Jewish Families from Bamberg, Germany

This project seeks to collect all of the Jewish families from the town of Bamberg, Germany also known as Babenberk, Bonfir.
JewishGen-Bamberg

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Jewish History

Summary: Jews are said to have lived in Bamberg since its foundation in 1007, and there is evidence, dating from the 12th century, of a thriving Jewish community with its own quarter, synagogue, mikveh, school and wedding hall. Many Jews of the early community were prominent bankers, but their contributions to the town’s economy did not protect them from the pogroms of the Middle Ages; notable among these were the Rindfleisch massacres of 1298, the Black Death pogroms of 1348, the expulsions of the 15th century and the pogroms of the 17th century.

Although many Jewish institutions continued to flourish in Bamberg after the implementation of the anti-Jewish boycott, Jews began to leave the town in steadily growing numbers beginning in 1933. The synagogue, which housed ritual objects from the region’s many Jewish communities and 40 Torah scrolls, was burned down on Pogrom Night. The old synagogue was vandalized, as were Jewish homes, and local Jewish men were sent to Dachau. The 418 Jews who still lived in Bamberg in 1939 were eventually deported.

By war’s end, 12 Jews (most likely spared because of their marriages to ethnic Germans) were still living in the town. There is a memorial plaque next to the former synagogue and cemetery. After the war, a large number of Jews, all awaiting emigration, lived at the Bamberg DP camp. Many Russian Jews settled in Bamberg after the fall of the Soviet Union, and at the time of this writing, the town was home to at least 800 Jews. Source

Rabbis

As early as the beginning of the eleventh century Jews had settled at Bamberg. In the second half of the twelfth century Benjamin of Tudela, at the end of his "Travels," mentions its large congregation, which included many scholars and rich men. The Bamberg rabbinate was occupied by eminent men.

1. Rabbi Samuel ben Baruch (Samuel von Babenberg), founder of a renowned yeshiva, a well known as halakist, exegete, and piyyuṭ expounder, lived there about 1220.
2. Israel of Bamberg, author of Tosafot (about 1250), succeeded him.
3. Rabbi Feyst is mentioned about 1403.
4. David Sprinz (about 1445), who went later to Nuremberg was even more famous.
5. Moses Minz, one of the most important Talmudists of the 15th century, and the last great representative of German rabbis of the Middle Ages, lived at Bamberg from 1469 to 1474.
6. Rabbi Samuel Meseritz, author of the collection of formulas and documents "Naḥalat Shib'ah" (Amsterdam, 1667-68), was at Bamberg from 1661 to 1665.
7. Moses Fürth, 1665-67;
8. Enoch Levi, 1674-78;
9. Mordecai Lipschütz, 1678-85;
10. Mendel Rothschild, 1686-1718;
11. Moses Broda, 1718-33;
12. Nathan Utiz, 1734-42;
13. Joseph Breslau, 1743-52;
14. Abraham Maler, 1752-57;
15. Tewele Scheuer, 1759-67;
16. Judah Katz, 1770-88;
17. Löb Berlin, 1789-94;
18. Uri Feist, 1797-1802;
19. Joseph Gersfeld, 1802-14;
20. Samson Wolf Rosenfeld,
21. Joseph Kobak (b. 1864),
22. Dr. A. Eckstein (in 1901).
23. Rabbi Shimon Rosenfeld, the first in Bavaria to deliver his sermons in German. .

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