Calendarium



The history of the kehillah

1563  The first itinerant Jewish traders begin to settle in the small Polish fishing village that had in recent years obtained town status, named Pyła. Jews lived among fishermen, bee-keepers, potters, traders and tradesmen who were eking out a living on both banks of the river Gwda.

1605  King Johan Zygmunt III presents the town of Pyła and the surrounding
lands as dowry to his young second wife, Konstancja.

1626  A devastating fire destroys Pyła. The very young Queen Konstancja decrees to rebuild the town and initiates several far-reaching changes to the town, affecting most of all the lives of the Jews who are forced to live from thereon in a ghetto on the outskirts of Pyła. Further harsh new laws are visited upon the Jews.

1641 The earliest accounts of an organized kehillah in Pyła. Rabbi Meir ben Eljakim Goetz becomes the first known spiritual head of the community.

1655  Begin of The Deluge, the Chmielnicki uprising that devastates vast areas of central and eastern Poland; Pyła’s burgeoning kehillah feels threatened.

1656  Swedish forces of King Karl X clash with those of Czarniecki near Ujscie, pillaging Pyła and accusing its Jews of collaboration with Poland. Thirty-three men, women and children are massacred during the fighting of April and October, decimating the community. Flight of Rabbi Meir ben Eljakim Goetz to Märkisch Friedland; his early death closes the first sad chapter of the kehillah.

1671  Pyła’s population has grown to 1,823 burghers. Rabbi Mose ben Mose Mordechaj and the melamed, Rabbi Ephraim, serve the community during that period.

1681  Rabbi Menachem Nachum ben Israel Sak is elected to head the rabbinate, a position he holds for fourteen years, to be succeeded in 1695 for a brief period until 1699 by Rabbi Jehuda Loeb ben Salomo.

1704  During the years of the Great Northern War, a time when Rabbi Saul ben Todros Broda officiates in the kehillah, much devastation occurs in nearby Wałz.

1710  The kehillah becomes more impoverished while the plague wreaks havoc in Pyła, for the second time since 1654. Many burghers flee to other towns as fires ruin parts of Pyła once again.

1718  Despite the great poverty among all the burghers of Pyła the kehillah seeks out a new spiritual leader, Rabbi Naphtali Herz ben Benjamin Seeb Wolff, also known as Herz Pila; his position only lasts for six years.

1758  After a period of thirty-four years, the kehillah feels strong enough once again to choose a new rabbi, Meir ben Mordechaj Sak. Poland begins to slide into apathy and moral decline as hordes of Cossacks descend once more on the Ukraine, a dreadful reminder of events a century earlier.

1767  The following two decades of Rabbi Bezalel ben Meir Broda’s tenure in Pyła rabbinate fall into a period when Europe’s Jewry hovers on the threshold of a massive transformation. Haskalah, the Jewish enlightenment, becomes the turning point.

1772  The alliance of Prussia, Austria and Russia divides Poland. Pyła becomes the renamed Prussian town of Schneidemühl in the newly formed Netzedistrikt under the rule of the enlightened despot, King
Friedrich II of Prussia.


1781  A renewed large fire destroys forty-four houses, stables and barns in Schneidemühl. After Rabbi Bezalel’s death in 1789, the rabbinate remains empty for the following sixteen years, during which time Rabbi Mosche (Moreh Zedek) takes over the pulpit as deputy rabbi.

1790  The Prussian laws of 1750, governing Jewish life, Prussian bureaucracy and strong Germanizing efforts in education aimed at Jews and non-Jews alike, become defining markers during the following decades.

1807  Following the Treaty of Tilsit, Schneidemühl becomes part of the new geographic entity of the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Code Napoleon grants Jews equality vis-à-vis Christians. Rabbi Abraham Mose Kalischer from Lissa is elected to head the rabbinate of Schneidemühl in 1805. He keeps a tight reign on the kehillah during a period when rabbinic authority is increasingly questioned. The new currents of political and social thought fuel the developing discord.

1812  The edict of 11 March, granting citizenship to qualifying Jews in Prussia has little, if any, effect on the lives of members of Schneidemühl’s kehillah. Rabbi Kalischer succumbs to illness in the spring of the year, leaving the kehillah in the hands of Rabbi Jehuda ben Jechiel. The advent of Haskalah presents the most fundamental change that Jews have to face in a millennium.

1816  With the end of the Napoleonic wars, Schneidemühl, in the renamed Grand Duchy of Posen, regains its Prussian status, but most Jewish rights are rescinded after the Congress of Vienna. The process of emancipation grounds to a halt. Rabbi Jacob ben Schlomo haLevy, known as Rabbi Jacob Graeditz, is chosen as successor for the rabbinate. The kehillah, with its 480 members, represents 24 percent of Schneidemühl’s population that stood at 1,992 souls. Rabbi Graeditz dies on 11 January 1822.

1822  Rabbi Natan Nata ben Jeschaja Scheier, whose tenure in the rabbinate of Schneidemühl lasts three decades, is from the outset the most controversial religious head in the annals of the kehillah. In fierce opposition to Haskalah and non-religious education, the rabbi does not share his congregation’s growing infatuation with German Kultur.

1830  Prussia’s kehilloth become Corporations, administered by representatives of the kehillah, recognized as members of their towns. Hereditary Jewish family names in Schneidemühl appear for the first time in surviving records, and naturalization patents of twenty-five of the kehillah’s most affluent men are made public. Simultaneously two divisions of "Naturalisirte Juden" and "Schutzjuden" are introduced by the state—a meager measure of equality.

1834  The last of the great fires is visited upon Schneidemühl. The kehillah suffers greatly as the Beit haMidrash and the synagogue are destroyed. Only with the help of the wealthier members of the kehillah and with donations from other kehilloth in Posen is it possible to plan the rebuilding of the synagogue for its 404 members.

1841  The Tempel, a splendid new synagogue, is inaugurated with a sermon in High German by Rabbi Salomon Plessner from Berlin on 15 October 1841. Rabbi Michael Sachs’ progressive Neue Orthodoxie casts its shadow over the kehillah. The state establishes obligatory rights of taxation for the kehillah and a system of forced membership in an independent Synagogengemeinde.

1848  Numerous young members of Schneidemühl’s Jewish community see emigration as a solution to Prussia’s slow emancipation process. Schneidemühl remains relatively calm during the revolution, when large numbers of Prussia’s Jews take up the cudgels and participate in the fights and arguments, for equality, for separation of church and state.*

(The above has been excerpted from the recently published book
 History of the Jewish Community of Schneidemühl: 1641 to the Holocaust)

*A continuation
of this time-line appears on p. 295 of the above book.
More comprehensive details on this part of the history of the community can be found on p. 85.





















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