MIROSLAV

MIROSLAV (Ger. Misslitz ), town in S. Moravia, Czech Republic. Jews apparently settled there after their expulsion from the Moravian royal cities (1454). There is a record of a community during the Turkish wars; subsequently it diminished to only three families, but later absorbed refugees from the *Chmielnicki massacres (1648). In 1666, 20 Jews were put in chains and expelled from the town. Subsequently Jews from *Vienna settled in the town, bringing the total Jewish population to 18 families. The oldest legible tombstone in the Jewish cemetery dates from 1692. The *Familiants laws allotted 119 families to Miroslav, where in 1753, 64 families lived in 18 houses. Their number had risen to 448 persons (18% of the total population) in 1801 and remained the same in 1820. In 1831 Rafael Koenig (b. 1808) became the first Jewish locksmith in the Hapsburg Empire. A synagogue in the Reform style was erected in 1845. In 1867 a political community (see *politische Gemeinden) was established, which was incorporated in the municipality in 1924. The Jewish population reached its peak in 1857, when it numbered 1,032, subsequently declining to 424 in 1869 and then rising slightly to 528 in 1900. During World War i some 350 refugees fled to Miroslav, but few of them settled. In 1930 the community numbered 291 (6.6% of the total). The remainder of the community was deported to Nazi extermination camps in 1942, and the synagogue equipment was sent to the Central Jewish Museum in Prague. Although the community was not revived after the war, the Jewish quarter was preserved in its original plan.

bibliography:

E. Reich, in: H. Gold (ed.), Die Juden und Judengemeinden Boehmens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1934), 387–405; D. Kaufmann, in: mwj, 17 (1890), 289–301.

[Meir Lamed]