Verband der Deutschen Juden (Germany)

Records of several Jewish communities assembled by Jacob Jacobson.

Folder 1 contains a photocopy and transcript of a letter concerning the establishment of a physician in Posen (9/4/1937), Blaetter des Verbandes juedischer Heimatvereine No. 11/7 (July 1937) with article about the old market and the Jewish cemetery in Posen, program of the inauguration of the Jewish hospital in Posen (6/18/1895), regulations concerning the Jewish cemetery in Posen (10/1/1902), envelope of the Verband der Deutschen Juden in Berlin addressed to Rabbi Bloch in Posen with photo of the old Taharah house 1598 in the old Jewish cemetery on Theaterstrasse (n.d.), regulations concerning the "Repraesentanten-Versammlungen der israelitischen Corporationen" in Posen (7/1/1834), pamphlet "Aufruf" of the Central-Verein zur Begruendung der Colonisation der Juden in der Provinz Posen (4/7/1846), Amtsblatt der Koeniglichen Regierung zu Posen with police order regarding Jewish funerals, newspaper clipping and letter concerning C. C. Aronsfeld's "Memories of a Posen Childhood" by Margarete Jacoby-Orgler and Gustav Jacoby (1980), manuscript "Die Abwanderung der Juden aus der Provinz Posen - Denkschrift im Auftrage des Verbandes der Deutschen Juden" by Bernhard Breslauer (1909).

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Wąbrzeźno, known in German as Briesen. The records date from 1871 to 1921, concentrated in the era when the town of Briesen was part of the province of West Prussia, in the German Empire; only a handful of items date from the years 1920-1921, when the town was part of Poland. The collection comprises administrative and financial records kept by the Briesen Jewish Community Council, except for one volume of records kept by the Jüdischer Lese-Verein (Jewish Reading Society) of Briesen, in the years 1901 to 1908. Approximately 40% of the collection comprises financial records, 1882-1921, including official budgets and tax lists; 20% concerns the community's religious institutions; and another 20% comprises records related to community employees, especially rabbis and cantors. The remainder of the collection includes correspondence, communal meeting minutes and decisions, circulars announcing meetings, and a variety of administrative records. Included are records pertaining to communal council elections; synagogue seat rentals; burials and the care of graves; the construction and maintenance of the mikveh (ritual bath house); the expansion of the cemetery; synagogue rules and the renovation of the synagogue; charitable activities, often in cooperation with regional and national Jewish organizations; and the religious school and Jewish elementary school.