Jews
Jews had settled and found a place to earn a living in Silesia, the wealthiest region of Poland, from the Middle Ages, and their legal status was established according to numerous privileges granted by the Piast Princes. They came from various countries, mainly from Germany, Bohemia, were engaged in trade and money-lending and tended to settle in towns favourably located in terms of the opportunities for trading they provided. These requirements were also fulfilled by Cieszyn, from 1290 the capital of the autonomous Duchy of the Piast dynasty. For this reason many historians, particularly local ones, still maintain that a large, organised Jewish community already inhabited Cieszyn in the Middle Ages. The main argument in support of this hypothesis was supposed the proven presence of gravestones with dates from the second half of the 14th century and the first half of the 15th in the old Jewish cemetery in Cieszyn. Recent research, however, indicates uncontrovertibly that the cemetery was founded mid-way through the 17th century and point to an absence of any other information to confirm the fact of the presence of Jews in the Cieszyn Duchy, not to mention Cieszyn, before the 16th century. In conclusion, there was no Jewish community in Cieszyn during the Middle Ages; at most individuals only staying for short periods. There was probably a certain number of Jews living temporarily in Cieszyn at any time, conducting business.
The first written mentions of Jews in Cieszyn date from the first half of the 16th century. On 24 June 1531, the Jew, Jacob, bought a house located “behind the baths”, previously owned by the deceased butcher, Jerzy Ledwożiw, probably with the consent of the then regents of the Duchy of Cieszyn, Jan Pernątejn and Anna, the Brandenburg margravine. In the same year Jacob sold the house to Maciej Prasoł and left Cieszyn. Mid-way through the 16th century Emperor Ferdinand I ordered all the Jews to leave Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Decrees by Ferdinand I, reiterated later by Emperor Rudolf II in 1582, meant that for the following 150 years Jews were restricted to living only in the Jewish communities of Głogów, Biała near Prudnik and in the Moravian enclave of Hotzenplotz (today Osoblaha) in Opavian Silesia, where they were granted special privileges.
The imperial bans were not observed too strictly by the Cieszyn Prince, Wacław Adam. The Cieszyn ruler, known for his extravagance, would often make use of Jewish services. He employed Jewish musicians at his court, who had come to Cieszyn from the Latin countries via Poland, and a Jewish court glazier by the name of Markus. For his work and faithful service Adam Wacław granted him the privilege, on 1 July 1575, to purchase a house in the town and the right to work, including conducting trade. Markus had bought a cottage in Cieszyn in ul. Srebrna some time earlier, on 5 May 1575, paying off the money over the course of a year. He lived in Cieszyn a little longer, selling window glass. However, on 19 January 1578, the Mayor and Town Council of Cieszyn sold the “Jewish house” in ul. Srebrna to Jan Lassowski. Selling back the cottage was probably a way of getting back the debt owed by Markus.
The situation for Jews in Silesia improved when Emperor Ferdinand II (1619-1637, King of Bohemia from 1617), took the throne, coinciding with the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. Rich Jews – in the face of permanently empty state coffers – became one of few sources of income. Ferdinand II preserved most of the laws discriminating Jews, including the ban on owning property, but he allowed them to trade and practise crafts on a fairly wide scale. He gave particular individual privileges to a small group of Jews, who were permitted to lease the right to collect duties and taxes, as well as own property. Elizabeth Lucretia, who ruled the Cieszyn Duchy from 1625, pursued a similar policy with respect to Jews. On 1 February 1626 she leased the right to collect toll in Cieszyn, Skoczów, Strumień and Jabłonków (Jablunkov) for a period of three years to three Moravian Jews for 2,100 zlotys. They had to exact the toll according to her instructions and specific charges, if necessary with the help of the Duchy’s clerks. In 1631, the brothers Jacob and Moses Singer, from Ivančice near Brno, signed a contract with Elizabeth Lucretia for the levying of toll in Cieszyn. Moses Singer later moved to nearby Pszczyna, while Jacob remained in Cieszyn to found the first Jewish family to settle permanently in Cieszyn. In later years his main business remained the exacting of tolls in Cieszyn according to contracts signed with the Princess. By an order of 23 April 1647, Elizabeth Lucretia granted Jacob Singer as collector of duty in the Duchy wide powers, the right to ask for assistance from her clerks, the right to trade all possible goods and to keep a shop. Other points in the order were those releasing buildings owned by Singer from being used as billets, the right of him, his family and his servants to practise Judaism, and even a gift of land where they could bury their dead. Apart from toll collecting Jacob Singer rented the town’s market place, lent money to townspeople or the nobility at interest or on security, and worked for the Duchy’s mint in Cieszyn, buying up used coinage in Silesia and beyond its borders. He traded on a wide scale and his business interests linked him with Moravia, Hungary, Silesia and Małopolska, mainly Kraków. On 9 October 1637 Jacob Singer bought a house near the castle in ul. Polska (today ul. Głęboka), from the inheritors of Adam Mitmajer. This contract, with the consent of the Princess and the imperial governor, was approved by the Cieszyn town authorities on 20 October 1637 and entered in the town archives. Several years later Singer bought another, larger house on the corner of the Town Square and ul. Niemiecka (today ul. Mennicza). That transaction was also approved by the Princess and the town authorities. The fact of the ownership of a house in Cieszyn, known from then on as the Jewish House (Jüdisches Haus), formed the basis, in subsequent years, of the exceptional position of the Singers in Cieszyn and Cieszyn Silesia. The wide range of powers granted to Singer by Elizabeth Lucretia was caused by the catastrophic state of the Duchy of Cieszyn and the Princess’s finances during the Thirty Years’ War. It should be mentioned, in addition, that the Princess frequently made decisions in Singer’s favour.
Other Jews were also active in Cieszyn at the time of Singer. One of them was Lazarus, who transported goods from Cieszyn to Kraków. Some other Jews not resident in Cieszyn, such as Mojsel Lewel from Moravian Ostrava, and Lewek Mirowicz from Prague worked closely with the Cieszyn mint. Apart from them other Jewish merchants would come to do business in Cieszyn. Elizabeth Lucretia’s order charged Jacob Singer with their supervision, levying from them a ducat for each night in the town, which Singer collected.
