Metadata: Jewish Community Kosten (Kościan)
Collection
- Country:
- Germany
- Holding institution (official language):
- Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum, Archiv
- Postal address:
- Oranienburger Str. 28-30, 10117 Berlin
- Phone number:
- 0049-30-88028-425
- Web address:
- www.centrumjudaicum.de
- Reference number:
- CJA, 1 A Ko 7
- Title:
- Jewish Community Kosten (Kościan)
- Title (official language):
- Jüdische Gemeinde Kosten
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish Community Kosten
- Date(s):
- 1834/1895
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 0.7 linear metres (66 archival units)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Poor
- Scope and content:
-
66 files have survived from Kosten (now Kościan, Poland). The first series concerns the administration of the community, 1834-1895: statutes of the community, elections of officers and representatives, minutes of the board (1842-1843), minutes of the meeting of representatives (1850-1867) and miscellaneous (litigation, finances, appeals for donations, printed items). One file contains decrees on the collection of fees when Jews take the oath, 1853-1855. Other files contain personnel matters, including the appointment of rabbis (e.g. Adolph Wiener, 1848) and applications for the position of rabbi, preacher, cantor, teacher and slaughterer.
The second series contains files on the community's real estate and buildings, including the purchase of a house for the community (1838), a synagogue (including construction from 1839, a break-in into the synagogue in 1843, a drawing for the renovation of the synagogue in 1865) and a ritual bath (mikveh), 1848-1874, 1893.
The financial files deal with the community budget (1866-1893), income and expenditure, legacies, as well as tax estimates and tax returns. There are also files on religious matters, including synagogue regulations (1848, 1864, 1889) and kosher slaughter (1865-1875) as well as on the Jewish elementary school and religious instruction (1852-1894).
The final series contains files on charity, including support for poor parishioners (1841-1865), poor fund (1866-1890), appeals for donations from external parishes and institutions, and charitable collections.
- Archival history:
- The files of the Kosten Jewish community were held in the former General Archive of German Jews. In 1996 the collection was transferred from the Federal Archives to the archive of the New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Jews in the Greater Poland area were mostly descendants of Ashkenazi Jews who had migrated to Poland-Lithuania since the Middle Ages. The settlement of Jews was encouraged by the Polish kings and later also by the nobility; from the 16th century onwards the latter increasingly founded their own towns and granted settlement privileges there in order to promote economic development. After the dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century these areas with a large proportion of Jewish population came under Prussian rule, as did large parts of Greater Poland upon the second partition of Poland in 1793. Under French rule the territory belonged to the Duchy of Warsaw, in 1815 it returned to Prussia as the Grand Duchy of Posen (after 1848 Province of Posen). The “Preliminary Ordinance Concerning the Jewry in the Grand Duchy of Posen” issued in 1833 defined, among other things, the boundaries of the community districts, regulated the election of representatives and administrative officials, compulsory schooling and the requirements for naturalisation. The Prussian law of 23 July 1847 was initially not applied to Posen; only after 1848 were the Jews granted civil rights with the Prussian constitution.
After the First World War, most of the province of Posen became part of the Second Polish Republic, which existed until 1939. Since 1945 it has again been part of Poland. This area largely corresponds to what is now the Greater Poland Voivodeship (województwo wielkopolskie).
Jews were only allowed to settle in Kosten with the beginning of Prussian rule. At the end of the 18th century, six Jews were living there (out of a population of over 1,700). In 1816 66 Jews lived in the town, after 1840 there were 176 and in 1890 it was 196 (53 families; 4% of the population). The small community belonged to the Rabbinate of Czempin until 1848. The parishioners were wealthier than the average for Jews in the Grand Duchy of Poznań and predominantly reform-oriented. The preacher Adolph Meyer Wiener (also known as Aron Wiener, 1812-1895) from Posen, a representative of Reform Judaism, was invited to the inauguration of the synagogue in 1840. He was employed as a rabbi in Kosten from 1848 to 1853. He was succeeded from 1855 to 1859 by Emanuel Wreschner (1828-1900) and in 1861 by Isaak Falkenheim (1826-1902). In 1854 the city decided to separate the public school (Simultanschule), which had existed since the beginning of the 19th century, into three denominational schools and a Jewish elementary school was set up (dissolved in 1894).
- Access points: locations:
- Kosten
- Yerusha Network member:
- Centrum Judaicum
- Author of the description:
- Barbara Welker; Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum; 2021
