LAUINGEN

LAUINGEN, town in Bavaria, Germany. The earliest documentary evidence for the presence of Jews in Lauingen dates from 1293. The Jewish settlement suffered during the rindfleisch persecutions (1298). A Jewish community is again recorded in 1324, but it was probably annihilated during the black death persecutions of 1348/49. In 1367 the town received the privilege of accepting Jews and the subsequent community had strong commercial ties with augsburg . The municipal hospital mortuary was a synagogue before 1417 and bore a Hebrew inscription. In the 16th and 17th centuries numerous regulations against Jewish merchants were formulated. Although the estates resolved on the expulsion of the Jews in 1553, the measure was not enacted until 1577. Thereafter Jews were allowed into the town only to trade in the markets and for this they received special permits. By 1630, however, a community had again been formed. Expulsion of the 55-member community (including a doctor, rabbi, and teacher) was narrowly averted in 1635, thanks to the protection of the duke of Palatinate-Neuburg, Wolfgang Wilhelm. On his death (1653) they were expelled by popular demand, and the community was never reestablished, though some Jews continued to reside in the duchy (in spite of the general expulsion of 1671). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Germ Jud, 2 (1968), 473; L. Lamm, Zur Geschichte der Juden in Lauingen… (1903); PK Bavaria.