Jacob Singer died around the end of 1650, a few years before Elizabeth Lucretia’s death. His inheritance went to Samuel, one of his four sons. After paying off the rest of the money owed on the house in Cieszyn and paying off his brothers Samuel Singer became the sole owner of the Jewish House. He also took over the lease on Cieszyn toll-collecting, on the strength of contracts with the Teschener Kammer. In 1660 Samuel Singer approached the Emperor with a request for confirmation of his father’s right of ownership of the house in Cieszyn and the right to run a shop there. Emperor Leopold I consented to the request with a privilege issued on 14 May 1661 in Laxenburg, but granted the right to trade only for the period of Samuel’s lifetime. Like his father, Samuel Singer earned a living from money lending, and with the help of two of his four sons by buying up old coins in Silesia for use in the Emperor’s mint in Breslau (Wrocław). In 1673 he was appointed its official supplier. He was also the collector of Cieszyn’s tolls, and later lessee of the vodka franchise from the Teschener Kammer. He developed his business activities, working with other Jews who began to settle in the town. In 1667 ten Jews, among them Samuel Singer, his oldest son Joseph, three others linked to the Singers and five from outside Cieszyn, paid the new tax levied on Jews. One of the Cieszyn Jews is named as Moses and described as a teacher. The Jews from outside Cieszyn moved to Cieszyn and stayed on for reasons of trade. Most of them were merchants, which explains the background to a dispute between Samuel Singer and the people of Cieszyn, particularly merchants, which arose some time later. At a general meeting of the Town Council and the master guildsmen on 5 April 1672, a group of townspeople accused Samuel of trading not only in his own house, but in rented premises where, under the pretence of his personal privilege, his sons and other Jews were running their own businesses. Those present demanded an end to this practice and the levying of municipal taxes on all Jews resident in the town, with the exception of Samuel. In response to this at the beginning of 1674 Samuel Singer asked the Emperor for permission to rent a second shop from his Christian neighbour which he justified by referring to the risk of fire in his cramped wooden house. He also asked for his right to trade of 1661 to be transferred to his four sons. His efforts evoked objections from some of the guilds and reaction by the Cieszyn merchants, who submitted a protest against Singer to the Emperor on 14 April 1674. The merchants’ accusations were to a large extent justified but both the Cieszyn Starosta, Count Larisch and the Breslau Provincial Authority took Singer’s side. Count Larisch explained that the essence of the dispute was the fact that Singer bought his goods directly from the manufacturers, from as far away as Austria and that all the members of his family worked in his shop so he could charge lower prices than Christian merchants who bought goods from each other. In a subsequent document the Cieszyn merchants demanded the complete expulsion of Jews from Cieszyn.
All that was achieved was that the privilege issued by Leopold I in Vienna on 5 August 1675 clearly forbade trading in the town and the conducting of religious rites by anyone other than the privileged Singer family, and the rights of Samuel Singer to trade were transferred not to all his sons, but to one or two, and only for the period of their natural lives. Joseph and Hirschel Singer became his official successors, but all his sons remained in Cieszyn and all of them earned their living in the same way, i.e. leasing the collection of tolls and vodka franchise, also holding the lease on exacting the town toll. At the turn of the 18th century other members of the Singer family were granted further privileges, as was Samuel Singer’s son-in-law, Simon Goldschmied. The Jewish House had more and more co-owners, the Singer family numbered 38, and its members were forced to search for new ways of earning a living beyond Cieszyn, for example in Żywiec, Skoczów and Moravia. All the members of the Singer family considered themselves protected by privileges and did not want to pay municipal taxes which led to disputes with the municipal authorities on many occasions.
The Singers widened the interpretation of their privileges to the forbidding of other Jews from entering Cieszyn. In 1708 three Singer brothers took action against a certain Moses Jacob, who was trading in Cieszyn “with no permission”, demanding that his goods be confiscated and that he be driven from the town. Changes took place during the reign of Charles VI (1711-1740), who in 1713 announced an edict of tolerance towards Jews in Silesia. From then on Jews could settle in Silesia on condition of paying a special “tolerance” tax. Later other forms of taxation were introduced, exacted by special tax-collectors, called Jewish collectors. After 1713 the number of Jewish families in Cieszyn Silesia rapidly grew, and around 1725 there were approximately fifty of them, including the Singers, who considered themselves to belong to a superior class of privileged Jews. Simultaneously Charles VI introduced a host of restrictions against Jewish business operations, including the ban on the leasing by Jews of toll, customs and tax collecting. This did not take effect for several years owing to the resistance from the feudal lords but finally in 1722 the Singers lost the lease on the Cieszyn tolls. After the Edict of Tolerance more and more Jews attempted to settle in Cieszyn, which the town authorities, the majority of the citizenry and also the privileged Singer family resisted. In 1720 four Jewish families, aside from the Singers, lived in Cieszyn. Moses Singer demanded the expulsion of Abraham Bruck in 1722. These efforts bore fruit and in the 1730s only the Singers themselves or their relatives lived in Cieszyn. These people were, for example; Joseph Jacob, Moses Singer’s brother-in-law, who was a bookbinder, although mainly earned a living from trade and the sale of alcohol; Joseph Simon Goldschmied, who in 1734 managed to have his father Simon’s trading rights transferred to himself; and Jacob Hirschel. On the strength of their privileges and agreements with the clothiers’ and weavers’ and other guilds the Singers traded in linen and other fabrics on a large scale. In the 1730s the head of the family was Moses Singer, son of Joseph (Samuel Singer’s eldest son), regarded also as the religious leader of Jews in Cieszyn Silesia. He had many sons, the majority of whom had to leave Cieszyn because of trading disputes and family quarrels. One of them was baptised and as Maciej Christopher founded the Catholic line of the Singer family. Moses’ inheritance went to his under-age children by his second wife Lea (Lida). At that time Lea’s brother, Jacob Hirschel, became more and more important, particularly when he leased the profitable vodka franchise from the Teschener Kammer in 1736. The inns and taverns located on land owned by the Teschener Kammer, i.e. a third of all those in the Cieszyn Duchy, were supplied by him. In 1737 several branches of the Singer family lived in Cieszyn, Jews lived in thirteen neighbouring towns and villages, and one Jew lived in Jabłonków.
