It is possible to date the presence of Jews in Andalusia to the Council of Elvira (303-09), when references were made to the need to separate Jews and Christians.
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Biel / Bienne
It was the clock-making industry that attracted Alsatian Jews to the Jura beginning in 1835. Among the great names in this industry was Achille Picard. From 1858 onwards, devout Jews met in a prayer room. They opened their in 1884. Its most recent interior renovation, in 1995, stressed the contrast between sober walls and the twelve multicolored stained-glass windows featuring biblical ...
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Bern
The Jewish presence in Bern probably dates from the 6th century. Jews are mentioned in the legal texts. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between reception, persecution (which began in Bern in 1294) and expulsion, depending on the power in place. In the wave of great expulsions that took place between the end of the 14th and the ...
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Zurich
The Jewish presence in Zurich probably dates back to the 13th century. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between reception, persecution and expulsion, depending on the power in place. In the wave of major expulsions that took place between the end of the 14th and the end of the 15th century, the Jews of Zurich were expelled in ...
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Basel
The Jewish presence in Basel probably dates from 1213. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between acceptance, persecution and expulsion, depending on the power in place. In the wave of major expulsions that took place between the end of the 14th and the end of the 15th century, the Basel Jews were expelled in 1397. “In Basel, ...
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Endingen and Lengnau
Until the end of the eighteenth century, the two villages of Endingen and Lengnau were the only ones that authorized the permanent establishment of Jews. Beginning in 1622, they resided here under the rubric of “protected foreigners”, and their communities were able to practice religion and conduct internal administrative affairs in total independence. A document from this year ...
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German-Speaking Switzerland
German-speaking Switzerland covers two-thirds of the country and accounts for 70% of its population. With cities as varied as its economic centre Zurich, the capital Berne, the watchmaking city of Biel, the ancient university and contemporary cultural life of Basel, Lucerne and its festivities, St Gallen and its abbey library. Not forgetting, of course, its mountains and lakes, which are a ...
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La Chaux-de-Fonds
Founded in 1833, the Jewish community of La Chaux-de-Fonds met in a flat on rue Jaquet-Droz. Then, in 1853, a private house was used as a synagogue. From 1872, a was used in the commune of Les Eplatures. La Chaux-de-Fonds’s Jewish community opened its first synagogue in 1896. Architect Kuder was inspired by the synagogue in Strasbourg, which was later destroyed by the Nazis. In ...
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Lausanne
The Jewish presence in Lausanne is attested continuously from 1848 onwards when several families met in a rented room. In 1895, the community had 41 members. In 1909, there were 110 members. It should be noted that the vast majority of Jews did not participate in community life. In 1909 there were 989 people of the Jewish faith in Lausanne. Kosher meat was imported from Evian because of the ...
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Carouge
Before Jews were able to settle in Geneva, the neighboring city of Carouge (at the time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia) opened its doors to them around 1779. The sole remaining Jewish vestige is the old cemetery, which was restored in 1996. A great spirit of religious tolerance allowed this arrival at the time, while in Geneva the Jews had been expelled since 1490. The acceptance of ...
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French-Speaking Switzerland
Switzerland’s French-speaking population is located in the west, in a region that covers almost a quarter of the country’s surface area. With its charming little towns along the lakes and mountains, home to skiers and festival-goers like the famous Montreux event. The sculptures of Fribourg on its churches, squares linking the streets or bridges linking the mountains. And of ...
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Geneva
The city of banking and watchmaking… but not only. Geneva is a much more complex city, home to a great university and eminent thinkers for centuries, and it even published one of the first two comic strips in history. It seems that the Jewish presence in Geneva dates from the 13th century, mainly around the in the old town. The Jews were expelled from the city in 1490 and forbidden to ...
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Speyer
The history of the Jews in Speyer reaches back over 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer (formerly Spira), Germany, was home to one of the most significant Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire. Its significance is attested to by the frequency of the Ashkenazi Jewish surname Shapiro/Shapira and its variants Szpira/Spiro/Speyer. The community was totally wiped out in 1940 ...
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Worms
In Worms, directly administrated by Emperor Henry IV, the Jewish community obtained the right to trade by public edict of the emperor as early as 1074. The synagogue of Worms was founded in 1034. Not only the location of worship but also a center for study, the synagogue made Worms the spiritual and cultural center of Judaism during the Middle Ages. Famous rabbis A native of Troyes, the ...
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Mainz
At the height of the Middle Ages, the Jewish community in Mainz rivaled the communities of Worms and Speyer. Few traces of this community remain. Among several stone tombs preserved in the Jewish cemetery is that of Rabbi Gershom ben Yehuda (c. 960-1028), called Meor ha-Golah (Light of the Exile). A A has replaced the old one. It was built in 2010 and is part of the Jewish Community center ...
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Frankfurt am Main
The independent city of Frankfurt has welcomed Jews since 1150. However, from 1460 until their emancipation at the end of the seventeenth century, the Jews were confined to Judengasse (alley of the Jews), a ghetto that became quickly overcrowded. In 1720, moneylender Meyer Amschel Rothschild, his wife, Gütele, and their eighteen children moved into one of the houses in the area. Meyer’s ...
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Friedberg
The small city of Friedberg possesses the deepest mikvah in Germany: seventy-two steps carved into the basalt lead the visitor to a natural spring situated eighty-two feet below the surface. At the bottom of the staircase, a stone tablet dedicated to the builder of this bath displays the date of its origin in 1260. An octogonal opening in the dome above is the sole source of light and gives ...
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The Rhineland and Bavaria
The oldest vestiges of a Jewish presence in Germany are found in the Rhineland. For a long time the river constituted the western border of the Roman Empire. In the fortified cities of the frontier such as Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), the Diaspora Jews found favorable conditions in which to exercice their industrial and commercial talents. Development of Rhenish judaism Later, in the Middle ...
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Berlin
Once again the capital of a unified Germany, Berlin today has the largest Jewish community in the country (11000 people). This is nonetheless far fewer than the some 170000 Jews who lived here just before Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. One can well imagine that the ghosts of history will wander in Berlin for a long time to come, a city that, like Vienna, was a major economic, ...
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Charleroi
Charleroi is a city known for having been a very important coal basin, but also as an industrial centre. Since the decline of these industries, the city has invested heavily in cultural development and is particularly appreciated as a historical centre of comics, with the Marcinellois printer Jean Dupuis creating the magazine Spirou in 1938. The Jewish presence in the city is relatively ...
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Ostend
The synagogue of the handsome coastal town of Ostend becomes busy in the summer. It was built partly with the help of rich financiers. At one time as many as 300 families came to pray here. Among the famous Jewish figures who stayed in Ostend were Marc Chagall and Albert Einstein. Ostend is a seaside town that has been very popular with British holidaymakers for centuries, as James Joyce, for ...
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Ghent
Ghent is a city known, like Liège, for its student life, but also as an important cultural centre, its port and its ancient textile activity. The Jewish presence in Ghent seems to date back to the 8th century according to some sources. The Jews were expelled from the city in 1125, but were allowed to settle again in the following century. In the following century they were allowed to settle ...
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The Hague
The monumental Ashkenazic Synagogue in The Hague was sold to the municipality, which put it at the disposal of a congregation of Turkish Muslims. It has since become the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Ashkenazic community in The Hague then acquired a former Protestant church in the Bezuidenhout quarter and transformed it into a . Because the maintenance costs were too expensive, however, the synagogue ...
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Belfast
Belfast Synagogue holds regular Friday evening services. The cemetery of Falls Road, a few miles north of Belfast, has one of the oldest Jewish tombs in Northern Ireland, a big granit obelisk in memory of Daniel Joseph Jaffe. Sadly, the monument had been neglected and is covered with graffiti.
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Limerick
Limerick’s small Jewish community (170 people) disappeared in 1904 after the only pogrom in Irish history- a pogrom with zero victims. The small of Kilmurray at Newcastle, County Limerick, has been restored and its six tombstones are perfectly preserved.
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Cork
opened in 1989 on the site of the old “Jewstown”. This was the quarter where James Joyce’s father was born. Offices were held at a local synagogue until recently. The worshipers now pray at the Dublin synagogue.
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York
York’s Jewish community was the victim of the bloodiest outbreaks of anti-semitism in the twelfth century. In those days the Jews were well-established alongside the merchant classes, to whom they provided financial services. However, following the death of Henry II, the protector of the Jews, and the coronation of Richard I, “the Lionheart”, anti-Jewish riots struck. The ...
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Manchester
With 30000 Jews, Manchester has the highest Jewish population in Great Britain after London. The Jewish presence in Manchester seems to date from the late 18th century, with many of them coming from Liverpool. Its first synagogue was built at this time, under the leadership of the brothers Lemon and Jacob Nathan. It moved to Garden Street in 1794, then to Ainsworth Court in 1806, to Halliwell ...
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Oxford
Oxford’s oldest synagogue was transformed into a tavern, then incorporated into one of the university’s oldest colleges, Christchurch. There is, however, a new synagogue. It was built in 1974 on the site of an older one from 1880, of which only a wall remains.
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Bordeaux
For three centuries, the cellars of tumbledown houses in the old town were home to a hidden Jewish community, that of the conversos who came here from Spain after 1474. Used to hiding their faith in Spain, these “new Christians” continued to practice their old religion in secret when they came to France. Bordeaux’s Jewish community began to emerge from the shadows only in ...
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