The Jews of Bosen

Extracted from the book

1000  JAHRE  BOSEN - ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF BOSEN

DIE  JUDEN IN  BOSEN  ( CHAPTER ) - THE  JEWS  OF BOSEN

by Gerd Jung

Translated by:  Selma Benjamin & Herb Mautner

The history of German Jewry is older than the foundation of the Carolingian empire.  The earliest documented mention of Jews in Germany is an order by the Emperor Constantine of the year 321 A.D., suspending the rights of Jews in Col­ogne in existence at that time. Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Trier and other towns had continuous settlements dating back to Roman times. Charlemagne sent Jews out on diplomatic missions; Ludwig the Pious issued them letters of safe-conduct and granted them other favors, so that the Archbishop Agobard of Lyon complained to the Emperor in 826 about their privileged status. 

For the Jews, more than a thousand years of German history passed with constant ups and downs of privi­lege and expulsions, until the Emancipation Period assured their position as citizens with equal rights and responsi­bilities. During this long span of time the German Jews, while faithfully maintaining their religious particularities, and in spite of their long-lasting spatial isolation, grew into members of the German national tribal system, through birth, language, fate, and history.  However, they did not cease to be Jews, i.e., members of a "supra-world congregation" created by divine command. 

The German- Jewish symbiosis gave rise to the Prussian, Hessian, Frankish, or Bavarian German of Jewish origin and faith.  This type of person was physically eradicated under the violent National-Socialist regime. Since the Jews of Bosen suffered this same fate, we wish to pay attention also to these former citizens of ours, in this village chronicle.

Prior to the French Revolution German Jews had to pay very high taxes.  The so-called Jew taxes added to revenue as the salaries of officials was often very small. The Jews always lived where they were given protection of the royal pro­tectorate, or where they ware able to find a home.  They were not permitted to get together with Christians in those days.  They had to have their houses or apartments in a special place or city or street. Where a large number of Jews lived a special street was assigned to them called the Judengasse.  Bosen had its Judengasse, now called the Schulstrasse (School street) , but still called Judengasse by our oldest citizens.

Recently we found out quite a bit about the Jews of Bosen. Around 1770 the ancestors of the Gottlieb family all came from Bosen. It is suspected that Jewish innkeeper Knebel in Frankfurt (circa 1500) was formerly from Bosen.

With the occupation of land by the French In 1794, Napoleon gave the Jews full rights in his occupied area and permitted religious freedom; and only after Napoleon left did the picture change.  A reaction set in and the Jews lost much of their freedom.  Such a reaction was not prevalent in the Olden­burg Dukedom of Birkenfeld to which Bosen had belonged since 1817. Special laws were proclaimed by the Dukedom;

July 26, 1831; The Jews shall have a better and more appropriate interior in their school and place of worship.

July 18, 1839:  The travel passes and identity cards of the local Jewish trade a men, apprentices, and journeymen shall have the same rights and will be treated the same as their Christian counterparts.  The Duke of Birkenfeld took a special stand, since our District became a center for Jewish activities, and the Jews of Bosen were better off in comparison to the Jews of other states.  Jews had been in Bosen since the 17th century, and they had stayed on after the Napoleonic Era was over.

In 1808 there were forty-four Jews in Bosen; in 1849 - one hundred- forty- three.

They were horse and cattle dealers, tradesmen, painters, innkeeper and also other kinds of workers.  Some were very well situated, owning several houses and much land; however, there were also quite a few poor Jews who really had to fight for their existence.

Many of our Boseners today very well remember the many stores owned by Jews in their village.

The local government gave the Jews of Bosen a room for practicing their religion in a place of worship at no charge.  This was where the Torah scrolls were kept, and they were able to read the words of the Holy Scriptures. The religious service was lead by an ordinary citizen, or for special occasions, there was a trained cantor.  A house of worship had been in Bosen since 1769. The old

house of worship was not kept up and the synagogue Council-Bosen [decided to build a new synagogue.(illegible, but assumed text ed)]

In an application to the Dukedom in Birkenfeld in 1879, it was noted, that the building, was an old hut covered with straw that was in need of much repair for continued use. Since the wood and the walls of the prayer house could not be covered with anything but a thatched roof, it was considered more practical to build a completely new synagogue. The estimated cost at that time was 10,349.65 marks. The money for the new building was raised by the Jews themselves (religious expenses), also by wealthy families acquiring seats in the synagogue in perpetuity.

In 1881 a new synagogue was built.

