GERMANY

GERMANY, country in north central Europe. The Talmud and the Midrash use "Germania" (or "Germamia") as a designation for northern European countries, and also refer to the military prowess of these peoples and to the threat they posed to the Roman Empire (Meg. 6b; Gen. R. 75:9; etc.). Medieval Jewish sources first refer to Germany as "Allemania" or "Lothir" (Lotharingia); later the biblical term "ashkenaz " came into use, and was retained in Hebrew literature and Jewish vernacular until recent times. -Middle Ages There is no substance to the legends extant in the Middle Ages relating that Jews were present in Germany "before the Crucifixion." Supposedly the first Jews to reach Germany were merchants who went there in the wake of the Roman legions and settled in the Roman-founded Rhine towns. Archaeological evidence suggests that Jews may have lived in Augusta Raurica (Kaiseraugst) and Augusta Treverorum (trier ). Imperial decrees regarding the duties of Jewish community officials were sent to Colonia Agrippinensis (cologne ) in 321 and 331 C.E. (Cod. Theod., 16:8, 3–4; Aronius, Regesten, no. 2). There is, however, no evidence of continuous Jewish settlement in Germany from Late Antiquity to the early days of the German Empire. Jews entered Central Europe in this period from the west and the southwest; Jewish merchants from southern Italy and France were welcomed in Germany, and settled in the towns along the great rivers and trade routes. The kalonymos family from Lucca established itself in mainz in the tenth century. In its early stages German Jewry was closely linked with the Jewish communities of Northern France. A 12th-century Jewish scholar mentions a letter he saw in worms , which Rhine Jews had sent to Ereẓ Israel in 960, asking for verification of the rumor that the Messiah had come (REJ, 44 (1902), 238). Ties were also maintained to the academies of Babylonia. Until the end of the 11th century the Jews of Germany engaged in international trade, especially with the East, and were an important element of the urban population. They were concentrated along the west bank of the Rhine, in Lorraine, and in ancient episcopal seats and trade centers, such as Cologne, Mainz, speyer , Worms, and Trier, as well as religious and political centers situated more eastward, such as regensburg and prague . The extant reports of Jewish settlement in Germany are of a haphazard nature, and the dating of such records does not necessarily establish the sequence of settlement. The first mention of Jewish settlement in Mainz dates from c. 900, of Worms from 960, and of Regensburg from 981. Jewish communities in south central Germany (bamberg , wuerzburg ) and thuringia (erfurt ) are mentioned in documents from the 11th century. In breslau and munich Jews are mentioned at the beginning of the 13th century, in vienna in the middle   of that century, and in berlin (and other places) at its end. At the end of the tenth century (or the beginning of the 11th), gershom b. judah ("Me'or ha-Golah") moved from metz to Mainz and that city became noted for Torah learning; the yeshivot of Mainz and Worms became spiritual centers for all the Jews in Central Europe and even attracted students from France, among them the famous rashi . For the Jews, the Carolingian Empire, although no longer a political entity, still remained a single social and cultural unit. Their social and legal status was distinct from that of the general population, and, as a small and largely defenseless minority, they required special protection to safeguard their existence. The first reports of persecution of Jews in Germany date from the 11th century (the expulsion of the Jews of Mainz in 1012), and the first written guarantees of rights, granted to them by emperors and bishops, also date from that century. In 1084 the archbishop of Speyer invited them to settle in his enlarged city "in order to enhance a thousandfold the respect accorded to our town" (Aronius, Regesten, 70 no. 168), and granted the Jews far-reaching trading rights and permission to put up a protective wall around their quarters. This evidence of the high value attached to Jews for settlement of a new town and the expansion of its trade precedes by only 12 years the "gezerot tatnav" (1096; see below). In 1090 Emperor henry IV issued charters of rights to the Jews of Speyer and Worms (ibid., 71–77 nos. 170–1), and succeeding emperors followed his example. All these writs acknowledged the right of the Jews to be judged "by their peers and no others … according to their law" (from a charter of 1090). In another such document, granted to the Jews of Worms in 1157, the emperor reserves for himself the exclusive right of judging the Jews "for they belong to our treasury." The guarantees of rights were given to the community leaders, who were also the spiritual leaders of the community, and were well-to-do men belonging to respected families. Communities that were accorded guarantees already possessed a synagogue (the Worms synagogue was founded in 1034) and public institutions. No reliable figures on the size of these Jewish communities are available; to judge by figures mentioned in the narratives of their martyrdom, there were communities of 2,000 persons (Mainz), but in general they consisted of several hundred, or several dozen. The community regulations enacted by the Jewish communities in Germany, and the commentaries and piyyutim written by their scholars (such as Gershom b. Judah and simeon b. isaac ) reveal a strong and simple faith, and readiness to die for it (and see takkanot of the period). FIRST CRUSADE Their faith was put to the supreme test during the first crusade , from April to June 1096. The brutal massacres that then took place are remembered in Jewish annuals as the gezerot tatnav (i.e., the massacres of 4856 = 1096). The first waves of crusaders turned upon the Jews of the Rhine valley. Although the emperor, the bishops, and Christian neighbors were reluctant to take part in this onslaught and tried to protect the Jews, this defense had small success. Several Hebrew reports written during the first half of the 12th century present a detailed narrative of the indomitable courage and religious devotion of those who chose a martyr's death (kiddush ha-shem ). In Mainz, it is related that "in a single day one thousand and one hundred martyrs were slaughtered and died" (A.M. Habermann (ed.), Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Ẓarefat (1945), 32). The martyrdom of Mainz Jewry was preceded by negotiations with the emperor by Kalonymos ben Meshullam; in response, Henry IV published an order in defense of the Jews, but this was of little help. The Jews offered armed resistance and it was only in the final stage that they committed suicide. Similar events took place in many communities on the Rhine and along the crusaders' route; many Jews chose martyrdom; others managed to save their lives by going into hiding (Speyer, Cologne, Worms, xanten , Metz). Some accepted temporary conversion, as in Regensburg, where "all were coerced" (ibid., 56). Later the emperor permitted their return to Judaism. The beginning of the Crusades inaugurated far-reaching changes in the social and economic structure of the Christian peoples in Western Europe and in their general outlook, and as a result also mark a turning point in the history of German Jewry. Henceforth physical attacks on Jews were more frequent and widespread, especially in periods of social or religious ferment. The city guilds forced the Jews out of the trades and the regular channels of commerce; this coincided with the stricter appliance of the church ban on usury in the 12th to 13th centuries. The combination of circumstances made moneylending and pawnbroking the main occupation of Jews in Germany. They also continued in ordinary trade; as late as the 13th century they dealt in wool, attended the Cologne fairs, and traded with Russia and Hungary; during most of the Middle Ages there were even Jewish craftsmen and Jews had some contact with agriculture . However moneylending, conceived by the Church as usury, became the hallmark of Jewish life in Germany. About 100 to 150 years after usury became the main occupation of Jews in England and France, it became central to the livelihood of Jews in Germany also. Jew hatred and the evil image of the Jew as conceived in the popular imagination were nourished by this economic pattern. Owing to the scarcity of money and lack of firm securities the rate of interest was extremely high. In 1244 the Jews of austria were given a bill of rights by Duke frederick II based on the assumption that interest was the Jews' main source of income; the bill contained detailed regulations on moneylending, and the rate of interest was fixed at 173⅓%. This kind of charter for Jews became typical of those granted in central and eastern Germany (and Poland) in the 13th and 14th centuries. Borrowing money from Jews against pawns became usual among the nobility and the townspeople, and enabled rabble-rousers to accuse the Jews of "sucking Christian blood" and of associating with gentile thieves who pawned their loot with the Jewish moneylenders. The Jews insisted on their right to refuse to return pawns unless reimbursed, a right confirmed as early as 1090. After the end of the 11th century the social status of the Jews steadily deteriorated. The Reichslandfrieden ("Imperial peace   of the land") issued in 1103 includes the Jews among persons who bear no arms and are therefore to be spared violence and defended. The concepts which had determined the status of the Jews from the beginning of their settlement in Germany were now applied with increasing vigor. The need of the Jews for refuge and protection was now utilized by the urge to oppress and exploit them. A long-drawn-out process of legal and social development was finally summed up in 1236 by Emperor Frederick II, when he declared all the Jews of Germany Servi camerae nostrae ("servants of our treasury"; Aronius, Regesten, 216 no. 496). This meant that from the legal point of view the Jews and their property were possessions of the emperor and hence entirely at his mercy. However they never fully experienced the severity of this concept as it was never fully applied to them; in a way, their status as servants of the imperial treasury was even welcomed for it assured them of imperial protection, protection which no other German authority was able or willing to afford them. Long after the concept of the servitude of the Jews had been applied in Germany, meir b. baruch of Rothenburg conceived that "the Jews are not glebae (adscripti = bound) to any particular place as gentiles are; for they are regarded as impoverished freemen who have not been sold into slavery; the government attitude is according to this" (Responsa, ed. Prague, no. 1001; cf. Tos. to BK 58a). The concepts that Jewish lives were not inviolable and that the Jews were in servitude to the country's rulers led to renewed outbursts of anti-Jewish violence whenever a critical situation arose. The second Crusade (1146) was again accompanied by widespread anti-Jewish agitation and incidents of violent persecution. However the experience of 1096 had taught a lesson both to the Jews and to the authorities: the Jews took refuge in the castles of the nobility, whenever possible having the entire citadel to themselves until the danger passed (see A.M. Habermann , op. cit. 117). The preaching of bernard of Clairvaux against doing the Jews physical harm also helped to restrain the masses. Thus a repetition of the earlier terrorization and slaughter did not take place. Between the second Crusade and the beginning of the 13th century the Jews were subjected to numerous attacks and libels but relatively few lost their lives as a result. SPIRITUAL LIFE The events of 1096 had shaken German Jewry to the core; its response came in the form of tremendous spiritual and social creativity. Succeeding generations glorified the deeds of the martyrs and created a whole doctrine around the sanctification of God by martyrdom (kiddush ha-Shem). The ideas of self-sacrifice, akedah , of choosing to meet "the Great Light" rather than apostasy, and of standing up to the attacker, were now formulated and transmitted as permanent principles. A special blessing was inserted into the prayer book to be recited by those who were about to be slain. In the 12th and 13th centuries the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz ("pious men of Germany") formulated the principles of perfect piety, observance of "Heavenly Law" (din shamayim) which is above and beyond the "Law of the Torah," for the latter was given to man taking into account his yeḥer ha-ra ("evil inclination"). They taught that one should regard property as being held on trust (from God) only, and that one should abstain from lust without retiring from family and public life. The way of life to which this group adhered was established, in the main, by the members of a single family: samuel b. kalonymos the Ḥasid of Speyer, his son judah b. samuel he-Ḥasid of Regensburg, and their relative eleazar b. judah (ha-Roke'aḥ) of Worms. Sefer Ẓasidim and Sefer ha-Roke'aḥ, two works written by these men, express the feelings and ideas of the ḥasidim of Germany on the greatness of God, on man's conduct in life, on ghosts and spirits, on sexual temptation and how to withstand it, on the true observance of commandments, and on love of learning as a foremost religious value. SOCIAL LIFE During this period further consolidation of the Jewish communal leadership in Germany took place. Jews increasingly restricted themselves to the Jewish quarter in the town, which gave them a greater feeling of security and made possible the development of an intense social life. The meliores (leading families) accepted the authority of the most eminent scholars. Torah learning was not interrupted in times of trouble and danger. It even received additional impetus from the need to provide leadership for the Jewish public and guidance to the individual, while the number of outstanding scholars also increased. Even the source of livelihood that was forced upon the Jews – lending money against interest – came to be appreciated as an advantage since it left time to spare for Torah study. Moneylending also determined the artificial structure of Jewish life; the Jews derived their income mainly from non-Jews, and there was hardly any economic exploitation of one Jew by another. As a result, there was a large measure of social cohesion in the German communities. The average community maintained a synagogue, a cemetery (or, if it was too small, obtained burial rights in a neighboring town), a bathhouse, and a place for weddings and other public festivities. A scholar attracted groups of students who lived in his home and were cared for by the scholar's wife (A.M. Habermann, op. cit., 165–6). Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg attests that his house was spacious and included "a bet midrash… a winter house (i.e., the main living quarters)… a courtyard for public use… a cool upper room where I eat in summer and… a room… for each student" (Responsa, ed. Cremona, no. 108). Community institutions developed. The community leaders and scholars – in gatherings on fair-days – issued takkanot regulating many spheres of life which were binding upon individual communities or groups of several communities. In the 13th century, eliezer b. joel ha-Levi of Bonn established the principle that a majority decision also obligated the opposing minority, and unanimity was not required (contradicting the 12th-century French scholar jacob b. meir tam ). Communal offices which had come into existence in the 12th and 13th centuries are listed in a document issued by the Cologne community in 1301: Nos Episcopus, magistratus Judeorum ac universi Judei civitatis Coloniensis ("We the bishop i.e., the  (Anfang des Artikels Major medieval Jewish communities in Germany in the 13th century. Major medieval Jewish communities in Germany in the 13th century.   leader), and officers of the Jews and the entire Jewish community of Cologne"; see Judenschreinsbuch, 92–93). From 1220 onward, the "Takkanot Shum," regulations issued by three of the great communities on the Rhine – Speyer, Worms, and Mainz (שו״ם, the initials of the three names) – have been preserved; joint meetings of the leaders of these three communities had a decisive influence on all the Jewish communities in Germany. German Jewry developed an independent leadership with a series of honors and degrees of rank. The intimacy of the small community enabled a person who felt wronged to turn to the public by means of interruption of prayer (see bittul ha-tamid ) in synagogue until he received redress. Families experienced the usual sorrows and joys, and also had their share of frivolities: "wild young men… who liked gambling" (Sefer Hasidim, ed. by J. Wistinetzki (19242), no. 109) and practical jokes at festivities (see also Tos. to Suk. 45a, S.V. Mi-Yad Tinnokot). The main purpose of the takkanot was to strengthen religious life and especially to provide for increased study of the Torah, the observance of sexual purity laws, of the Sabbath, etc. They also introduced innovations designed to strengthen community life: the obligation on the part of each individual to pay his tax assessment and to refrain from false declarations, and the right of the community officers to transfer funds from one purpose to another, when the common good required it. Considerable emphasis was put on strengthening the authority of the community leadership: members of the community were not permitted to accept appointments by the authorities or to ask the authorities for exemption from community taxes; every dispute between Jews had to be brought before Jewish judges; and Jews were not allowed to apply to non-Jewish courts. Excommunication of an individual required the consent of the community, as did the divorce of a wife. Gambling was outlawed and regulations were issued for the preservation of order in the synagogues and law courts and at public celebrations. Lending money to Jews against the payment of interest, and insulting   anyone in public were also prohibited. In the 12th century the Jews still took part in the defense of the towns in which they lived. Eleazar b. Judah tells of "the siege of Worms by a great host on the Sabbath, when we permitted all the Jews to take up arms… for if they had not helped the townspeople they would have been killed… therefore we permitted it" (Sefer ha-Roke'aḥ (Cremona, 1557), 23a, Hilkhot Eruvin, no. 197). In this period, Jews also moved with the eastward trend of the population, and new Jewish communities were established in the east and southeast. Those who joined in the movement of the urban population eastward encountered the terrors and problems of new colonists: "When you build houses in the forest you find the inhabitants stricken with plague since the place is haunted by spirits… They asked the sage what they should do; he answered: Take the Ten Commandments and a Torah Scroll and stretch out a cord the length of the ground, and bring the Torah Scroll to the cord… and then at the end say: 'Before God, before the Torah, and before Israel its guardians, may no demon nor she-demon come to this place from today and for ever'" (Sefer Ḥasidim (ed. Wistinetzki), no. 371). 