In the second half of his reign, Charles VI made his policies towards Jews more stringent, with the introduction of the principle of Jewish rights of residence (Inkolat). From then on only one son in a Jewish family could get married in Silesia and only he had rights of residence. Any remaining sons and all daughters had to leave Silesia. The Emperor also made the directives affecting Jews’ business activities more exacting, permitting only small-scale trade and the leasing of the right to distil and sell vodka. In 1738 Charles VI revoked the 1713 Edict of Tolerance and ordered all Jews not in possession of separate privileges to leave Silesia.
These directives were not carried through owing to the resistance of the nobility and the death of Charles VI in 1740, and to the outbreak of the Silesian Wars. Charles’ daughter and successor Maria Theresa lost most of Silesia to Prussia during the wars, and created Austrian Silesia from what was left of it, including the Duchy of Cieszyn. War meant that the decision of expelling the Jews was suspended, but it also meant considerable losses and additional taxes to the state and to Cieszyn’s municipal authorities. In 1742 Cieszyn Jews had to supply one man to the army as a recruit. At the beginning of 1745 the Empress issued a new edict expelling Jews from Austrian Silesia, the execution of which in 1748 was suspended for ten years for financial reasons. In December 1746 there were eight Jewish families with twenty two individuals over the age of fifteen living in Cieszyn. That included three privileged families; Lea Singer and her children; the Teschener Kammer’s vodka lessee, Jacob Hirschel; and Joseph Goldschmied. The remaining Jews were their relatives or workers.
In 1748, to simplify the collection of taxes, the town authorities ordered Jews in Cieszyn Silesia to appoint permanent tax-collectors, or community leaders. The first to be chosen was Jacob Hirschel. Earlier Maria Theresa had ordered all the Jewish privileges to be presented to her for approval. Lea Singer applied to the Empress in January 1747 to ask for the confirmation of her and her descendants’ right to half of the Jewish House and the shop contained within it. In addition Lea Singer asked for permission for the ownership of Moses Singer’s second shop to pass to her daughter Endel and her future husband, Jacob Oppenheim. Her application remained unanswered for a long time, however in 1749 her step-brother Joseph Goldschmied, who had not applied to have his privileges accepted, lodged a complaint against Lea Singer. In the charge to Maria Theresa Goldschmied accused Jacob Oppenheim of illegally starting a new business in Cieszyn which would be detrimental to his business interests. At Goldschmied’s instigation five Christian merchants from Cieszyn also protested against Lea’s request. Their objection was based on the fact that the Emperor had consented to the opening of a Jewish shop when there had been very few shops at all. Now there were many Christian merchants capable of supplying the town with all possible goods and a new Jewish shop would be damaging to their interests. However, the Cieszyn town authorities issued a decision on 13 January 1750 in Oppenheim’s favour, stating that his goods were cheap, which kept prices in the town low.
Maria Theresa accepted Oppenheim’s right to remain in the Singer family, but the Tolerance Decree was only issued in 1752 permitting a finite number of eighty eight Jewish families to live in Cieszyn Silesia. Only the eldest son could be granted his father’s “Jewish right” after his father’s death; the remaining sons and daughters had to leave Silesia when they came of age. An appendix to the Tolerance Decree in Cieszyn acknowledged twelve Jewish families, consisting of fifty seven family members, as tolerated Jews. Among these people were individuals who had lived in Cieszyn for some time already, but also Jonah, the gravedigger; Michael Joseph, the musician and the bookbinder, Solomon Moses. In the villages surrounding Cieszyn tolerated Jews were acknowledged in twenty four villages. Only one Jew lived in Jabłonków, the leaseholder of the local inn, which included over ten neighbouring villages. Jews lived sporadically in Nydek (Nýdek), Wędrynia (Vendryně), and even in Szańce (Šance) near Jabłonków.
The Tolerance Decree treated all the Jews living in Austria Silesia as one category of tolerated Jews, but members of the Singer family maintained their special position in the local Jewish community. After the death of Jacob Hirschel at the end of 1751, Joseph Goldschmied was selected as the Jewish collector for Cieszyn Silesia. On 5 October 1754 Maria Theresa finally sanctioned the special privileges of Lea Singer’s family; ownership rights to half the Jewish House and the shop in it for her and her son, Hirschel. She also agreed to allow Lea’s daughter and her husband to run a second rented shop, although this was only valid during their lifetimes. In the same year Jacob Oppenheim was registered as a tolerated Jew.
In 1754 the first official census in the Austrian countries revealed thirty five Jews living in Cieszyn, which however did not include the suburbs subordinate to the Teschener Kammer. In that year eight tolerated Jewish families lived in Cieszyn. The authorities of the Teschener Kammer now preferred to work with unprivileged Jews, since they could impose conditions more favourable to themselves. This led to rivalry between the two groups of Jews, an example of which was a dispute which took place in 1759. Three tolerated Jews; Joseph Jacob, Isaac Moses called Höllander, and Jacob Aron, who shared the lease of a tavern belonging to the Teschener Kammer in rented rooms in the centre of Cieszyn, as did another Jew, Simon Lobel, who worked with the leaseholder of the vodka franchise, Jan Cieplik. It provoked complaints from the Cieszyn townspeople and privileged Jews, after which the authorities in Opava ordered the expulsion of all unprivileged Jews from Cieszyn. The main argument was the claim that privileged Jews were already causing enough problems for Cieszyn citizens. Maria Theresa confirmed this decision by a rescript of 22 March 1760 forbidding Jews from living in towns without the appropriate privileges. Nonetheless the success of the Cieszyn townspeople and the privileged Jews was only illusory, since the unprivileged Jews simple moved to the Teschener Kammer’s suburbs and continued to do business there. In 1760 six other Jewish families were recorded there; including three musicians, Michael Joseph, David and Moses. Three privileged families lived in the town in the years 1760-1765; namely Hirschel Singer, Joseph Goldschmied and Jacob Oppenheim. All of them were merchants, and from 1766 the Singer family firm leased the tobacco trade for the entire Duchy of Cieszyn. In 1776 they were running a network of fifty seven Jewish tobacco sellers. The tobacco sellers in Cieszyn were Moses Rafael, Isaac Moses and Ephraim Ziffer – named as a seller in the grange owned by the Teschener Kammer in Cieszyn on the hill called Winograd. The supply of tobacco in Jabłonków was in the hands of the local innkeeper, Solomon Lobel.
