The Jewish Community in Hamburg 1860-1943 Hohenzollern Empire - Weimar Republic - National Socialist State II. The Deutsch-Israelitische Gemeinde/German-Israelite Community in the Hohenzollern Empire (1871-1919): The fear of the more conservative members of the community that the ending of compulsory membership would lead to a depletion of membership, with the corresponding loss of prestige, was ungrounded. Only around 1·2 % of members left the community in the years following the ending of compulsory membership. It was manifest that Hamburg Jews identified with the new administrative structure of their community. It was the political aim of liberal Judaism to change the community in regard to voluntary religious affiliation. The attainment of emancipation in no way increased acculturation, it simply put into practice the ideal of liberal Judaism where the individual could consciously decide either for a religious or a cultural commitment. The majority of liberal Jews regarded this freedom as guaranteed within the new community structure. This new confession to Judaism formed the basis for the survival and continuing legitimation of the "Hamburg System" over the following generations. This programme of community integration was fundamental to the avoidance of separatist tendencies on the part of orthodox Jews. A balance was found between the demands of the community concerning cultural identity and traditional Jewish independence on the one hand, and religious autonomy and certainty of religious belief on the other. Jewish orthodoxy was obliged to show a minimum of "secular" tolerance. The period of the Hochenzollern Empire was a time of stabilization and legitimation for the new community. 1. Demography and Changes in Urban Settlement: Hamburg Population Figures Year Total Population Jews within the Total Population Total % 1811 132,007 6,429 4·87% 1871 338,974 13,796 4·07% 1910 1,014,664 18,932 1·87% 1919 1,050,380 circa 18,500 circa 1·76% 1925 1,152,523 19,904 1·73% 1933 1,196,883 16,855 1·41% These figures show a stagnation in demographic development in the Jewish population from 1910 onwards. Already from around 1895 there was a steady decline in the birth rate. This was especially the case in the business orientated middle and upper classes. This trend was compensated for by a decease in infant mortality and through a higher average life expectancy. This phenomena began a generation later in the general population. The Jews did not setttle randomly in the city but were mainly concentrated in certain districts, without, however, creating a ghetto. The choice of inner city settlement was determined by business orientated occupations. In 1871 almost ¾ of all Jews lived in the Altstadt and Neustadt. There was then a migration of Jews to the new districts of Rotherbaum, Harvestehude and Eimsbüttel. In 1910 83·6% of all Jews lived in the four districts of Inner City, St. Pauli, Rotherbaum and Harvestehude. As illustrated in the table below the settlement pattern changed again a generation later: Jewish Population according to City District City District % of all Jews % of Total Population Urban Population in % Jewish Population Total Population Rotherbaum 24·0 15·23 26·75 2·91 Harvestehude 23·6 15·89 26·31 2·74 Eppendorf 15·4 3·54 17·11 7·99 Interim Total 63·0 8·51 70·17 13·87 Inner City 7·3 1·72 8·17 7·87 Eimsbüttel 6·7 1·02 7·50 12·06 All Other 23·0 0·35 14·16 65·89 There existed a kind of voluntary ghetto in the Grindel quarter of Hamburg, which was ironically referred to as "Little Jerusalem". The building of a new Central Synagogue in Bornplatz in 1906, and next to it a school, at No. 30 Grindelhof, in 1911 were not merely indications of this resettlement but also expressions of Jewish self assurance. 2. Religious Worship - The Religious Associations: During the Hohenzollern Empire the orthodox Synagogue Association had around 1,200 members, and the liberal Temple Association had around 600 to 700 members. Women and children could neither be "members" of the community nor of a religious association. The majority of the male community members were not members of either of the two religious associations. Nevertheless, the influence of the orthodoxy remained paramount. Circumcision, weddings, and funerals were carried out in accordance with orthodox ritual. This ritual was accessible to non-members of the Synagogue Association. Community administered institutions such as the community hospital, schools, subsidized housing for the poor, homes for the elderly, and orphanages were run according to the orthodox prescription of Schulchan Aruch (The main codification of Jewish Law and ritual derived from the Talmud, compiled by the 16th-century rabbi, Joseph Caro). The Central Synagogue was also open to all Jews. During this period the liberal Temple Association was influenced by a conservative revival in orthodoxy. This stabilized the Hamburg System. There was a movement away from the initial convergence with the Protestant church service to a return to the customary Polish Minhag (i.e. Aschkenazi custom or practice). The more traditional ideas of the time also lead to the revival of Aschkenazi articulation. During