13TH CENTURY The 13th century brought new troubles upon the Jews. The Fourth lateran Council (1215) decreed that the clergy were to restrict business relations between Christians and Jews, that Jews had to wear signs distinguishing them from the Christians (see badge ), and that they were not to hold any public office. In 1235 the first case of blood libel occurred in Germany (in fulda ) and in the second half of the 13th century the libel of host desecration began to spread in the country. These accusations were to cost many Jewish lives, to cause Jews much anxiety and anguish, and to bring about further deterioration of their image in the eyes of their Christian neighbors, who now came to regard them as corrupt beings, capable of the most abominable crimes. The acceptance of such views of the Jews by the masses occurred at a time when imperial rule was weakening, and the right to the Jews' "servitude to the treasury" was passed on or transferred in different ways and for differing reasons to various local competencies. Religious fanaticism was rising and caused a social ferment in the cities, where the mob vented their anger on the Jews. In 1241, when the Jews of frankfurt on the Main tried to prevent one of their people from converting to Christianity, a Judenschlacht (Jews' slaughter) took place, in which the entire community was butchered by the Christian mob. In 1259 a synod of the Mainz archdiocese ordered that Jews within its borders should wear the yellow badge. In 1285 the entire Jewish community of munich – some 180 persons – was burned to death, victims of a libel that had been spread against them. The Jews also had a heavy tax burden. A partial list of imperial revenue, dating from 1241, reveals that in 25 Jewish communities the Jews paid 857 marks, amounting to 12% of the entire imperial tax revenue for the year (7,127.5 marks) and 20% of the total raised in the German cities. In addition to the regular taxes the Jews also had to make payments in the form of "presents" and bribes, or money was simply extorted from them. In this period – the second half of the 13th century – German Jewry produced great spiritual leaders. Foremost was Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg, whose responsa and instructions guided several generations of Jews. He attacked manifestations of injustice or high-handedness in communal affairs, and in his threnodies and other writings gave expression to the sufferings of his people. In the end, his own fate symbolized the distress of the Jews: trying to escape overseas, like other persecuted Jews in Germany, he was arrested, handed over to the emperor, and died in jail in 1293. PERSECUTIONS OF THE 14TH CENTURY At the end of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th, anti-Jewish excesses by the mob increased in vehemence and frequency, and the authorities were also increasingly oppressive. In 1342 Louis IV of Bavaria decreed that "every male Jew and every Jewish widow, of 12 years and above, is obliged to pay a yearly tax of one gulden." This poll tax was designed to increase the income that the emperor derived from the Jews, which had declined as the result of their "transfer" to lower authorities, and came in addition to the other taxes exacted from the Jews. In 1356 Emperor charles IV transferred his claim over the Jews to the Imperial Electors. Within a period of 50 years the Jews of Germany suffered three devastating blows. In 1298–99, when civil war had broken out in southwest Germany, the Jews were accused of Host desecration, and the Jew-baiter, rindfleisch , gathered a mob around him which fell upon the Jews of Franconia, Bavaria, and the surrounding area, destroying no less than 140 communities (including rothenburg , Wuerzburg, nuremberg , and Bamberg). Many Jews chose a martyr's death and in many places also offered armed resistance. The period 1336–37 was marked by the catastrophe of the armleder massacres, in the course of which 110 communities, from Bavaria to Alsace, were destroyed by rioting peasants. Finally, in the massacres during the black death , in 1348–50, 300 Jewish communities were destroyed in all parts of the country, and the Jews either killed, or driven out as "poisoners of wells." The greatest Jewish scholar of the time, alexander suslin ha-kohen , was among those slain in Erfurt, in 1349. As a result of these three onslaughts, the structure of Jewish life in Germany suffered a severe blow. Nevertheless, only a short while later, Jews were again permitted to take up residence in German cities, where there was no one else to fulfill their function in society of moneylenders. Only a few weeks after the slaughter of the Jews of augsburg the bishop permitted some to return to the city; between 1352 and 1355 Jews reappeared in Erfurt, Nuremberg, ulm , Speyer, Worms, and Trier. Their residence was now based on contracts which contained severe restrictions and imposed numerous payments on them. There was also increased exploitation of the Jews by the emperor; a moratorium on debts, declared by wenceslaus IV in 1385 and again in 1390, dealt a severe blow to the economic situation of the Jews. Jewish vitality, however, was able to assert itself even in the adverse conditions that prevailed after the   Black Death massacres. The scholars assured the continuity of Jewish creativity. In 1365, meir b. baruch ha-Levi established a new school in Vienna, based upon the customs and traditions of the Rhine communities, and his disciples – the "Sages of Austria" – became the spiritual leaders of German Jewry. In east and south Germany, with fewer towns and a relatively backward economy, Jews found it easier to earn their livelihood. This was also the route to poland , which gradually turned into a refuge for the Jews. Until the Reformation there was no change in the precarious situation of the Jews of Germany. On the one hand, the disintegration of the Empire prevented large-scale countrywide expulsions: when the Jews were driven out of one locality they were able to bide their time in a neighboring place, and after a short while return to their previous homes; on the other hand, the lack of a central authority put the Jews at the mercy of local rulers. In general, the emperor, the princes, and the leading classes in the towns gave their protection to the Jews; yet a single fanatic anti-Jewish preacher, John of capistrano , found it possible to inflame the masses against the Jews and to initiate a new wave of persecutions (1450–59) which culminated in the expulsion of the Jews from Breslau. 15TH CENTURY The 15th century was generally marked by libels against Jews and their expulsion from certain areas and most major cities: in 1400 the Jews were expelled from Prague; in 1420, 1438, 1462, and 1473 there were successive expulsions from Mainz; in 1420–21 from Austria; in 1424 from Cologne; in 1440 from Augsburg; in 1475 the blood libel was raised in trent , resulting in anti-Jewish agitation and riots all over Germany, and the expulsion of the Jews from tyrol ; in 1492 a Host desecration libel led to the expulsion of the Jews from mecklenburg ; in 1493 they were driven out of magdeburg , and in the period 1450–1500, out of many towns in Bavaria, Franconia, and Swabia; in 1499 from Nuremberg; in 1510 there was another Host desecration libel and expulsion from brandenburg ; in the same year expulsion from Alsace; and in 1519 from Regensburg. Of the more important cities in Germany, only Frankfurt and Worms still had major Jewish communities after that date. Nevertheless, in the course of the 15th century, amid these tribulations, Jews were also able to branch out into occupations other than moneylending. In the south German communities, there were Jewish wine merchants and petty traders. Jews also began to play a role in the expanding commercial life, acting as intermediaries between the large agricultural producer (such as the monasteries) and the rising city merchant; expelled from the cities and forced to live in the small towns and villages, the Jews bought wool, flax, etc., from the large storehouses and sold these commodities to the wholesale merchant. This was the beginning of a process which culminated in Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries with the Jews entering the service of the nobility as managers of their estates. Jewish life in the small communities of Germany was frequently marked by great material and spiritual hardship. Yet the Jews did all in their power to fulfill the commandments of their faith. israel isserlein 's Pesakim u-Khetavim (Venice, 1545), para. 52, records a "curious event" in south Germany, when several communities had only a single etrog to share among them on the Sukkot festival; they cut the fruit up and sent a piece to each community, and although shriveled by the time it reached its destination, the Jews made the prescribed blessing over their slice of etrog on the first day of the festival. Despite their poverty and sufferings, Jews held on to the normal joys of life. jacob moses moellin permitted "placing tree branches in water on the Sabbath … in order to provide a source of joy for the house" (Jacob b. Moses Moellin, Maharil (Cremona, 1558), 38b); when asked about celebrating a wedding in a community where a local ordinance forbade the participation of musicians, the same rabbi advised that the wedding be moved to another community, where music could be made, rather than have the bride and bridegroom forego the pleasure (ibid., 41b). Even at a time when persecutions were actually taking place, the Jews persisted in their way of life and in study of the Torah. Thus Moses mintz , while writing a halakhic decision, records that "the time limit given us by the bishop (of Bamberg) for leaving the town has been reached, for he would not allow us a single additional day or even hour" (Resp. Maharam Mintz, para. 48). The rabbis' position became widely acknowledged in this period, and they were regarded as "the leaders." It may be assumed that it was Meir b. Baruch ha-Levi's school that established the custom of semikhah (rabbinical ordination) and of awarding the title of Morenu ("our teacher") to a graduate rabbi, a custom which Ashkenazi Jews have still retained. At the same time the rabbis often engaged in bitter quarrels over the question of jurisdiction, and the position of the rabbi. These quarrels largely resulted from the difficulties facing the Jewish spiritual leaders, who tried, in a permanent state of insecurity, to rebuild communities that had been destroyed. The rabbinical leaders of this period – Meir b. Baruch ha-Levi and his disciples, Jacob b. Moses Moellin, Israel Isserlein (author of Terumat ha-Deshen), Moses Mintz, Israel b. Ḥayyim bruna , and others – were dedicated men who did all in their power to establish new yeshivot and spread the study of Torah, but they did not achieve the degree of leadership displayed by their predecessors. An extreme example of a scholar devoted to his yeshivah was that of Jacob b. Moses Moellin "who would live in a house alone with his students, next to the house of his wife the 'rabbanit,' while her sons were with her in her house; nor did he enjoy a mite of his wife's property during her lifetime or eat with her. Only the communal leaders supplied him with sufficient means to support the students of his yeshivah, while he himself earned a livelihood as a marriage broker" (Maharil, 76a). His yeshivah was attended not only by poor scholars, but by "those rich and pampered youths who had tables made for them – when they sat down in their seats they could turn the table in any direction they pleased, and kept many books on them" (Leket Yosher, ed. by J. Freimann (1903), YD 39). The debate with Christianity did not die down in this period, and Yom Tov Lipmann muelhausen raised it   to new heights of sharp polemical argument in his Sefer ha-Niẓẓaḥon (see disputations ). Emperors resorted to the most extreme measures in order to extort money from the Jews. The most extortionate was Sigismund who demanded one-third of their property. In 1407, Rupert of Wittelsbach appointed Israel b. Isaac of Nuremberg to the office of Hochmeister (chief rabbi), and sought to give him sole powers of sequestering Jewish property. The communities, however, refused to acknowledge the authority of a Jew appointed by gentiles and eventually the king abandoned his attempt. Sigismund named several "chief rabbis" for the purpose of improving the collection of the oppressive taxes that he imposed upon the Jews, including well-known rabbinical leaders. It is not clear, however, to what extent these appointments were recognized by the communities, and the responsa literature of the period contains no specific references to such appointments. At any rate, a proposal made by Seligmann Oppenheim Bing (see bingen ) to convene a conference which would create a chief rabbinate was rejected by most of his rabbinical colleagues. In sum, the last few centuries of the Middle Ages were a period of severe and difficult changes for the Jews of Germany. The center of gravity, both in population and intellectual activity, shifted steadily eastward. From their position as desirable traders the Jews were driven by the religious and social forces which gained ascendancy in the 12th and 13th centuries into the despised occupation of usury. The 50 years from 1298 to 1348 took a tragic toll on both life and property. Despite the trials and tribulations of the Middle Ages the Jews of Germany displayed their own creative powers in halakhic literature and religious poetry, and in the establishment of communal institutions. Although they did not disdain the innocent joys of life, they were exacting in the application of the Law and were imbued with the spirit of ascetic piety. Kiddush ha-Shem– martyrdom for the sanctification of God – and their particular pietism (Ḥasidut Ashkenaz), in both theory and practice, were authentic contributions of German Jewry to the realm of supreme Jewish values. (Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson) -From the Reformation To World War I The age of the Reformation was characterized by upheavals in all spheres of life – political, economic, social, religious, and cultural. It also produced new attitudes to Jews and Judaism often of a conflicting nature. When the Middle Ages came to an end, the Jews had suffered expulsion from most German cities, as well as from many other localities and areas: heilbronn 1475, tuebingen 1477, Bamberg 1478, esslingen 1490, Mecklenburg 1492, Magdeburg 1493, reutlingen 1495, Wuerttemberg and Wuerzburg 1498, Nuremberg and Ulm 1499, noerdlingen 1507, the state of Brandenburg 1510, Regensburg 1519, Rottenburg 1520, and saxony 1537. Jews were prohibited from practicing most occupations. Many now had to earn a livelihood from hawking haberdashery, peddling, moneylending, and pawnbroking in the small towns and villages. Interest rates were subject to severe regulations, and wearing of the humiliating badge was enforced. In various states Jews were prohibited from building new synagogues and from holding discussions on religious questions without Church authorization. However, Emperor charles V (at assemblies of the Reichstag in Augsburg 1530, Regensburg 1541, Speyer 1544, and Augsburg 1548) authorized in full the charters granted to the Jews by previous emperors. At the very time that humanism was coming to the fore, the libels against the Jews, accusing them of using human blood for ritual purposes and of desecrating the Host, were continually resuscitated, and resulted in further killings and expulsions: endingen 1470, Regensburg 1476, passau 1477, trent 1475, Sternberg (Mecklenburg) 1492, Engen (Swabia) 1495, Berlin 1500, Langendenzlingen 1503, Frankfurt 1504, Brandenburg 1520. Some humanists acknowledged the religious and moral values inherent in Judaism and took up its defense, but in folk literature and the mystery plays the Jew was depicted as a usurer and bloodsucker, as the Christ-killer and reviler of the Virgin Mary, an associate of Satan and ally of the Turk. Yet the humanist johann reuchlin led a courageous struggle against the defamation of the Talmud and called for equal rights for the Jews, as "cocitizens of the Roman Empire." martin luther , after failing to win them, showed vehement hatred for the Jews, and in his writings called upon the secular rulers to deprive them of their prayer books and Talmud, to destroy their homes, to put them on forced labor or expel them from the land. There were, however, other reforming movements, especially the Anabaptists, who appreciated the Jewish Bible and Judaism and displayed sympathy and love for the Jews. The Jews were also caught in the struggle between the emperor, on the one hand, and the princes and cities, on the other. The emperors, whose power was on the decline, made efforts to retain their control of the Jews, to protect them against local potentates, and to remain the sole beneficiaries of the taxes paid by the Jews. The opposing forces, bent upon establishing their independence of the emperor, also tried to extend their supremacy over the Jews and tax them. When attacking the Jews the princes and city governments were not only motivated by the traditional hatred, but also by their desire to reduce the emperor's authority and force the Jews to seek protection from them rather than the emperor. As a result, the Jews were often forced to pay taxes to two or even three different authorities. This situation, however, also prevented a general expulsion of the Jews from Germany at a time when this had become the lot of the Jews in most countries of Western Europe. The Jews also became the subject of controversy between the local rulers and the Estates (Staende) – the nobility, the ruling clergy, and the privileged townsmen. The latter had the power of levying taxes and tried to extend their power in various ways, including control of the Jews. To some degree the persecutions of Jews in the 15th and 16th centuries, which coincided with a rise in the power of the Estates, were the result of this struggle; thus, the Host desecration libel against Jews in Brandenburg, in 1510, was also an expression   of the opposition of the Estates to Elector Joachim I, who had given several Jews permission to settle in the country, despite the Estates' objections. Other internal differences also affected the situation of the Jews, such as the antagonism between the princes and the landed gentry, and the cities. The former would permit Jews who had been expelled from the cities to settle on their lands, thereby gaining additional taxpayers who were also skilled merchants able to compete with the hated townsmen and provide the princes and estate-owners with better and cheaper supplies. The sweeping economic changes that took place in the 16th and 17th centuries also had their effect upon the situation of the Jews. The early manifestations of nascent capitalism caused much suffering among the masses of the people. Failing to grasp the meaning of the social and economic upheaval, they found in the Jew a scapegoat on whom they could blame their troubles, whom they had always been taught to regard as their enemy and exploiter. The demands for equality and justice which emerged from the social unrest in the cities included a call for the expulsion of the Jews "for the devastating harm that their presence brings to the plain people." The patrician class, which had supported the Jews in the cities, made way to the guilds, who adhered to a narrow social and economic outlook and would not tolerate any competition. They were also opposed to foreigners, especially if these were infidels. The numerous instances of expulsion that occurred in this period were to a large degree the outcome of these new developments in the structure of the economy. An outstanding Jewish personality of this period was joseph (Joselman) b. Gershon of Rosheim who in the course of his life made tremendous efforts to ease the lot of German Jewry and enable them to withstand the onslaught of the diverse forces arraigned against them. THE ABSOLUTIST PRINCIPALITIES Absolutism, followed by enlightened absolutism, and the mercantile system of economy introduced into kingdoms and principalities, brought far-reaching changes in the situation of the Jews. In its enlightened and mercantilist version, the system that now evolved regarded interests of state as supreme and attached the greatest value to money, commerce, and increase of population; it also came to judge the Jews from the point of view of these interests. The taxes paid by the Jews were highly lucrative, for they were among the few paid directly into the coffers of the ruler, and did not depend upon the consent of the Estates. Rulers welcomed wealthy Jews with capital and economic experience who could make important contributions to internal and international trade and to the development of industry. In hamburg , Portuguese Jews who had been expelled from their native country founded the Hamburg Bank which promoted commerce with Spain and Portugal and traded in tobacco, wine, textiles, cotton, etc. Saxony invited Jews to the leipzig Fair in order to forge new trade links with Switzerland, Holland, Italy, and England. Karl Ludwig, the enlightened elector of the Palatinate – a land which had been devastated by the Thirty Years' War – invited Jews to settle there in order to help restore trade and found industries. In Brandenburg, Frederick William, "the Great Elector," permitted 50 Jewish families who had been driven out of Austria to settle in Berlin and elsewhere, granting them extensive privileges and unrestricted trade throughout the country (1670/71). Jews were allowed to settle in frankfurt on the Oder, in order to infuse new life into the fair held in that city; in cleves , in order to facilitate transit trade with Holland; in pomerania and East Prussia, in order to attract commerce to the eastern portion of the country; and in Berlin itself, in order to make it the commercial center of Brandenburg and northeast Germany. The regime of the absolutist states instituted a system of supervision of the Jews which both regulated every detail of their lives and exploited them (see frederick II of Prussia). An unending series of laws and regulations, ordinances, decrees, patents, and privileges, circumscribed the entry and settlement of Jews, the length of their stay, the number of marriages and number of children, matters of inheritance and guardianship, the conduct of business and their moral behavior, their taxes, and even the goods they had to buy, for instance, china –Judenporzellan – in Prussia. Violation of these provisions resulted in severe penalties (and see austria , berlin , prussia ). SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE In their internal organization, the Jewish communities, up to the 18th century, continued to base themselves in the main upon the pattern established in the Middle Ages. In many of the communities that