The Jews of Stühlingen

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Ralph

December 22, 2016

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Next in Pappenheim’s cross-hair came Mayer, Isaak’s son. Pappenheim’s henchmen caught him riding through the county with his daughter, after they had visited Mayer’s elderly mother in October 1599.7 When the henchmen did not find any hidden treasures, they accused Mayer of travelling without wearing a Jew’s patch and threw him in jail. Isaak’s business books and other documents, which Mayer’s daughter had intended to bring to her grandfather, were seized. Several appeals again went to Prague while Mayer sat in jail. Again the emperor came down on the side of the Jews. But Pappenheim simply ignored the emperor’s interventions. These events graphically illustrate the limits of power and will in implementing the pledged imperial protection of Jews. After almost two years in jail, a 200 fl. fine, 4000 fl. bail, and court costs, Mayer was finally released from his incarceration in Engen.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 In August 1601 Isaak refused to follow a summons from Pappenheim’s court. This time the count went after Isaak’s second son, Abraham (Frohm), because he had absented himself from Stühlingen for over a year while pursuing the defence of his father and brother. Abraham’s wife was also accused of witchcraft. But this time the judges did not follow Pappenheim’s charges.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 By 1602 Isaak had died,8 but that did not yet slake the count’s thirst for vengeance. He accused Isaak’s family and the Jewish community of not burying Isaak in the Stühlingen Jewish cemetery, and claimed that they had secreted the body somewhere in the forest. Pappenheim threatened to search for it to have it exhumed. Isaak’s heirs were summoned into court and threatened. Fortunately, witnesses attested that Isaak had been given a traditional Jewish burial in the Tiengen Jewish cemetery. The count now prepared to evict the Stühlingen Jews. But before the eviction became effective, the imperial marshall, Count Konrad von Pappenheim, died on July 30, 1603.9 Isaak (B1), Phol (B1.2), Manno (B1.4), and Frohm (B1.1), all mentioned in this affair, are found again in the Stühlingen records that form the basis of this current research. They are the ancestors of the Bickhert (Picard) family.

7Rosenthal, “Heimatgeschichte der badischen Juden,” 463.

8Ibid., 471.

9Ibid., 475.