Chodova Plana

CHODOVA PLANA (Cz. Chodová Planá, Ger. Kuttenplan, Heb. abbr. ק״פ), town in West Bohemia. Jews lived there and in the vicinity from 1570. An organized community existed by 1620 and a synagogue is mentioned in 1645. When the community was threatened with expulsion in 1681, Abraham *Lichtenstadt succeeded in having the expulsion canceled. Abraham *Broda officiated as rabbi between 1690 and 1693. A baroque synagogue was built in 1759. There were 22 families living in Chodová Planá in 1736 and 32 families occupying 12 houses in 1767. In a conflagration in 1733 the Jewish quarter was spared, and this was commemorated by a special prayer and fast on the 13^th of Iyyar. The minutes-book of the community (pinkas), incorporating earlier decisions, was written up in 1756 (published by S. Ochser, 1910). Count Cajetan of Berchem-Haimhausen (1795–1863) was unusually friendly and helpful to the Jews in Chodová Planá. He established an endowment in 1843 to ensure the employment of a rabbi "of a modern school of thought with opinions on reform suited to our age but not in conflict with the laws of the country." In 1861 he also endowed a fund for the Jewish poor. A memorial tablet to the Haimhausen family was placed in the synagogue. A new cemetery was established in 1890. The Jewish residents numbered 35 families in 1818, 230 in 1910, and three in 1932, while there were 18 in nearby Plana. The Hoenigsberg family originated from Chodová Planá, as did R. Joseph *Breslau and the renegade Johann Emanyel Veith. Closely associated with the community in Chodová Plan, included in Berchem-Haimhausen's endowment and under its rabbinical guidance, was the community of Drmoul (Duerrmaul). It had a baroque synagogue (built in 1801), though there was no church in the village, and a cemetery of ancient origin. Jews of Drmoul developed the spa amenities of Marienbad (Mariánské Láznē) and were among the founders of the Marienbad community. There were about 100 Jews living in Drmoul in 1896 and 48 in 1931. The Jews left at the time of the *Sudeten crisis. The synagogue was burned down by the Nazis in 1938.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.