this time the Synagogue Association found in the personalities of their Chief Rabbis Anschel Stern (until 1888), and Mordechi Amram Hirsch (until 1909), men who favoured a religious openness in contrast to the narrowness of an extreme orthodoxy, which was conducive to the harmony of the community. How important this was to co-existance in the community became apparent in the problems of the 1920s, that were connected with the election of Chief Rabbi Samuel Spitzer. Despite the return to tradition Jewish pratice by the Temple Association and the flexibility of the Synagogue Association a further religious society was founded in 1894 i.e. the Neue Dammtorsynagoge/New Dammtor Synagogue. It built its synagogue outside the Dammtor gate. This new religious association followed a moderate conservative ritual and had its own rabbi. In 1912 it became a registered association. Over the following decades both the Synagogue Association and Temple Association unsuccessfully attempted to deny its existence and sought to integrate its members into their own membership. 3. Jewish Education System: The Jewish community's claim to an independent public education was embodied in its own schools. Living in the Diaspora the stress on Jewish religio-cultural life and Jewish education were to convey Jewish self assurance, combat the danger of acculturation, and strengthen Jewish cultural and collective identity. A basic secondary education was provided for all Jews. The educational interests of orthodox Jews were focussed in the 1805 founded Talmud Torah School, which was initially a school for the poor. Its aim was to provide a combined religious and secular education. It should be remembered that in the 19th century there was no compulsory school attendance and that education was largely left to the financial resources of parents. This financial argument was one of grounds for making education responsibility of the community. In 1868 Chief Rabbi A. Stern raised the level of the curriculum to that approximate to a secondary school. The ambitious aim was for the Talmud Torah School to become a secondary school entitled to prepare pupils for the Einjährigenschein/Lower School Certificate. It became necessary to extend the range of academic subjects. The school was so successful that half of all Jewish boys in Hamburg attended the school. It became the oldest of Hamburg's secondary schools. In response to the urban migration of Hamburg Jews a new location for the main community school was sought within the neighbourhood of the new residential areas. In 1911 the new school was opened next to the Central Synagogue at No. 30 Grindelhof. The development of Jewish girls schools was less ambitious. The Israelitische Töchterschule/School for Israelite Daughters had the level of an elementary school. There were two orthodox secondary schools. One was the orthodox Lyzeum Bieberstraße founded in 1893, the other was the private Lyzeum Dr. Loewenberg. Around half of Jewish children attended state schools and received no special Jewish education. The religious associations responded to this lack of Jewish education with their own religious schools. 4. Jewish Cemetery Ohlsdorf: The Jewish community experienced internal disputes. Two such disputes concerned burial. The dispute concerning place of burial almost split the community. The Jewish Community was empowered by its members to negotiate with the City of Hamburg for the provision of a cemetery. The community's provision for burial was one reason that Jews remained members. This was not merely altruistic on the part of the community as this service was an important source of its revenue. Rabbinical law demanded the grave be a beth olam and the permanent property of the dead person. When in 1875 the city refused to give the Jews a site within the new central cemetery in Ohlsdorf this inflamed the orthodoxy. Orthodox members demanded from the community the observance of Mosaic Law. The Synagogue Association began to look for a cemetery of their own on Prussian soil, thereby questioning the communal responsibility of the Hamburg System. After years of negotiating for a cemetery the Hamburg Senat made an unusual gesture of goodwill to the Jewish community. In July 1882 the German Israelite Community and the Portugese Jewish Community received, in a kind of contract, a separate area on the site of the Ohlsdorf cemetery, as their own property, "to bury your community members, with the assurance that this cemetery will remain such even when the main Ohlsdorf cemetery no longer exists, changes to the contract being possible in exceptional circumstances, and then made legally and not merely administratively". The community also received the assurance that graves would neither be vacated nor re-occupied. This contract satisfied the vast majority of orthodox members as being a good approximation to a beth olam. Towards the end of the 19th century urn burial was customary among liberal Jews. This practice was in opposition to the views of the Synagogue Association's chief rabbi for whom it was a heathen custom. The orthodoxy demonstrated their readiness to compromise by facilitating urn burial in a separate area of the Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf, orthodox burial society however refusing all involvement. Today the Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf remains administered by the Jewish Community. 