Ansbach
General information: First Jewish presence: 1314; peak Jewish population: 450 in 1837; Jewish population in 1933: 197
Summary: A Jewish presence in Ansbach was first recorded in 1314, and we also know that the town’s medieval Jewish community had its own rabbi. Jews, expelled from the town in 1560, resettled there in 1609. Ansbach’s Jewish population peaked at 450 in 1837.
The community of the 15th century maintained a synagogue. In the 17th and 18th centuries, services were conducted in private houses. The Jews of Ansbach established a new synagogue at 3 Rosenbadstrasse in 1746; a Jewish elementary school in 1828 (closed in 1924); a small yeshiva in the 1850s and a cemetery in 1816. The cemetery was enlarged in 1896 and desecrated in 1927 and again in 1932.
Ansbach’s modern-day Jewish community was home a regional rabbinate. Pinchas Kohn, an Orthodox Jewish
Photo: The synagogue of Ansbach in 1959. Courtesy of: The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Sig. No. 987/2.
Author / Sources: Maren Cohen and Nurit Borut;
Sources: AJ, EJL, PK-BAV
Located in: bavaria