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608 Bayreuth Baze

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Jacob Athias (died 1791); Andrade, appointed grand rabbi of Bordeaux in 1808; David Hezekiah, son of Jacob Athias (died 1822); and his son, Jacob Israel Athias (died 1842). His successor was Samuel Marx, who, at the time of the creation of the consistory of Bayonne in 1846, was promoted to the dignity of the grand rabbinate. At his death in 1887, Elie Aristide Astruc, first a rabbi in Paris, then grand rabbi of Belgium, was elected. He accepted, but retired after four years, and was succeeded by Emile Levy, rabbi of Verdun, who was installed in April, 1892. The Jewish population of Bayonne numbered 1, 100 souls in 1728, 1,000 in 1753, 1,100 in 1808, 1,200 in 1828, 1,293 in 1844. As the result of serious social and economic disturbances, the. population has since begun to diminish. Bibliography: Archives tin Consistoire cle Bayonne; Histoire dc VEtahlisxcment ties Juifs d Bordeaux et a Bayonne Depute lino, par le Citoyen L. F.B., Jurisconsult e du Bfpartemcnt dc la Seine, an 8 dela Bepuhlique Franchise Theophile Malvezin, Histoire des Juifs dc Bordeaux, Bordeaux, 1875; Henry Leon, Histoire des Juifs dc Bauonne, Paris, 1893.

E. Le.

D.

BAYREUTH

Principality and capital city of the government district of Oberfranken, Bavaria. Mention is first made of the Jews of Bayreuth in a document of the j'ear 1343. In that year Kalman of Bayreuth is spoken of as one of the creditors of the burgrave Johann von Niirnberg, and in 1356 Emperor Karl IV. granted the burgrave Friedrich the privilege of receiving Jews into his territory. It is also known that during the persecutions at the time of the Black Death the Jews of Bayreuth suffered considerabl}'. The Jewish community must, however, have originated in earlier times, and there are indications that as early as the fourteenth century it was of considerable size and importance. Thus, in 1372, R. Meyer of Bayreuth

Had a Chief Rabbi



was appointed "Hochmeister

"

(chief

two principalities of Bayreuth and Ansbach, and at the bidrabbi) of the

in 1372.

ding of the burgrave Frederick V. full authority over all the Jews in those districts; and in 1384 the monastery of Langheim owed the Jews of Bayreuth and Culmbach 8,000 pfund heller.* The ghetto in Bayreuth is said to have been built by six foreign Jews in 1441. It is mentioned in connection with some buildings in 1448, and in 1453 a citizen is said to have bought a Jew's house that had been standing after the Hus-

was endowed with

site

wars.

According to the Stadtbuch of Bayreuth, the ledgers of the Jews were not valid for judicial proof. They were not allowed to sell anything in secret, nor could they take in pawn bloody garments, church On utensils, or the armor and weapons of citizens. the other hand, tolerably favorable charters were granted to them by the city of Bayreuth in 1464 and by the elector Albrecht in 1473. According to the latter, no Jew was obliged to stand and answer a Christian, except in the former's home and before a representative of the prince, two pious Christians, and two Jews in good repute. For protection, the Jews paid annualty a sum total of 800 florins, and in addition gave the margravine 700 florins, the eldest

prince 100 florins, and the second 50 florins.


 * A heller

is

an old

G erman

coin equal to one-eighth of a cent.

608

In the fifteenth centur}', two Jews acted as physiI., whose residence was in Bayreuth. The following century, however, the sixteenth, brought doubt and uncertainty to the Jewish community of the principality. The Diet resounded with complaints of the states against the dangerous competition of the Jews, and with requests to expel the betrayers and calumniators of Christianity. Numerous orders of banishment followed. As early as 1488 they were expelled from the dominions of the ma,rgraves FredSixteenth erick and Sigismund, and in 1515 this example was followed by Margrave Century Troublous. George the Pious, who, however, allowed the Jews to return in 1528. Margrave Christian, also, intended to banish them, and was dissuaded only by his wife, Maria. Most of these orders were repealed too quickly to have a serious effect, but those affected by them withdrew from the cities, where they had been tolerated only in restricted districts and in limited numbers, and removed to the territories of the feudal gentry. The center for all the Jews of the district who formed a corporation called the " Land j udenschaf t " was the provincial rabbinate, which had its seat at In 1695 Mendel Rothschild, the rabbi Baiersdorf. at Bamberg (and ancestor of the Freiherr von Rothschild), who officiated at the rabbinate of Bayreuth and Baiersdorf, drew up letters of protection and of privileges for all the Jews then living, or thereafter These settling, in the land and the principality. letters of protection were afterward withdrawn, and new ones were granted by Margrave Georg Wilhelm at his accession in 1712. In 1715, however, the latter again restricted the Jews' privileges, and in 1733 their right of marriage was restricted by Margrave Georg Friedrich Karl, who had wished to expel them as early as 1731. The Jews of Bayreuth were thus dependent wholly on the whims of the margraves, and this uncertain state would have been utterly unendurable for them had not some of them understood how to turn the chronic money difficulcians to the elector Albrecht

—

ties of their rulers to their ists'

own and

—

their coreligion-

advantage.

Of the many Jewish officials and followers in the whose names are preserved in his-

princes' retinues

tory, the following

mentioned



perhaps deserve to be specially Moses Goldschmidt, a learned man of

Hamburg, whom the margrave Georg Friedrich Karl raised to the position of chief rabbi of the province in 1728; Salomon Samson, who had been "resident" of the prince at Baiersdorf in 1708, and who, with his brother, Veit Samson, was appointed warden of the community by the above-mentioned margrave in 1728; and Moses Seckel (Seetzel), the court purveyor and banker, who, in 1759, bought a minor palace belonging to the princely house at Bayreuth. From This building, which is still standing, Ballroom to he converted into a synagogue and Synalmshouse, where ten Jewish families agogue. obtained residence. In the same year, 1759, Benjamin Hirsch Krambambuli of Posen was given permission to settle at Bayreuth and to brew liquors according to the Danzig way; he made no use, however, of this privilege. Jewish Baiersdorf, originally of