History of the Jews in Alsace

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Main articles: History of the Jews in France and History of the Jews in Germany
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A stone plaque commemorating a donation to a synagogue in Strasbourg in the 12th century

The history of the

pogroms, at least during the Middle Ages, and reined in by harsh restrictions on business and movement, it has had a continuous existence ever since it was first recorded. At its peak, in 1870, the Jewish community of Alsace numbered 35,000 people.[3]

Language and origins

The language traditionally spoken by the Jews of Alsace was a dialect of

Western Yiddish. From the 12th century onwards, due among other things to the influence of the nearby Rashi school, French linguistic elements were incorporated as well; and from the 18th century onwards, due to immigration, some Polish elements were blended into Yédisch-Daïtsch too.[6] Judeo-Alsatian went extinct around 1930 though documentation goes back to the 18th century.[5]

Medieval antisemitism and massacre of 1349

A kettle full of Jews (with white, pointed hats) burning in hell, an illustration from the 12th century Hortus deliciarum

Several disparaging representations of Jews in medieval Alsatian art, usually showing them with the characteristic three-pointed hat, have survived and can still be seen in situ, notably on the tympanum of the

Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame.[7] Stained glass windows in the Niederhaslach Church, frescoes in the Église Saint-Michel of Weiterswiller and a tapestry in the Église Saints-Pierre-et-Paul of Neuwiller-lès-Saverne also show disparaging representations of Jews in traditional attire.[8]

In 1286, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, one of the leading Jewish figures of his day, was imprisoned by the German king in a fortress near Ensisheim.

In 1349, Jews of Alsace were wrongfully accused of poisoning the wells with

Strasbourg pogrom.[9]
Jews were subsequently forbidden to settle in the town and were reminded every evening at 10 o'clock by a Cathedral bell and a municipal herald blowing the "Grüselhorn" to leave. Alsatian Jews then settled in the neighbouring villages and small towns, where many of them became cloth merchants ("Schmatteshendler") or cattle merchants ("Behemeshendler").

Early modern times

An important political figure for the Jews of Alsace and beyond was the long-serving "shtadlan" Josel of Rosheim. In 1510 he was made the parnas u-manhig (sworn guide and leader) of the Jewish communities of Lower Alsace, before becoming the German Emperor's favourite interlocutor on Jewish matters and the most influential intercessor on the Jews' behalf.

French rule until 1871

With the annexation of Alsace to France in 1681, Catholicism was restored as the principal Christian current. However, the prohibition against Jews settling in Strasbourg, and the special taxes Jews were subjected to, were not lifted. In the 18th century, Herz Cerfbeer of Medelsheim, the influential merchant and philanthropist, became the first Jew to be allowed to settle in the Alsatian capital again. The French Revolution then admitted Jews back into the town.

By 1790, the Jewish population of Alsace was approximately 22,500, about 3% of the provincial population. Another 7500 Jews lived in neighboring Lorraine. Together they comprised three-fourths of the 40,000 Jews who lived in France at the time. The Jews were highly segregated, subject to long-standing anti-Jewish regulations. They maintained their own customs, language, and historic traditions within the tightly-knit ghettos; they adhered to Jewish law. Jews were barred from most cities and instead lived in hundreds of small hamlets and villages. They were also barred from most occupations, and concentrated in trade, services, and especially in moneylending. They financed about a third of the mortgages in Alsace. Leading philosophers of the French Enlightenment, such as Denis Diderot and Voltaire, ridiculed and condemned French Jews as misanthropic, rapacious, and culturally backward. In 1777, a local judge forged hundreds of receipts, which he gave to Catholic peasants, to "prove" they had repaid their debts to Jewish moneylenders. The Jews protested, and a Prussian official, Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, wrote a highly influential pamphlet "On the Civic Improvement of the Jews" (1781), which advanced the cause of Jewish emancipation in both Germany and France.

Religious tolerance grew during the

Alphonse Ratisbonne (1842). After Alsace was incorporated into Germany in 1871 (until 1918) antisemitic violence diminished.[10]

Dreyfus affair

Degradation of Alfred Dreyfus, January 5, 1895
Main articles:
Trial and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus

While the Dreyfus affair (1894–1906) by and large played out in France, and Alsace was a part of Germany at the time, it had immediate repercussions for the Jews in Alsace. Alfred Dreyfus was by birth a citizen of Mulhouse and thus suspected by French conservatives of innate sympathy with the German enemy by virtue of his being Alsatian and Jewish, which put him under suspicion of being doubly disloyal. One of the alleged traitor's strongest advocates was fellow Mulhousian Auguste Scheurer-Kestner, a (non-Jewish) chemist, industrialist, politician and philanthropist.[11] Another main player in the Affair, and advocate of Dreyfus' cause, was the Strasbourg-born army general Georges Picquart.

1940–1945

Further information: German military administration in occupied France during World War II and The Holocaust in France
Synagogue du Quai Kléber, Strasbourg, inaugurated in 1898, burnt and razed by the Nazis in 1940–1941[12]

In 1939, there were about 20,000 Jews living in Alsace and Lorraine. Immediately following the start of World War II on 3 September 1939, the French government started evacuating Jews from Alsace and Lorraine. About 14,000 Jews were evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges in southwest France, and far from the German border. About 5,000 more Jews fled to southern France after the German invasion and defeat of France in May 1940.[13][14]

Under the terms of the Armistice of 22 June 1940, Alsace became part of the German occupation zone. On 15 July 1940, most of the remaining Alsatian Jews (about 3,000) were evicted from their homes by the German authorities and deported to Vichy France.[15] The Germans declared Alsace and Lorraine to be Judenrein (lit: cleansed of Jews).[16]

Unlike most of the German-occupied region of France, Alsace was effectively annexed by Germany by 1942, when Alsatians became German citizens by decree, and Alsace formally became part of the administrative unit (Gau) of Baden-Elsaß.[17] During World War II, Germany established the

Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Alsace. August Hirt became an institute director at the Nazi University of Strasbourg; he is notorious for his experiments with concentration camp prisoners and for his efforts to establish a Jewish skull collection
.

