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Handwritten copy of a birth certificate for Bernhard Gerstmann, who was born on May 23, 1854 in Eibenschitz.
Eibenschitz (German for Ivančice, Evančice or Wančice), is a town located in south Moravia, Czechoslovakia. According to unattested records Jews built a synagogue there in 956, but documentary evidence of the existence of Jewish settlement begins in 1490, when three Jews of Ivancice signed as guarantors to a financial transaction. There were 27 Jewish-owned houses in 1672 and 67 in 1752. The community numbered 533 (living in 72 houses) in 1791, 797 in 1830, 619 in 1869, 400 in 1914, and 141 in 1930 (2.8% of the total population). There was an important yeshivah in Ivancice which had some noted rabbis, including Nathan Nata Selig of Cracow, the father of the famous Rabbi and Talmudist Jonathan Eybeschuetz (1690-1794), who was named after the town; Moses Karpeles (1814–28), friend of Moses Sofer; and Beer Oppenheim (1829–59), one of the first rabbis to combine talmudic with secular scholarship. In 1942 the Jews from Ivancice were deported to death camps. The synagogue appurtenances were transferred to the Jewish Central Museum in Prague. The synagogue building was demolished in 1950. A religious congregation existed for a short time after World War II. A number of Jewish families are named after the town of Ivancice, in variant spellings.
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