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Encyclopaedia Judaica

Jews in Constance

Jewish community - Host blood libel - Black Death burning - privileges of Pope Martin V in 1418 - expulsion 1533 and settling in the countryside - emancipation law of 1862 - community since 1863 - emigration wave - Holocaust - post-war times

Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Constance, vol. 5, col. 913-914. Pope Martin V blesses the Jewish delegation at Constance,
Germany, 1417. Full page miniature from the Chronicle of the Council of Constance, 1414-18, by Ulrich von
Richental, fols. 105b and 106a. Constance, Rosgarten Museum.

from: Constance; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971), vol. 5

presented by Michael Palomino (2008)

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<CONSTANCE, (Germ. Konstanz), city in W. Germany.

[Jewish community - land owners - money lending - trade and crafts]

The first mention of Jews is in a royal tax list of 1241; the tax paid indicates that they had settled there some decades earlier. A responsum on divorce, written in Constance and published in R. *Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg's responsa had been erroneously ascribed to him. King Henry VII pawned the Jewish taxed to a nobleman in 1311, and Louis the Bavarian followed suit in 1330.

King Wenceslaus (after 1393), Rupert (1401-02), and Sigismund (1413) transferred half the Jewish taxes to the city.

In 1414 Sigismund assigned two Constance Jews to collect a levy for the Hussite War from Upper Swabian Jewry. Records of 1328, 1375, and 1425-29 show that Jews owned orchards, gardens, and vineyards in Constance. Money lending by Jews to clerics, villagers, townspeople, and nobles is mentioned in 1293, 1300, 1346-48, and 1420-39; to the city in the 1370s and a minor (col. 912)

sum to the king in 1306. The city's usury law of 1383 referred to small scale money lending by Jews. The records of the municipal court (1423-28) show that there were also Jewish traders, tailors, and metalworkers living in Constance.

[Host blood libel in 1326 - Black Death burning in 1349 - privileges of Pope Martin V in 1418 - expulsion 1533]

Twenty-seven Jews accused of *Host desecration were murdered in 1326.

During the *Black Death (1349) 350 Jews were burned to death.

Following a *blood libel in *Ravensburg, the Jews were imprisoned in 1429 and after a second one in the area in 1443; they were released each time after ransom was paid. From around 1375 until 1460 the Jews enjoyed burghers' rights.

By 1424 there was a synagogue in the Ramungshof. The Jews lived in several streets. During the Council of Constance, in 1417, a delegation of German Jewry met Pope *Martin V who, in 1418, granted favorable privileges, confirmed by Kind Sigismund.

A first expulsion order, in 1432, was not generally enforced, but it became final in 1533. afterward Jews could only enter the town temporarily, though they continued to live in neighboring villages.

[Emancipation law in 1862 - numbers - emigration wave since the 1920s]

After the *Baden emancipation law of 1862 a community was founded in 1863-66. [[...]]

In 1910 the community numbered 574 Persons (2.7% of the total) but declined to 537 in 1925, and 386 in 1935. [[...]]

[Holocaust]

The synagogue, consecrated in 1883, was burned down in November 1938.

Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Constance, vol. 5, col. 912. The Constance synagogue,
destroyed by the Nazis [[and their collaborators]] in November 1938.
Courtesy Constance Municipality. Photo Hepp Agency, Constance

In October 1940 the 110 Jews still remaining in Constance were deported to the internment camp in *Gurs (S. France), and from there the majority were transported to *Auschwitz in 1942 [[and from there probably to the tunnel systems with high death rate]].

[Post-war times]

Some 160 Jews liberated from camps (D.P.'s) lived in Constance between 1945 and 1948, most of whom subsequently emigrated. By 1968 the Jewish community consisted of fewer than 30 persons.

Bibliography

-- Germ Jud, 2 (1968), 445-50
-- L. Loewenstein: Geschichte der Juden am Bodensee [[History of the Jews on Lake of Constance]] (1879)
-- H. Chone, in: ZGJD, 6 (1935), 3-16, 198-209; 7 (1937), 1-7
-- H. Maor: Ueber den Wiederaufbau der juedischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945 [[About Reconstruction of the Jewish Communities in Germany since 1945]] (1961), 59 (col. 913)
-- R. Orendick: Die rechtliche und wirtschaftliche Stellung der Juden in Suedwestdeutschland im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert... [[The juridical and economic position of the Jews in South West Germany in 15th and 16th century]] (1965) (col. 913-914)
-- F. Handsnurscher and G. Taddey: Juedische Gemeinden in Baden... [[Jewish Communities in Baden]] (1968)

[T.O.]> (col. 914)

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