Jacob Oppenheim worked as Jewish collector in the years 1760-65 after Joseph Goldschmied, and after Oppenheim’s death at the end of 1765, the function was taken over by Hirschel Moses Singer, then after him Zacharias Gerson Lazarus, Oppenheim’s son-in-law. They became the leaders of the Jews in Cieszyn Silesia, and increasingly referred to themselves as the Jewish Community, even though as far as the authorities were concerned their only task was to supply the combined taxes owed by the Jews to the state. The position of the Singers and their relatives was supported by the fact that they were the only Jews to own a house in the town, with a private house of prayer and a cemetery. In the second half of the 18th century Jews from the whole region were buried there, although it is not clear if other Jews made use of the Singers’ private house of prayer considering its small size. Jewish teachers and ritual butchers (shochets) also practised their professions in the town. However, there is too little source material to say much about life within the Cieszyn Jewish community. Their closest links were with Moravia, and they were also in contact with Małopolska, particularly when in 1772 it became incorporated into Austria as Galicia.
In the 1770s the authorities liberalised their policies with respect to Jews, deciding to support “commerce”, i.e. industry and trade, and everything else that supplied the state with income, regardless of the origin or social position of the people engaged in these activities. By encouraging trade (which included Jewish trade) the authorities wished to accelerate the integration of Galicia with the other countries of the kingdom, which was the aim of the international fairs organised in Cieszyn for the first time in 1775. The authorities were banking on attracting wealthy Jewish merchants from Eastern Galicia, and for Cieszyn Jews they had imagined the role of middle-men in setting up contacts with the western parts of the country. For this reason jobbers were required to help establishing business links and act as interpreters, which function was first offered to Zacharias Gerson Lazarus of Cieszyn. A special inn was established for Jews, which was moved from the suburbs closer to the centre of the town at their request. It was run by an arrival from Bilovec, Abraham Lazarus, as a typical Jewish tavern. In order to accommodate all guests, the authorities announced that anybody, regardless of their religion, could purchase a house in Cieszyn. The fairs were soon abandoned but thanks to them the Cieszyn Jews established contacts with their fellow Jews in Galicia. Applications by Jews for permission to buy houses in Cieszyn were turned down, however. Among them were; Simon Lobel, who had obtained the lease for the vodka franchise of the Teschener Kammer in 1765 and retained it for over thirty years, and Joseph Löwi, who took over the tobacco concession for the region from the Singers in 1776. Lobel was, however, granted the right to rent a property in the town.
Lobel and Löwi were wealthy Jews who distanced themselves economically from the Singers, now gradually falling into debt. In 1780 sixteen tolerated Jewish families (numbering 88 family members) lived in Cieszyn, supporting themselves mainly by trade and various services. Four families lived in Cieszyn itself, three in the suburb of Górne Przedmieście, and the rest in the suburbs belonging to the Teschener Kammer. Four families, including that of the bookbinder, Solomon Wolf, lived in Brandys Kamieniec; four families, including that of Hirschel Moses, musician, lived in Freistadt Przedmieście and the family of Michael Joseph, also a musician, lived in Młynówka. In 1780 tolerated Jews were recorded as living in over ten of the neighbouring villages.
The independent governments of Emperor Joseph II (1780-1790) marked a time of great reform in the Austrian kingdom, which also impacted on Jews. The Edict of Tolerance of 15 December 1781 concerning Jews in Austrian Silesia maintained the Jewish rights of residence (Inkolat) and limited the number of Jewish families permitted to live in Cieszyn Silesia to eighty eight, while on the other hand allowed them to practise their religion in private, but without having their own synagogues or rabbis. The range of freedoms permitted to Jews was extended, making it permissible for Jewish children to attend Christian schools and universities. The edict obliged all Jews to learn German and use it in every situation apart from during religious practices. In 1787 Joseph II ordered all Jews to take German given names and surnames. This began the process of the assimilation into the German culture and language of Jews in Cieszyn Silesia and in Cieszyn.
On the strength of the 1781 Edict, lessee Simon Lobel and Naftali Baruch from Opava attempted to set up manufactories in Cieszyn, but nothing came of it. After the Cieszyn fire of 1789 Naftali Baruch and Abraham Lazarus (Khu) became owners of houses in the town and were granted municipal rights. The reforms of Joseph II also represented greater commercial freedom for Jews in Cieszyn, in spite of the unrelenting objections of Cieszyn merchants and the privileged Singer family, which hastened their downfall; they sold the cemetery in 1785, the Jewish House in 1788 and left Cieszyn.
The previously private cemetery of the Singers was bought by the community of tolerated Jews in Cieszyn Silesia, who after the reforms of Joseph II had begun to create the foundations for common religious practices. In 1801 the Jews established their own house of prayer in rooms rented from the Cieszyn town syndic, Peter Sporschill. The services were led by Juda Glücklich, who fulfilled the functions of a rabbi from 1788, although he was officially recognised as a religious leader and teacher of religion. The Jewish collector, who had also been in charge of maintaining the Jewish public register for the whole of Cieszyn Silesia since 1784, was nominally responsible for the house of prayer and the Jewish cemetery. Jewish kosher kitchens were also opened in the town. Cieszyn Jews still tended to have their children educated by Jewish teachers. The first Jewish pupil entered Cieszyn gymnasium as late as 1806 and up until midway through the 19th century the school had very few Jewish pupils each year. The first Jew from Cieszyn to be awarded a university degree was Heimann Holläder, who graduated as a doctor of medicine from the University of Frankfurt am Oder in 1802.
