RUEDIGER°

RUEDIGER° (Hutzmann), bishop of speyer , Germany, from 1073 to 1090. Ruediger enlarged and fortified the city, encouraging Jewish refugees to settle and augment its prosperity and prestige by granting them a charter of privileges (Sept. 13, 1084), one of the earliest and most magnanimous of medieval charters. A contemporary Jewish source emphasizes Ruediger's fatherly and benevolent attitude. In 1090 he took steps to have the rights of the Jews confirmed by his ally, henry iv . His successor saved most of the Speyer Jewish community from massacre during the First Crusade (1096). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Epstein, in: MGWJ, 41 (1897), 25–43; Germ Jud, 1 (1963), 327–30.