exceptions regarding freedom of trade and active and passive voting rights. The law favored only those Jews who no longer engaged in the so-called "Schacherhandel" (usurious trade), and placed religious life, education of rabbis, and the school system under state supervision.
In 1830, the first new Jewish resident, a cloth merchant named Isidor Veit from Sontheim (see Jewish Community Sontheim), returned to the city of Heilbronn and received citizenship in 1831. In 1849, Moritz Kallmann became the first Jewish citizen to enter the municipal council.
In the initial phase of the cultural adaptation of the current church, a law was issued in 1828 that provided for a church council office as custodian of the Israelite community. In a second phase, on October 27, 1831, a royal Israelite Supreme Church Authority of Württemberg was established by royal decree, composed of the chairman and government commissioner Johann Balthasar von Steinhardt, Rabbi Joseph Maier, and as vicar Rabbi Ludwig Kahn of Heilbronn, with secretary Carl Weil, as chief church director, and other secular members.
The Jewish Charity Association in Heilbronn was founded in 1857 by Liebmann Strauss. From this charity association emerged the Jewish Community of Heilbronn in a third phase of acculturation in 1861. In 1862, the Jewish community comprised 137 individuals, and by 1864, it counted 369 members.
In 1864, a new Emancipation Law brought further legal equality: "The native Israelites in the kingdom are subject to the same laws in all civil matters as the other citizens; they enjoy the same rights and have the same duties and contributions to fulfill." However, state oversight of "ecclesiastical" life was not abolished until 1912. In 1868, the still-existing new Jewish cemetery was opened below the Wartberg.
From around 1858 onwards, the Jewish community in Heilbronn experienced significant growth as numerous Jews moved into the city from surrounding villages, attracted by the emerging industrialization offering many employment opportunities. By 1867, the district rabbinate had already been relocated from Lehrensteinsfeld to Heilbronn. By about 1871, the Jewish community numbered approximately 610 members. The city's only synagogue at the time, located since 1856 in the central building of the Deutschhof near the former court room, faced cramped conditions. The community acquired a plot on Allee, where the Heilbronn Synagogue was inaugurated in 1877. The building, designed in the eclectic style, was a cruciform basilica with a tall central nave, a transept, and lower side aisles. The transept was covered by a low hipped roof and crowned with four smaller side domes. The central dome featured twelve round-arched windows and was externally clad with patinated, green-shimmering copper.[19]
The Synagogue assembly decided by a vote of sixty to four to install an organ in the Heilbronn Synagogue.[20] [21] However, instrumental music is not provided for in Orthodox Judaism, which led to heated controversies. Another cultural adaptation of the time was cremation, made possible in Heilbronn by the crematorium created in 1905 by Emil Beutinger at the main cemetery in Heilbronn. This practice caused a division within the community. Cremation was considered incompatible both with the tradition of Jewish burial of the dead; if the entire person were to be cremated, there would consequently be no resurrection.
Under the leadership of Heilbronn Jewish citizens David Reis and Emanuel Kaufmann, a split occurred from the assimilated central synagogue community of Heilbronn. This new community called itself Adass Jeschurun. The guiding words from the Tanach for this Jewish community were: "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests!"[22] In 1911, the community opened its own prayer hall. By 1933, the community had approximately 60 members.
Moses Engelbert (13 June 1830 in Budenberg near Kassel-17 January 1891 in Heilbronn) served as the Rabbi of the central synagogue community in Heilbronn from 1864 to 1889. He was previously the Rabbi in Lehrensteinsfeld until the dissolution of the district rabbinate there or its relocation to Heilbronn. He was succeeded by Rabbi Bertold Einstein (31 December 1862 in Ulm-4 June 1935). As the Acting Rabbi, Einstein delivered the eulogy at the memorial service in the Heilbronn Synagogue following the death of King Karl of Württemberg. This ceremony took place on 11 October 1891.[23] [24]
Ludwig Kahn (17 June 1845 in Baisingen-9 October 1914)[25] [26] served in Heilbronn from 1892 to 1914. Kahn, who arrived in Heilbronn on 19 April 1892, quickly gained a reputation as a highly educated and caring clergyman. During mobilization in World War I, Rabbi Kahn prayed in the synagogue for God's protection and support for Germany. Ludwig Kahn played a significant role at the outbreak of war in 1914 when the Supreme Church Authority in Stuttgart demanded uniform procedures for the swearing-in of Christian and Jewish soldiers. At the barracks in Heilbronn, soldiers of all faiths assembled for this solemn event, and clergy from the three denominations stood before the field altar. Rabbi Kahn was also responsible for Jewish pastoral care at the royal hospital and nursing home in Weinsberg (District of Heilbronn, Württemberg).[27]
Max Beermann (5 April 1873 in Berlin-1935 in Heilbronn) succeeded Rabbi Kahn from 1914 to 1935. He taught in numerous courses at the Heilbronn Adult Education Center and was an integral part of the municipality's cultural life. He was also a member of the Israelite Lodge (Heilbronn) and delivered many lectures there. On 1 June 1915, "under medical guidance ... he had an opportunity to get to know the individual patients and their personal details." Since 3 June 1914, services were held there at least once a month and Shabbat was celebrated.[28]
Moritz Dreifus (23 August 1845 in Richen-28 December 1924 in Heilbronn) was employed as one of the first cantors in 1885, working as a teacher and cantor.