According to the 1790 census forty six Jews lived in Cieszyn and the villages belonging to it, and when that number was combined with Jews living in the suburbs owned by the Teschener Kammer, the total was around a hundred and twenty individuals. There were around a hundred and fifty Jews living in various surrounding towns and villages, while in Jabłonków there were eleven. Eleven tolerated Jewish families lived in Cieszyn in 1792, and fifteen families within the boundaries of the future Cieszyn judicial district. Apart from trade and the vodka franchise lease, most of them lived by selling tobacco. A large number of Jews sold spirits, such as rosoglio and slivovitz, at the market in Jabłonków, for example. In addition there were many Jews living in the region without the appropriate authorisation, about whom the townspeople protested in 1791. Among the accusations, they claimed that Naftali Baruch and Abraham Khu had no intention of setting up factories but instead were running commercial operations in the premises bought for that purpose.
In 1812 the number of Jews in Cieszyn was put at ninety eight and in 1837, three hundred and twenty seven (5.2% of the population). Two hundred and forty five Jews lived in thirty surrounding towns and villages, but only in nine of them were more than ten Jews residing. There were still few Jews living in the more mountainous region around Jabłonków. In 1840 seventeen privileged families lived in Cieszyn, with a further thirteen in the locality. On the basis of new regulations Jews could legally run their own businesses, which were registered with the municipal authorities. The register of 1829-1848 includes fifty six Jewish businesses, twenty of which were trading companies, ten crafts, eight the supply and sale of wine and spirits, and seven various types of services. There was also a vinegar factory owned by Goldschmidt and Löbestein. At this time certain Jewish companies were founded which were later well known, such as the wine merchants founded by the Ziffers in 1816.
The first half of the 19th century was also a period of stabilisation for the as yet unofficial Jewish Community in Cieszyn. Its foundations were the cemetery and house of prayer. In 1838 a synagogue was built with permission of the Emperor himself. A cantor was employed, as well as other staff and a ritual butcher (shochet). The synagogue was managed by an elected board. The municipal authorities continued to recognise only Jewish collectors and the licensed teacher of religion. Only he, in the entire Cieszyn Silesia, was officially authorised to marry Jewish couples. After Glücklich’s death in 1829, his position was taken by Isaac Kohn, who died in 1849. Other private Jewish teachers were also active in Cieszyn.
From around 1835 an increasing number of unauthorised Jews lived in Cieszyn and the surrounding area. Cieszyn citizens began to protest about this from 1844 but the issue was only finally settled in the period of the Springtime of Nations. After an investigation ordered by the Gubernium in April 1848 the Cieszyn town authorities gave ten Jews (among the forty one resident in Cieszyn) up to 8 days to leave the town. Among them were several members of the synagogue staff, and all of them lodged appeals with the higher authorities. The Cieszyn municipal authorities later also tried to remove unauthorised Jews from their territory.
It was during the Springtime of Nations that Jewry in Austria first received political rights, thanks to which in 1850 Max Ritter became the first Jew to be elected to the Cieszyn Town Council. Jews also represented a sizeable proportion of the Cieszyn National Guard which was called up to defend the gains of the revolution. Equality of religious rights was suspended in 1851, but the principle of Jewish rights of residence ceased to apply. The job of collectors was transferred to a three-man Board in Cieszyn which was considered the representative of the Cieszyn Jewish community for the whole of Cieszyn Silesia. In 1848 the town authorities appointed the first officially recognised rabbi for the Cieszyn District, who was given the title of District Rabbi (Kreisrabbiner). The first was Dr Abraham Schmiedl (1848-1853), who was succeeded by Dr Joseph Guggenheimer (1853-56). The staff of the Community, aside from the rabbi, consisted of a cantor, a teacher of religion, a ritual butcher (shochet), and funeral attendants. The synagogue also had a boys’ choir. A two-class Jewish elementary school was founded in Cieszyn in 1850, but it was closed in 1859 due to financial difficulties and a lack of pupils. In the 1857 census two hundred and twenty five Jews were numbered among “local” residents, with at least the same number of people considered “outsiders”.
The population of Jews grew rapidly after the political reforms which were begun in Austria in 1859 and consolidated by the Constitution of 1867 by which all citizens were given equal civil and political rights irrespective of religion. In the communal elections of 1861 there was already a Jewish representative in the Town Council, the wine merchant, Ferdinand Ziffer. From 1864 there were always at least four or five Jews in the Town Council. Owing to the advanced process of assimilation, Cieszyn Jews joined the local German Liberal lobby which formed the German Union. Therefore later, in the period marked by an upsurge in nationalist rivalries, the Jewish community found themselves in opposition to local Poles – who represented the majority of the town’s population – and the Polish nationalistic lobby. In general such differences were not especially conspicuous and some Jewish families were openly pro-Polish; several of them belonged to Polish national organisations – e.g. the Klebinder family, and during the January Rising of 1863 some Cieszyn Jews supported Polish insurrectionaries. Jews also occupied an important place in the economic life of the town. Many Jewish businesses and factories were founded, most of them traditionally in the wines and spirits trade. The best known Jewish firms dealt in timber and carpentry, such as J. P. Glesinger’s company and Joseph and Jacob Kohns’ bent wood furniture factory, which was a branch of a factory based originally in Vąetin and later in Vienna.