had reestablished themselves after an earlier expulsion, leadership became largely a function of wealth. It was not until after the chmielnicki massacres of 1648 and the Russian-Polish war (1654–55) that scholars, preachers, and teachers from Poland and Lithuania who took refuge in Germany began to play an important role in Jewish education. At the end of the 17th century the absolutist rulers adopted a policy of interfering in the internal affairs of the communities; as a result, the authority of the autonomous community organs was gradually reduced – a development which corresponded with the abolition of the powers that had previously been vested in the guilds and city councils. Following upon the Thirty Years' War, proper conferences of rabbis and community leaders were convened, to which "all the Jewish residents" of the country were invited, in order to decide upon a fair distribution of the tax burden. The powers of these conferences were severely restricted; they could not be held without official permission, and the authorities fought to confine their activities to tax collection. Nevertheless, the conferences in fact became an overall community forum and dealt with all matters that had traditionally been the concern of Jewish autonomous bodies (and see landjudenschaft ). The authority of the rabbis was reduced in the 18th century by both the secular leaders of the communities and by the authorities, and when emancipation was introduced, they were divested of their juridical powers. The ferment and crisis caused by the shabbateans had a profound effect upon Jewish social and spiritual life in Germany   at the end of the 17th century. The two great scholars and spiritual leaders of this period were Jair Ḥayyim bacharach and Ẓevi Hirsch ashkenazi . The memoirs of glueckel of Hameln reflect the life of well-to-do Jews in the 17th to 18th centuries – their business methods, piety, family life, and ties maintained with neighbors. She gives a vivid description of messianic fervor in Germany with the appearance of Shabbetai Ẓevi. messianism and kabbalah remained at the center of Jewish spiritual life in Germany until the middle of the 18th century as a result of the passions aroused by the fierce controversy between Jonathan eybeschuetz and jacob emden . At the same time, affluent Jews in urban communities began to adapt their ways of life to that of the Christian burghers. Around 1700 young women took Italian or French language lessons with Christian teachers, and entertained themselves learning how to draw or play a musical instrument. The deficiencies of the Jewish educational system, which took little if any interest in the education of girls and failed to provide a well-founded and consequential curriculum for boys, were decried by many authors of that time. Towards the close of the early modern era, the social, economic, religious, and cultural profile of German Jewry was highly diversified. COURT JEWS A characteristic innovation of the era of absolutism and the mercantile system was the appearance of the court jews . Some of the Court Jews abandoned Jewish tradition and their ties with the Jewish people; others remained faithful and used their wealth and position to help their brethren. In some instances their intervention succeeded in averting anti-Jewish measures; they built synagogues at their expense, published religious books, and founded institutions of learning. Court Jews were instrumental in reestablishing communities that had been destroyed during the Reformation (e.g., in dresden , Leipzig, kassel , brunswick , and halle ). The precariousness of their position could affect both themselves and the Jewish community; as they were dependent upon the whim of the absolutist ruler, any change in his attitude could mean their downfall, and this was often followed by anti-Jewish measures of a general nature. In fact the Court Jews led a double life, often marked by tragedy – as instanced by such figures as samuel oppenheimer , samson wertheimer , and Joseph Suess oppenheimer . HASKALAH Toward the end of the 18th century there were significant changes in the situation of German Jewry. Large parts of Poland were incorporated into Prussia and their substantial Jewish population became a reservoir of manpower and spiritual values for German Jewry as a whole. At the same time the growth of the Jewish population in major urban centers – such as Berlin – where the Jewish communities were comparatively new and unencumbered by age-old local tradition and custom furthered the turn toward assimilation in German society. The background to this development was the Haskalah (enlightenment) movement, which was met in its aspirations by the claims of enlightened gentiles for the "moral and social betterment" of the Jews and the abolishment of all social and legal discrimination (see also C.W. von Dohm ; W. von Humboldt ; joseph II; G.E. Lessing ). These developments gave rise to considerable ferment in German Jewry. Moses mendelssohn , who wrote and published in Hebrew and German, and whose works made major contributions to pre-Kantian German philosophy as well as to Jewish spiritual life, was widely esteemed as the representative figure of German Jewry in the enlightenment period. Rabbis of the period, such as David Tevele schiff of Lissa and Akiva eger , took up the struggle against the "enlightened" and the assimilationists, but the bans and excommunications they issued failed to turn the tide. EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION The emancipation granted to the Jews of France by the french Revolution was soon carried over into Germany by the revolutionary armies. In the states on the left bank of the Rhine, which were incorporated into the French Republic, the Jews became French citizens. When more German states were conquered by napoleon , and the Confederation of the Rhine was created, these states, upon French insistence, also declared equal rights for the Jews and granted them freedom to engage in commerce on the same basis as all other citizens (e.g., in Wuerttemberg and the grand duchy of berg ). Napoleon's "infamous decree" of 1808, which imposed restrictions on Jewish trade and commerce and limited the freedom of movement, was a serious setback to Jewish emancipation in the areas under French domination but was not reinforced in 1818. In Frankfurt and in the Hanseatic cities emancipation was announced in 1811. In 1808 the Jews of baden were declared "free citizens of the state for all time" and in 1809 a "Supreme Israelite Council" was formed in that state, which had the task of reforming Jewish education so that the Jews should reach the same cultural and spiritual standards as their environment and eventually achieve full equality. In Prussia, emancipation of the Jews was part of the reforms introduced by H.F.K. von Stein and K.A. Hardenberg after the defeat suffered by the kingdom in 1806/07. This was followed by the edict of 1812 granting equal rights and privileges to the Jews, and the abolition of the special taxes imposed on them. In Bavaria, the edict of 1813 declared the Jews full citizens of the state but severely restricted their freedom of residence. These regulations, aimed at limiting and, if possible, reducing the number of Jews, were a main factor behind the massive emigration of young Jews from Bavaria to the United States in the following decades. POST-NAPOLEONIC REACTION The fall of Napoleon and the victory of the Holy Alliance resulted, almost everywhere, in the restoration of the previous state of affairs and the withdrawal of the equality that the Jews had achieved. Although the Congress of vienna had decided that the rights granted to the Jews in the various German states should be retained, the newly restored governments interpreted this decision as not applicable to the rights given to the Jews by the French or by the governments appointed by Napoleon. The "Jewish statutes," enacted by the Prussian provincial governments,   repealed the 1812 emancipation edict in fact, although the edict as such was not canceled. Anti-Jewish feelings revived in the post-Napoleonic period, not only because the political and economic emancipation of the Jews was regarded as one of the Napoleonic reforms that had to be removed, but also as part of a spiritual and cultural reaction, an expression of a Christian-Teutonic, romantic and nationalist Weltanschauung. The new conservatism sought to replace the ideals of equality of the French Revolution with the harsh tradition of the past, and regarded the patriarchal state and feudal institutions as the natural political way of life for the German people. This view of state and society was accompanied by an emotional religious revival, and the concept of a "Christian-Teutonic" or "German-Christian" state came into being. In the effort to forge a German national identity the Jews, as "strangers within," were often portrayed as the negative counterpart of the Germans. A sharp literary debate was waged over the Jewish problem and the place of the Jews in the German state and society. Opinions on the preconditions, the pace, and the range of further emancipatory steps varied greatly, and the more vehement advocates of a "German-Christian" state rejected such steps altogether unless the Jews would renounce Judaism. The clash between the rationalist and romantic concept of society largely marked the relations between Germans and Jews in the period from 1815 to 1848. Anti-Jewish agitation was especially intense in the years after the Congress of Vienna, and in 1819 the hep-hep riots spread across large parts of Germany and even Denmark. ASSIMILATION AND REFORM At the beginning of the 19th century, the social, economic, and legal conditions as well as the religious and cultural horizons of Jewish life were more diverse than ever before in German-Jewish history. The cultural and intellectual reorientation of the Jewish minority was closely linked with its struggle for equal rights and social acceptance. While earlier generations had used solely the Yiddish and Hebrew languages among themselves, and few had possessed even a limited reading ability in German, the use of Yiddish was now gradually abandoned, and Hebrew was by and large reduced to liturgical usage. Elementary schooling was made mandatory for Jewish children – in Baden in 1809, in Prussia in 1824 – and remaining Jewish educational institutions were put under the surveillance of state authorities. The juridical competence of the Rabbinate, already weakened in the era of Absolutism in most German states, was further reduced, as was Jewish communal autonomy in general. While the need for profound changes and an adaptation of Jewish life and Judaism to the circumstances and necessities of the modern era was widely acknowledged, opinions on the nature, the direction, and the extent of such changes differed greatly. Jewish intellectuals like Rachel varnhagen , henriette hertz , eduard gans , friedrich julius stahl , August neander , Ludwig boerne , and Heinrich heine converted to Christianity, but the overall importance of baptism, and the numerical loss it inflicted on German Jewry in this era, have often been overstated. Others sought to preserve what they regarded as the essence of Judaism. They initiated reform in Jewish religion, to ease the burden of the precepts which prevented Jews from establishing close relations with the people among whom they lived, and to stress and develop in Judaism spiritual and ethical concepts of faith and life. This was the attitude of the "Society for the Culture and Science of Judaism," among whose founders were Isaac Levin auerbach , E. Gans, H. Heine, Isaac Marcus jost , Moses moser , and Leopold zunz . The desire to employ the criteria and methods of modern scholarship in the field of traditional Jewish learning gave rise to the wissenschaft des Judentums, which soon made Germany the center of scientific study of Jewish history and culture. The actual reformers – abraham geiger , Samuel holdheim , and their associates, sought to reshape the Jewish faith so as to make it compatible with the spirit and culture of the time and facilitate the achievement of equal rights and creation of close relations with Christians. These reformers were violently opposed by the leaders of traditional Judaism of the time, and bitter strife ensued. Other trends emerged which attempted to find a compromise between the two extremes – the "historical-positive" school of Zacharias frankel , and "neo-orthodoxy ," founded by Samson Raphael hirsch and Azriel (Israel) hildesheimer . In several places the Neo-Orthodox, who were unwilling to retain organizational ties with their Reform brethren, founded separate communities. In 1876 Prussia adopted the Austrittsgesetz ("Law on Withdrawal from the Jewish Community") under which Jews were permitted to dissociate from the existing Jewish community for religious reasons, and yet be recognized as Jews. By this act the compulsory membership of the community, provided for in a law adopted in 1847, was abolished; the "separatist" Orthodox communities (Austrittsgemeinde) were legalized and at the same time individual Jews were enabled to leave the organized Jewish community without having to go through formal conversion. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL LIFE From the political and sociological aspect, the history of German Jewry in the first half of the 19th century is marked by their economic and social rise, and by the struggle for emancipation. (See Table: Socio-Economic Structure – Jews.) The political reaction of the "Holy Alliance" period, while succeeding in depriving the Jews of most of their political achievements, had little effect upon their rights in economic and commercial matters. Jews entered all branches of economy in the cities, contributing to the development of industry and capitalism and benefiting from it. At the end of the 18th century most of the German Jews still lived in small towns, their communities rarely exceeding a few dozen families; even in the "large" communities such as Hamburg or Frankfurt they numbered no more than several hundred families (1,000 to 2,000 persons). In the course of the 19th century many Jews left the small towns for the large centers of commerce. Augmented also by the influx of Jews from the east, the communities expanded rapidly, and by the end of the   century most of the Jews of Germany lived in the large cities – Breslau, Leipzig, Cologne, in addition to Hamburg and Frankfurt, and particularly in Berlin, which eventually comprised one-third of German Jewry. The standard of living of many Jewish merchants, industrialists, and bankers equaled that of the German middle and upper classes. A large class of Jews in the liberal professions came into being and Jews took an increasingly active part in cultural life, in literature, and science. This development served to step up the Jewish demand for emancipation. Both Reform and Neo-Orthodox felt that the grant of equal rights should not depend upon any demand for diminution of their Jewish identity according to the conceptions of each trend. In this they encountered opposition even on the part of Christian liberals, such as H.E.G. Paulus and H. von Treitschke , who held that so long as the Jews clung to their religious practice and maintained their specific communal cohesion they were not entitled to participation in the political life of the country. While these liberals did not demand apostasy, they felt that full rights should not be granted to the Jews unless they abandoned their distinctive practices, such as kashrut, observance of the Sabbath, and even circumcision. The Jews, on the other hand, encouraged by their economic progress and the rise of their educational level, took strong exception to this view, voicing their opinion that equality was a natural right that could not be withheld from them, whatever the pretext. Convinced that their struggle was intimately connected with the full social and political liberation of the German people and the creation of a free, democratic, and liberal German state, they pleaded their cause before the German public in word and print and took an active part in the German movement for national and political liberation. The chief spokesman of the Jewish struggle for emancipation was Gabriel riesser ; others were johann jacoby and Ludwig Boerne. Jewish Socio-Economic Structure, Germany (percent)") Jewish Socio-Economic Structure, Germany (percent)   1895 1907 Agriculture 1.4 1.3 Industry and trades 19.3 22.0 Commerce and transportation 56.0 50.6 Hired workers 0.4 0.6 Public services and liberal professions 6.1 6.5 Self-employed with no profession 16.7 19.0 EMANCIPATION Jews took part in the 1848–49 revolution and there were several Jews among the members of the Frankfurt Parliament (including Gabriel Riesser). The "Basic Laws of the German People" promulgated by this parliament extended equal rights to the Jews by accepting the principle that religious affiliation should in no way influence the full enjoyment of civil and political rights. Ironically, anti-Jewish violence was widespread in many areas during the revolutionary unrest, and often aimed at thwarting further emancipatory steps. The achievements of 1848–49 were curtailed by the reaction that set in during the 1850s, following the collapse of the revolutionary movement; however, the rise of the middle classes, including the Jews, did not come to a halt, and liberal tendencies continued to make headway. Nor did the Jews themselves give up the struggle. In 1869 the North German Confederation abolished the civil and political restrictions that still applied to the members of certain religions; after the 1870 war, the same law was adopted by the south German states and included in the constitution of the newly established German Reich. Many German Jews now felt that the attainment of political and civil equality had also erased their separate Jewish identity, not only in their own estimation but in that of the Germans as well. In the period from 1871 to 1914, German Jews indeed became a part of the German people from the constitutional point of view, and, in a large measure, also from the practical point of view. According to the law, every sphere of German life became open to them, whether economic, cultural, or social, with one exception: they were not permitted to participate in the government of the country. But usually, in spite of the constitutional guarantees, Jews were not appointed to official positions, nor could they become officers in the army. In general, Jews were also barred from appointments as full professors at the universities, although there were large numbers of Jews of lower academic rank. Jews were active in the economy of the country and some became leading bankers, industrialists, and businessmen; there was also a large number of Jews in the liberal professions. Jews were among the founders and leaders of the political parties; the Liberal and Social-Democrat parties usually had a number of Jewish members in the Reichstag. In the sciences and technology, in Jewish Population in Germany, 18712001 Jewish Population in Germany, 1871–2001   Year Jewish population 2"> 1 Jews defined by religion. 2"> 2 Jews defined by Nuremberg law. 2"> 3 Estimated number includes displaced persons. 