There were rooms in the basement for the living quarters of the teacher, and a schoolroom; and on the top floor was the syna­gogue.  The Jewish womens bath (mikva} that was used for the cleansing of the Jewish woman was built in 1840 and stood next to the Polacks-Haus which was the house Sanger in the Bruckenstrasse.

On the Sabbath, which was called shavas in Bosen, our former Jewish fellow citizens attended services. After the issuance of the Divine Services Ordinance for Israelites of Feb. 20, 1843, in the Principality of Birkenfeld, there was ordered that there would have to be more discipline during services. This includes the following: There shall be no laughing, applauding, joking, restlessness or milling about, no announcements, no invitations to a wedding, etc.

After the laying of the tefillin it is not proper to leave your arms without cover; no loud kissing of the zizith, no nodding or rocking of your body during the prayers, no loud or noisy beating with a rattle during the seventh day of the Succoth festival, no removing of shoes or boots during Yom Kippur or the fast days of the nights of Av, no wearing of holiday corsages on the succoth festival on the men or woman during the services, no putting on or removing of the sorrow shrouds during the New Year or Yom Kippur days in the Synagogue. No special calling from the houses or banging from the doors to notify the members of the Synagogue to tell them that the ser­vices are beginning. 

Earlier there was a special shule clerk who called the Jews to the services by use of a hammer banging on the windows of the houses or stores. Everyone must come properly dressed on the holiday with a decent head covering for the syn­agogue service.  To insure order during the service, penalties between ½ mark and three marks will be levied by the head of the synagogue for infractions of the rules, the money to be collected in the Jewish poor box which was kept by one Gabriel Gottlieb.

The synagogue community of Bosen included Bosen, Eckelhausen, Eiweiler, Gonnesweiler, Mosberg-Richweiler, Neunkirchen/Nahe, Selbach, Steinberg-Deckenhardt, Walhauson, and Turkismuhle.

The congregation of the Synagogue had a synagogue council that included a leader and two associates, who were selected by the synagogue each for four years. The leader of the synagogue in
1881 was Leopold Baum, and the associates were Salmon Levino and Salomon Wolf.

Next to the synagogue, the community had kept for many years a Jewish private school.  The school first started in private homes, and once the synagogue was built, the school was included. The teachers were cantors who were private persons who were knowledgeable.  Since 1830 there were regular trained teachers hired.

At first there was no real school in the proper sense, but a so—called Cheder, where the boys ware trained in the knowledge of the Holy Scripture and the Hebrew language. The fees to keep up the school for the Jews was not very large, and they recognized that good school training was the best protection against poverty in their lifetime. They felt that religious training was an important factor, which included history and the moral laws of their religion.  This came about through the purchasing of the complete twenty-four books of the holy writings.  

The private school was put together in 1850 with the Christian school.  The schools in Bosen were of a third class; which means that altogether they had to pay only 140 talern in 1861. In 1871 the Jewish community school was closed due to the small participation of the members that were only eighteen at the time. Later on the Jews started a private school. The private school closed in 1925 due to a small enrollment, so the Jewish youth of Bosen went to the Public schools.

Jewish Teachers in Bosen:

The Jewish community of Bosen also had a cemetery located in Sotern. The exact age of the cemetery is not known, but it is assumed that since 1650 Jews were buried there. It is also assumed that in Sotern approximately 500 to 600 funerals had taken place. According to the style on individual gravestones, death dates might be ascertained. Simple written sandstone carvings were in the majority. Until 1815 only Hebrew was used on the stones. After this time Hebrew and German were used. More and more tombstones used symbols also used by Christians. The Jewishness was  pushed aside so much that the Jewish cemetery insisted that seven established Jewish symbols must  be used. The last funeral took place in 1941-42.

Jewish population table: 1846 - 116, 1858 - 112, 1890 - 66, 1900 - 66, 1923 - 48, 1933 - 41.

After the takeover by the New Order (National Socialists) in 1933, the Jews of Bosen could only survive by immigration or flight. Those who stayed behind were taken to concentration camps to their death. In Bosen there were twenty-three such cases. In the so-called Crystal Night, November 1938, the Bosen synagogue was demolished and all the items inside were stolen. The Jewish cemetery in Sotern was damaged.

After the war, the Synagogue was given to the Jewish Culture Gemeinde of Saarbrucken on April 18, 1949. Afterwards, the synagogue was sold, and it is now ordinary living quarters.

So ends the history of our former Jewish community that had lived in friendship with the rest of the community. And some of those who had to say goodbye forever to Boson, their home­town, in one of the many extermination camps, surely said the prayer which he or she had learned as a Jewish child and would carry on his or her lips until death:

Hear, Oh, Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One.

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