ULRICH, JOHANN CASPAR°

ULRICH, JOHANN CASPAR° (1705–1768), Swiss Protestant theologian and historian. After his ordination in 1727, he studied Hebrew and the Talmud in Bremen under the Jewish apostate Gottlieb Fromann, and in Lengnau with Jacob Guggenheim. His missionary activities in Surbtal brought him into contact with the Jews of endingen and lengnau . In his Sammlung juedischer Geschichten … (Basle, 1768; repr. 1922), the first comprehensive history of the Jews of Switzerland, he exonerates the Jews from complicity in causing the black death and from similar allegations. For his work, Ulrich used Jewish sources as well as cantonal records, and it remains a valuable work of reference, especially the section on the Jews of Zurich. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Rothschild, Johann Caspar Ulrich von Zuerich … (1933); F. Guggenheim-Gruenberg, Pfarrer Ulrich als Missionar im Surbtal (1953); A. Weldler-Steinberg, Geschichte der Juden in der Schweiz (1966), index; Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz, S.V.