Jews of Bavaria, A Land Of Germany

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

Bavaria, the blue most southern area of Germany

Bavarians are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The group's dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern ("Old Bavaria"), roughly the territory of the Electorate of Bavaria in the 17th century.

Like the neighboring Austrians, Bavarians are traditionally Catholic.  and the center-right Christian Social Union in Bavaria (successor of the Bavarian People's Party of 1919–1933) has traditionally been the strongest party. 

The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century (500s) through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empire to its status as an independent kingdom and finally as a large Bundesland (state) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

It is now thought that the tribal ethnicity was established by the process of ethnogenesis, whereby an ethnic identity is formed because political and social pressures make a coherent identity necessary.

 Romans subdued Celts just before the commencement of the Christian era,   The Bavarians, mostly Celts,  soon came under the dominion of the Franks, probably without a serious struggle.                              

The Franks regarded this border area as a buffer zone against peoples to the east, such as the Avars and the Slavs, and as a source of manpower for the army. The later Roman Empire depended upon barbarians, mostly recently settled inside the Empire, plus mercenaries hired from beyond, for its defence for a number of reasons. 

Firstly the Roman aristocracy had acquired almost all of the prime agricultural land of the empire, forcing out the independent small farmers who have always formed the backbone of the infantry. Through the use of slave labour they made independent agriculture uneconomical. 

Secondly they passed laws forcing the children to work at the same jobs as their parents. So only the children of soldiers could become soldiers. 

Thirdly it was then, as now, cheaper to hire soldiers from barbarian cultures than employ Romans who would demand their rights as citizens. Fourthly the employment of barbarian mercenaries was a subsidy to the leaders of the tribe they came from to keep the peace. Those leaders were paid, not the soldiers themselves, who only got what their leaders chose to trickle down. They also granted those leaders titles which reinforced their authority within the tribe and kept them in power. The Bavarians, in fact all Germans, were conditioned to become soldiers.  

Jews of Bavaria, there since the 10th century,  faced a history of being expelled from the land constantly.  BAVARIA became Land in S. Germany, including Franconia. Jews are first mentioned there in the *Passau toll regulations of 906. Their settlement was apparently connected with the trade routes to Hungary, southern Russia and northeastern Germany. A Jewish resident of *Regensburg is mentioned at the end of the tenth century. The communities which had been established in *Bamberg and Regensburg were attacked during the First Crusade in 1096,  and the German Crusade massacres of Jews in European towns were also going on in this year.  Also, those Jews in *Aschaffenburg , *Wuerzburg , and *Nuremberg during the Second Crusade in 1146–47 had been attacked. Other communities existed in the 13^th century at Landshut, Passau, *Munich , and *Fuerth . 

Interesting that the Jews of Austria were not expelled until 1421.  

The Jews in Bavaria mainly engaged in trade and moneylending. In 1276 they were expelled from Upper Bavaria and 180 Jews were burned at the stake in Munich following a *blood libel in 1285. 

The communities in Franconia, a part of Bavaria,  were attacked during the *Rindfleisch persecutions in 1298. The *Armleder massacres, charges of desecrating the *Host at *Deggendorf , Straubing, and Landshut, and the persecutions following the *Black Death (1348–49), brought catastrophe to the whole of Bavarian Jewry. Many communities were entirely destroyed, among them *Ansbach , Aschaffenburg, *Augsburg , Bamberg, *Ulm , Munich, Nuremberg, Passau, Regensburg, *Rothenburg , and Wuerzburg. Those who had fled were permitted to return after a time under King Wenceslaus.

In 1442 the Jews were again expelled from Upper Bavaria. Shortly afterward, in 1450, the Jews in Lower Bavaria were flung into prison until they paid the duke a ransom of 32,000 crowns and were then driven from the duchy. As a result of agitation by the Franciscan John of *Capistrano , they were expelled from Franconia. In 1478 they were expelled from Passau, in 1499 from Nuremberg, and in 1519 from Regensburg. The few remaining thereafter in the duchy of Bavaria were expelled in 1551 and not allowed back into Bavaria until the 18th century.  

Subsequently, Jewish settlement in Bavaria ceased until toward the end of the 17^th century, when a small community was founded in *Sulzbach by refugees from *Vienna . 

During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14) several Jews from Austria serving as purveyors to the army or as moneylenders settled in Bavaria. In this period a flourishing community grew up in Fuerth, whose economic activities helped to bring prosperity to the city. 

After the war the Jews of Austrian origin were expelled from Bavaria, but some were able to acquire the right to reside in Munich as monopoly holders, *Court Jews , mintmasters, and physicians. Several Court Jews belonging to the Frankel and *Model families.

In the first half of the 19th century (1800s) unfavorable conditions prevailed for Jews in Bavaria which led to a particularly large Jewish emigration to the USA.   

Kurt Eisner was born in Berlin on 14 May 1867, to Emanuel Eisner and Hedwig Levenstein, both Jewish

A number of Jews were active after World War I in the revolutionary government of Bavaria which was headed by a Jew, Kurt *Eisner , who was prime minister before his assassination in 1919. Kurt Eisner 14 May 1867 – 21 February 1919) was a German politician, revolutionary, journalist, and theatre critic. As a socialist journalist, he organized the socialist revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy in Bavaria in November 1918, which led to his being described as "the symbol of the Bavarian revolution"  Eisner subsequently proclaimed the People's State of Bavaria with Munich as its capital,  but was assassinated by far-right German nationalist, Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley in Munich on 21 February 1919.  Munich, the capital of Bavaria, was "an island of anarchic bohemianism and political radicalism in an otherwise predominantly Roman Catholic rural sea of small towns and timber houses scattered across the foothills of the Alps," according to Michael Burleigh,

Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) Landauer in 1892

was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism and an avowed pacifist 

Another Jew, Gustav *Landauer , who became minister of popular instruction, was also assassinated that year. 

In the reaction which followed World War I there was a new wave of antisemitism, and in 1923 most of the East European Jews resident in Bavaria were expelled. This was the time when the National Socialist Movement made its appearance in the region, and antisemitic agitation increased. Jewish ritual slaughter (koshrut) was prohibited in Bavaria in 1931, a first step in anti-Semitic acts to those remaining.  

 In 1990, 5,000 Jews were living in Bavaria.  New conditions in the world drew them back.  

The oldest vestiges of a Jewish presence in Germany are found in the Rhineland.  Cities like Speyer and Mainz had larger populations.  

Resource:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bavaria-germany

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bavaria#:~:text=The%20history%20of%20Bavaria%20stretches,the%20Federal%20Republic%20of%20Germany.

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://jguideeurope.org/en/region/germany/the-rhineland-and-bavaria/