1871 512,158 1880 562,612 1890 567,884 1900 586,833 1910 615,021 1925 564,379 1933 503,0001 1939 234,0002 1941 164,000 1942 51,000 1943 31,910 1944 14,574 1946 156,7053 1948 153,0003 1949 55,0003 1952 23,000 1957 30,000 1964 31,000 1969 30,000 1994 45,000 2001 103,000   literature, the press, the theater and the arts the share of Jews was disproportionately high. The Jewish population in Germany numbered 512,158 in 1871 (1.25% of the total), 562,612 in 1880 (1.24%), 567,884 in 1890 (1.15%), 586,833 in 1900 (1.04%), and 615,021 in 1910 (0.95%). (See Table: Jewish Population in Germany.) Demographically, German Jewry shared many of the general characteristics of a largely urbanized population element and was among the first communities to feel the effects of the practice of birth control. At the beginning of the 20th century natural increase among German Jewry came to a complete end. It was the steady influx from the east which enabled German Jewry to maintain its numerical strength. ANTISEMITISM In the period following the foundation of the German Reich a shadow fell across the tranquility and prosperity enjoyed by German Jewry which darkened increasingly: the manifestation of antisemitism among the German public. Although its virulence varied, it existed throughout this period, and took on the form of political movements. It did not, however, affect the formal legal status of the Jews who therefore regarded antisemitism as mainly a social, cultural, and spiritual problem; its potential political strength and danger were not recognized by either Jews or non-Jews. INTERNAL LIFE Despite widespread assimilation, independent Jewish creativity did not come to an end. For a significant part of German Jews, Jewish consciousness retained its strength. The constant influx of Jews from the east ("Ostjuden") was also an important factor in preventing total assimilation. The presence of these newcomers created a certain amount of tension, both among Germans who resented their successful integration into economic life, and among the "old" Jewish families, who disapproved of the Ostjuden manners and of the way they had of making themselves conspicuous in the community. Zionism had an early start among German Jewry. Although small in numbers, the Zionists were well organized and worked effectively for their cause. German Jews were among the leaders of the World Zionist Movement; two of the presidents of the World Zionist Organization – D. wolfsohn and O. Warburg – were German Jews, as was the founder and organizer of agricultural settlement in Ereẓ Israel, A. Ruppin . After the death of Theodor Herzl, the headquarters of the Zionist Organization was moved to Germany and remained there even during World War I. By their high standard of general education and strict separation from Reform Jews, the German Neo-Orthodox exercised a profound influence upon observant Jews in other parts of the world. They had created a new type of Jew, who could be a qualified professional man, highly educated and versed in the manners of the world, and yet at the same time strictly observant of religious practice. It was men of this type who became the leaders of the world movement of agudat Israel after the founding of that organization in 1912. Orthodox chaplains serving in the German forces during World War I did a great deal to spread the principles of Agudat Israel among East European Jews. The confrontation with East European Jewish life also had a profound influence on German Jews serving in the forces; they were attracted by the wholesomeness of the life led by the Jewish masses, and many became convinced Zionists. German Jewish life was well organized. Organizations were established for the consolidation of the communities and for combating antisemitism (see centralverein ), for social welfare (the "Hilfsverein" ), for research and studies (the rabbinical seminars: the breslau Juedisch-theologisches Seminar, established in 1854; the Berlin hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums, founded in 1872; the rabbinerseminar fuer das orthodoxe judentum in Berlin, also founded in 1872; the Historical Commission established in 1885, etc.). All were active and highly efficient. Throughout the second half of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th, German Jewry occupied a highly respected place among world Jewry, exercising a profound influence on Jewish centers in Eastern and Western Europe, in America, and in Ereẓ Israel. (Samuel Miklos Stern) -1914–1933 The history of German Jewry in the interwar period is sharply divided into two chapters: the period up to 1933, which was a time of great prosperity; and the period which began in 1933, a year which was to mark the beginning of the tragic end of German Jewry. Over 100,000 Jews had served in the German army during World War I, and 12,000 Jews fell in battle. At the end of the war, when the monarchy had fallen and a democratic republic was established, it seemed that the Jews had achieved full emancipation. Any restrictions that were still in force were abolished by the Weimar Republic, and Jews could now participate in every sphere of public life. Their share and influence in the political life of the country reached unprecedented proportions. Many of the leaders of the democratic and socialist parties were Jews, as were two of the six "people's commissars" which made up the first post-revolutionary German government (O. Landsberg and H. Haase ). In Bavaria, Jews played an even more significant role; the head of the revolutionary government was a Jew, Kurt eisner , and the majority of the prominent representatives of the two Soviet-type governments set up after Eisner's murder consisted of Jewish intellectuals (Eugen Leviné , Gustav landauer , Ernst toller , etc.). The inquiry commission which was to determine the responsibility of the military leadership for Germany's defeat had among its members Oscar cohn , a Social Democrat and Zionist. The Weimar Constitution was drafted by a Jew, hugo preuss ; another Jew, Walther rathenau , first became minister of reconstruction and later foreign minister: his murder by young extremists was motivated largely by antisemitism. Several Jews were appointed to high positions in the civil service, especially in Prussia. The rise of Jews to positions of political power added to their economic and social advance, but also increased hostility among the population. Antisemitic propaganda exploited a series of financial scandals and bankruptcies   Major Jewish communities in Germany in 1933 and 2003. Major Jewish communities in Germany in 1933 and 2003.   in which Jews were involved. The background to these events was the great social and economic crisis which gripped Germany as a result of the terrible inflation after the war. Right-wing circles in Germany, anxious to divert public attention from the real beneficiaries of inflation – the "pure Aryan" industrial and financial barons and their giant enterprises – were more than ready to use the anti-Jewish propaganda for their purposes. The middle class, heavily hit by the economic upheaval, the nobility and the officer class who felt their honor besmirched by the defeat and whose privileges were abolished in the revolution, were all easily swayed by the idea that it was the Jews who were to blame for all of Germany's misfortunes – that "the Jews had stabbed the undefeated German army in the back," and thus forced it to surrender; that Capitalism and "Marxism" (i.e., Bolshevism and Socialism) were the result of the machinations of "World Jewry." In the 1920s, however, the full implications of this antisemitic mood had not yet become apparent, and the situation of the Jews seemed satisfactory. It was not until 1933, when the Nazis came to power and based their program upon the "doctrine of race" – i.e., hatred of Jews – that the role of the "Jewish problem" for the internal historical development of Germany stood fully revealed. Throughout the Weimar Republic antisemitism did not disappear. Even the assimilationists among the Jews had to acknowledge this fact, and some reacted by over-emphasizing their German nationalism, thereby hoping to set themselves apart from the rest of the Jews. As a result of the large increase of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, the old difference between "Eastern" and "Western" Jews became more pronounced and had many practical implications. Jewish organizations did their best to facilitate the absorption of the newcomers and created special institutions for this purpose, such as the Welfare Bureau for Jewish Workers. Among a certain segment of German Jews there was now also deep   admiration of an "authentic" East European culture, as can be seen in the enthusiastic reception of Yiddish and Hebrew theater groups, the popularity of Martin Buber's ḥasidic tales, and new cultural creations idealizing East European Jewry, such as Arnold Zweig's Das Osjüdische Antlitz ("The Eastern Jewish Countenance") with drawings of Hermann Struck. According to the 1925 census, there were 564,379 Jews in Germany, representing 0.9% of the total population. One-third lived in Berlin, another third in the other large cities, while the remaining third lived in 1,800 different places with organized Jewish communities and another 1,200 places where there were no organized communities. (See Map: Germany.) Most of the Jews made their living in commerce and transportation and in the liberal professions; in the large cities, one-third or even more of the lawyers and doctors were Jews; they also played a prominent role in the press, in literature, in the theater, and in other forms of entertainment. In general, the Jews belonged to the middle class and were well off. Although many had lost their savings in the inflation, they recovered from the effects of this crisis, and when the Nazis came to power, there was again a great deal of capital in the hands of individual Jews and the Jewish communities. The absorption of Jews into all spheres of German life was accompanied by record numbers of mixed marriages, and an increasing number of Jews formally "dissociated" themselves from the community. COMMUNAL ORGANIZATION Between the two World Wars, the Jewish communities presented a model of organization. The Weimar Constitution retained official recognition of the Jewish communities as entities recognized by public law and their right to collect dues. In general, a Jewish community had a representative body, elected by the community members, and an executive committee, elected in turn by the representative body and consisting of three to seven members. A point under dispute was the voting rights of Jews of foreign nationality (the Ostjuden), who in some communities amounted to a substantial proportion of the total membership. Although the "foreigners" had equal rights to the religious and social services provided by the community, in some places they had no equal right to vote, or were given that right only after long years of local residence. The fiercest fights for their voting rights were in Saxony, where East European Jews constituted the majority and German Jews insisted on keeping control over the communities by creating separate ballots for the two groups. By the end of the Weimar Republic, however, most communities had given equal voting rights to non-German citizens and women. The longstanding domination of the communities by the Liberals was shattered in a few communities, most notably in Berlin, where in 1926 a coalition of Zionist, Orthodox, and East European Jews received a majority of the votes. In 1930, the Liberals were voted back in. In the various states of which the Reich was made up, there existed "state unions" of Jewish communities. For a long time the need was felt for a national union of Jewish communities, but there were differences of opinion as to the form this should take; some thought that it should be a union of individual communities, others preferred a national union of the state unions, while a third proposal called for a kind of Jewish parliament, elected by direct democratic vote (the last plan was supported by the Zionists). By the time a national union was finally established, shortly before Hitler came to power, the organizational form of the communities, and the tasks they faced, were about to undergo a radical change. Apart from the religious and cultural tasks they performed, the community organizations were most active in social welfare; this was true of the period preceding 1933, and became even more important after that turning point. In 1917 a central welfare bureau for German Jewry was set up, the zentralwohlfahrtstelle , whose membership consisted of the communities as well as of many private institutions, trusts, and societies. The bureau cooperated with the main non-Jewish welfare agencies in the country, as well as with the american jewish joint distribution committee , and published its own monthly. It supervised hospitals, clinics, counseling centers, bureaus, and a variety of other public institutions, and had some 2,000 welfare agencies affiliated with it. In the large communities expenditure on welfare amounted to as much as 30% of the total budget. Agencies concerned with youth, and with immigrants passing through Germany on their way overseas, also played an important role. In addition to the organizations based on the communities, there were also a large number of other societies, as well as cultural and scientific institutions. Jewish life in general was marked by the struggle between Jewish nationalism and various degrees of assimilation. Zionism succeeded in revolutionizing the life of the communities, and the councils, in addition to "notables," now also contained democratically elected members who represented national-Jewish interests. The following were the main organizations of German Jewry in the period: Centralverein (CV) deutscher Staatsbuerger juedischen Glaubens ("Central Organization of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith"); Zionistische Vereinigung fuer Deutschland (ZVFD; "Zionist Organization of Germany"); Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden ("Aid Society of German Jews"); the religious organizations – Agudat Israel, Ahdut, vereinigung fuer das liberale Judentum; B'nai B'rith ; verband national-deutscher Juden ("Union of Jews of German Nationality"); reichsbund juedischer Frontsoldaten ("Reich Association of Jewish War Veterans"); the various rabbinical associations, and associations of teachers and cantors; etc. An important role in the cultural life of German Jewry was played by the academic organizations: kartell-convent (KC) deutscher Studenten juedischen Glaubens ("National Fraternity of German Students of the Jewish Faith"), affiliated to the Centralverein; Bund juedischer Akademiker (BJA, an association of Orthodox academies); Kartell juedischer Verbindungen, the Zionist student organization. A substantial number of Jewish youth in Germany were members of Jewish youth movements. Some of the youth organizations were sponsored by the Centralverein, and others by the Orthodox; a third type were the Zionist youth organizations. The latter encouraged   pioneer settlement in Ereẓ Israel, maintained training centers, and supplied a small but steady flow of immigrants. The Centralverein was the largest and most important organization, which published its own newspaper. It advocated a synthesis of Judaism and "Germanism," emphasized defense of Jewish civil rights, and regarded German Jewry as an integral part of the German people. Other periodicals were der israelit (published by Agudat Israel); Juedisch-liberale Zeitung; Der Schild (published by the veterans' organization); der jude , a Zionist monthly, edited by Martin buber ; and Der Morgen, a monthly published by the Centralverein. The official organ of the Zionist movement, juedische rundschau , a weekly (which in its last years appeared twice a week), eventually became the leading Jewish paper published in Germany. Despite differences of outlook, there was close cooperation between the various organizations. An outstanding example was the establishment of the keren hayesod in Germany in 1922 which was based on cooperation between Zionists and non-Zionists, and served as a preliminary stage to the enlarged jewish Agency (1929). The Zionist Organization included Zionist party organizations (Mizrachi, poalei-zion , hapo 'el ha-Ẓair-Hitaḥdut, etc.). CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE The "Jewish Renaissance," a term coined by Martin Buber in 1900, culminated in the Weimar Republic. This brief period witnessed the creation of a modern Jewish adult education system, literary and artistic creations in the German language, the rise of a Jewish youth movement, and the revival of Jewish schools. While only a minority of German Jews was active in the various forms of Jewish cultural creativity, a counter-movement to the still continuing tendency of assimilation could now be observed. In 1920 Franz rosenzweig established the Freies Juedisches Lehrhaus ("Free Institute of Jewish Learning") in Frankfurt, which in its heyday attracted over 1,000 adult students who often were assimilated Jews like Rosenzweig himself. Other cultural institutions were the Juedische Volkshochschule ("Jewish College of Adult Education") in most larger cities; the Toynbee Halls, which also served as centers of social work; and the short-lived Juedisches Volksheim ("Jewish Social Center") established in Berlin in 1916. There were Jewish elementary schools in several communities and Jewish teachers' seminaries in Wuerzburg and Cologne. New Jewish elementary and secondary schools, originally maintained by Orthodox Jews only but in later years also supported by the Zionists and even parts of the Liberal Jews, were established, some in cities which for decades had seen no Jewish schools. Both the renewed interest in Jewish culture and increasing antisemitism were behind this increase. All religious and political streams of German Jewry founded their own youth organizations. In a few cities, Jewish museums were established, and the Berlin Jewish Museum was opened in its new home only a few weeks after Hitler came to power. Jewish cultural societies, such as the Soncino Bibliophile Society, were established, Jewish music from all corners of the world enjoyed respectable audiences, and Jewish sports societies were now established even beyond the Zionist spectrum. Most larger communities started their own newspapers, some of them developing into respectable cultural journals. After World War I, when many Hebrew writers and publishers fled from Russia and took refuge in Germany, the country became a center of Hebrew publishing and Hebrew literature. Some of the greatest Hebrew poets and writers became residents of Germany, and Hebrew and Yiddish publishing houses were established. This was in addition to the many books published in German, on Judaism, Zionism, and Jewish studies. In Berlin and other cities, the Zionist Organization founded schools for the study of modern Hebrew by adults and the youth. As the economic and political crisis deepened in Germany during the 1920s, a religious revival could be observed in all denominations. Judaism was affected by it as well, as some Jews found refuge in synagogues and study circles. The most prolific Liberal Jewish thinker was Leo baeck , who emerged as German Jewry's spiritual leader already in the 1920s. He was careful to keep the balance between radical Reform and Orthodoxy, and thus found a middle ground of moderate Liberal Judaism. It may be symptomatic of the changing times that the new edition of his main prewar work, Essence of Judaism, appeared in a revised form in 1922 which gave more weight to mystical and non-rational thought. His younger colleague, Max Wiener, developed the critique of German Jewry's belief in Enlightenment further in his Judaism in the Time of Emancipation (1933). Baeck's predecessor as president of the General Rabbinical Association of Germany, the Frankfurt rabbi Anton Nehemias Nobel, reintegrated mystical elements in contemporary Orthodox Jewish thought. Another tendency which became gradually apparent was the rise of women's rights in the synagogue and beyond. While they had fought successfully for their voting rights in most communities, the first synagogue with mixed seating was opened in Berlin in 1929, and in another smaller synagogue service in Berlin a havurah-style egalitarian minyan was adopted around the same time. Women were among the students of the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums, and in 1935 the first woman rabbi, Regine Jonas, was ordained, although she never served a congregation. Due to the financial strains only a few new synagogues were built, most notably the ones in Plauen (1930) and Hamburg (1931) in the Bauhaus style. (Robert Weltsch) -1933–1939 As a result of the Nazi ascent to power legally through the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, the entire existing structure of Jewish life in Germany collapsed. Personal lives, professional careers, individual freedom, and the very confidence that Germany was their home were thrown into disarray for Jews living in Germany. In response, German Jewry underwent a spiritual awakening and achieved a peak of vitality in Jewish communal life. In the national-socialist racist state, the Jews, branded as an "alien   race," were automatically excluded by law from general life. Anti-Jewish measures gradually reduced the Jews to isolation and seclusion; the majority of the Jews were, however, unable unreservedly to sever the ties that had integrated them into German life. The racist decree that "no Jew could be a German" gravely affected the premise for the flourishing life of German Jewry, since the vast majority had considered themselves Germans and were genuinely assimilated in German culture. German was their language, German literature their literature, and German philosophy and values their values. On April 1, 1933, the first large-scale anti-Jewish demonstration took place, in the form of a boycott of all Jewish-owned shops and offices of Jewish professionals. The yellow badge was posted on Jewish business concerns and many residences; windows and doors were smeared with antisemitic and indecent cartoons; and SA (storm troop) guards ensured the observance of the boycott. The boycott was abandoned two days later due to sharp reaction from abroad and for fear of potential damage to the economy of the country. Some Germans made it a point of honor to call upon Jewish friends and to patronize Jewish shops. Most were frightened and just stayed away. This demonstration, far from being "a spontaneous eruption of the people's wrath," was organized by the Nazi Party on government orders. In the beginning there were even some signs of resistance among the German public to actions of this sort, until eventually the Nazi Party succeeded in suppressing all opposing political trends and concentrated absolute power