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Ahrweiler, Germany

AHRWEILER (Heb. ארוילרא), small German town near Bonn. There was a considerable Jewish community in Ahrweiler in the 13th century, some of its members owning houses in Cologne. In the 14th century the Jews of Ahrweiler dealt in salt and wine. The community suffered during the *Black Death massacres of 1348. The physician and exegete Baruch b. Samson ("Meister Bendel") lived in Ahrweiler in the 15th century. Among the rabbis of Ahrweiler were Ḥayyim b. Johanan Treves (d. 1598), who also officiated as *Landrabbiner for the territory of the Electorate of Cologne, and his son-in-law Isaac b. Ḥayyim. A notable family which adopted the name "Ahrweiler" included among its members the Frankfurt dayyan Hirz Ahrweiler (d. 1679) and his son Mattathias, rabbi of Heidelberg (d. 1729). The small Ahrweiler community of modern times numbered only 4 Jews in 1808; 28 in 1849; 65 in 1900 (1% of the total population); and 31 in 1933. It maintained a cemetery and synagogue built in 1894. The synagogue was burned and desecrated on *Kristallnacht (Nov. 9–10, 1938); the last Jews were deported from Ahrweiler in July 1942.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Salfeld, Martyrol, 273, 287; Germ Jud, 2 (1968), 3–4. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Warnecke, Die Ahrweiler Synagoge. Ein Beispiel jüdisch-deutscher Geschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (1983); B. Klein, in: F.G. Zehnder (ed.), Hirt und Herde. Religiosität und Frömmigkeit im Rheinland des 18. Jahrhunderts (2000), 251–78.


Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.