The Upper Rhine and Lake Constance largely form the border between southern Germany and Switzerland. But near Basel and Schaffhausen, Switzerland extends north of the Rhine. The three Swiss exclaves of Rafz, Schaffhausen, and Ramsen create a very complex boundary pattern between the two countries (see fig. 4).
The town of Stühlingen is situated between the eastern foothills of the Black Forest and the northwestern border of Schaffhausen on the western bank of the little Wutach River. For most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Stühlingen was ruled by the counts of Fürstenberg from their capital Donaueschingen to its north. The little town of Tiengen – now Waldshut-Tiengen – lies near the confluence of the Wutach and Rhine Rivers. Both Tiengen and Donaueschingen had interacting Jewish Communities.
Jewish life in Stühlingen was also impacted directly by the city of Schaffhausen, the capital of the Swiss canton with the same name. Schaffhausen, situated just above the Rhine Falls, was notorious for its less than hospitable treatment of Jews.1 Of the two neighbouring Benedictine monasteries, Rheinau on a small island in the Rhine and St. Blasien in the Black Forest, the latter affected the Jews of Stühlingen much more directly, since the early Jewish trade from Stühlingen was largely directed towards holdings of St. Blasien.2 But the little town of Zurzach with its important biannual fairs was probably the most important magnet for commercial Jewish life in the region.3
The political geography of the region was unbelievably complicated and intermingled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, forming a confusing patchwork of counties, baronies, and independent entities. Stühlingen itself originated as the dominion of a small, local noble house, Lupfen,4 and became the property of the house von Pappenheim5 for forty years, eventually forming part, by 1639, of the scattered von Fürstenberg holdings. Tiengen and its surroundings formed the Landgraviate of Klettgau, which belonged in the early seventeenth century to the counts of Sulz.
The seven villages between Stühlingen and Tiengen, place of residence for many Stühlingen Jews, formed a constant bone of contention for ownership and control between the rulers of Stühlingen in the north, the counts of Sulz in the south, and the abbey of St. Blasien in the west (fig. 5). Besides Stühlingen and Tiengen, a series of Jewish communities were lined up further along the upper Rhine all the way to Lake Constance and beyond. The village of Gailingen and the little town of Aach were ruled by the counts of Nellenburg; Randegg belonged to the barons of Hegau; Worblingen was owned by the barons of Danketschweil, and Wangen by the barons of Marbach and Wangen. But all of them, in turn, were part of Further Austria, property of the Habsburg emperors.
Further Austria, of which Hohenems was also a part, served as a common umbrella for many other regions of Jewish settlement as well, including Burgau in Bavarian Swabia. This common administrative link fostered a bond among these Jewish settlements. Jews received letters of protection in Gailingen6 and Randegg (1656),7 Aach (1551),8 Wangen (1611),9 Worblingen (1655),10 and Hohenems (1617).11
The situation was more complicated in Switzerland. Familiar from the William Tell saga, Switzerland began to separate from imperial Germany in 1291 when the three original, regional, informal republics formed a loose confederation whose main purposes were the defence against external enemies and the consensual settlement of internal conflicts. The three initial entities, later to be designated ‘cantons’ after the Napoleonic occupation, were gradually joined by other such cantons, each jealously guarding its internal autonomy; thus the principles of a federal state gradually evolved. Unrestrained by a leaky imperial protectorate of Jews, the Swiss were able to evict the last Jews from Solothurn in 1582,12 rendering Switzerland judenrein (free of Jews).
Endingen and Lengnau in the county of Baden, Canton Aargau, were the first two villages in Switzerland where Jews, fleeing from the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War, were again allowed to settle in the seventeenth century.
We know from Stühlingen sources that Jews had lived in Klingnau13 and found refuge in Hallau. A certain Raphael’s (Phol) brother Menachem (Manno, B1.4) lived in Klingnau in 1604 [R1443], as did Isaias (Schai) in 1619 [R1516] and Mordechai (Mordigi) in 1630 [R2636]. Florence Guggenheim-Grünberg has postulated that Isaias and Mordechai belonged to the Tryfuss (Dreyfuss) family.14 It is plausible that they were related to the Treves brothers in Tiengen.15
Kaiphas (Küffa, K1) was jailed in Klingnau in 1652 [R1884]. During the Thirty Years’ War Samuel (Schmull) ben Jacob Gugenheimb (G1.2) found refuge in Hallau, canton Schaffhausen [R4069].
During the unrests in 1641 and 1656, the sheriff of Klingnau inquired of his superiors what he should do about the Jews. In 1641 he was told to leave them alone, but around Carnival 1656, after the First Battle of Villmergen, the sheriff had the Jews evicted16 and apparently some lost their lives. We know from Stühlingen sources that a group of refugees from Switzerland arrived there at that time [R2060].