In the constitutional period Jewish religious communities could function freely. From 1866 the Cieszyn Jewish Community functioned on the basis of an approved statute, and the community was represented by a council elected for three years and made up of fifteen members, and a five-man board led by a president. The office of president was held by, among others; Daniel Tugendhat (1872-1876), Bernhard Glesinger (1876-1888) and Siegmund Kohn (1888-1894). The statute also regulated all the community’s internal matters. In 1866 the community in Cieszyn owned; community premises, a synagogue, a school and a cemetery. The Women’s Charitable Society operated in the Cieszyn community and a religious school functioned intermittently from 1867-1876. In September 1876 it was modified into a Talmud Thora school, run by a specially founded association. The greatest initiative of the Jewish Community of Cieszyn and the region was the extension of the synagogue which was begun in 1877. For many years the synagogue had been too small to serve the needs of the growing Jewish population. The work was completed in September 1878.
In 1866 there were four hundred and fifty four Jewish families within the Cieszyn Jewish Community, the largest number of them (a hundred and three families) in Cieszyn, of which only forty five possessed the right of permanent residence. There were only eight families in Jabłonków, and two in Trzyniec (Třinec). The 1869 census indicates that 2,713 Jews in 7 judicial districts belonged to the Jewish Community; 181 in the Jabłonków Judicial District and 988 in the Cieszyn Judicial District. In 1890 4,622 Jews lived in the Cieszyn commune, of whom 247 lived in the Jabłonków Judicial District (the largest number, 115, in Jabłonków itself), in the Cieszyn Judicial District 1,712, 1,313 in Cieszyn itself.
The Jewish Community above all served Jews living in Cieszyn and the locality, while Jews living further away had to run their own houses of prayer, which led to progressively greater decentralising tendencies. In spite of strong opposition by Dr Simon Friedmann, the district rabbi elected in 1858, a new Jewish community was established in Bielsko in 1865. Jews from the areas around Skoczów (1862), Frydek (Frýdek) (1864), Polská Ostrava (1866), and Frysztat (Fryątát/Freistadt) (1871) who could not maintain their own communities because of the lack of sufficient members were happy to form small religious groups functioning within the Cieszyn Jewish Community, under the auspices of the district rabbi. In some areas with small populations of Jews, such as Jabłonków, informal associations functioned which also came under the authority of the Cieszyn Jewish Community.
This situation lasted until 1893, when on the strength of the 1890 Statute regulating the external relations of Israeli religious groups new Jewish communities were established in Skoczów, Frysztat and Frydek, and Jews in the Bohumin Judicial District were accommodated in the Jewish community of Moravská Ostrava. In that way the Cieszyn Jewish Community was restricted to the Cieszyn and Jabłonków Judicial Districts. After 1893 the Cieszyn Jewish Community became one of several in Cieszyn Silesia, and its distant past was not even recalled in the title carried by the district rabbi, Simon Friedmann, who died at the beginning of 1893. Dr Adolf Leimdörfer from Boskovice was elected as his successor and held the position until his death in 1929. On the other hand the circumscription of the Jewish community to two districts simplified the work of its authorities. The community’s new statute was approved in 1895. The community’s subsequent presidents were; J. P. Glesinger (1894-1909), Jacques Silberstein (1909-1912) and Dr Leopold Silberstein (1912-1919). The community was represented by a council enlarged to sixteen members and a board, still comprising 5 men. In the council there were one or two men from Jabłonków or Trzyniec (Třinec), occasionally from other towns.
In 1900 two hundred and seven Jews lived in the Jabłonków Judicial District, 98 of them in Jabłonków itself, while there were 2,073 Jews living in the Cieszyn District; 1666 in Cieszyn and 62 in Trzyniec. At the time of the 1910 census the number of Jews in the Jabłonków Judicial District had fallen to 191 (in Jabłonków to 90), in the Cieszyn District the number had risen to 2,498, but purely as a result of increases in Cieszyn (2,112) and Trzyniec (76). In 1897 there were three houses of prayer functioning with the approval of the Jewish Community in Trzyniec, Jabłonków and Błędowice (Bludovice). The last one quickly disappeared, the one in Jabłonków in 1902, while in Trzyniec local Jewish Associations were registered which looked after local religious issues under the supervision of the Cieszyn Community.
After 1893 all Jews living within the area of the Community’s jurisdiction belonged to it by law. This affected orthodox Jews also, who, in the second half of the 19th century increasingly began to settle in Cieszyn, particularly in Freistadt Przedmieście and Sachsenberg, close to the railway station. They owned their own house of prayer in Sachsenberg in the 1870s, closed by a decision of the Starostwo in November 1879. From the end of the 19th century many private orthodox houses of prayer functioned in Cieszyn, two of which – in Freistadt Przedmieście and Sachsenberg – were officially recognised by the authorities of the Jewish Community. Orthodox Jews were very much a minority of Cieszyn’s Jewish population (amounting to a seventh in 1905), so for a long time did not create more formalised groups, nor register them. It took until 1911 for the first group of orthodox Jews to organise themselves, when the Machsike Hadas Association for the Strengthening of Religion, led by Isaac Amsterdam, was registered. In 1912 they built an imposing house of prayer with a butcher’s and ritual bathhouse in Freistadt Przedmieście. Another group of orthodox Jews founded the Schomre Schabos Prayer and Charitable Association which ran a house of prayer in what is now Český Těąín. Later other private houses of prayer were established in Cieszyn by, for example; Brünner, Leiner, Zehngut and Klappholz.
