Switzerland has had a settled Jewish community since the 13th century. In 1213, Basel was one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe and the first recorded mention of Jews in Switzerland, The community was made up of Jews mostly from Germany and France Jews settled in Bern by 1259, St. Gall in 1268, Zurich in 1273, Schaffhausen, Diessenhofen, and Luzerne in 1299.
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.............................................. in the photo: The main synagogue of Basel

Notable Jews

1. Ruth Dreifuss First Swiss female president (1999 - 2000)
2. Dr. Samuel Teitler First Jewish Swiss Supreme Court Justice
3. Ernest Bloch composer
4. Felix Bloch Nobel Prize in Physics, 1952
5. Alain de Botton FRSL British-based philosopher, author and award winning television presenter.
6. Albert Cohen Greek-born Romaniote Jewish Swiss novelist
7. Arthur Cohn Swiss film producer and a multiple Academy Award winner.
8. Maurice Abravanel Salonika-born to an illustrious Sephardic Jewish family, raised in Switzerland and became an American conductor of classical music.
9. Camille Edouard Dreyfus, Swiss chemist
10. Henri Dreyfus Swiss chemist
11. Al Dubin Swiss born American lyricist
12. Jean Dunand-Gotscho sculptor, painter, lacquerer
13. Albert Einstein Nobel Prize in Physics 1921.
14. Edmond (Edi) Fischer, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1992 (Jewish father)
15. Robert Frank Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker.
16. Meyer Guggenheim Swiss-born American businessman.
17. Jeanne Hersch Swiss philosopher
18. Mathilde Krim AIDS researcher (convert)
19. Dani Levy (1957 -) film maker, theatrical director and actor
20. Rolf Liebermann Swiss music administrator and composer.
21. Saly Mayer Courageous Jewish leader in World War II
22. Méret Oppenheim German-born Swiss, Surrealist artist, and photographer.
23. Élisabeth Rachel Félix, Swiss-born French stage actress (Mademoiselle Rachel).
24. Tadeus Reichstein chemist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,1950
25. Edmond Safra Lebanese-Brazilian Swiss banker and philanthropist.
26. Jean Starobinski literary critic
27. Sigismond Thalberg, Swiss-born Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist and composer
28. Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein) Leaders of the Russian October Revolution, Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.
29. Regina "Rega" Ullmann Swiss poet
30. Charles Weissmann Hungarian-Swiss molecular biologist.
31. Gerard Wertheimer French businessman based in Geneva; owns the House of Chanel perfume company

Notable Rabbis

(Geni profiles)

1. Rabbi Raphael Riss (Riess) (1728 – 1813) rabbi of Endingen and Lengnau, Swiss Chief Rabbi from 1788 to 1813
2. haRav Dr. Meyer Kayserling (1829 – 1905 ) rabbi of Endingen and Lengnau, Swiss Chief Rabbi from 1861 to 1870.
3. haRav Abraham Isaac haKohen Kook (1865 – 1935) In 1914 Rav Kook traveled to Europe for Agudat Yisrael convention in Berlin. Stranded due to the sudden outbreak of World War I, he spent two years in St. Gallen, Switzerland. 1
4. Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884 – 1966) Noted European Orthodox rabbi, posek, rosh yeshiva, best known as author of the work of responsa "Seridei Eish". After WWll moved to Montreaux, Switzerland, where he lived until his passing in 1966.
5. haRav Yitzhak Dov Kopelman (1905 -2011) In 1948, R’ Koppelman took over as Rosh Yeshiva for R’ Moshe Soleveichik at the yeshiva in Lucerne, Switzerland.
6. haRav Dr. Alexandru Şafran (1910 – 2006). In 1948, he became chief rabbi of Geneva, where he remained until his death. There he worked with United Nations, Red Cross, and other organization to improve human rights.
7. haRav Moshe Soloveitchik (1915 - 1995) Rabbi Moshe lived in Montreux, Lugano, Lucerne and Zurich. He revolutionized Swiss Judaism and acquired a reputation as the leader of European Orthodox Jewry.
8. Rabbi Bezalel Rakow (1927 – 2003) After WWll ived in Montreux, Switzerland 1948 to 1964.

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• Switzerland Synagogues
• Jewish History of Switzerland

HISTORY

In the fourteenth century, Jews from Alsace, Ulm, Nuremberg, France, and various southern German cities began to settle in Neuchâtel, Biel, Vevay, Pruntrut, Solothurn, Winterthur, Zofingen, and various places in Aargau and Thurgau. During this time, the Jews of Switzerland were regarded as "Kammerknechte" (in English, Chamber farmhands) of the Holy Roman Empire and were under their protection as long as they paid an annual tribute. In some towns, they instead had acquired the "Judenregal" (right of protecting the Jews and imposing taxes on them).

A Jewish community in Geneva was established by the end of the 18th century. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia online, "The modern history of the Geneva community begins with the year 1783, when a number of Lorraine Jews settled in the suburb Carouge, which belonged to the Duke of Savoy until he ceded it to Geneva in 1816. Under French domination several Jews settled in Geneva, enjoying complete freedom until 1815, when French rule ceased. The law of Nov. 14, 1816, forbade their owning land in the canton. Not until 1841 did they again receive civic equality.

Expulsion and Emancipation

In 1622, at the diet of thirteen cantons, all Jews except for physicians were expelled from all of Switzerland except two villages in the Aargau canton. Aargau did not join the Swiss Confederation until 1803 hence they were exempt from requiring the expulsions.
The drive to emancipation was a long and hard battle, though generally resembling the patterns of the rest of Western Europe. Prior to emancipation Jews were generally considered resident aliens and required special permission to marry, and their business activities were heavily regulated.

The First Zionist Congress was held in Basel in 1897. It was originally supposed to be held in Germany but was moved to Basel because of rabbinical protests in Germany. It was Theodor Herzl's wish to center the Zionist movement in Basel, with a special congress building there, but his wish was never realized.

Basel was the host of nine more congresses: including the second, attended by Chaim Weizmann. At the Congress in 1929, held in Switzerland, the Jewish Agency was formed.

Many Jews from Alsace and Eastern Europe immigrated to Switzerland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Source

Intellectual Elite

From emancipation onwards, Switzerland became a major haven for the Russian Jewish intellectual circle. Imbibing Western ideals about freedom, Switzerland helped shape the ideology of these Russian Jewish intellectuals. Chaim Weizmann wrote of his university days in 1898:

"If Russian Jewry was the cradle of my Zionism, the Western universities were my finishing schools. The first of these schools was Berlin, with its Russian-Jewish society; the second was Berne, the third Geneva, both in Switzerland."

Around this time, prominent Jews who would become leaders of the Russian Revolution such as Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov, Marxist philosopher and leader of the Russian Social Democratic movement, and ]

' spent his youth in Switzerland and received his doctorate from Federal Polytechnic Academy in Zurich and was employed by the Swiss patent office. Leon Trotsky studied law in Switzerland. Zev Jabotinsky was sent to Bern as a reporter for the Russian press. In 1903 he was elected as a Russian delegate to the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.