Rabbinate of the Jewish Religious Community in Košice

Collection

Title (official language):: Rabínstvo Židovskej náboženskej obce v Košiciach

Scope and content:: The documents of the Rabbinate of the Jewish Religious Community in Košice include a filing protocol from 1908-1928 and files, mostly registers, which have been preserved from 1870-1944, being arranged by year. Files with more information date back to the period of the Second World War. The peculiarity is that the fonds includes files from the period until 1918 and then from the period of 1938-1944. The files from 1918-1938 are missing. From 1899-1912 there is a register of persons who converted to the Jewish religion.

The fonds includes 1 official book, 1 registry finding aid and 38 boxes of files.

Archival history:: The documents of the fonds were handed over to the city archives in 1944, i.e. during the Second World War, when Košice belonged to Hungary.

Administrative/biographical history:: The first wave of Jews came to Košice from the municipality of Rozhanovce after the adoption of Act XXIX/1840 On Jews by the Land Council. The Košice Jews originally belonged to the Rozhanovce Rabbinate. They established their own religious community, as a branch of the Rozhanovce Rabbinate, in 1842. The prayer room was in a rented house as they had no right to own a real estate in the city at that time. In 1844, the community was given a plot of land to use on Tatranská Street in Košice which served as a cemetery. It was in operation until 1880. The first synagogue was built in 1866. In 1880, the Rozhanovce Rabbinate was transferred to Čaňa and the municipalities of its district were included in the Košice Rabbinate.

Subject terms:: Conversion to Judaism; Jewish community; Jewish community records; Rabbis

Finding aids:: Halaga, Ondrej, R.: Archív mesta Košíc, sprievodca po fondoch a zbierkach. Praha, 1957.