Mosbach
MOSBACH
MOSBACH , city in Baden, Germany. A Jewish community was in existence in Mosbach by the second half of the 13th century. In 1298 the *Rindfleisch massacres took 55 Jewish lives. Jews also suffered in 1343, when they were accused of desecrating the *Host, and during the *Black Death persecutions of 1349. By 1381 just one Jew lived in the city, and the number of the Jews there remained small throughout the following centuries. They traded in livestock, salt, and wine. The municipal authorities periodically sought to restrict Jewish commercial activity. In 1722 there were eight Jewish families in the city; the number had grown to 19 by 1773. A cemetery was consecrated in 1599 but no synagogue was built until 1860, and a Jewish school was established only in 1876. From 1827 the seat of the district rabbinate was in Mosbach. Leopold *Loewenstein (1843–1924), author of works on German Jewish history, served there as a rabbi from 1887 to 1924.
The 19th century saw a significant growth in the Jewish population. There were 100 persons in 1824, and 192 in 1884. By 1900 the numbers had declined to 161; 159 in 1925; 134 in 1933; and 18 in 1939. The Jews had been active in the commercial and industrial life of the city as merchants in grain and livestock, and owners of a cigar factory, liquor distillery, and numerous other businesses, which were all disrupted when the boycott of Jewish merchants began on April 1, 1933. On November 10, 1938, the synagogue was burned down and the cemetery desecrated. On October 22, 1940, 13 Jews were deported to *Gurs, only two of whom survived the war. The rabbi, Julius Greilsheimer, fled to Holland in 1939, only to be deported from there to Auschwitz, where he perished together with his family. In 1947 a grove of 100 trees was planted by the city in his memory and that of the Jewish community. In 1969 and, later, in 1985 a plaque was mounted to commemorate the desecrated synagogue.
bibliography:
Germania Judaica, 2 (1968), 548; Salfeld, Martyrol, 54, 61, 66, 78, 80; F. Hundsnurscher and G. Taddey, Die juedischen Gemeinden in Baden (1968). add. bibliography: Germania Judaica, vol. 3, 1350–1514 (1987), 884–85; J. Hahn, Erinnerungen und Zeugnisse juedischer Geschichte in Baden-Wuerttemberg (1988), 387–89. website : www-alemannia-judaica.de.
[Alexander Shapiro]