Between the 12th century and modern times, the Swiss city of Basel has been home to three Jewish communities. The medieval community thrived at first but ended violently with the Basel massacre of 1349. As with many of the violent anti-Judaic events of the time, it was linked to the outbreak of the Black Death. At the end of the 14th century, a second community formed. But it was short-lived and disbanded before the turn of the century. For the following 400 years, there was no Jewish community in Basel. Today, there are several communities, ranging from liberal to religious to orthodox, and there are still more Jews who don’t belong to any community.
Tobias Stimmer was a Swiss painter and illustrator. His most famous work is the paintings on the Strasbourg astronomical clock.
Diessenhofen is a village and a municipality in Frauenfeld District in the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland. The village is situated on the south shore of the High Rhine just opposite the German town of Gailingen am Hochrhein.
The history of the Jews in Switzerland extends back at least a thousand years. Jews and Judaism have been present in the territory of what is now Switzerland since before the emergence of the medieval Old Swiss Confederacy in the 13th century.
Meyer Kayserling was a German rabbi and historian.
The Battle of Crevola was fought in the spring of 1487, between a marauding Swiss army from the Valais and Lucerne and troops from the Duchy of Milan, for the supremacy of the Val d'Ossola (Eschental).
The Valais witch trials consisted of a witch-hunt and a series of witch trials which took place in the Valais, today part of Switzerland, beginning in 1428. The Valais witch-hunt is the first of the systematic campaigns which would become much more widespread in the decades to come, initiating the period of witch trials in Europe.
The history of the Jews in Regensburg, Germany reaches back over 1,000 years. The Jews of Regensburg are part of Bavarian Jewry; Regensburg was the capital of the Upper Palatinate and formerly a free city of the German empire. The great age of the Jewish community in this city is indicated by the tradition that a Jewish colony existed there before the common era; it is undoubtedly the oldest Jewish settlement in Bavaria of which any records exist.
The history of the Jews in Speyer reaches back over 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer, Germany, was home to one of the most significant Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire. Its significance is attested to by the frequency of the Ashkenazi Jewish surname Shapiro/Shapira and its variants Szpira/Spiro/Speyer. After many ups and downs throughout history, the community was totally wiped out in 1940 during the Holocaust. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 Jews again settled in Speyer and a first assembly took place in 1996.
Johann Jakob Schalch was a Swiss painter. He was a contemporary of the Swiss painters Anton Graff, Jean Preudhomme, Angelica Kauffman, Jakob Emanuel Handmann, Johann Caspar Füssli. His son Johann Heinrich Füssli was also a noted painter.
The persecution of Jews during the Black Death consisted of a series of violent mass attacks and massacres. Jewish communities were often blamed for outbreaks of the Black Death in Europe. From 1348-1351, acts of violence were committed in Toulon, Barcelona, Erfurt, Basel, Frankfurt, Strasbourg and elsewhere. The persecutions led to a large migration of Jews to Jagiellonian Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There are very few Jewish sources on Jewish massacres during the Plague.
Hans Ormund Bringolf was a Swiss adventurer and autobiographer.
Dr. Willy Cohn was a German historian and teacher. During the Nazi era, he documented the Jewish life in Breslau in his diaries, until he and his family were deported to German-occupied Lithuania and killed.
Jüdischer Friedhof Endingen is the oldest and largest Jewish cemetery in Switzerland, situated in the Surb Valley in the Canton of Aargau. The cemetery is listed in Swiss inventory of cultural property of national significance.
The History of the Jews in Freiburg dates back to the Late Middle Ages when, at the site of today's Wasserstraße and Weberstraße, there was reference to a ghetto. In 1328, a synagogue was located at 6 Weberstraße.
The Vienna Gesera was a persecution of Jews in Austria in 1420–21 on the orders of Duke Albert V. The persecution, at first consisting of exile, forced conversion and imprisonment, culminated in the execution of over 200 Jews. Some Jews escaped abroad, while others committed suicide. The Viennese Jewish community of about 1,500 effectively ceased to exist and its properties were confiscated by the duke. The name derives from a contemporary Jewish chronicle entitled Wiener Gesera.
The history of the Jews in Zürich dates back to at least the Middle Ages. Since the early 20th century, Zürich, Switzerland, has been among the Swiss cities where Judaism is most prevalent.
The Zürich massacre was an antisemitic episode in Zürich, Switzerland, which occurred in 1349. The incident was caused by antisemitism in the city due to the alleged murder of the son of a Zürich man, and fueled by the subsequent accusations of well poisoning. This event took place in the frame of the widespread Black Death persecutions, where the Jews were accused of spreading the bubonic plague.
Jakob Joseph Matthys was a Catholic priest who served as chaplain in Niederrickenbach for about 15 years and as chaplain in Dallenwil for about 20 years.