From 1903, Isy Krämer (9 August 1877 in Mönchsrot-16 April 1963 in Brooklyn) served as cantor. His wife Julie, born Würzburger on 12 April 1888 in Heilbronn, was also involved. Krämer was also active as a music critic for Heilbronn's newspapers. His work for the Heilbronner Zeitung, when the newspaper was still published by Carl Wulle, is notable. Additionally, from 1910, he worked for the Neckar-Zeitung under editors Ernst Jäckh and Theodor Heuss. The later President of Germany, Heuss, and Krämer were friends.
In response to the Nazis' rise to power, the community was prepared, but there was no specific statement in the community newspaper regarding the seizure of power on 30 January 1933. Only after the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 did the first criticism appear. Internally, the community suffered from the outset, as it was subjected to soon-emerging repressions.
In front of the Landauer department store on Kaiserstraße and other Jewish businesses, the Nazis called for a boycott of Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933. On 25 April, a bomb attack occurred at the department store, and on the same day, there was an anti-Semitic rally in front of the Heilbronn Bank Association, where a crowd demanded the surrender of the Jewish bank director Otto Igersheimer. On 29 April 1933, another bomb exploded at the textile warehouse "zur Brücke," also run by Jewish owners.[29] In May and June 1933, there were two suicides within the Jewish community.[30]
The community began to establish a "Jewish world" with its own schools, senior home, and hospital. From 6 June 1934, the Israelite religious community offered lessons at the "Adlerkeller" tavern because Jewish children were banned from attending school. Later, three Jewish women were convicted for employing a non-Jewish housemaid, thereby violating the Law for the Protection of German Blood. Associations were founded to support Jews without income.
In 1935, Rabbi Harry Heimann, born in Bromberg on 1 April 1910, arrived in Heilbronn. Like his predecessor, he was also responsible for pastoral care at the hospital and nursing home in Weinsberg, where Jewish pastoral care became increasingly necessary before those affected were deported and murdered at Grafeneck or Hadamar as part of Action T4. Rabbi Heimann was able to emigrate to America in 1938.
Former councilor Siegfried Gumbel, who was very involved in the Jewish communities in Heilbronn and at the state level, moved to Stuttgart in 1936, where he served as representative of Otto Hirsch as chairman of the Reich Representation of Jews. At that time, Gumbel recognized that the position of the Jews was lost and promoted emigration. In 1936, he was also elected president of the Upper Council of the Israelite Religious Community of Württemberg. In this role, he was tasked from the summer of 1939 with dissolving the Jewish communities before being arrested in 1941 and murdered in Dachau the following year.
During Kristallnacht on 10 November 1938, the remaining approximately 350 members of the Jewish community witnessed the burning of their magnificent synagogue in Heilbronn on Allee the morning after the nationwide pogrom night, while the prayer room of the Israelite Religious Community Adass Jeschurun was devastated. In January 1940, the synagogue was demolished. The synagogue stones were used for the fruit cellar of the youth art school. Jewish shops and apartments were looted, and their property was burned. Leading community members fled or were deported to Dachau.
On the morning of the November Pogrom in 1938 at 6:30 a.m., as cantor Isy Krämer hurried to his synagogue work as usual, he could only see the burning building and had to go to the Gestapo. Thanks to Police Director "W.", Krämer was able to prevent the deportation of older members of the Israelite community in particular. Krämer later became head of the Jewish community and assisted with emigration. In 1939, he emigrated to America himself and died in Brooklyn in 1963.
The last cantor in Heilbronn was Karl Kahn (26 December 1890 in Hollenbach-6 October 1944 in Auschwitz). Karl Kahn married Rita Meyer, (23 April 1906 in Heilbronn,-6 October 1944, in Auschwitz). Kahn and his wife arrived in Theresienstadt on 22 August 1942, and were murdered in Auschwitz on 6 October 1944.
There were various deportations in Heilbronn, with 234 Jewish citizens from Heilbronn and Sontheim killed in extermination and concentration camps:
By 1940, around 600 Jews managed to emigrate or flee abroad. 240 people from the Jewish cultural circle in Heilbronn were killed by the Nazis.
Of the 150 Jewish businesses before the Nazi takeover, many remained profitable or were not yet "Aryanized" by 1 March 1939. The following businesses in Heilbronn were "Aryanized":
Various monuments in Heilbronn commemorate the fate of the Jewish community: a memorial plaque for the Jewish victims the Nazis was unveiled on Allee on 9 November 1966, followed in 1996 by the Dome Memorial nearby, which is meant to evoke the dome of the synagogue ruin. Additionally, various stumbling stones were laid.
Until 1980, the Jewish community in Heilbronn consisted of only six families affiliated with the Israelite Religious Community of Württemberg, headquartered in Stuttgart. The Israelite Religious Community Heilbronn was founded in 2004 as a branch of IRGW, with its board belonging to IRGW Stuttgart. Their synagogue is located in the Jewish Center Heilbronn. The community is served by various rabbis. Since 2012, Rabbi Yuriy Kadnykov from Hanover has also been conducting services in the Heilbronn synagogue according to the liberal rite. The community has 130 members (as of 2012), 98% of whom originate from the former USSR.
