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Prayer on behalf of the Jewry of Dresden. The heading describers it as the prayer of a pained Jew who entreats for his people and land, Rosh HaShanah 1883. The subheading states that it is verse composed to hear tidings, for gathered together in the city of Dresden are bands of anti-Semites who are assembled to take counsel on the destruction of the Jews. “Take counsel together, and it shall come to nothing; speak the word, and it shall not stand; for God is with us” (Isaiah 8:10). The prayers are in three paragraphs. The initial letters of the first paragraph spell Hear, I beg you, for a blessing. The prayers are deeply moving. At the end of the prayer is that it is from Budapest in the week that Rosh HaShanah comes out, in the year áøëúéä in the year áøëä åãøåø, “vengeance to my enemies” (Deuteronomy 32:41). Below is the name Shimon Bachrach.
Dresden is the capital of the kingdom of Saxony; situated on both banks of the Elbe. The presence of Jews in the city or in its vicinity as early as the beginning of the eleventh century is evidenced by the proceedings against Margrave Gunzelin (1010), who, among others, was accused of selling Christian slaves to Jewish merchants. The first official document, however, directly concerning the Jews of Dresden, as well as those of the other cities of Meissen, is dated 1265. In that year Henry the Illustrious regulated the differences between Christians and Jews. From these regulations it may be inferred that the main occupation of the Dresden Jews was money-lending. According to an old chronicle, a great auto da fé of the Dresden Jews took place on Shrove Tuesday, 1349 ("Chron. Parvum Dresdense," in Menken's "Script. Rer. Germ." ii. 332). It is possible that this was connected with the Black Death, although Dresden was but slightly attacked by the plague.
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