Medieval Synagogue of Luxembourg City

PRZEGLĄD

Historia Medieval Synagogue of Luxembourg City

Jews are first documented in the city of Luxembourg in 1276, and in the early fourteenth century more came from Trier. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1904 states that throughout the Middle Ages they lived in a ghetto 'where there were a Jews' gate, a cemetery, and a synagogue'. Documents of 1367, cited by the French Wikipedia, attest a 'rue des Juifs' and a 'porte des Juifs' in the city, and the JGuide Europe country page places the Jews of that period in the valley of the Pétrusse below the fortified upper town. No source read in this run gives the synagogue's exact site, its date of building, its appearance or its end, and no remains of it are known.

The community's history was a cycle of settlement and violence. During the Black Death of 1349 Jews were murdered or driven out of Luxembourg and Echternach, although Emperor Charles IV ordered in 1350 that those in the city be protected. The sources disagree on the later steps: the Jewish Encyclopedia has an expulsion by Wenzel, Duke of Brabant and Luxemburg, in 1370, while the other sources give a general expulsion in 1391. Families returned from 1405, were attacked in the 1440s and again in the 1470s, and were finally expelled in 1530. The synagogue presumably ceased to function with one of these expulsions, but which one is not recorded.

LOKALIZACJA

Where it stood

Historic: Jewish street (Judengasse, rue des Juifs) of the city of Luxembourg, attested 1367, exact location unknown; Jews said to have lived in the Pétrusse valley. Today: Vallée de la Pétrusse, Grund, Luxembourg City (approximate).

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Społeczność żydowska

According to Klaus-Dieter Alicke's lexicon, Jewish families can be shown to have lived in the city of Luxembourg from 1276, and a small number of Jews moved there from Trier in the early fourteenth century; the French Wikipedia, citing Waelput, adds further arrivals from the archbishopric of Trier in 1418. The Jews lived under the protection of the rulers of Luxembourg; the sources name Emperor Charles IV as their protector in the mid-fourteenth century. Alicke quotes Charles's order of 1350 that the readmitted Jews should suffer no harm 'to their bodies or goods'. Under Burgundian rule from 1441, the Jewish Encyclopedia says, each Jew paid two gulden for a protection it calls 'merely nominal'. After the resettlement of 1405 the community was small: the English Wikipedia says that only two families remained after the attack of 1478 and that there were fifteen by 1515. The size of the community at its height, its leaders and its rabbis are unknown; no person tied to the synagogue is named in any source read.

Architektura i projekt

Nothing is known about the building itself. No source read in this run gives its date of construction, its builder, its size, its plan or its materials, and no plan, drawing, view or excavated remains of it have been found. The only evidence for its existence is the general statement in the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1904 that the Jewish ghetto of the city contained a synagogue, together with a Jews' gate and a cemetery. The Jews' gate and the Jewish street are confirmed by documents of 1367, which suggests a defined quarter that could be closed off. Whether the synagogue stood in that street, and whether it was a purpose-built house of prayer or a room in a Jewish house, is unknown. No description of the building survives in any source read, so its style, capacity and architect are all recorded here as unknown, and nothing can be said about whether it had a women's section, a ritual bath or a school attached to it.

Życie w synagodze

No record of services, officials or furnishings of the synagogue has been found. What the sources describe is the legal and economic setting of the community that used it. The Jews of the city lived under the direct protection of the ruler and paid for it: Charles IV ordered the governor and the provost of Luxembourg in 1350 to look to their safety, and under the dukes of Burgundy from 1441 every Jew paid a protection fee of two gulden. The community's close ties with Trier, from where many of its members came in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, may mean that it looked to Trier in religious matters, but no source states this. The cemetery mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia shows that the community buried its own dead in the city. Whether a rabbi, cantor or teacher ever served in Luxembourg, or whether the community relied on Trier for these offices, is unknown, and no medieval Hebrew document from the city was found.

Zniszczenie

No source records when or how the synagogue building was destroyed. Its loss can only be placed in the series of attacks and expulsions that ended Jewish life in the medieval city. During the Black Death of 1349 Jews were murdered or expelled from Luxembourg and Echternach; Alicke's account implies that the townspeople were responsible, since Charles IV had ordered the Jews left unharmed. The Jewish Encyclopedia says that Wenzel, Duke of Brabant and Luxemburg, expelled the Jews from Brabant in 1370; Alicke, the Jewish Virtual Library and the French Wikipedia instead give a general expulsion in 1391, without naming who ordered it. In March 1470, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the townspeople attacked the Jews despite the presence of the governor and the militia, plundering and demolishing their houses, and the Jews took refuge in the castle on the Bock rock; the other sources date this uprising to 1478. The final expulsion came in 1530, and JGuide Europe refers to an edict of Charles V of 1532. Whether the synagogue was among the houses destroyed in the uprising or was simply abandoned and reused after an expulsion is unknown.

Los społeczności

After the expulsion of 1530 only a few Marranos are said to have remained, and the French Wikipedia, citing Jean Stengers, records a last mention of Jews in the duchy in 1563. The English Wikipedia says the ban of 1530 was strictly enforced and that Jews did not return until the late eighteenth century. The medieval community therefore left no successors in the city, and its institutions, the synagogue among them, disappeared without record. The Jewish Encyclopedia says that the old cemetery later went out of use and that the Jews of Luxembourg buried their dead at Freudenburg in the Saarburg district until they again had a burial ground of their own. A new community formed after the French Revolution, bought a house in the rue du Séminaire in 1821 and opened a synagogue there in 1823. That community, its synagogue of 1894 and its fate under Nazi German occupation have their own entries on this site; there is no link of continuity between them and the medieval congregation beyond the city itself.

Miejsce dzisiaj

The site of the medieval synagogue is unknown. The French Wikipedia records a Jewish street and a Jews' gate in 1367 but does not say where they were, and JGuide Europe says only that the Jews lived in the Pétrusse valley. The Pétrusse valley is today a landscaped park below the Old Town, the Pétrusse casemates and the Adolphe Bridge, and part of the Grund district. No street in the modern city carries the Jewish name, no remains of the synagogue, the Jews' gate or the medieval cemetery have been identified, and no marker records them. The map pin for this entry marks the centre of the Pétrusse valley park and should not be read as the synagogue's location.

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