The first Jews arrived in Lengnau17 around 1633, probably refugees from the Thirty Years’ War in Germany.18 Apparently the local sheriff was requested by his superiors in 1634 to justify the fact that he had allowed twenty Jewish families to live there in the absence of a legal basis.19 As a temporary measure, passage taxes (Geleitzoll) were mandated for Jews in Bremgarten, Lenzburg,20 and Baden.21
The first reported letter of protection was dated July 23, 165822 and makes reference to a similar document of the previous year. Subsequent letters followed in 1678, 1702, 1728, 1731, and 1760.23 In contrast to the German Schutzbrief (protection letter), the Swiss variety was called Schirmbrief. None of these ever found entry into the official collection of Swiss laws (Sammlung schweizerischer Rechtsquellen). The first official laws sanctioning the Jewish presence in the county of Baden were not passed until 1785.24
These letters of protection were quite restrictive, but they do not seem to have been applied very strictly. Jews did not have the right to own houses; they had to rent apartments from Christian owners, yet they were not allowed to live together with Christians. This resulted in a very particular house style, whereby houses owned by Christians had separate entrances for Jewish tenants.25
Descendants of Lengnau Jews were automatically protected, but no outside Jews were supposed to settle there. Nevertheless, by 1678 Lengnau had run out of rentable space, and the Jews were allowed to expand into Endingen. We do know from Stühlingen sources that Jews had moved from Stühlingen to Lengnau [R1889], and later to Endingen; however, it is possible that these were Stühlingen sons who married Lengnau and Endingen daughters.
Transient Jewish settlements in the seventeenth century were also reported in other villages and towns south of the Rhine, such as Diessenhofen near Gailingen, Steckborn and Mammern on the shore of Lake Constance, and Rheineck in the Rhine estuary of Lake Constance.26
Besides moving within this tight regional network of Jewish communities and settlements, the Jews of Stühlingen also maintained regular contact with communities in the Alsace, Breisgau, and Bavarian Swabia. Not only were they linked by close family ties, but they also shared a common idiom – southwest-Yiddish. Distinct from the Yiddish of Eastern Europe, it too had its roots in the proto-Yiddish of fifteenth-century Rhineland-Palatinate but was moulded by the regional Alemannic dialect.27
Footnotes -> List of References
1Löwenstein, Geschichte der Juden.
2Kopialbuch des Klosters St. Blasien.
3Guggenheim-Grünberg, “Die Juden auf der Zurzacher Messe.”
4Brandeck, "Geschichte der Stadt."
5Häusler, Stühlingen: Vergangenheit und Gegenwart.
6Roming, “Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinde Gailingen,”; Hundsnurscher and Taddey, "Die jüdischen Gemeinden in Baden".
7Moos, "Geschichte der Juden im Hegaudorf Randegg"; Rosenthal, "Heimatgeschichte der badischen Juden", 164.
8Rosenthal, "Heimatgeschichte der badischen Juden", 79.
9Hundsnurscher and Taddey, "Die jüdischen Gemeinden in Baden".
10Graf and Zöhren, “Jüdische Vergangenheit in Worblingen”; Hundsnurscher and Taddey, "Die jüdischen Gemeinden in Baden", 301.
11Tänzer, "Geschichte der Juden in Tirol und Voralberg", 29.
12SSRQ, /SO/361.
13Klingnau, though south of the Rhine, formally belonged not to Switzerland but to the bishop of Constance.
14Guggenheim-Grünberg, “Die ältesten jüdischen Familien.”
15Sidorko, “Eliezer ben Naphtali Herz Treves.”
16Ulrichs, "Sammlung jüdischer Geschichten", 267.
17Until the eighteenth century, the village was also known as ‘Lenglau.’
18Haller, "Die rechtliche Stellung", 7.
19Ulrichs, Sammlung jüdischer Geschichten, 273.
20SSRQ, /AG/107.
21Ibid., /AG/373.
22Ulrichs, "Sammlung jüdischer Geschichten", 271.
23Ulrichs, "Sammlung jüdischer Geschichten", 274; Haller, "Die rechtliche Stellung," 16; Weldler-Steinberg and Guggenheim-Grünberg, "Geschichte der Juden in der Schweiz", 31.
24SSRQ, /AG/II/9/190.
25Amrein, “Aargauer ‘Judendörfer,’”
26Ulrichs, "Sammlung jüdischer Geschichten", 247, 257, 252, 258; Burmeister, “Die jüdische Landgemeinde in Rheineck.”
27Weldler-Steinberg and Guggenheim-Grünberg, "Geschichte der Juden in der Schweiz", 32; Guggenheim-Grünberg, "Wörterbuch zu surbtaler Jiddisch"; Guggenheim-Grünberg, "Gailinger Jiddisch"; Weiss, "Das Elsässer Judendeutsch."
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