Trest
TREST
TREST (Czech Třešt ; Ger. Triesch ), town in Moravia, Czech Republic. R. Jacob of Triesch is mentioned in a query addressed to Solomon b. Abraham *Adret. The community developed after the expulsion from nearby *Jihlava (1426) but it may be assumed that it existed earlier. In 1678 Jews owned fields and in 1693 they were permitted to distill spirits and to fatten cattle. Trest Jews were connected with the textile industry as sellers of wool, and in 1723 a distillery, tannery, and butchery were rented to a Jew. In 1789 there were 102 Jewish families permitted by the *Familiants Laws; 20 others also lived in the town. One hundred years later the community numbered 316. Trest was the seat of an important yeshivah and among its rabbis was Eleazar *Loew. In 1930 the community numbered 64 (1.3% of the total population). It came to an end in the Holocaust period, some immigrating to England and Palestine and the rest deported to the death camps of Poland via Theresienstadt. Its sacred objects are now in the Jewish State Museum in Prague.
bibliography:
H. Gold and B. Wachstein, in: H. Gold (ed.), Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1929), 539–48; Germ Jud, 2 (1968) 833.
[Meir Lamed]