Jewish community

Jewish cemetery of Grötzingen

Jews settled in Karlsruhe since its foundation. They were attracted by the numerous privileges granted by its founder to settlers, without discrimination as to creed. Official documents attest the presence of several Jewish families at Karlsruhe in 1717. A year later the city council addressed to the margrave a report in which a question was raised as to the proportion of municipal charges to be borne by the newly arrived Jews, who in that year formed an organized congregation, with Rabbi Nathan Uri Kohen of Metz at its head. A document dated 1726 gives the names of twenty-four Jews who had taken part in an election of municipal officers. As the city grew permission to settle there became less easily obtained by Jews, and the community developed more slowly. A 1752 Jewry ordinance stated Jews were forbidden to leave the city on Sundays and Christian holidays, or to go out of their houses during church services, but they were exempted from service by court summonses on Sabbaths. They could sell wine only in inns owned by Jews and graze their cattle, not on the commons, but on the wayside only. Karlsruhe was the seat of the central council of Baden Jewry. The first chief rabbi of the country Rabbi Asher Lowe was from (Durlach) Karlsruhe, Nethaneel Weil was a rabbi in Karlsruhe from 1750 until his death.

Karlsruhe Synagogue, built by Friedrich Weinbrenner in 1798, existed until 1871

In 1783, by a decree issued by Margrave Charles Frederick of Baden, the Jews ceased to be serfs, and consequently could settle wherever they pleased. The same decree freed them from the "Todfall" tax, paid to the clergy for each Jewish burial. In commemoration of these changes special prayers were prepared by the acting rabbi Jedidiah Tiah Weill, who, succeeding his father in 1770, held the office until 1805. In 1808 the government issued regulations concerning the administration of the spiritual affairs of the Jewish community, by which the chief rabbi of Karlsruhe became the spiritual head of the Jews of the country. Complete emancipation was given in 1862, Jews were elected to city council and Baden parliament, and from 1890 were appointed judges. Jews were persecuted in riots occurring in 1819 and anti-Jewish demonstrations were held in 1843, 1848, and the 1880s. The well-known German-Israeli artist Leo Kahn studied in Karlsruhe before leaving for France and Israel in the 1920s and 1930s.

Public hanukkah on the Schlossplatz

Today, there are about 900 members in the Jewish community, many of whom are recent immigrants from Russia, and an orthodox rabbi.

Karlsruhe has memorialized its Jewish community and notable pre-war synagogues with a memorial park.

Karlsruhe and the Holocaust The new synagogue

In 1933, 3,358 Jews lived in Karlsruhe. The community owned buildings and property, such as two synagogues, one on Karl-Friedrich-Straße and one on Kronenstraße, two elderly citizens' homes, a Jewish school, a hospital, welfare institutions, and several Jewish cemeteries. During the first years of the Nazi regime, the community continued to function, particularly to prepare Jews for emigration. On October 28, 1938, all male Polish Jews living in Karlsruhe were deported to Poland. Synagogues were destroyed on Kristallnacht, 9–10 November 1938. Most of the men were arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp, but were released after they had furnished proof that they intended to emigrate. In October 1940, 895 Jews were expelled during Operation Wagner-Bürckel and interned by the French Vichy authorities in Gurs in southern France. Most of these were then deported from there to Auschwitz (via the Drancy deportation camp, on the outskirts of Paris) between August and November 1942. Most of the 429 remaining Jews and other so‑called "non-Aryans" were deported to the east between 1941 and 1944. In 1945 there were only 18 Jews in Karlsruhe. More than 1,000 of them had been killed between 1933 and 1945. The Baden Central Jewish Council was reorganized in 1948. A new synagogue was built in 1969.

Many holocaust victims are commemorated by brass plaques on Karlsruhe's sidewalks, the so-called stolpersteine.