NOVY BOHUMIN

NOVY BOHUMIN (Czech Nový Bohumín; Ger. Neuoderberg), town in N.E. Moravia, Czech Republic. In 655 the local lord permitted a Jewish soap-maker and a Jewish distiller to settle under his jurisdiction. In 1751 six Jewish families lived in various localities of the Oderberg domain. Jews settled in the town early in the 19th century, attracted primarily by the fact that Novy Bohumin, a border town, was one of the important railway-crossings in central Europe, and was later the site of an oil refinery. The Jews there first came under the administration of the teschen and later of the ostrava community. A synagogue was built in 1900; an independent community established in 1911; and a Jewish center opened in 1924. In 1933 a large Maccabiah (sports festival) was held in Novy Bohumin. The Jewish community numbered 722 (6.6% of the total population) in 1931. During the German occupation the Jews were put to work rebuilding a bridge blown up by the Poles. The synagogue was burned on Rosh Ha-Shanah 1939. Later that year most of the Jews were deported to Nisko. The community was not revived after the Holocaust. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dr. Bloch's Oesterreichische Wochenschrift, 28 (1911), 157; G. Wolf, in: ZGJD, 4 (1890), 193–4; B. Brilling, in: Judaica Bohemiae, 4 (1968), 101–18 passim, Jews of Czechoslovakia, 1 (1968), 199, 240–2. (Meir Lamed)