RIBEAUVILLÉ

RIBEAUVILLÉ (Ger. Rappoltsweiler), town in the Haut-Rhin department, E. France. By 1311 there was a Jewish community in Ribeauvillé large enough to own a synagogue, but it was decimated in the armleder massacres of 1338 and the black death persecutions of 1349. In 1375 a few Jews again lived in Ribeauvillé, but it is not known if there was a community in continuous existence until 1530 when Jews were again expelled from the town, not to return until the close of the 17th century. At the end of the 18th century there were over 300 Jews in Ribeauvillé. During the 19th century the expanding community erected a new synagogue. From the beginning of the 20th century, however, the number of Jews declined to the point where, before the outbreak of World War II, the community had practically ceased to exist. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Germ Jud, 2 (1968), 674f.; E. Schied, Histoire des Juifs d'Alsace (1887), 59, 106, 135, passim; B. Bernhard, Recherches sur l'Hitoire del Ribeauvillé (1888), 69ff., 133, 275; R. Faller, La Situation Economique du Canton de Ribeauvillé à l'Époque du Directoire (1932), 83f.; M. Ginsburger, Les Juifs à Ribeauvillé et à Bergheim (1939). (Bernhard Blumenkranz)