Apart from that a large number of other associations operated in Cieszyn. The Jewish Women’s Association, which had functioned for some time previously, was officially registered as the Emilia Friedmann Charitable Women’s Association in 1877. Its presidents were usually the wives of the Jewish Community’s presidents, for example; Josefine Tugendhat, Karoline Glesinger and Josefine Silberstein, and the associations mainly collected money to help poor mothers and children. The Talmud-Tora Association was founded in 1876 by the then president of the Community Bernhard Glesinger and Moritz Fasal ("Maurycy Fasal’s liqueur and soda water factory in Cieszyn"), who was later its leader until his death in 1919. The Chewra Kadischa Undertakers had been in operation within the Community for many years before they established a separate association in 1903. The Unity Jewish Humanitarian Educational Association was founded in 1902. It ceased functioning soon after but managed to help set up two further humanitarian associations; the Scholastic Kreutzer Association and the Friends of the School Humanitarian Educational Association. The Jewish Free Meals Association was founded in Cieszyn in 1903 which established a canteen for poor pupils in 1908, and additionally sponsored children to attend holiday camps. Supporters of Zionism for a long time found little support in Cieszyn and limited their activities to informal groups active in secondary schools. The first Zionist organisation registered in Cieszyn was the Ruth Association of Women and Girls in 1908. In the same year a local Cieszyn group of the Jewish Labourers’ Union of Austria based in Kraków was founded. The Jewish People’s Union, which was later to perform the function of a Zionist political party, only started to operate formally in 1909. Its first officers were selected on 5 May 1910, and it was led by Dr David Teller. There was also the Jewish students’ Holiday Union, which later changed its name to Harzionia. Before the First World War the following organisations were founded in Cieszyn; a branch of the Union of Jewish Trade Assistants, the Blau-Weiss Jewish Tourist Association and the Jewish Gymnastic Union. The only organisations in the Jewish Community active outside Cieszyn were the Religious Associations in Jabłonków and Trzyniec.
In the first ten years of the 20th century the Cieszyn Jewish Community functioned as a stable, although not a particularly rich organisation. It had a membership of 2200, of whom only 350 and later 410 paid the religious community tax. Numerous prayer foundations helped the Community’s finances. Apart from the rabbi, the Community employed a synagogue staff, a cemetery caretaker, two ritual butchers and a third butcher to clean kosher meat, as well as two cantors, one of whom carried the title of senior cantor. The community maintained a public synagogue in Cieszyn, two private synagogues in Jabłonków and Trzyniec, two private orthodox houses of prayer in Cieszyn and the Talmud-Tora School.
The period of stability and considerable prosperity for Cieszyn Jewry ceased with the outbreak of the First World War. In 1915 a wave of Jewish refugees came to Cieszyn from Russian-occupied Galicia. The Jewish Community, and to some extent Cieszyn’s municipal authorities, looked after them. Jews tried to stay out of the political conflict between the two new states of Poland and Czechoslovakia about the rights to Cieszyn Silesia in 1918-20, although business interests and the sense of linguistic and cultural ties to the German world meant that the majority of local families tended to identify more with Czechoslovakia, perceived as a more democratic and western country.
The political changes that occurred as a result of the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the division of Cieszyn caused great changes in the lives of the local Jewish population. Many Jews left Poland, moving to Český Těąín, Vienna or Germany, and poorer Jews from Galicia took their place. The social makeup of the local Jewish population also changed, with poor Jews making up around 47%, and wealthy Jews only 11%. There were no longer any large Jewish companies in Cieszyn, and half of all professionally active Jews owned private trading, craft or industrial businesses, or were in the professions. A particularly large number of Jews were either lawyers or doctors. In the inter-war period the number of Jews in the Cieszyn county dropped gradually, numbering 2,141 (3%) in 1921, 2,067 (2.6%) in 1928 and 1,940 (2.4%) in 1931. Only a certain proportion of Jews living in Cieszyn and its closest environs belonged to the Cieszyn Jewish Community. In Cieszyn itself lived 1,591 Jews (10.4%) in 1921, and by 1930 that number had fallen to 1,404 (8.0%). In 1921 Ustroń and the surrounding villages were incorporated into the Cieszyn Community, to compensate for the loss of members from the areas now belonging to Czechoslovakia.
Between the wars, Jews played an active part in the political life of Cieszyn, putting up two, and sometimes three, lists of candidates in the communal elections. There were five Jewish councillors in the 36-strong Town Council, representing proportionally more than there were Jews in Cieszyn. Initially the majority of Cieszyn’s Jews were still in support of pro-German assimilation, but after 1926 a group of pro-Polish assimilators began to take shape. Orthodox associations were also strong, but the significance of the Zionist lobby grew the quickest. The rivalry between these groups began to manifest itself within the Jewish Community, even though in theory its character was apolitical. The Jewish Community retained most of its religious buildings after 1920, and Rabbi Adolf Leimdörfer’s jurisdiction, for example in the matter of record-keeping, at least at first, encompassed Jews on the Czechoslovak side. After Leimdörfer’s death in 1929, Dr Aron Eisenstein from Stanisławów was appointed rabbi in 1931, the first Cieszyn rabbi to have been brought up with Polish traditions. He held the position until the outbreak of the Second World War. The presidents of the Jewish Community between the wars were; Dr Ludwig Müller (1919-1925), Ignacy Klein (1926-1930), once again Dr Müller (1931-1934) and Dr David Sandhaus (1934-1939). The voivodeship authorities dissolved the Community’s Council in the years 1930-1931 as a result of serious internal conflicts between Zionists and orthodox Jews within the Community, appointing the lawyer Dr Emil Adler as commissioner. Fierce disputes of a nationalistic nature also raged in the Machsike Hadas orthodox organisation, which resulted in their private synagogue being closed several times by the county authorities. Orthodox Jews were also active in several other associations, e.g. Ahawas Tora, which had its own house of prayer. Orthodox Jews ran a religious secondary school in Cieszyn; the Talmudic College Ejc Chaim, and an elementary religious elementary girls’ school Bejs Jakow. However the children in the Talmud Tora School were taught in the spirit of Zionism from 1928. Zionists began their activities initially as the Jewish People’s Association, and then from 1926 as the Local Committee of the Zionist Organisation for Western Małopolska and Silesia, based in Kraków, with several other satellite organisations. Most of the Jewish associations that had been in existence before continued their activities, and new ones were established. Sixteen Jewish associations are listed in the Cieszyn address book of 1931, which is not a representation of the full number. This does not mean that Jewish citizens of Cieszyn formed a community isolated from the rest of the population; most Cieszyn Jews considered themselves loyal Polish citizens, most Jewish children attended Polish schools and quickly entered the realm of Polish culture and language. Jews also participated in the activities of other Cieszyn associations, although certain Polish political parties and Cieszyn newspapers were anti-Semitic. Calls for economic boycotts of Jews were particularly damaging. On a number of occasions there were open anti-Jewish manifestations, i.e. in 1924, 1931 and 1934. Usually members of the National Democratic Party and students of the Agricultural College were behind these acts.
