Metadata: Archives of the Jewish community Machsike Hadass
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- Orthodoxe Israëlitische gemeente van Antwerpen Machsike Hadass
- Holding institution (official language):
- Orthodoxe Israëlitische gemeente van Antwerpen Machsike Hadass
- Postal address:
- Jacob Jacobsstraat 22, 2018 Antwerpen
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)3 233 55 67
- Reference number:
- MHadass-Antwerp-Archives de la CIMH
- Title:
- Archives of the Jewish community Machsike Hadass
- Title (official language):
- Archives de la CIMH
- Creator/accumulator:
- Communauté israélite orthodoxe d’Anvers Machsike Hadass; Orthodoxe Israëlitische Gemeente van Antwerpen Machsike Hadass
- Date(s):
- 1943/2016
- Date note:
- ca. 1945 - present
- Language:
- French
- Dutch; Flemish
- Hebrew
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 60 linear metres
- Scope and content:
- This fonds consists of correspondence, notes, reports, plans, posters, bulletins and publications. We note correspondence of the Machsike Hadass community; files regarding kashrut, shehitah and the mikveh; registers of marriages, births and deaths; building plans of the synagogue and mikveh, etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Jewish community of Russian-Polish Ashkenazi rite known as the Ratzerdorfersche Gemeinde was founded in Antwerp in 1892, and composed of six Orthodox groups and oratories (Blitz, Feiner, Adas Yeshurun and others). Rabbi Noach Zvi Ullmann was appointed and remained in office for twenty years. The community appointed the priests in charge of ritual slaughter (shehitah), supervised kashrut and in 1895 (officially in 1903) it opened a religious school for boys, Jesode-Hatora (‘the foundations of the Torah’). The religious school for girls Beth-Jacob was founded in 1936. Both schools still exist today. The Orthodox community was led by Adolf Ullman until 1903 and then by the industrialist Adolf Wolff – a Zionist, like Abraham Tolkowsky, who also formed part of the management committee of the community. The objective of the community was to ensure for its members the necessary conditions for strict observance of religious prescriptions. At the time, the mikveh located in the Kleine Pieter Potstraat was managed by the Shomre Hadas community; the Orthodox community founded its own mikveh in Van Noortstraat in 1902, which relocated to Lamorinièrestraat ten years later. In 1902 rabbi S.J. Sternberg, who also held the function of dayan, established the Eruv of Antwerp, a symbolic boundary which allows Orthodox Jews to carry items on Shabbat within this enclosure. The Jewish cemetery plot in Putte (a town on the Belgian-Dutch border) was acquired in 1908, as the burial society (Hevra Kadisha) of the community did not accept the modifications of the legislation concerning the limited duration of burial concessions in Belgium. The following year, the Orthodox community created several autonomous philanthropic organisations, such as Ezra, Bikur Cholim (visits to the sick) and Hachnassat Orchim. The community assumed the name of Communauté israélite Machsike Hadass (CIMH) in 1905; it was officially recognised by royal decree of 14 December 1910. At that time the community had nearly 1,500 members. After the First World War, the CIMH inaugurated a synagogue in Art Nouveau style in Oostenstraat. In 1918, rabbi Markus Rottenberg replaced rabbi Herman or Noach Zvi Ullman, who had died in 1916. In 1929, the CIMH founded a yeshiva in Heide. The community was severely hit by the Shoah. After the war survivors started rebuilding the community. In 1946, a yeshiva was opened in Kapellen, near Antwerp. Chaïm Kreiswirth was appointed rabbi of the CIMH in 1954. The community was reconstructed and expanded. A new mikveh was built in 1972, located in Oostenstraat. To this day the community provides a wide range of religious services and ceremonies – for example marriages, divorces, circumcisions, burials, Pesach equipment, the Eruv and a Beth Din (rabbinical court). (La Communauté Israélite Orthodoxe d’Anvers Machsike Hadas http://www.jewishcom.be/wordpress/2009/03/01/de-orthodoxe-israelitische-gemeenschap-van-antwerpen-machzike-hadas/; J.-P. Schreiber, Politique et religion. Le Consistoire central israélite de Belgique au XIXe siècle, Bruxelles, éd. de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1995, pp. 369-370.)
- Access points: locations:
- Antwerp
- System of arrangement:
- The archive appears to be arranged chronologically.
- Access, restrictions:
- Consultation requires the authorisation of the board of administrators of the Machsike Hadass community.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
