Heřmanův Městec

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Location of Heřmanův Městec in the Czech Republic

Heřmanův Městec (German: Hermanmiestetz, Hermannstädt(e)l, etc) is a town in Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has ca. 4,800 inhabitants.

1 Jewish Hermanmiestetz
2 References
3 Nearby municipalities
4 External links

[edit] Jewish Hermanmiestetz

Jewish cemetery in Heřmanův Městec

Jews were living there as early as 1509, engaged in commerce and money-lending; but the Jewish community proper dates from 1591. The Jews were confined to a ghetto under the protectorate of the overlords of the city. One of these, Count Johann Wenceslaus Spork, built a synagogue in 1760, which was modernized in 1870. The Jewish parochial school was transformed into a German public school. Since 1891 Hermanmiestetz has been the seat of a district rabbi, the dependent communities being Chrudim, Roubowitz, and Drevikau.

The following have officiated as rabbis in Hermanmiestetz:

Bunem (d. 1734);
Selig-Landsteiner (d. 1743);
Ḥayyim Traub (d. 1790);
Elias Treitel (d. 1823);
Samuel Brod (d. 1850);
Moses Bloch, till 1855 (since 1877 professor at the rabbinical seminary at Budapest);
Benjamin Feilbogen, till 1863;
S. Rosenberg, 1864-68;
Dr. Nehemias Kronberg, the present incumbent, called in 1891.

Judah Löb Borges (d. 1872), a member of the community distinguished for his Talmudic and literary attainments, officiated temporarily whenever there was a vacancy in the rabbinate.

The community supports a burial society, a society for nursing the sick, a Talmud Torah, and a women's society. The cemetery must have existed as early as the sixteenth century; for it is recorded in a document that in 1667 a field was bought from a citizen for the purpose of enlarging the burial-ground. In 1903 the Jews of Hermanmiestetz numbered 300, those of the whole district aggregating 1,100.