Many Alsatian Jews who had been relocated to western regions of the country were ultimately arrested and deported. It is estimated that 2,605 Jews from Bas-Rhin[18] and 1,100 from Haut-Rhin[19] were murdered during the Holocaust.

Businessmen such as Théophile Bader, founder of the Galeries Lafayette; Pierre Wertheimer, founder of the French cosmetics company Bourjois and partner of Coco Chanel; and Albert Kahn, banker and philanthropist would have faced confiscation of their properties and/or deportation to a death camp if they had not managed to flee in time.

Jews in Alsace today

After the

Algerian war, beginning in 1962, Sephardic Jews arrived in Alsace from North Africa. In the year 2000, roughly 4,000 Jews in Strasbourg were Sephardic, making up a little over 25% of the total Jewish population.[20] In the year 2001, roughly 25% of the 500 Jewish families of Mulhouse were Sephardic.[21]

During modern times the distinct dialect and culture of the Alsatian jews has been in decline amongst Alsatian Jews. This is due to the priority of the community on assimilating into French culture and the lack of priority on preserving their own culture.[22]

Presentation of Alsatian Jewish history and heritage

Ingwiller's now abandoned synagogue was built in 1822 over the ruins of a medieval castle, and enlarged in 1891.[23]

A presentation of the Alsatian Jews' history and culture through collections of artifacts and architectural elements can be found in the

Mikvah museum) of Bischheim, in the Musée alsacien and the Musée historique of Strasbourg, in the Musée historique of Haguenau, in the Musée d'Arts et Traditions Populaires of Marmoutier, in the Musée du vieux Soultz of Soultz-Haut-Rhin, in the Musée du pays de la Zorn of Hochfelden, in the Musée de l'image populaire of Pfaffenhoffen and in the Musée Bartholdi of Colmar.[24]

In 1984, the site of a medieval mikvah was found in a group of houses in Strasbourg and was later added to the government list of historical monuments.[25]

The annual

B'nai Brith of Bas-Rhin together with the local Agency for Development of Tourism.[26] It now takes place in 27 European countries including Turkey and Ukraine.[27] The original aim of the day was to permit access to, and ultimately encourage restoration of, long-abandoned synagogues of architectural value such as those in Wolfisheim, Westhoffen, Pfaffenhoffen, Struth, Diemeringen, Ingwiller and Mackenheim
.

Notable Jews born in Alsace

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ Les Juifs à Strasbourg au Moyen âge (in French)
  2. ^ Histoire des Juifs d'Alsace (in French)
  3. ^ Histoire et mémoire des Juifs d'Alsace : recherches actuelles (in French)
  4. ^ Yédisch-Daïtsch, le dialecte judéo-alsacien (in French)
  5. ^ a b Aslanov, Cyril (2013-06-24), "Judeo-Alsatian, Hebrew Component in", Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Brill, retrieved 2024-01-18
  6. ^ Structure du parler judéo-alsacien (in French)
  7. OCLC 12975374
    .
  8. ^ L'iconographie ou les Juifs par l'image (in French)
  9. ISBN 1-55581-356-9
    .
  10. ^ Vicki Caron, "Alsace," in Richard S. Levy, ed., Antisemitism: A historical Encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution (2005) 1:13-16
  11. ^ Auguste Scheurer-Kestner (1833 - 1899) Archived 2007-11-16 at the Wayback Machine (in French)
  12. ^ La synagogue consistoriale du quai Kléber (in French)
  13. ^ "Alsace-Lorraine" (PDF). Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies. Retrieved 2017-03-04.
  14. ^ Lazare, Lucien. "Limoges et Périgueux, refuges des Juifs de Strasbourg sous l'Occupation" (in French). Le judaïsme d'Alsace et de Lorraine.
  15. ISBN 9780393325249
    .
  16. ^ Schwarzfuchs, Simon. "Le 15 juillet 1940: La dernière expulsion des Juifs d'Alsace" (in French).
  17. ^ Jäckel, Eberhard (1966). "L'annexion déguisée". Frankreich in Hitlers Europa – Die deutsche Frankreichpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (in French). Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlag-Anstalg GmbH. pp. 123–124.
  18. ^ Gutman, René. "Le Memorbuch, mémorial de la déportation et de la résistance des Juifs du Bas-Rhin" (in French). Le judaïsme d'Alsace et de Lorraine.
  19. ^ "Le Mémorial des Juifs du Haut-Rhin" (in French). Le judaïsme d'Alsace et de Lorraine.
  20. ^ "Souviens-toi de l'Oratoire Leo Cohn" (in French)
  21. ^ La communaute juive de Mulhouse aujourd'hui (in French)
  22. ^ "The Detailed History of Judaism in Alsace". TheCollector. 2023-07-31. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  23. ^ The synagogue of Ingwiller (in French)
  24. ^ "List of Alsatian museums displaying Jewish heritage". Archived from the original on 2007-10-28. Retrieved 2009-03-23.
  25. ^ Base Mérimée: Bain rituel juif de Strasbourg, Ministère français de la Culture. (in French)
  26. ^ European Day of Jewish Culture 2007 Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ^ jewishheritage.org Archived 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ Alphonse Lévy 1843-1918 (in French)
  29. ^
    ISBN 2-7165-0568-3

Further reading

External links

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