Dessau, Germany

A continuous Jewish settlement started in Dessau only in 1672. The Jewish population grew quickly, numbering 25 families in 1685 and peaking in 1818 at 807 individuals (about 9% of the total). A cemetery was established in 1674 and a synagogue in 1687, one of the first to be built in central Germany. Moses Benjamin Wulff, banker at the court of Anhalt, opened a Hebrew printing press in 1694. With branches in several towns, the press operated until 1744. David Fraenkel served as rabbi in Dessau (1737-43), where he opened a beit midrash and initiated a new printing of Maimonides' works. These first signs of the Haskala movement in Dessau left their imprint on the Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86), who was born in Dessau. The progressive Jewish Gymnasium for teachers and rabbis, founded in 1786, was opposed by community members, but the Juedische Freischule (1799-1848), which was committed to Mendelssohn's ideas, became a renowned institute, and in 1825 the Gymnasium, now a seminary for teachers, was merged with it. The Dessau community became one of the earliest Reform communities. Ludwig Philippson (1811-89), one of the future leaders of German Jewish Liberalism, was born here. From 1806 to 1848 Sulamith, the first Jewish periodical to appear in the German language and script, was published here. Although the community had shrunk by 1895 to 458 members, it dedicated in 1908 a new and magnificent synagogue financed by the Cohn-Oppenheim Foundation. Several community members were elected members of the Anhalt parliament. Zionism began to develop among the youth in the 1920s. By 1933, the Jewish population in Dessau numbered 360. On Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938) the synagogue was set on fire, stores and homes were looted, and the Jewish men were taken off to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Of the 121 Jews who were still in Dessau in 1939, most were deported and perished.