5. Antisemitism, and its Jewish Response: Antisemitism Pre-First World War During the Hohenzollern Empire, despite civil equality, there was an open acceptance, and even a limited promotion of antisemitism by the state. This was generally not the case in Hamburg. The Hamburg Senat's positive involvement in the restructuring of the Jewish community argues against an antisemitic policy. Hamburg acted in accordance with its constitutional policy of civil equality, which was not the case with Prussia. Jewish civil servants and judges were employed and promoted according to merit. Only the post of Senator remained closed to Jews before the First World War. There were, however, antisemitic tendencies in the Hamburg Education Authority and the Hamburg Teachers' Association. Antisemitism was detectable in the political sphere. Antisemitic polemic intensified within conservative political parties during the last third of the 19th century. This is evident by the fact that up until 1890 the Hamburg police force banned all events with an antisemitic objective. In 1895 political antisemitism came into the open with the founding, in Hamburg, of the Deutschnationale Handlungsgehilfen-Verband (DHV). In the 1893 Reichstag election 8,015 people voted for Adolf Stoecker's antisemitic Deutsch-Soziale Partei. Antisemitic tendencies were also perceptible within several "Bürgervereine". Antisemitism became increasingly accepted in society. In upper-class circles social and economic antisemitism was declared and accepted as one's personal opinion. Jewish Response to Antisemitism Jews responded in three ways to aggressive antisemitism: 1. In 1893 an inter-confessional "Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus"/"Society to Combat Antisemitism" was founded. 2. Also in 1893 the "Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens"/"National Society of German Citizens of Jewish Belief" (CV) was founded as an umbrella organization for all German Jews. It promoted an identification with being German and Jewish. Hamburg Jews were convinced that during the Hohenzollern Empire they were living in a phase of national revival that would assign them a German-Jewish future. 3. The Zionist movement promoted a different debate which was finalized in the statutes of the "Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland"/"German Zionist Society" (ZVfD) and based on a policy of offence. The Zionists, who had developed from a local group founded in 1899 in Altona, wanted to achieve a "legal and secure homeland in Palestine" based on the Basel Programme of 1897. Zionism only slowly established itself in Hamburg alongside Orthodox Judaism and liberal Reform Judaism as the third power group within the Jewish community. Even in 1909 the Hamburg Community refused an invitation to attend or even to acknowledge non-local delegates to the IX. Zionist Congress in Hamburg. Before the First World War all three groups were weakly represented in relation to the size of the Hamburg community. 6. The First World War: Jewish Patriotism Jewish reaction to the war was no different to that of the general population. Jews volunteered to fight and participated in the general enthusiasm for the war. With Kaiser Wilhelm II's offer to forget past differences the Jews were convinced that their ideals, belief in God's will, their love of the Fatherland and military service in the war expressed the correct nationalist attitude. That Jews could become officers was seen as the true beginning of the hoped for social integration. Jews volunteered to fight in large numbers. Reliable Jewish estimates show that there were around 2,900 Hamburg Jewish volunteers, of whom 457 were killed in the war. Hamburg Jews were convinced that after the war antisemitism would no longer exist. "Judenstatistik"/Jewish Statistics In 1916 the Prussian war minister carried out a survey of the numbers of Jewish soldiers participating in the war. It was claimed that the survey was taken so as to effectively counter accusations of Jewish shirking. Old prejudices were reconfirmed and Jews claimed they were being treated as second class soldiers. The conservative, institutionalized Prussian antisemitism had not been overcome. The hope of Jews that their nationalist convictions would be acknowledged during and after the war remained unfulfilled. Following this outrage Jewish subscriptions to war bonds, and donations to the war perceptibly dropped. This lead to accusations that the Jews were not responding in a national emergency. At the beginning of 1919 Hamburg and Altona Jews prevented the summary deportation of around 70 to 100 Jews from Poland who had worked in the Hamburg shipyards during the war. The Board of the Hamburg Community acknowledged this to be an intensification of antisemitism, these Polish Jews being a conscious target of political antisemitism. German text: Prof. Dr. Ina S. Lorenz, Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden