Inhaltszusammenfassung

The article analyzes a unique manuscript discovered several years ago in a collection of old Jewish books and manuscripts in a building that was once used as a synagogue, now refurbished as a living space for families. The small village of Obermoschel in the Northern Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) was once home to a small Jewish community. At the beginning of the 18th century, the number of Jews in that hamlet increased until it began to fall again sharply at the beginning of the 1920s. From ap...The article analyzes a unique manuscript discovered several years ago in a collection of old Jewish books and manuscripts in a building that was once used as a synagogue, now refurbished as a living space for families. The small village of Obermoschel in the Northern Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) was once home to a small Jewish community. At the beginning of the 18th century, the number of Jews in that hamlet increased until it began to fall again sharply at the beginning of the 1920s. From approximately 1790, a prayer room appears to have been located in a private house. In 1844, a building of 80 square meters was erected on the site of the house in which this hall was located. During the pogrom night of November 1938, the interior and the windows of the synagogue were destroyed. The Torah scrolls were burned, but the building itself remained intact and was initially used to house prisoners of war and forced laborers. It was refunded to the Jewish community in 1952, but the prayer room was still used as a storeroom in 1964. In 1972, after the sale, the building was converted into a residential structure, and its shape underwent significant changes in the process. The remains of books and manuscripts, possibly from a Genizah, were salvaged under a stairway during the building's renovation. Among the remains of Hebrew Books, a small handwritten booklet contains, in its first part, under the header “Seder pidyon nefesh,” mystical and magical prayers, as well as fascinating notes on the practical enactments of this rite. The second part of the Hebrew written manuscript preserves the rites for a “Shinnui ha-shem” ceremony, for the benefit of the sick and wounded. The article will analyze this unique witness of practical Kabbalah from Germany. It will try to elucidate the background of its scribe, a certain Menahem ben Yosef from Thalfang. It will also attempt to reconstruct the reception of magical rituals like these in the rural communities that lived until the 19th century under relatively simple conditions, yet always near their Christian neighbors. Thalfang, near Trier, however, later became the birthplace of Rabbi Samuel Hirsch (1815–1889), one of the most prominent philosophers of Judaism and a representative of the Reform movement in the United States.» weiterlesen» einklappen

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Klassifikation

DFG Fachgebiet:
1.16 - Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Außereuropäische Kulturen, Judaistik und Religionswissenschaft

DDC Sachgruppe:
Andere Religionen