If you’ve been touring the temples and pagodas in Asia in a Cambodia or Vietnam river cruise, it’s going to be a refreshing experience to explore North Bohemia in Central Europe. The synagogue, or Templ, stood in North Bohemian Jablonec (in the German sources Gablonz and der Neisse) between 1892 and 1938 when it was burned down and demolished by the Nazis. Nearly all of the Jewish inhabitants of Jablonec nad Nisou were killed during the Shoah, and there is nowhere in the city anymore. The Jewish families have greatly contributed to the fact that Jablonec became a poor mountain village one of the richest cities in Central Europe. History of the Jewish Community The history of the Jewish settlement of Jablonec is relatively short compared to other cities in the Sudet. Jablonec was, in essence, until the Industrial Revolution, a poor man of mountain life, so there is no logical reason for the increased activity of Jewish merchants or merchants in previous centuries. According to the records of local chroniclers Bendy (1877) and Lily (1894), Salomon Altschul was the first Jewish settler in Jablonec , whose wine trade is evidenced by written sources dating back to 1770 and 1773. However, the first Jews can only settle in the city after the revolutionary year of 1848. The first Jew who moves to Jablonec this year is B.Spitzer - he buys two local houses and establishes a distillery. In 1852, c. And k. Military physician Heinrich Schulhof dies in J., however, the record is silent about the funeral. In 1856 Daniel Mendel from Mladá Boleslav opens the first store of colonial goods. In 1864, the first Jewish wedding is documented - the merchant of mixed goods Joseph Pam of Abtsdorf takes the wife of Theresia Lustig. In 1864 the first glass shop "SMHock". In 1870 a Preparatory Committee for the Establishment of a Religious Society was established, and on September 19, 1872, Israelitischer Cultusverein was officially founded and its first chairman was Dr. Hermann Adler. In 1877, the Jewish Association records 50 Jewish families settled in Jablonec. In 1878 the town was transformed into a separate ŽNO and in 1882 a Jewish cemetery was founded. Worship takes place first at the house on Main Street no. 10 ( Hauptsraße Nr.10 ), belonging to the family of the Spitzer mentioned above, and then transferred to the household of S.Lustig . For almost five years he has been the chief cantor of Moses Pollak from Tanvald , while S.Lustig is both a cantor and a shooter . Afterwards, various objects are used for worship (eg Old Shooting Range, the "Silver Moon" Coaching Inn, etc.), but there is still a more significant presence of a dignified and representative sacral structure. Synagogue
The project of construction of the synagogue was r. 1891 entered one of the most important architects of synagogue buildings in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Bratislava -born Viennese Wilhelm Stiassnymu. On April 10, 1892, the foundation stone was laid ceremonially, and the 28th September of that year was ceremonially consecrated in a very fashionable Moorish style with Art Nouveau elements, comfortably over 280 believers (160 men and 126 seats in the women's section). The celebration was attended by representatives of Jewish religious communities from Liberec, Turnov ,Mladá Boleslav and Prague, representatives of state authorities, bourgeois and associations and district council, evangelical communities and schools, as well as other guest guests. The building has received a symbolic final stone to a mailbox Convention entered Torah scrolls. At the same time, we introduced a new Jablonec rabbi, Dr. Hermann Baneth, who also had a speech. The whole temple building project went to 60,000 gold. One year after the ordination of the synagogue, in 1893, more than 500 members were reported to the Jablonec Jewish community, 826 in 1910, and 893 in the last census in 1930. In the first half of the 20th century. existed in Jablonec Jewish associations Chevra Kadisha - burial society, Jewish women's association "Israelitischer Frauenverein" (established in 1885), the Jewish YCL "Blau-Weiss" (est. 1926 - 45 members) and Zionist association " Theodor Herzl " (est. r. 1900 - 85 members). The synagogue served its purpose until the fateful year of 1938, when the entire Sudetenland was annexed by Nazi Germany. The building was in the so-called "Crystal Night," as Gablonzer Zeitung says "... in the afternoon, on 10 November, the crowds were sacked and fired at about 17 o'clock.” Another secondary source states: "At a time when the" Crystal Night "was held in Jablonec on November 10, 1938, only a small part of the former Jewish community remained in the city, and most of them left after the Nazis were seized, many of them initially resorted to nearby Turnov, yet the synagogue in the afternoon it was devastated and about 17 hours fired, but it managed to save the Torah scroll that came to the US Maryland where it was exposed, and the crowd also pulled out the signboard of the Jewish shops and destroyed the interior. According to a report by the District Office in Semile, "all the Jews here were taken into custody, one local Jew was led by the procession, the name could not be traced back to him, with a banner on his chest: Ich bin ein Saujude (I am a Swine Jew)" After the war the ŽNO was not restored and the nearest active village with jurisdiction also for the town of Jablonec became ŽNO v Liberci. Memorial At the site of the burned synagogue, on 2 August 1993 a symbolic Shoah Memorial (Holocaust) was installed by Oldřich Plíva, the Jablonec sculptor. On this occasion a festivity was organized by the Association of Friends of Jablonec nad Nisou together with the town and Jablonec businessmen. Thanks to the initiator of Franz Kafka's action in England, they contributed 10,000 dollars to the project, who had been forced to go abroad after the war. The monument forms a granite triangular block, which at the top is a six-pointed star, the Jewish symbol of King David's temple. At the foot of the monument there are two plaques with inscriptions: "Here was a synagogue serving 300 Jewish families who greatly benefited the development of the Jablonec industry before World War I. In October 1938, the Nazis occupied the city, desecrated and destroyed the synagogue, and most of the Jewish population were murdered in Nazi concentration camps, God bless their memory." The memorial is part of the "Inner Touristic Circuit" of Jablonec nad Nisou. Learn more about this place in a kosher tour across Europe.
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