Even greater changes took place for the Jewish population living on the left bank of the Olza, from 1920 developing as Český Těąín. In 1921 there were 1,444 Jews (2.0%) living in Český Těąín County, 1,277 of whom lived in the Český Těąín Judicial District (2.8%) and 167 in the Jablunkov Judicial District (0.6%). Most Jews – 1,021 - lived in Český Těąín itself (12.6%), with 94 (2.3%) in Jablunkov and 101 (1.9%) in Třinec. The only religious building in Český Těąín was the house of prayer owned by the Schomre Schabos orthodox association, while the remaining religious buildings were over the border in Poland. So at first those Jews had to bury their dead in the Cieszyn cemetery, and Rabbi Liemdorfer maintained the Jewish public register. The plan to establish an independent Jewish community in Český Těąín, with borders running along the state border, came from the Czechoslovakian authorities at the end of 1920. However, the statute of the new community in Český Těąín was only approved on 7 June 1922, and the community’s first elections to the Council took place on 28 January 1923.
The new Jewish community, which included the whole of the Český Těąín County, was quite sizeable. In 1930 1,539 Jews (1.8% of the population of Český Těąín County) lived there, of whom 1,405 (2.6%) lived in the Český Těąín Judicial District, and 134 (0.4%) lived in Jablunkov. Most of the population – 1,148 (10.8%) – lived in Český Těąín, the remaining largest groupings of Jews lived in Jablunkov and Třinec, where Jewish associations with their own houses of prayer and cemeteries were still active. In Jablunkov the population gradually diminished; in 1921 there were 94 Jews (2.3%) living there, in 1930 only 61 (1.7%). The number of Jews living in Třinec showed an increase, from 101 in 1921 to 145 in 1930.
Nonetheless the most important part in the Community was played by the Jews living in Český Těąín, where apart from those who sided with reformed Judaism most considered themselves orthodox of various types. This manifested itself during elections to the Jewish Council which the authorities often asked to be repeated as a result of rivalry between various factions and numerous electoral protests. At first the Community was run by German assimilators, and the official language was German. But the role of local orthodox Jews soon became more significant. The presidents of the Community were as follows; Gottlieb Zuckermandel (1923-1927), Ignatz Schmelz (1927-1932), Emil Eichner (1932-1933), Dr Alexander Kohn (1933-1935) and Dr Leo Ziffer (1935-39). Dr Ernst Baas, Český Těąín Jewish Community’s first rabbi was only appointed in 1925. The greatest problem was the need to create a material infrastructure for the Community to function. In 1926 a Jewish cemetery was founded in Český Těąín, and the Community’s synagogue was only opened in 1933. The Synagogue Association in Třinec built theirs sooner. In 1934 within the boundaries of the Jewish Community there was; the Community’s synagogue, two private orthodox synagogues and one private house of prayer (another was established in the following year) in Český Těąín, a private synagogue in Třinec (with its own cantor), and a house of prayer in Jablunkov (with a religious leader). The Community had around 1,200 members, 360 tax-payers, and employed Rabbi E. Baas, a teacher of religion, a secretary, a ritual butcher and a clerk. The Talmud-Tora School was run by a separate association, the orthodox elementary religious school (cheder) and several Jewish associations, including Chewra Kadischa, the Bikur Cholim association for the support of the ill and several Zionist unions. In the elections to the town authorities Český Těąín Jews initially stood for election with Germans candidates and later local Polish ones. Many, however, were in favour of assimilation with Czech culture and belonged to Czech organisations. Attending Czech schools also tended to quicken the movement away from German culture. In general the relations between Jews and members of the other ethnic groups were good.
After the two parts of the town were rejoined in October 1938 there were around 2,800 Jews in the united Cieszyn (in the Polish part around 1,500 and in the Czech around 1,300). Soon Jewish refugees from Austria began to arrive in Cieszyn, followed by Jews from Bohemia and Moravia. After the town was occupied by the Nazis in September 1939, the Jews’ tragedy began. The synagogues and houses of prayer were closed, and then the majority burnt down, while the Jewish cemeteries were closed. In October 1939, during Operation Nisko most Jewish men were transported to the region of the River San. The remaining Jews had to wear distinguishing marks on their clothing and forced labour was introduced, until finally they were all ejected from their homes and housed in several camps in the town (including the former Kohns’ factory), from where they were successively transported to ghettos and work camps in Upper Silesia and Małopolska. By the end of 1943 there were only a handful of Jews left in Cieszyn.
Most Jews from Cieszyn and Český Těąín perished in Nazi concentration camps, almost the only survivors being those who fled to the Soviet Union before the arrival of the Germans in 1939. After the hell of the Soviet camps only few returned home. After the war only forty four individuals from Cieszyn registered in the Jewish Committee in Bielsko, and only fifty three people returned to Český Těąín. A Jewish Congregration was active for some time in Cieszyn but by 1951 most of its members had emigrated to Israel and other countries. The heir of that organisation, and thus also the heir of the former Jewish Community in Cieszyn, was the Jewish Congregation in Biesko-Biała. The Schomre Schabos Association began to function again in Český Těąín in 1946, with Natan Bergmann as its president. By 1950 it had ceased functioning owing to the emigration of most of its members. The Jewish Community, led by its pre-war president Dr Leo Ziffer continued to operate, but soon it too was wound up. Today several Jews in Český Těąín and the locality belong to the Ostrava Jewish Community.
This text is a slightly shortened version of an article by Janusz Spyra; Zarys dziejów ludności żydowskiej w Cieszynie i okolicach, w: Żydowskie zabytki Cieszyna i Czeskiego Cieszyna, ed. J. Spyra, Cieszyn 1999, pp. 7-27; edited by the author.