Talk:Pezinok
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[edit] History of Jews in Pezinok
I found the following poorly written essay on an old server. I must have written it when I was a little kid, probably for an old school project. Someone should maybe fix it up and insert some of its information into the main article. Here it is:
- History of Jewish Population of Pezinok
- History of Pezinoka town with the rich tradition loacted on the eastern slopes of Little Carpathian Mountains, was granted city royal priviliges, in the 13th century by King Ferdinand II, history of dynsaties Illeshazy and Palffy. The name Pezinokinok is connected with the most tragical events of hungarian jewry. In the year 1529, in Pezinokinok 30 innocent jews were burned, just like in Trnava, where similar vile happened events in 1494. These events are coneected to the whole hungarian jewry, we will make a picture of the history of these events. If ones compares Hungray with the rest of Europe, one comes to conclusion that the situation of jews in Hungary was better than in the rest of the world. During the crusader wars, King Koloman stopped the crusaders, who robbed jews of belongings and mny times killed them, at the border. In 1251, King Bela IV, made a law in which he gave rights to jews and protected them in times where in England and elsewhere in Western Europe, the jews were killed and beaten. In the 15th Century, while in Czech and Moravia, the jews were heartessly killed under the excuses of poisoning wells and causing the Black Plague, the jews in Hungary lived in peace. This was the reason that many jews moved to this region from all of Europe and settled on the territory of today's Slovakia. This caused King Matej Korvin (1458-1490) established an office of jewish leadership, "Prince de Juifs." The office was directly under the King's leadership and was responsible for the relationship between jewish and christian citizens. During the leader of a weak king, Ludovet II (1506-1526) the situation of jews worsened - together with the deteriotation of the country the situation of jews worsened, and anti-semitism grew. The center of these moods were especially towns in the western part of the country - Bratislava, Sopron, Pezinokinok and Budapest. It is not a coincidence that in the 13th Century, King Bela IV, invited the germans to live especially in these towns. Theere were competition meetings between the jews and germans leading to agurments, conflicts and finally pogroms.The fact that the jews lent money with intrest, and led a different lifestyle, made it even worse. Anti-semitisim was partly helped by the church, which by the Pope's orders supported the conversion of jews. Pezinok was one of the cities with strong german influence.
- The older middle-aged history of the town in unknown, the archives and documents are not ogragnized yet. You can say with a certainty that the jews with the support of King Bela IV, settled in Pezinok in the 13th century. They lived a part called "Zeile" (today caled Cajla) in documents it is called "The Jewish Meadows." Today we can't say how the religous life was at that time, if they had prayer houses, synagouges, or something similar, we don't even know when they were allowed to move. "intra muros," inside the walls. There are documents that jews were here and baptized. One of them was Briccius, an instigator who caused the jewish people, his former comrades, alot of problems, and played a major roll in burning the 30 jews. In 1529, about 150 jews lived in Pezinok.
- In 1529 a body of a nine year old boy, Johann Meilinger, was found. The germans immediatly accused the jews of killing him for ritual reasons. Due to that fact, many jews were inprisoned, torured them, and the executioners made them admit to killing them. 30 jews, men and women, were dragged to a site, and burned. As is written in the lexicon by Korabinasky from 1786 that they called this part of town, even today, 'the jewish hill' and the children under 10, were spared and brought up as christians. As we mentioned, there are many [german] documents aout this event, which describe not just the events, but the invistigation of individual defednants, with their names and type of torture. Because of these events, the jews in Vienna, asked King Ferdinand to investigate this case. The King appointed Count Salama, but the results were unknown. Also Darina Lehotska in her monogrpahy about the history of Pezinok mentions the events without commanteries.
- After the 1529 massacre, the jews left Pezinok. Not even a century later, when Pezinok became property of Count Palffy who was known for his progressive and humanistic ideas. There is a document from 1620 where a priest from Pezinok, Jan Bod is complaining to Peter Pazmanyi is requesting to return the items of the Pezinok church which were pawned to jews. Other documents show that in the beginning of 17th Century, the jews settled in Zeile this property belonged to Count Palffy. Becuase of that, the synagouge, which was built at that time was called "Palffy-shul" the jews lived near that synagouge. Nearby was the first, maybe second, cemetary. The firts Mikvah in Pezinok was built at that time. The religous life was renewed.
- In the first half of the 18th Century any documents from then show that jews led busy, social, and religous life, due to the good government and King who helped jews. From documents it is known that in the 18th Century, jews lived quite comfortably. In Pezinok, there were a few hundred of them, and they had their own rabbis. Most famous was Aaron Moshe Aryeh Leb, who was in the office from 1780 until his death in 1830. There is an important contract with Count Palffy, it talks about renting the meadows, the price of wine, and a few farmers markets. At the end of the contract, the Palffy vowed that they won't build houses around the wall and places where the merchants, businessmen and jews will live.
- The jewish religous life in Pezinok reached a very high level in the 19th century proof of that is a long list of rabbis. After Rabbi Leb(1832), Rabbi David Jisrael Schlesinger took over. He studied at Chasam Sofer's yeshiva in Bratislava and refused any religous reforms. He was a strict orthodox jew. In the middle of the 19th century, Rabbi Jaffe Israel David Ben Mordechai took over, from his maternal side, he is a descendant of the famous Rabbi Low from Prague, the maker of the Golem. He was rabbi until his untimely death in 1872. After him, Benjamin Zev Schachter, Aron Willheim, Maeyer Landsbrg and Benjamin Fuchs. The last rabbi in 1940 was Josua Schill he died in a concentration camp in 1944.
- Since 1850 there were detailed books in the city of Pezinok, it is known that in 1851, two hundred and twenty-two jews lived in Pezinok. They had all kinds of jobs, such as, Tailor, Baker, Optic, Duck feeder, milk man, merchant with horses, butcher etc. In 1857, the number of jews grew to 533. After establishing an Astro-Hungarian monarchy in 1867, the jews began to move to larger cities. In 1904, there were only 350 jews in Pezinok. They lived freely, not rich, not poor. In 1867, they built an impresasive shul, near it was the cantor's house, mikvah, and a kosher slaughterhouse. The importance of the town declined in the 18th century. In 1942, 280 jews lived in Pezinok. They were all deported. Only 10 jews returned from concentration camps, but in 1960, only one jew lived in Pezinok. Today, night even that.
I know, it's poorly written, I already said that. Lots of obvious typos. It's also not wikified with the links that it should have. --רח"ק | Talk 16:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
