Physical Description

Detail Description

Very rare small, unrecorded in major library collections, intriguing brochure in Fraktur German.  As its title suggests, Instruktion für die Restaurateure der Israel. Religionsgesellschaft (Instruction for restorers of Israel. Religious Community in Frankfurt on the Main) is concerned with religious instruction in the Jewish community of Frankfurt on the Main.

The brochure reflects the activities of a small group of Orthodox members then seized the opportunity to form a religious association within the community, the "Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft," and elected R. Samson Raphael Hirsch as their rabbi in 1851. The Rothschild family made a large donation toward the erection of a new Orthodox synagogue. When the community board persisted in turning a deaf ear to the demands of the Orthodox minority, the association seceded from the community and set up a separate congregation (1876). After some Orthodox members, supported by the Wuerzburg rabbi, R. Seligmann Baer Bamberger , had refused to take this course, the community board made certain concessions, enabling them to remain within the community. A communal Orthodox rabbi, R. Marcus Horovitz , was installed and a new Orthodox synagogue was erected with communal funds. From then on the Frankfurt Orthodox community, its pattern of life and educational institutions, became the paradigm of German Orthodoxy. The Jewish population of Frankfurt numbered 3,298 in 1817 (7.9% of the total), 10,009 in 1871 (11%), 21,974 in 1900 (7.5%), and 29,385 in 1925 (6.3%). During the 19^th century many Jews from the rural districts were attracted to the city whose economic boom owed much to Jewish financial and commercial enterprise.

 

Hebrew Description

 

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