Mainz, Germany

MAINZ (in Jewish sources Magentsa), Germany. Established by Italian immigrants in the early tenth century, this Jewish community was one of the oldest in Germany. Many Jewish scholars were born or settled there. Amnon of Mainz, a legendary tenth century martyr, is associated with the U-Netanneh Tokef prayer. After the proclamation of the First Crusade (1096), Emperor Henry IV ordered his nobles and bishops to defend the Jews, but Crusaders attacked the archbishop’s palace in Mainz, where the vastly outnumbered Jews fought a heroic but hopeless battle on 27 May, many preferring suicide to apostasy. The massacre claimed 1100 victims in all and details are preserved in several Hebrew works (especially an elegiac poem by Kalonymus ben Yehuda). The community soon revived and in 1150 the rabbinates of Speyer, Worms and Mainz were empowered to serve as a High Court for the Jews of Germany. When the Black Death struck the region in 1349 and Jews were charged with “poisoning the wells”, they defended themselves against an enraged mob and killed 200 of their assailants, but several thousand Jews perished in the burning Ghetto. Survivors returned in 1357. In 1579, however, Jews were banished from the Rhineland. Following its restoration in 1583, the community built a new synagogue and grew to over 100 families around 1690. The new Age of Enlightenment and improved economic conditions enabled Jews to engage in a wider range of occupations (including medicine), and by 1800 they numbered 1156. During the period of French rule (1792-1814), when Jews were first granted civil rights, they sent delegates to Napoleon’s Assembly of Jewish notables and the French Sanhedrin (1806-07) and a regional consistory were established. Numbering 2665 in 1861, the Jewish population grew to 3500 by 1890. Immigrants from Eastern Europe formed a Jewish proletariat and an independent congregation. During the Weimar Republic, a central welfare agency was established and all the national Jewish organizations had active branches. Jews comprised a high percentage of the city’s physicians and were prominent in civic affairs, commerce, the arts, law, and journalism. The community numbered 2609 when the Nazi regime was established in 1933. The eradication of Jewish influence began with the dismissal of city officials and others in the public sector. On 1 April 1933 SA troops and police inaugurate a boycott of Jewish lawyers, physicians and stores. A ceremonial burning of condemned books took place on 23 June. The last Jewish bank was forced to close in 1935. In its endeavor to sustain Jewish morale, the community organized various welfare schemes and arranged cultural programs with an increasing emphasis on life in Palestine an on Aliyah. By 1938, however, 1074 Jews had left – 649 of these (mostly young people) had emigrated. The East European Jews were expelled in October 1938 and on Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938) a wholesale pogrom was organized in Mainz. SS troops burned down the main (Liberal) synagogue. Nazis also destroyed the community center and the Orthodox Synagogue, Jewish homes were vandalized, a Jew was trampled to death, and about 60 others were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Emigration was finally halted in October 1941, by which time the community had virtually disintegrated, and from September 1942 the remaining 1336 Jews were mostly deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto and Poland. A small community was established after WWII, numbering 133 in 1966.