Udlice

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UDLICE

UDLICE (Czech Údlice ; Ger. Eidlitz ), village in N.W. Bohemia, Czech Republic. It is assumed that the Jewish community of Udlice was founded by refugees who fled from the nearby community of *Chomutov (Komotau) when the *Hussites attacked it in 1421. Eleven families were recorded in 1570 and the oldest gravestone (still extant until the Holocaust) dated from 1572. The ḥevra kaddisha was founded in 1680. The synagogue was rebuilt in 1694 and again in 1782. Judah Loew b. Isaac Lipschitz, the author of Hanhagot Adam (Fuerth, 1691) was rabbi in the 17^th century. In 1724 the community numbered 76 families; 15 houses owned by the local lord were given to 24 heads of families in 1727; in 1815 they were destroyed by fire. The community numbered 597 in 1809, and in 1824, 111 families (481 persons) lived in 40 houses. In 1840 the synagogue was rebuilt in Reform style. (It was demolished in the 1920s and services were held in the school.) After 1848 the community diminished rapidly, most of its members moving to Chomutov and until 1869 returning to Udlice only for services. Only 150 Jews (9.2% of the total population) were left in Udlice in 1880 and these had declined to 21 (1.02%) in 1910; by 1926 only two families remained. Under Nazi occupation, both cemeteries and the school were destroyed. The memory of the community is perpetuated in the family name "Eidlitz."