in its own hands (see also ss ). This was achieved soon after the Nazi takeover, initiated by a wave of arrests of political opponents, for whose internment concentration camps were set up. The first victims were political opponents of the regime, or people with whom it had personal accounts to settle, or whom it sought to deprive of their property. On April 7, 1933, the term Nichtarier ("non-Aryan") was adopted as legal designation. Jews were expelled from the civil service, including bureaucrats, judges, physicians, and professors. This facilitated the removal, step by step, of the Jews from various professions. The first to suffer were lawyers, judges, public officials, artists, newspapermen, and doctors. (At the beginning, veterans of World War I were not included in the ban, thus dividing the Jewish community.) The Jews were methodically pushed out of their remaining employment. The adoption of the nuremberg Laws on Sept. 15, 1935, marked a new phase. It provided a precise definition of the "Jew" by origin, religion, and family ties; deprived the Jews of their status as citizens of the Reich; and reduced them to "subjects of the state." Intermarriage was prohibited while special provisions were made to deal with already-existing mixed marriages. Sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews was branded as Rassenschande ("defiling of the race") liable to severe punishment. In order to stigmatize the Jews further and brand them as a licentious people, the employment of "Aryan" maids under the age of 45 in their households was also forbidden. From time to time, addenda were made to the Nuremberg Laws, further reducing the Jews' status, until July 1, 1943, when the 13th such order was promulgated, declaring Germany judenrein ("clean of Jews"). Several Nazi leaders declared that with the adoption of the Nuremberg Laws the "regulation of the Jewish problem" was completed, and that the government had no intention of ousting the Jews from the economic positions they still held. Antisemitic slogans and graffiti were removed for the 1936 Olympics, and some Jews felt that they had weathered the worst. The pessimists had emigrated or pursued plans to emigrate and the optimists continued to believe that things would get better; the real Germany they knew would soon be manifest. In the period 1935–37, despite all the destructive measures, a large amount of capital still remained in Jewish hands and some Jews continued to run profit-making enterprises. To an extent, the Jews also benefited from the economic prosperity brought about by rearmament. Confiscation of Jewish capital, or enforced sale of Jewish enterprises (Arianisierung) did, however, become more and more frequent, along with arrests and other anti-Jewish measures. The decisive turning point in Nazi policy against the Jews came in March 1938, when Austria was annexed to the Reich. The anti-Jewish excesses that took place in Austria, especially in vienna , were far worse than any that had occurred thus far in Germany, and the general population's part in them was much greater. Little could one see that the German expansion into other countries would make the German policy of cleansing the country of Jews impossible. With each expansion more Jews came under German domination. The Jews in the Sudetenland were to undergo similar persecution when the Nazis annexed it on the basis of the October 1938 Munich Conference. The gravest incident in this stage in the entire area of "Greater Germany" occurred on Nov. 9, 1938 (see kristallnacht ). The pretext for this action was the assassination of a member of the German Embassy in Paris by a Jew, Herschel grynszpan . A collective fine of one billion marks was also imposed upon the Jews, who, unlike foreign Jews or Aryans, could not collect insurance to repair their property. They were thus victimized by their loss, by their inability to collect insurance, and by the collective fine imposed on the community. These measures put the Jews of Germany in jeopardy and all subsequent measures only further aggravated their situation, culminating in 1941 with the commencement of systematic deportations to extermination camps. The April 1, 1933, anti-Jewish demonstration filled many with consternation, but only a few Jews were brought to the brink of despair (resulting in some cases in suicide). In the initial stage, both Jews and some non-Jews protested. The Jews sought to remind the Germans of the contributions they had made to Germany's cultural and economic life, of their loyalty to the country, and of the medals they had earned on the field of battle. They soon learned that their efforts were futile. Gradually, the majority of the Jews understood that their fate was bound up with the Jewish people. Their only defenders were the Jews throughout the world who protested against the ill-treatment to which their brethren in Germany were being exposed. Emigration from Germany was their only hope   but this too they could not achieve without the aid of international Jewish bodies. Judaism was also their only source of moral comfort. And Jewish institutions within Germany were the one place they were safe from persecution, at least for a while. For some, persecution had an unintended consequence. Instead of internalizing the hatred and loathing they experienced, it aroused in them a sense of pride in being a Jew, which gave them the moral strength to endure. German Jewry now began to cooperate as a single body because external events erased the differences that had previously divided the assimilationists and those Jews who identified themselves with the Jewish culture and people. The Nazis did not discriminate between pious and secular Jews, between Zionists and assimilated Jews – all were uniformly detested; all were subject to Nazi venom. The anti-Jewish policies were directed against the assimilationist Jews as well, forcing them to recognize that they too were members of the Jewish people. The Nazi doctrine propounded that "blood" determined everything, so even converts and persons of mixed parentage (mischlinge) were labeled Jews. Among the latter were persons who for two or three generations had had no spiritual tie with Judaism. Of these "non-Aryan" Christians, or persons not adhering to any religion, only a few found their way back to active Jewish life. Some German churches acquiesced to or enthusiastically supported German racism even when it violated Christian teaching that one who converted to Christianity was a Christian. Only the Confessing Church remained faithful, protesting on behalf of those who had converted. Jews now closed ranks, irrespective of the divergent views they had held in the past. Many who had played important roles in German life, but had been remote from Jewish activities, were now eager and ready to accept Jewish public activity. At first, the existing Jewish organizations united under the Zentralausschuss fuer Hilfe und Aufbau ("Central Committee for Aid and Construction"), providing welfare and emigration services. This was followed by the creation of the reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland ("Reich Representation of the Jews in Germany") headed by Rabbi Leo baeck . (The use of the term "Jews in Germany" was imposed when the Nazis prohibited the term "German Jews.") From the outset, one of the principal tasks confronting the Reichsvertretung was to organize emigration, which had taken various forms. (See Table: Emigration – Jews from Germany.) There was first of all the spontaneous flight to adjacent countries. In 1933, this was comparatively easy, for the Jews bore German passports which permitted entry to most European countries without visas. Regulations on removal of currency from Germany were not that strict, and a uniform regulation had not as yet been reached. In the course of time, however, the countries of reception placed obstacles in the way of the refugees from Germany, especially by refusing them work permits. Thus, the Swiss government refused such permits to all foreign nationals. In the fall of 1938 it requested that the German government stamp all Jewish passports with the letter J so that non-Jewish Germans could be Emigration of Jews from Germany in the Period April 1933 to May 1939, including Areas Occupied by Germany by May 1939 Emigration of Jews from Germany in the Period April 1933 to May 1939, including Areas Occupied by Germany by May 1939   Country of reception No. of German immigrants U.S.A. 63,000 Palestine 55,000 Great Britain 40,000 France 30,000 Argentina 25,000 Brazil 13,000 South Africa 5,500 Italy 5,000 Other European countries 25,000 Other South American countries 20,000 Far Eastern countries 15,000 Other 8,000 Total 304,500 admitted to Switzerland but Jews could be excluded. Only in a few instances were the emigrants able to maintain themselves on the funds they had brought with them. Emigration was also directed to overseas countries, mainly to the United States, but also to South America, Canada, and Australia. The consulates of these countries were thronged, but the existing regulations were not slackened to help the persecuted Jews. Except for Britain in 1938–39, no entry visas were issued outside the scope of existing immigration laws. The third and principal form of emigration was to Palestine. This was more than a simple rescue operation, for it had ideological overtones, reinforced by the feeling of attachment to the "Jewish National Home," while emigration to other countries was dictated by utilitarian reasons only. Most of the Zionists who left Germany made their way to Palestine. A systematic campaign on behalf of aliyah was conducted, and as the dangers grew, an immigration certificate to Palestine became a valuable document, coveted also by non-Zionists. According to estimates of the League of nations high commissioner for Refugees, 329,000 Jews fled from the Nazis in the period 1933–39, of whom 315,000 left Germany itself. In June 1933 there were 503,000 Jews by religion in Germany (including the Saar Region, incorporated in Germany in 1935), while in the first six years of the Nazi regime, the number of Jews was reduced by 289,000, leaving 214,000 Jews in May 1939. According to the census, there were 234,000 Jews (as defined by the Nuremberg Laws) in Germany in 1939, a reduction of 330,000 since 1925. Efforts were also made to bring about a change in the occupational structure of the Jews, in order to prepare them for emigration. A large part of the Jewish students had been expelled from their German schools and universities and were now taught new trades on farms or in vocational and agricultural schools. Portable skills were essential to success in other countries. Schools to teach Hebrew, English, Spanish, and other languages were also established to prepare Jews for future emigration. Aliyah to Palestine, and hakhsharah, preparation   for aliyah, were organized by the Zionist palestine Office (Palaestina-Amt), which greatly expanded in this period. The Palestine Office acted in an advisory capacity and was in charge of the transfer of capital through the ha 'avara Company, which, with the approval of the authorities, succeeded in removing Jewish capital from Germany in the form of exports to Palestine, valued at about $16,200,000. Emigrants to the United States were rendered aid primarily by the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden and the american jewish joint distribution committee . For the Jews in Germany the last few years preceding the war were marked by a desperate race to discover possible emigration outlets. The number of outlets, however, was continually reduced and, when the last exit to safety was finally closed, there was still a sizable Jewish community left in Germany. In the period 1933–38, the Jews of Germany stepped up in considerable measure their own public and cultural life. They were now called upon to provide not only for their strictly "Jewish" needs, but also to engage in activities of a general nature, especially in education and culture. The Jewish community had to set up its own elementary and high schools for Jewish children, who had been expelled from the public schools. The teaching staff for these new schools consisted of the Jewish teachers who had been dismissed from the German school system. The "Center for Jewish Adult Education," an institution created by Martin Buber under the auspices of the Reichsvertretung, included among its tasks the training of these teachers for their duties in Jewish schools. In general, the educational and cultural activities of the Reichsvertretung may be regarded as the beginning of a Jewish moral resistance movement. Among the Zionist youth movements, the largest was Ha-Bonim, No'ar Ḥaluẓi, which was founded in 1933 and based on a merger of Kadimah and Berit Olim. Makkabbi Hazair was a General Zionist youth movement, while the Werkleute were absorbed by Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa'ir. After 1928, religious youth was organized in the Berit Ḥaluẓim Datiyyim. He-Ḥalutz, the largest organization preparing its members for settlement in Ereẓ Israel, established hakhsharot – agricultural training centers – with the support of the Reichsvertretung. Non-Zionist youth was organized in the Deutsch-juedische Jugend and Vortrupp societies. The Zionist Organization of Germany, which grew tremendously in strength, gained half of the seats in the community council and the national organizations in 1935. The Jewish press played a great role in strengthening the spirit of German Jews. The CV Zeitung gained a circulation of 40,000 and a similar number subscribed to the Juedische Rundschau. (A front-page article of the Rundschau, published under the title, Tragt ihn mit Stolz, den gelben Fleck ("Wear it proudly, the yellow badge"), electrified the Jews with its call for courage in the face of adversity.) The pro-Zionist Israelitisches Familienblatt also jumped to a circulation of 35,000. In art and literature a similar development took place. Jewish artists and writers who had not succeeded in immediately leaving Germany were forced to restrict their work to the realm of Judaism; in many instances this was a "return to Judaism" in name only, but in others it was accompanied by a profound spiritual change. The juedischer Kulturbund was created to organize Jewish cultural life. Jewish newspapers enlarged their scope, Jewish publishing houses increased their activities, and books on Jewish subjects, poetry, history, and essays gained a wide distribution. Like their cultural activities, the publishing activities of Jews were under the official supervision of the Juden-Referat, a separate body established within the framework of Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda. From time to time certain publications were prohibited and newspaper editions were confiscated. The Zionist organ, Juedische Rundschau, was closed down and reopened on numerous occasions. In the course of time, the officials of the Juden-Referat came to show personal interest in the continued functioning of Jewish cultural life. The pogroms of Nov. 9–10, 1938, however, put an end to this situation, and the ensuing months, up to the outbreak of the war, were marked by general alarm among the Jews, cessation of all social activities, mass emigration, and Gestapo persecution of the remaining Jews. (Robert Weltsch / Michael Berenbaum (2nd ed.) -World War II In the course of the war, when German rule was extended over large areas, Jews were sent to, or transferred from, Germany and other European countries. Many German Jews were put to death in Germany itself, along with foreign Jews interned there. In the period 1933–39, the communal and occupational life of German Jewry had undergone a radical change. After expulsion from commercial life and the professions, many Jews switched over to manual labor and agriculture. Although in 1933, 48.12% of German Jews had steady employment, by 1939 this figure had been reduced to 15.6% (Jews "by faith"). Of breadwinners in 1939 who no longer had any regular employment, over 40% were able to live off their capital and property, while others had some income from other sources and insurance. By 1939, thousands of Jews were already imprisoned in concentration camps. The Nazis considered the transfer of German Jews to special reservations in German-occupied territory of Poland or Russia or even the remote island of madagascar . But over time and with the capture of more and more Jews in the occupied territories, these plans, even if desired, were simply not feasible. At the beginning of 1942, when the physical destruction of Jews was already in full swing, these plans were finally abandoned. A law passed on July 4, 1939, transformed the Reichsvertretung into the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland ("Reich Union of Jews in Germany"), and charged the new organization with promoting Jewish emigration, running the Jewish schools, and social welfare. Leo Baeck remained head of the new organization. The work of the Reichsvereinigung was defined by law, and subject to orders from the minister of the interior. The Nazis regarded it as an instrument which could be maneuvered   to rid the country of all its Jews in the shortest possible time. In May 1939, there were still 214,000 Jews left, of whom 90% lived in 200 cities and the rest in 1,800 different places without an organized Jewish community. There were an additional 20,000 persons who had been classified as Jews under the Nuremberg Laws. The outbreak of the war (Sept. 1, 1939) did not bring about any change in the legal status of the Jews. Until November 1941, i.e., at a time when the mass killing of Jews in Eastern Europe, which had begun as the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, some still succeeded in leaving Germany. German Jews were admitted to some neutral countries, others were able to escape across the Atlantic. In fact they reached every corner of the globe, including shanghai . Until June 20, 1940, Jews who had some means at their disposal were able to reach Palestine by way of the Italian ports, and until Nov. 11, 1942, they could go to lisbon and casablanca by way of unoccupied France. On May 1, 1941, there were 169,000 Jews in Germany, and by Oct. 1, 1941, 164,000. In the period that had elapsed since May 1939 their number had therefore been reduced by some 50,000 to 70,000. A substantial number of these had succeeded in leaving Germany, although some of them only moved to countries which soon came under German occupation. About 8,000 Jews were deported by the Nazis, to make room for Germans who were repatriated after the outbreak of war. These Jews were sent in the first shipment to the lublin district, and later to unoccupied France. Many Jews were put into the existing concentration camps, or into newly established ones. The mortality rate among the Jews also rose to unprecedented heights. Some time in 1941, Hitler issued his verbal order for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." On Sept. 1, 1941, the Jews were ordered to wear the yellow badge (Judenstern, or "Jewish star"). In mid-October 1941, their mass "transfer" ("Evakuierungen" or "Abwanderungen") to ghettos in Eastern Europe (lodz , minsk , riga , Kovno) and to concentration and forced labor camps was begun, under Adolf eichmann 's supervision. By the end of the year, 30,000 Jews had been thus "transferred." In the period from October 1942 to March 1943, Jews from Germany were "transferred" to auschwitz and other killing centers, at first by way of concentration camps and, later, directly. Many synagogues were turned into collection points for those about to be deported. It was in this period that the rate of suicide among the Jews took a sudden rise. The property of the "transferred" Jews, or of those who had committed suicide, was taken over by the state, as property of "enemies of the people and the country." So too, the property of Jews who left Germany; no distinctions were made between voluntary departures and forced deportation. Jewish activities were carried on within the framework of the Reichsvereinigung, which in accordance with the law had absorbed all the 1,500 organizations and institutions and the 1,600 religious communal bodies which had existed in Germany in 1939. The last to be absorbed, in January 1943, was the Berlin Community. When emigration ceased, the work of the Reichsvereinigung was restricted to education and social welfare. It supported elementary schools, several high schools and colleges, vocational and agricultural training courses, and language courses, as well as the famous Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums. In July 1942 all Jewish educational institutions were closed down. The Reichsvereinigung also supported Jewish hospitals, children's homes, and homes for the aged. It was forced to assist the Nazis in gathering the Jews who had been earmarked for "transfer." The Reichsvereinigung derived its income from contributions, membership dues, and special taxes imposed on emigrants. In July 1943 the activities of the Reichsvereinigung came to an end. By then, most of its officials, as well as most of those whom it had cared for, had been "transferred" to their deaths, or put into prison. The assets of the Reichsvereinigung (about 170 million marks) were confiscated by the Nazis. A new national body was created, headed by Walter Lustig, at the Jewish hospital in Berlin. In the "privileged" model concentration camp/ghetto which was known as the theresienstadt ghetto, of the 144,000 Jews interned, 42,103 were from Germany. In January 1943, Leo Baeck was interned there. This ghetto allowed the continuation of Jewish life in some measure. But by the end of the war, only 5,639 German survivors were left in the ghetto. Of those 144,000 Jews deported to Theresienstadt, 33,000 died there, while 88,000 were again deported to Auschwitz. Of 15,000 children, only some 100 survived. By the end of 1942 the number of Jews in Germany had been reduced to 51,000, and by the beginning of April the following year to 32,000. On May 19, 1943, Germany was declared judenrein. On Sept. 1, 1944, there were still 14,574 Jews in Germany who were not imprisoned. These were, for the most part (97.8%), the spouses of non-Jews, or "half-Jews," who had been defined as Jews by the Nuremberg Laws. When the tide of battle turned against Germany and concentration and death camps in the East were about to be overrun by Soviet troops, many more Jews were sent to Germany either as slave laborers or on death marches; Germany, which had first tried to be rid of the Jews, was now forced to reabsorb them as they were needed as workers or they were more dangerous to Germany if captured by the Soviets as living witnesses. In January 1945, there were in concentration and forced labor camps in Germany hundreds of thousands of Jews from various European countries. That number grew in the ensuing months until liberation as Jews were forcibly marched back into Germany. The number of Jews who remained free in Germany – openly or underground – has been estimated at 19,000, and those who returned from the concentration camps after the war (including Theresienstadt) at 8,000. Late (January 1942) and doubtful figures provided by the Nazis state that from the beginning of Nazi rule 360,000 Jews had emigrated from Germany. About 160,000 to 180,000 German Jews are estimated to have been murdered by the Nazis in Germany, or to have died as a result of persecution. (Jacob S. Levinger / Michael Berenbaum (2nd ed.)   -Early Postwar Period When the Nazi regime in Germany ended, the general assumption was – in the words of Leo Baeck – that the Holocaust had terminated the thousand-year history of German Jewry and that Jews would not resettle in the country where the massacre of European Jewry had been conceived. This forecast did prove completely accurate. Jews were again living in Germany and they had rebuilt their communal and social organizations; but both numerically and culturally they constituted a faint shadow of the Jewish population of the country at the time of Hitler's rise to power. Although the Jews formed a very diversified group, their relative influence in all spheres of life was negligible. After a period of consolidation the Jews of Germany consisted of three main groups: the remnants of German Jewry who had survived the war in Germany; displaced persons (DPs) who took temporary refuge in Germany after the war, especially in the American Zone; and Jews who returned to Germany or settled there after the war. Those who survived the persecutions and the war in Germany itself had, on the whole, only a tenuous attachment to Judaism. Some had been baptized, and the majority had entered mixed marriages (surviving the Holocaust only with the help of their "Aryan" relatives) and had raised their children as Christians. Among them were also several hundred women who had married Jews, and converted to Judaism. The average age of this group was over 50. The number of Jews in Germany grew in the immediate postwar period, when several thousand German Jews who had survived the concentration camps (especially Theresienstadt) and did not go into DP camps returned to Germany. Soon after, a few thousand were able to immigrate to the United States and several hundred went to other countries. Of those who remained, only a part (estimated by H. Maor between 6,000 and 8,000) joined the reestablished Jewish communities. The DPs who arrived in Germany after the war were a "community in transit" and did not regard themselves as a part of German Jewry. At the end of 1946, there was a record number of 160,000 Jewish DPs in Germany; the total number of Jewish DPs who spent some time in the country is estimated at over 200,000. Most of them were in the American Zone, where they neither joined the communities nor had much contact with German Jews. The DPs formed their own organization, She'erit ha-Peletah (The Saved Remnant), which had local regional and central committees. In the British Zone (northwest Germany), however, it was the reestablished communities that joined the She'erit ha-Peletah, which had its headquarters at bergen-belsen . In time the refugees, especially those who lived outside the DP camps in the urban DP assembly centers, established contacts with members of the Jewish communities. When the great stream of aliyah and emigration of the She'erit ha-Peletah came to an end in the early 1950s, 12,000 former DPs were left in Germany. There were in 1960, according to Maor, about 6,000 former DPs in Germany who had become members of the Jewish communities. They represented a sizable portion of the total membership The Geographical Distribution of Jews in Germany, 1974 The Geographical Distribution of Jews in Germany, 1974   Baden 1,200 Lower Saxony 600 Bavaria 5,200 Cologne 1,200 West Berlin 5,300 North-Rhine 2,700 Bremen 100 Rhineland-Palatinate 600 Hamburg 1,400 Saarland 300 Hesse 1,700 Westphalia 900 Frankfurt 5,000 Wuerttemberg 800 of some of the communities, e.g., 80% in Munich and 40% in Frankfurt. No precise data are available on the remaining 6,000. Some may have emigrated, others may be listed as returnees, and still others may have severed all links with the organized Jewish community. From the end of the war to the beginning of the 1960s, about 6,000 German Jews returned to Germany and some 2,000 Jews from other countries settled there. During the rest of the 1960s, Germany received a few hundred more Jewish immigrants, in addition to several thousand returnees. For the most part, these were people who had not adjusted in the countries to which they had emigrated (including Israel). Others hoped that their presence in Germany would speed up the restitution of their property, or the indemnification payments due to them (see restitution and Compensation). Still others were simply attracted to Germany by the prevailing economic prosperity. Some prominent people, mostly artists and menof-letters, returned to Germany – often to the East – but as a rule they did not join the Jewish communities. In general, the former DPs and the returnees were the more active groups, having much closer ties with Judaism than the group of survivors who never left the country. REESTABLISHMENT OF JEWISH COMMUNITIES The reestablishment of Jewish communities began shortly after the war, but in the early stages the means at their disposal were quite limited. Various organizations were operating in Germany to care for the victims of Nazism, and included the Jews in their activities. Among these were the organizations of Nazi victims and the Bavarian Red Cross. In Bavaria, the ministry of the interior established a State Commissariat for the care of people who had been persecuted on the basis of race, religion, or political convictions. (The first commissioner, appointed in the fall of 1945, was a non-Jewish Social Democrat; in 1946 a leading Jew, Philip Auerbach, was appointed to this post.) A bureau of the same kind was also established in Hessen. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee helped the communities establish themselves, and gradually they were able to assume the main burden of the religious and social services required by their members. The Berlin Jewish community at this time included the four zones of the city. In June 1947 a coordinating committee of Jewish communities in Germany, covering all the zones of occupation, was formed. When the aliyah and emigration of the DPs came to an end, the communities grew in importance. It was at this time that the   German Federal Republic (West) and the German Democratic Republic (East) were established. The interest of the newly founded government of West Germany in strengthening the Jewish communities was shared by the occupation authorities, especially in the American Zone (headed by High Commissioner John J. McCloy). On July 17, 1950, a Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland ("Central Council of Jews in Germany") was set up with headquarters at Duesseldorf. The formation of the council was encouraged by the authorities, and it became the supreme organ of the Jewish communities in West Germany, achieving that status first in fact and later in law. While in the immediate postwar years the Jews in Germany had insisted that their stay in the "accursed land" was temporary and that they would soon leave it, by the early 1950s voices began to call for the building of bridges between the Jewish and German peoples. One community leader declared that the Jewish-sponsored idea of dissolving the Jewish communities in Germany should be abandoned, and a rabbi who had returned to Germany even stated that the Jews remaining in the country were charged with reminding the German people of their guilt and their obligation to atone. Such ideas were supported by the government of West Germany and especially by Chancellor Konrad adenauer , who felt that in addition to the reparations agreement with Israel, the existence of a Jewish community in Germany and good relations between that community and the German people would be important contributions to the moral and political rehabilitation of Germany in the eyes of the world. To help bring about a reconciliation with the Jewish people, various German organizations and movements, such as the Aktion Suehnezeichen ("Operation Atonement") led by the Protestant theologian Helmut Gollwitzer, the Society for Christian-Jewish Understanding, the Peace With Israel movement headed by Erich Lueth, and others, were formed. World Jewish organizations, especially the Zionist movement, disapproved of Jewish integration into German life. They regarded it as morally wrong for Jews to be permanently resident in Germany and tried to persuade them to leave the country. When, however, the reparations agreement was signed between the State of Israel, the conference on Jewish Material Claims, and the Federal Republic in September 1952, the psychological and political basis for ostracizing the Jews of Germany no longer existed. The Zentralrat became a member of the Claims Conference, and in 1954 the Zionist Executive approved the reestablishment of the Zionist Organization of Germany. (This is not to be confused with the Zionist Organization of the She'erit ha-Peletah, which was disbanded in 1951 as were all other institutions of the She'erit Ha-Peletah.) The Zentralrat also became affiliated with the world jewish congress . Following the reparations agreement and the legislation for indemnification and the restitution of property, the federal government of West Germany and governments of the Laender adopted a liberal policy toward the restitution of property to the communities and provided them with regular subsidies for their needs. As a result, the Jewish communities of Germany became among the wealthiest in the world. This process of consolidation was not without its upheavals, struggles, and public scandals, which came before the German courts. Among those sentenced to imprisonment were Aaron Ohrenstein, the rabbi of Munich, and Philip Auerbach, who committed suicide in prison in 1952. There were also court proceedings contesting the legality of several community councils. Antisemitism continued to exist in the country, perhaps exacerbated by the problem of bringing Nazi criminals to justice and the demand for the exclusion of Nazis from public office and government service. In fact, Neo-Nazi movements sprang up, Jewish cemeteries were desecrated, swastikas were daubed on walls, and antisemitic propaganda was disseminated. On the other hand, there were signs of a genuine change of heart: German youth was educated toward democracy, Jewish literature and literature on Jews appeared on the bookstands, there were exhibitions on Jewish themes, etc. The authorities assisted the communities in the construction of new synagogues and undertook the reconstruction of synagogues of historical value in places where there was no Jewish community (such as the medieval synagogue in Worms). In October 1967, the number of Jews registered with the Jewish communities in West Germany, including West Berlin, was 26,226 (this includes 1,300 Jews living in Frankfurt who were not members of the community but registered as Jews in the census). According to the figures for Oct. 1, 1966, the largest communities were in West Berlin (5,991 members), Frankfurt (4,168), Munich (3,345), Duesseldorf (1,579), Hamburg (1,500), and Cologne (1,304). (See Map: Germany.) Because of the high average age, the demographic composition of German Jewry was highly abnormal. The death rate greatly exceeded the birth rate, e.g., in 1963–64 there were 482 deaths and only 69 births. In spite of the wide gulf between Jews and Germans, the rate of intermarriage is among the highest in the world. In the period 1951–58, there were 679 marriages in which both partners were Jewish, as against 2,009 mixed marriages; 72.5% of the Jewish men and 23.6% of the Jewish women who married chose non-Jewish partners. (For the period 1901–30 the respective figures were 19.6% for men and 12.2% for women.) Several aged rabbis returned to Germany, and a few came there from other countries, e.g., the United States, Israel, and Britain, to serve for a limited period. There was a serious scarcity of teachers, religious articles, and community workers. The work of the communities was generally in the hands of a salaried staff. Jewish schools were established in Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Duesseldorf, and Hamburg, while elsewhere the community provided religious instruction during after-school hours. There were social welfare departments in the communities and a central welfare office (Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle) in Frankfurt. Many communities maintained homes for the aged and summer camps for children. German-language Jewish weeklies were published in Duesseldorf   and Munich, and a Yiddish newspaper in Munich until 1974. The Juedischer Verlag (Jewish Publishing Co.) in Berlin was reestablished, and another publishing house, Ner Tamid, was opened. The Zionist Organization had branches in most of the communities, as did Jewish women's organizations and youth movements. In most places there were local committees of the keren hayesod and the jewish national fund , and in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich there were B'nai B'rith Lodges. An outstanding contribution to the postwar rehabilitation of Jews in Germany was made by Karl Marx (1897–1966), who returned to Germany in 1945, joined the Zionist movement, and founded the Allgemeine Wochenzeitung des Judentums ("General Jewish Weekly") in Duesseldorf. He regarded as his task the "building of a bridge" between the Jewish people and Israel, on the one hand, and Germany, on the other. He had close connections with the first president of the Federal Republic, Theodor Heuss, with Chancellor Adenauer, and with Social Democratic leaders and tried to serve as a link between them and the leaders of Israel and world Jewry. A number of Jews assumed important public offices. Among them were Paul Hertz, a Social Democratic senator in Berlin; Herbert A. weichmann , President of the Bundesrat and mayor of Hamburg; Joseph Neuberger (1902–1977), the minister of justice in North Rhine-Westphalia (who returned to Germany from Israel); and Ludwig Rosenberg, chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions. Several scholars and prominent artists, including the actors Ernst deutsch and Fritz kortner , also returned to Germany. Despite their manifold activities, the Jewish communities in Germany rested on weak foundations because of their abnormal demographic structure, the inadequacy of Jewish education, and the abyss that continued to exist between the Jews and German society. The replacement of the expression Deutsche Juden ("German Jews") by the term Juden in Deutschland ("Jews in Germany") may be taken as an indication of the strangeness that Jews feel in Germany and their anxiety about the future. (Chaim Yahil) -East Germany (German Democratic Republic) There was only a tiny remnant of Jews in the German Democratic Republic, among them some prominent writers, such as Arnold zweig , Anna Seghers, and Stefan Heym, and Communist politicians returning from exile. A large segment of the Jewish community, including the presidents of the major Jewish communities, fled to the West after the outbreak of the antisemitic Stalinist show trials, culminating in the Prague Slansky Trial of 1952. In the same year the Jewish community of Berlin, which until then was still a unified body in a divided city, split officially. Until his death in 1965, the communities in East Germany were served by Rabbi Martin Riesenburger. Afterwards, the community was mainly served by Hungarian officials. Although there was no ban on religious practice, the Communist regime made an effort to obscure the identity of Jews. They were allowed to publish a periodical, which was mainly of informative character and contained also the obligatory criticism of the State of Israel. Only a few of the public figures who are of Jewish origin retained any connection with organized Judaism. One of these was the author Arnold Zweig who was president of the Academy of Arts. In the last years of the German Democratic Republic religious and cultural Jewish life were reinforced by the state, mainly motivated by the wish to improve its ties with the United States. This may have been the main motive behind the decision of the Honecker government to renovate the destroyed Oranienburger Street Synagogue in East Berlin. Jews in the GDR could now attain greater visibility. With this new policy, a significant number of individuals, often children or grandchildren of Jewish communists, discovered their Jewish roots, and in East Berlin some of these joined "We for Ourselves," a group of mostly marginally Jewish individuals who stood in an ambivalent relationship to the community; several of its members have since been accepted into the Jewish community. With the Honecker government's new attention to the Jews, a number of important initiatives became possible. East Berlin was able to appoint an American rabbi, Isaak Neuman, who was in office there for a short period from 1987 to 1988. At around the same time, the Weissensee Jewish cemetery, Europe's largest, was rehabilitated, and a descendant of one of the families that belonged to the former Neo-Orthodox community Adass Jisroel, Mario Offenberg, negotiated with the GDR in order to reestablish this community in East Berlin. The restored Neue Synagogue in Berlin's Oranienburger Street was now turned into a cultural center and archive, Centrum Judaicum, financed mostly through small private donations from East German individuals. The community in East Berlin reached the height of activity in 1988 and 1989, the two final years of its full independence: 1988 saw the first large observances of Kristallnacht, in a meeting of younger Jews from East and West Germany in East Berlin; an exhibit, Und lehret sie Gedachtnis, was shown there in the reconstructed Ephraim Palais, the residence of King Frederick II's Jewish financier; on May 10, 1989, for the first time, Ha-Tikvah was sung and a community membership meeting referred to Israel's Independence Day. After the collapse of the Wall, Israel-oriented activities intensified; on November 11, 1989, for the first time, a large Israeli flag was displayed in West Berlin and a GDR-Israel Friendship Society began to be formed. These independent Eastern initiatives came to a halt very soon, however. Very much in step with the rapid unification of East and West Germany, the Western Central Council of Jews and the West Berlin Jewish community took control of their Eastern counterparts, and on January 1, 1991, the East Berlin Jewish community ceased to exist. The number of members of the Jewish communities in East Germany declined from 2,600 in 1952 to 1,200 in 1967 to 350 (most of them in East Berlin) at the time of the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic in 1989. This count, however, ignores a much higher number of individuals of Jewish ancestry who chose not to register with the communities.   -Jewish Life in Unified Germany (Post-1989) November 9, which once had signified the end of German and European Jewry, received an additional meaning not only in German but also in German-Jewish history in 1989. When the Berlin Wall came down, the doors were opened not only to hundreds of thousands of East Germans from the former GDR and to ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union but also to more unlikely candidates for immigration. With the upsurge of antisemitic rhetoric and acts, political instability, and economic depression, the Jews of the former Soviet Union began to look for new homes. Despite Israel's negative attitude and despite the fact that officially Germany was a non-immigrant country, it opened its doors to Jewish immigrants and has been trying to integrate them with relatively few bureaucratic impediments. In this respect, there is little disagreement along party lines, and the words of SPD-politician Peter Glotz in the Bundestag debate of October 25, 1990, spoke for the ruling Christian Democrats as well: "The Germans have covered themselves in guilt. I believe that the least we can do now, when Jews express again their wish to return or to come to the land of the Holocaust, is … to solve the problems unbureaucratically and without much fanfare." Initially many Soviet Jewish refugees came to Germany with visitor visas and then applied for political asylum. With the change in the German Basic Law in 1993 this was no longer possible. But even before, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the governors of the German states had agreed in a meeting on January 9, 1991, that Soviet Jews would be allowed in on humanitarian grounds as quota refugees. After a stay of eight years (according to age) the refugees become eligible for German citizenship. Those who had been admitted by individual German states would be considered as quota refugees retroactively, while allocations were made to the individual states to cover the coming years. There was general agreement that Germany could absorb up to 10,000 Jewish refugees annually. Between 1990 and 1998, 53,559 immigrants from the former Soviet Union joined the Jewish communities: about 1,000 in 1990, an average of 5,000 between 1991 and 1994, and an average of over 8,000 between 1995 and 1998. Between 1998 and 2004 there was almost the same number of Jewish immigrants. The actual number of immigrants from the former Soviet Union is of course much higher (about twice as much), if we consider the (growing) number of non-Jewish family members and the (few) Jews who decided not to join the Jewish communities. The largest Jewish communities of Germany in 2003 were Berlin (appr. 11,000), Munich (9,000), Duesseldorf and Frankfurt (7,000), and Hanover, Hamburg, and Cologne (5,000). Some of those communities have increased tenfold since unification and have reached the numbers of the 1920s. In a few smaller cities and towns, like Straubing (1,713) or Osnabrueck (1,541) there are now by far more Jews than before 1933. In other places, mainly in East Germany, new Jewish communities have been established which are exclusively or almost exclusively immigrant communities, among them Rostock, Schwerin, and Brandenburg in the East, but also Emmendingen, Lörrach, Delmenhorst, and Hameln in the West. Despite all these accelerated developments, the percentage of Jews in the general German population stands at only about 0.1%, and most Germans still do not know any Jews. In the attention given to the population explosion of Jews in Germany it has hardly been noted that the "old" Jewish population experienced a steady decline at the same time as the community grew due to immigration. Without the immigrants the Jewish community of Germany would have numbered (in 1999) 22,211 members, which is about 20% less than the 28,081 members of 1990. A second phenomenon is worth noting. The discrepancy between low birth rates and high mortality rates remained constant in the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1998 there was a total of only 1,079 births, as opposed to 4,972 deaths. Thirdly, and connected to this phenomenon, one should take note of the change in age structure. When the first immigrants arrived in the early 1990s, they were mostly younger people, and brought with them a large number of children. By the end of the decade, the older immigrants dominated the scene and the age structure was only slightly younger than in the previous period. In 1998, 20% (18% in 1989) were under 20 years of age, 21% (25%) were between 20 and 40, 30% (24%) between 41 and 60, and 29% (33%) over 60 years old. Immigration has also changed (for the time being) the occupational structure of German Jewry. In the postwar years the majority of East European Jews took up traditional professions connected to trade and business. Although we do not possess exact statistics it can be assumed that a significant part of the Jewish survivors who came to Germany became small business owners, with some of them expanding them into large enterprises, especially in the areas of textiles and real estate. Many also went into dining and entertainment establishments – restaurants and bars – often in areas with a large American military presence. The occupational structure of the second generation is quite different, with a high proportion of professionals, such as physicians, lawyers, and journalists. There remain a significant number in business, though more in banking and real estate now. The vast majority of German Jews attend not only high schools but also proceed to study at universities in Germany or abroad. The first Jewish day schools opened in Munich and Frankfurt already in the 1960s, Berlin followed in 1986, Duesseldorf in 1993. Berlin is home to the only Jewish high school in postwar Germany, which consists of a high percentage of non-Jewish pupils. Religious education of two hours a week is compulsory in most German states, and the Jewish community provides those classes in even the smallest communities. It has to be said, however, that it is extremely difficult to recruit qualified teachers with both Jewish knowledge and German-language skills. The Hochschule fuer Juedische Studien in Heidelberg, which was established in 1979 in order to educate new spiritual leaders for Jewish communal life, has graduated in its first 20 years of existence a few teachers, who are now employed in German-Jewish communities, but few rabbis, who mostly continued their studies abroad and did   not return to Germany. The first rabbi educated in Heidelberg was employed by the Jewish community of Duesseldorf. Thus, most teachers and basically all rabbis are immigrants to the German-Jewish communities, or at least received their education outside Germany. With the disappearance of the older generation of German-born immigrants who returned to officiate in the German-Jewish communities the language issue becomes more and more significant. Despite these difficulties and mainly due to the further increase of the Jewish population, the number of rabbis in Germany has grown in recent years. In 2004 there were 34 rabbis listed in the directory of community rabbis, as well as 11 Chabad rabbis, both numbers having doubled as compared to the situation a decade earlier. In a few places, such as Brandenburg, the community rabbi comes from the Lubavitch movement. Chabad developed quite a number of activities in the larger (and now also some smaller) communities, especially child-related. Thus, the only local Jewish summer camps in Germany are run by Chabad, which overcomes the language barrier by recruiting young American women who speak Yiddish to the children. These summer camps have been among their most successful activities in Germany. In recent years, Chabad has also initiated the annual Hanukkah lighting ceremony in German public places. On the other side of the religious spectrum, the Reform and Conservative movements have made considerable inroads in recent years. Both had developed in 19th-century Germany but virtually disappeared with the destruction of German Jewry in the 1930s. Religious Jewish life in postwar Germany was dominated by East European Jews and therefore led to the establishment of Orthodox synagogues. Only in one Berlin synagogue (Pestalozzistrasse) and in Saarbruecken was the prewar organ tradition revived. However, even there Reform services remained in the tradition of prewar German Liberal Judaism, with separate seating and no active role for women in the service. In the 1980s the first egalitarian services were introduced in Berlin and Frankfurt, followed thereafter in a few other cities. Many of their members originally came from the small American Jewish presence in Germany. Having been established outside the Einheitsgemeinde structures, the Berlin and Frankfurt Liberal congregations were granted space within the Gemeinde in the later 1990s. Some other Liberal congregations, as in Munich and Cologne, remained outside the Gemeinde structure or founded a separate association of communities as in Lower Saxony. In 1995 the small new congregation of Oldenburg in Northern Germany hired the first woman rabbi in Germany, Swiss-born Bea Wyler. In 2005, the Zentralrat reached an agreement with the Union of Progressive Jews and accepted Liberal community associations from northern Germany as members. Most Jews in Germany are what is often termed "non-practicing Orthodox." This means they do not attend synagogues on a regular basis but go to Orthodox synagogues during the High Holidays or family celebrations. Developments in recent years show the first signs of a more modern approach to the phenomenon of empty synagogues. Beside the Liberal congregations, which are united in an organization together with their Swiss and Austrian equivalents, there are a few modern Orthodox rabbis trying to replace the more East European-style services in their synagogues. They have initiated youth services, beginners' services, special Kabbalat Shabbat events, and regular German sermons. With the few exceptions of the largest communities, there is usually only one synagogue in town. This situation requires a certain amount of compromise in order to serve all community members. Berlin is the only German community which employs an Orthodox and a Liberal rabbi. Kosher restaurants are integrated in the community centers of Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich, but most other communities have a kosher kitchen for Sabbath kiddush or special events. Several communities maintain old-age homes with a kosher kitchen. Shoḥets and mohels are extremely rare in Germany, and usually brought from France or Switzerland. In addition to religious activities the larger communities have their own frameworks of secular cultural programs. In Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich they are organized in adult education institutions which offer language classes, lecture series, and guest lectures with an often very impressive program. In smaller communities these programs have also increased over the years. It is perhaps a peculiar characteristic of the German situation that the audience for these Jewish cultural programs are overwhelmingly non-Jewish. As one consequence some communities, like Munich, established a Lehrhaus program which tries to create a more intimate atmosphere for the local Jewish population. Beginning in 2001, a cultural symposium called Tarbut has taken place regularly in the Bavarian Alps on themes of Jewish literature, politics, and arts, with several hundred participants from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. There exist a number of other Jewish organizations with regular programs, ranging from student organizations (organized in the German-wide Bundesverband Jüdischer Studenten in Deutschland) to Maccabi sports associations, WIZO, and other women's organizations to senior citizen clubs. The larger communities run youth centers with a broad range of activities. The lack of leadership is, however, visible in this respect as well. Directors are rare in Germany and are usually recruited from Israel, which means a high rate of turnover, language problems, and often also a gap between a religious leadership and a highly secular clientele. The Zionist Organization, and especially its youth organization, has been among the most active Jewish organizations, organizing seminars and camps, which for many young German Jews become a formative experience in the forging of their Jewish identities. Jews are a tiny minority in today's Germany, constituting not more than 0.1% of the total population. Their voice, however, can hardly be ignored in the German public. Whenever there are major public debates about the German past, spokespersons of the Jewish community are given prominent space.   It is notable that all leading representatives of postwar German Jewry, from the volatile Bavarian state commissioner, Philipp Auerbach (who committed suicide in 1952 after a spectacular trial against him which failed to prove that he had embezzled restitution money), and the longtime secretary general of the Central Association, Hendrik van Dam, to its most recent presidents, Werner Nachmann, Heinz Galinski, ignatz bubis , and Paul Spiegel, were German-born Jews, while the majority of Germany's Jewish community always remained of East European background. The election of Ignatz Bubis as president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany in 1992 marked a significant change of image for the German-Jewish community. He succeeded the stern Auschwitz survivor Heinz Galinski and his predecessor, Werner Nachmann, who had embezzled millions of marks of reparation money. Bubis, who survived the Holocaust as a child, symbolized a new optimism among German Jews and was one of the best-known figures in the German public. He was even suggested as a candidate for the Federal Presidency in the 1990s. The election of Bubis' successor after his untimely death in 1999 was for the first time a high profile public issue in Germany. Perhaps for the last time a Holocaust survivor, Duesseldorf community president Paul Spiegel, was elected president of the Central Association in January 2000. In contrast to pre-Nazi Germany there were today only a handful of prominent German Jews in the public sector. For many years not a single professing Jew has been a member of the Bundestag, although there were today a few well-known younger Jews active in political life, such as Michel Friedman for the Christian Democrats and Micha Brumlik for the Greens. Together with the late Ignatz Bubis, a leading member of the Free Democrats, these most visible Jewish politicians all came from Frankfurt. In the realm of journalism the foremost weekly, Die Zeit, had a Jewish publisher in Josef Joffe, and a few other prominent Jewish journalists could be found in the press and television. The most important and influential literary critic in Germany in the last decades of the 20th century was Marcel reich-ranicki . Some observers have noticed an upsurge in German-Jewish literature in recent years. Indeed, there are quite a few young writers of varying quality who increasingly write about Jewish topics and are well known to the German public. At the same time it has to be noted that their audience is almost exclusively non-Jewish. There exists one German-wide Jewish newspaper, the weekly Allgemeine Juedische Wochenzeitung, published by the Zentralrat. Some larger communities, such as Berlin, Frankfurt, and Duesseldorf, issue their own community bulletins. The Frankfurter Juedische Nachrichten is only issued a few times a year but remains significant both because of its independence and its high level. By now the Russian immigrants have also established their own press. Jewish student papers such as Cheschbon in the 1980s and Nudnik in the 1990s had a rather short-lived existence, but student papers continue to exist in varying formats. The most prominent Jewish representatives of cultural life in Germany are to be found in the realm of music. An impressive list just of conductors can easily be drawn up, ranging from Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy to James Levine, Lorin Maazel, and Asher Fish. None of them resides permanently in Germany or is affiliated with Jewish life there, but they all have regular appointments and thus put their stamp on German cultural life. Such a list is more than a curiosity: it demonstrates that for a certain sector of society a burgeoning cultural and economic life can overshadow the tragic past. What is true in music is also true in other areas, such as academia, the sciences, and business. Especially where no language barriers exist, increasing mobility makes people move to prosperous and culturally attractive places and stay there, either temporarily or permanently. Since the 1960s and 1970s German public discourse has been characterized by a culture of memory, which began with modest exhibits and local memorials and reached its peak in the 1990s with the construction of several Jewish museums and the big debate around the Berlin Holocaust Monument. In the 1980s and 1990s the German public began to discuss the less pleasant aspects of the German past with an openness unknown before – ranging from the Historians Debate all the way up to the present debates about the Goldhagen book, the Walser speech, the Wehrmacht exhibit, and the slave labor reparations. Here again larger German issues were decisive. It was the generation of 1968, and the issues of 1968, which influenced the future outlooks of both progressive and conservative Jewish intellectuals as well. The identification with the student revolt and its causes, just as the later disappointment with an antisemitism often posing as anti-Zionism, shaped the critical Jewish voices emerging first in opposition to the official leadership, but – at least in the Fassbinder scandal – overriding traditional borders. As Jewish intellectuals such as Micha Brumlik, Dan Diner, and Henryk Broder made it clear, their growing disillusionment with the German left caused them to reconsider their Jewish identities. On the other hand, the minority conservative Jewish view (represented for example by TV journalist Richard Loewenthal in the 1960s and 1970s or by the historian Michael Wolffsohn in later decades) was also decisively shaped by its opposition to the student revolt and the values connected to it. More noticeable than any internal Jewish discourse is the immense German interest in matters Jewish, mainly in the cultural and scholarly spheres. Jewish museums were built in Frankfurt, Berlin, and many smaller places in the 1980s and 1990s and another one in Munich was under construction. Chairs and departments in the field of Jewish Studies spread in the same period. TV films, series, and mini-series on Jewish life are prime time viewing fare. Jewish festivals have become a regular part of local culture in Berlin, Munich, and many other places, Yiddish klezmer bands flourish, and Jewish book stores carry on a brisk trade. (Michael Brenner (2nd ed.)   -Antisemitism Since the early 1980s, there has been an ever stronger evolution of two countervailing trends in West Germany, and as is now apparent, in East Germany as well. The first one consists of pro-Jewish and sometimes pro-Israeli currents with often strongly idealizing and romanticizing elements; the other, in the wake of growing racism, of more virulent forms of antisemitism. In the past, surveys have shown that the right-wing potential – expressed, for example, in sympathy for the moderate right-wing Republikaner party (roughly equivalent to France's Front National) or by core antisemitic attitudes – has been at about 15%. In recent years, however, the Right has experienced clear gains. This has to do with the traumatic experience of unification for many East Germans, and Germany experiencing the highest growth in foreign population of any state in the European community and far larger absolute numbers of immigrants than Britain or France, former colonial powers. In 1992 alone, willingness to vote for a right-wing party jumped from 12% to 19% in the West, from 8% to 12% in the East; Gerhard Frey's Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), the right of the Republikaner, grew from 22,000 to 24,000 members. In the 2004 state elections of Saxony, the extremist right-wing NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) received almost 10% of the vote, and higher percentages among the younger voters. But in the nationwide Bundestag elections of 2005 they fell clearly under 2%. Blatantly neo-Nazi groups, such as the Deutsche Alternative (AD) of the late Michael Kuhnen, grew from a few dozen members in the 1980s to over 1,000 in the 1990s, with a substantial growth in particular localities in the East. Neo-Nazi, skinhead-type activists increased concurrently from 1,000 to about 6,000 in early 1993, while the total right-wing extremist membership must be estimated at well over 40,000 members. With this growth and the crystallization of right-wing movements into ever more stable parties and other institutions, antisemitism, previously often underground, is now out in the open and acceptable again in some quarters. This goes hand in hand with desecrations of cemeteries, synagogues, monuments, and plaques commemorating the Holocaust (including, for example, the burning of a barracks at Sachsenhausen), with occasional attacks against individual Jews. These sentiments are often located in the lower and lower-middle class, as well as among some noteworthy neo-conservative and right-wing intellectuals. In order to contain the Right within its ranks, the governing CDU has largely downplayed the seriousness of these developments. While they represent a serious threat, as shown in the pogrom-like acts in Moellin, Rostock, or Hoyerswerda, the recent massive resistance against the Right is at least as noteworthy, especially the anniversary of Kristallnacht which is turning increasingly into a central day of anti-racist action, with hundreds of thousands in the large cities demonstrating against racism and the asylum policies of the government. Some in the Jewish community, notably Central Council Chair Ignatz Bubis, have been important voices in this regard. -Relations with Israel Prior to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the German Federal Republic (West Germany) in March 1965, relations between the two states were confined to the agreement of Sept. 10, 1952, for global recompense of the material damage inflicted on the Jewish people by the National-Socialist regime (see restitution and Indemnification). An Israel mission was in charge of the implementation of this agreement as the only official representative of Israel in the Federal Republic. No German counterpart existed in Israel, in view of vehement opposition there to extending relations beyond the commercial limits of the agreement. The Israel mission was, however, authorized to grant entry visas to Israel, where the British consulate, acting for the Federal Republic, granted entry visas to West Germany. The value of Israel's purchases under the agreement amounted to 60–80 million marks annually. As a result of the contact with the large number of suppliers, relations developed and reached far beyond the field of commerce. Consequently, and in view of the Federal Republic's impressive economic and political recovery from 1953 onward, a need was felt for more clearly defined relations, as well as for the presence of an official representative in Israel. In a letter to the Israel mission, written in March 1956, the then foreign secretary, H. von Brentano, officially proposed the establishment of a mission in Israel whose status would be parallel to that of the Israel mission. Although this proposal was accepted by Israel, it was not implemented by Germany, since the German Foreign Office feared the Arab States would react to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Federal Republic by recognizing the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as a second sovereign German state. Such a development would be contrary to the Hallstein Doctrine (adopted in May 1958), whose basic aim was Germany's reunification. On March 7, 1965 (two years after Ludwig Erhard had become chancellor of the Federal Republic) an offer to establish diplomatic relations with Israel was made; the timing of the offer was due to an official visit to Cairo by Walter Ulbricht, head of the Democratic Republic. Ulbricht's visit was considered by the Federal Republic's government as provocation by President Nasser of the United Arab Republic and an overture to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic. In consequence of this visit and the publicity campaign initiated by Nasser against the supply of defensive arms to Israel by the Federal Republic (although Egypt received incomparably more weapons from the Soviet Union), diplomatic relations were broken off between Germany and Egypt and most of the Arab States. The Israeli government and the Knesset accepted the West German offer, and on May 12, 1965, diplomatic relations were finally established; exchange of ambassadors followed in July 1965. From July 1965, relations developed satisfactorily between the Federal Republic and Israel. The visit to Israel of the former Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, in May 1966 was a significant event. It demonstrated his friendship for Israel and for the former prime   minister, david ben-gurion . In November 1967 the former chancellor, Professor Erhard, paid a visit to Israel, which also symbolized the gradual normalization of relations. At the inauguration of the new Knesset building in 1966, the Federal Republic was represented by the president of its parliament, Eugen Gerstenmaier. An Israel-German chamber of commerce was established with Walter Hesselbach, a leading figure in the West German economy, and the former minister of finance, Franz Etzel, at its head. Long-term loans for development were granted by the Federal Republic to Israel in 1966 and subsequent years under an agreement of May 12, 1965. Similar loans had been granted for the development of the Negev in the years 1961–65, agreed upon at the historic meeting between Ben-Gurion and Adenauer at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on March 14, 1960. Visitors from all walks of life subsequently went from the Federal Republic to Israel, and these visits furthered better understanding between the two countries. Even in the five years preceding the establishment of diplomatic relations, about 40,000 young people aged between 18 and 25 years from the Federal Republic had visited Israel. The first German ambassador to Israel, Rolf Pauls, made unceasing efforts for the improvement of relations. Asher Ben-Nathan was Israel's first ambassador to the Federal Republic. (Felix Eliezer Shinnar) The policy of the Federal Republic of Germany toward Israel was originally based, to a certain extent, on the assumption that Germany had a unique responsibility in regard to the Jewish State, but this factor has since tended to play a smaller role. Since Germany has no special interests in the Middle East, no political conflicts were created. Germany supported the majority of Israel's requests to strengthen its ties with the European community (e.g., the Common Market). Personal relations between the leaders of both countries have also been strengthened in past years. The support of Israel by the vast majority of Germans revealed by public opinion polls during the Six-Day War has waned since then, and in New Left circles a radical anti-Israel attitude has evolved. Chancellor Willy brandt 's official visit to Israel, the first by a German chancellor, in 1973, was an occasion for demonstrations of friendship between the two countries. With his unequivocal anti-Nazi past he stressed the fact that his attitude was not determined by any personal feelings of guilt, but that every German – even of the generation which had not been involved in the Nazi atrocities – must remember the Holocaust for which Germany had been responsible. At the same time, however, Brandt strove for the normalization of relations between the two countries and their citizens. During the Yom Kippur War, however, Germany not only emphasized her neutrality, but even had a hand in the distinctly pro-Arab resolution adopted by the European Community during the war. To some extent, however, Germany later modified this policy and took up a position midway between the friendly attitude of Holland and the pro-Arab stand of France. In his first official statement to the Bundestag on May 17, 1974, the new chancellor of the Federal Republic, Helmut Schmidt, reaffirmed his predecessor's Middle East policy, indicating his intention of continuing Bonn's balanced approach towards Israel and the Arab countries. In his address at the United Nations on November 19, 1974, the German representative, Ruediger von Vechmar, expressed, among other things, his government's recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to decide whether they wish an independent authority in the territories to be handed over by Israel. West Germany abstained in the vote on the UN resolution recognizing the right of the Palestinians to fight for their independence by every means. It had earlier abstained on the vote to invite PLO representatives to the General Assembly. It voted against the resolution to grant observer status to the PLO and in common with all other countries condemned the passing of the Jerusalem Law in 1980. Trade relations between the two countries have continued to develop since the reparations agreement, and in 1972 Germany occupied third place in Israel's foreign trade, after the U.S. and England; 9% of Israel's exports and 12% of her imports were tied up with German trade. Imports from Federal Germany rose from $225.2 million in 1972 to $ 11.8 in 1973, $ 90 million in 1974, and $790.7 million in 1980. Exports from Israel similarly rose from $103.5 million in 1972 to $136.8 million in 1973, but dropped to $135 million in 1974. In 1980 they were $541.9 million. In 1990, Germany gave Israel DM 63.6 million in development aid in the form of loans and other contributions; while in 1981, imports by Israel amounted to DM 1,724.4 million, by 1991 they had risen to DM 3,036.4 million; Israeli exports to Germany grew from DM 1,077.1 to DM 1,464.4 million. During the Gulf War, the debate between the "pacifists and bellicists" cut across all parties in Germany, and the Israeli public and politicians were angered about the neutral and sometimes anti-Israel stance taken by German politicians and the media, especially in light of the military hardware and poison gas installations given to Iraq by German firms. Partly because of the uproar caused by this, Germany promised Israel $670 million in aid; it supported the war effort with $5.5 billion and sent military goods and gas masks valued at $60 million. These monetary concessions vis-à-vis Israel were complemented by a flurry of visits, including that of Foreign Minister Genscher, to Israel and meetings by Chancellor Kohl and others with major international Jewish organizations. Apart from the Gulf War and despite all historical obstacles, contacts have been increasing all along. Even before unification, for example, the speakers of both the West and East German parliaments, Rita Süssmuth and Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, in a demonstrative act both for international and domestic consumption, undertook to visit yad vashem in Jerusalem, and the number of mutual political visits in general is steadily growing. Presidents Chaim Herzog and Richard von Weizsaecker made major visits to each other's countries, and there are almost annual visits by the foreign ministers as well as occasional visits by the prime minister of Israel to   Germany and by the German chancellor to Israel. Two Federal presidents, Johannes Rau and Horst Köhler, delivered speeches in the Knesset in German, despite the objections of some Knesset members. Exchanges also intensified at the cultural and scientific levels. After the death of Herbert von Karajan (whose activities in World War II were regarded with suspicion) in 1989, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra could finally visit Israel the following year, and even Gottfried Wagner, great-grandson of Richard Wagner, was invited in 1990 to participate in lectures and discussions. Israeli academics receive study grants to Germany, and the German-Israeli Foundation engenders a wide network of scientific cooperation. Israeli artists, likewise, receive considerable attention in Germany; most noteworthy was the 1990 meeting of Israeli and German authors in Mainz, with aharon meged , Yoram kaniuk , Ruth almog , and david grossman . In 1991 amos oz received the prestigious award of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Tensions between Israel and Germany Jewry have been aggravated by Israeli pressure on the German government not to admit Jews from the former Soviet Union, and by Ignatz Bubis' criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, especially its deportation policy. Today, in an ironic twist and despite all ambivalences, bitterness, and mutual misunderstandings, the presence of Israel is greater in Germany than in any other European country, and Germany has become the major advocate of Israeli interests and concerns in Europe. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: The major comprehensive work is German-Jewish History in Modern Times (1996–98), ed. by Michael A. Meyer, asst. ed. Michael Brenner, which includes bibliographical essays. Earlier bibliographies are German Jewry (1958), supplemented by From Weimar to Hitler: Germany 1918–1933 (19642); Persecution and Resistance under the Nazis (19602); and After Hitler (1963), all published by the Wiener Library, London. These are brought up to date in the Yearbooks of the Leo Baeck Institute (YLBI, 1956ff.). The Bibliography of Jewish Communities in Europe (BJCE), compiled by B. Ophir in the Yad Vashem Institute, Jerusalem, is the most complete for an economic, social, and regional history. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jewish history in specific regions is covered by the series Bibliographien zur deutsch-juedischen Geschichte, including volumes on Bavaria (1989), Hamburg (1994), and Silesia (1995–2004). The following periodicals are indispensable: Aschkenas; BLBI (since 1992 replaced by Jüdischer Almanach); HJ; Juedische Familien-Forschung; JJGL; JJLG; JJV; Menora; MGADJ; MGWJ; Zeitschrift fuer Demographie und Statistik der Juden; ZGJD. GENERAL: J. Reinharz and W. Schatzberg (eds.), The Jewish Response to German Culture: From the Enlightenment to the Second World War (1985); H.G. Adler, Die Juden in Deutschland (1960); K. Schilling (ed.), Monumenta Judaica, 3 vols. (1963); W. Kampmann, Deutsche und Juden (1963); I. Elbogen and E. Sterling, Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland (1967); H.M. Graupe, Die Entstehung des modernen Judentums (1969); M. Kreutzberger (ed.), Bibliothek und Archiv (1970). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: S.L. Gilman (ed.), Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture (1997); A. Herzig, Jüdische Geschichte in Deutschland (1997). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Kaplan (ed.), Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618–1945 (2005). MEDIEVAL: Aronius, Regesten; G. Caro, Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden im Mittelalter, 2 vols. (1924); Finkelstein, Middle Ages; Germ Jud; G. Kisch, Jewry-Law in Medieval Germany (1949); idem, Jews in Medieval Germany (1949); J.R. Marcus, Jews in the Medieval World (1960); J. Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews (1961); C. Roth (ed.), Dark Ages (1966), 122–42, 162–74; I.A. Agus, Heroic Age of Franco-German Jewry (1969). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Zimmer, Jewish Synods in Germany in the Late Middle Ages (1978); A. Haverkamp (ed .), Zur Geschichte der Juden im Deutschland des spaeten Mittelalters und der fruehen Neuzeit (1981); Th. Metzger, Juedisches Leben im Mittelalter (1983); I. Yuval, Hakhamim be-Doram (1988); M. Toch, Die Juden im mittelalterlichen Reich (1998); A. Haverkamp (ed.), Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzuege (1999); M. Schmandt, Judei, cives, et incole (2002). MERCANTILISM AND ABSOLUTISM: J.R. Marcus, Communal Sick-Care in the German Ghetto (1947); H. Schnee, Die Hoffinanz und der moderne Staat, 6 vols. (1953–67); H. Kellenbenz, Sephardim an der unteren Elbe (1958); S. Stern, Der Preussische Staat und die Juden, 2 vols. (1962); idem, Court Jew (1950). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Cohen, Landjudenschaften als Organe juedischer Selbstverwaltung, 3 vols. (1996–2001); R. Kiessling and S. Ullmann (eds.), Landjudentum im deutschen Suedwesten waehrend der Fruehen Neuzeit (1999); S. Ullmann, Nachbarschaft und Konkurrenz (1999); R. Ries and F. Battenberg (eds.), Hofjuden (2002). ENLIGHTENMENT AND EMANCIPATION: J. Katz, Tradition and Crisis (1961); M.A. Meyer, Origin of the Modern Jew (1967). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Katz, Out of the Ghetto (1973); D. Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780–1840 (1987); M. Brenner, V. Caron, and U. Kaufmann (eds.), Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered (2003); D. Bourel, Moses Mendelssohn. La naissance du judaisme moderne (2004). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment (2004). 19th AND 20th CENTURY: J. Reinharz, Fatherland or Promised Land; the Dilemma of the German Jew, 1903–1914 (1975); J. Toury, Die Politschen Orientierungen der Juden in Deutschland (1966). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Toury, Eintritt der Juden ins deutsche Buergertum (1972); R. Ruerup, Emanzipation und Antisemitismus (1975); J. Toury, Soziale und politische Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland 1847–1871 (1977); D. Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780–1840 (1987); Sh. Volkov, Juden in Deutschland 1780–1918 (1994); J. Ehrenfreund, Mémoire juive et nationalité allemande (2000); E. Hamburger and Mosse, Werner (eds.), Entscheidungsjahr 1932: Zur Judenfrage in der Endphase der Weimarer Republik Juden im oeffentlichen Leben Deutschlands (1968); U. Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany (1975); D.L. Niewyk, The Jews in Weimar Germany (1980); S.E. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923 (1982); G.L. Mosse, German Jews Beyond Judaism (1985); T. Maurer, Ostjuden in Deutschland 1918–1933 (1986); J. Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany (1987); M. Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class (1991); H. Lavsky, Before Catastrophe the Distinctive Path of German Zionism (1996); M. Brenner, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (1996); M. Brenner and D.J. Penslar (eds.), In Search of Jewish Community (1998). ANTISEMITISM: P. Massing, Rehearsal for Destruction (1949); A. Leschnitzer, Magic Background of Modern Anti-semitism (1956); P.G.J. Pulzer, Rise of Political Anti-semitism in Germany and Austria (1964); J. Toury, Mehumah u-Mevukhah be-Mahpekhat 1848 (1968); E. Sterling, Judenhass (1969); G.L. Mosse, Germans and Jews (1970); I. Schorsch, Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism (1972); S. Volkov, Juedisches Leben und Antisemitismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (1990); S. Rohrbacher, Gewalt im Biedermeier (1993); Ch. Hoffmann, W. Bergmann, and H.W. Smith, Exclusionary Violence (2002). HOLOCAUST: R. Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews (1967); G. Reitlinger, Final Solution (1968); L. Poliakov and J. Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und die Juden (1955); International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, 23 vols. (1949), index; W. Scheffler, Judenverfolgung   im Dritten Reich (1964); idem, Die Nationalsozialistsche Judenpolitik (1960). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Bankier, The Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion under Nazism (1992); D. Bankier (ed.), Probing the Depths of German Antisemitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1941 (2000); S. Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. 1 (1997); M. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair (1998). POSTWAR: L.W. Schwarz, The Redeemers (1953); H. Maor, Ueber den Wiederaufbau der juedischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945 (1961); N. Muhlen, The Survivors (1962); A. Elon, Journey through a Haunted Land (1967); K. Gershon, Postscript (1969); L. Katcher, Post Mortem: The Jews of Germany Today (1968); AJYB (1945–) F.E. Shinnar, Be-Ol Korah u-Regashot (1967); Die Juden in Deutschland 1951/52–1958/59: ein Almanach (1959); Vom Schicksal gepraegt … (1957); H.G. van Dam, Die Juden in Deutschland seit 1945 (1965); B. Engelmann, Deutschland ohne Juden (1970). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: H.M. Broder and M.R. Lang (eds.), Fremd im eigenen Land (1979); M. Brumlik et. al. (eds.), Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland seit 1945 (1986); R. Ostow, Jews in Contemporary East Germany (1989); A. Nachama and J.H. Schoeps (eds.), Aufbau nach dem Untergang (1992); E. Burgauer, Zwischen Erinnerung und Verdrängung – Juden in Deutschland nach 1945 (1993); A. Königseder and J. Wetzel, Lebensmut im Wartesaal (1994); S.L. Gilman, Jews in Today's German Culture (1994); Y.M. Bodemann (ed.), Jews, Germans, Memory (1996); M. Brenner, After the Holocaust (1997); J. Geis, Übrig sein – Leben "danach" (1999); Z. Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope (2002); R. Gay, Das Undenkbare tun (2001); H. Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany (2002); L. Morris and J. Zipes (eds.), Unlikely History (2002); J. Geller, Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany 1945 – 1953 (2005); W. Bergmann and R. Erb (eds.), Antisemitismus in der politischen Kultur nach 1945 (1990); F. Stern, Im Anfang war Auschwitz (1991). RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL: R. Vogel, The German Path to Israel (1969); I. Deutschkron, Israel und die Deutschen (1970). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: N. Hansen, Aus dem Schatten der Katastrophe (20042); Y.A. Jelinek, Deutschland und Israel (2004).